Seattle Schools Board Meeting Nov.19, 2025

Good afternoon, we will call the meeting to order momentarily and SPS TV will begin broadcasting.

Alright, good evening.

The November 19th, 2025 regular board meeting is called to order at 4.31 p.m.

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

I'll ask staff to please call the roll.

Vice President Briggs.

Here.

Director Clark.

President.

Director Hersey.

He will be right back.

Okay.

Director Mizrahi.

Present.

Director Rankin.

Here.

Director Sarju.

Not like me present.

President Topp.

Here.

Director Mangelson.

Here.

Director Masudi.

Here.

And Director Yoon.

Here.

Great, thank you.

So we're gonna just switch up the agenda a little bit tonight.

We are going to start the evening with some excitement.

We have three outgoing directors and we're gonna spend a little bit of time recognizing those directors who have committed so much time to Seattle Public Schools.

I will say though just because this is your last meeting does not mean you are not still school board directors until the new directors are sworn in on December 3rd so anything could happen between now and then you are still directors till then but we do want to definitely since this will be is your last official meeting recognize you as your time is coming to an end.

Director Clark, Director Hersey, and Director Sarju.

I would just say serving on the board is not easy work.

It takes time, patience, a willingness to stay at the table when conversations are tough.

You have to make decisions that have real impact on our classrooms, on our families, on the future of our city.

Sarah, you came to the board with a deep background in policy and helped bring focus and structure to our work.

Brandon's roots in education have always shown through as a teacher.

He's carried that perspective of those working directly with students.

Michelle's focus I really appreciate on early learning has pushed us to think about how we support students long before they even enter school.

Each of you has given time and energy to the district and that matters.

Access to education matters and the mission is now more critical than ever, especially as we see public education under attack across the country.

and just because you're stepping off the board doesn't mean you get to stop showing up.

The expectation is that we will still see you in our schools, in our neighborhoods, at the podium, supporting our Seattle students.

So, Once you're part of this work, you're never off the hook, sorry.

But thank you all for your service and for being part of this work.

There is a small token or gift of gratitude at your desk, but I also want to open it up to fellow board directors as well as the directors themselves for remarks.

See who wants to go first.

I'm just wondering if we should wait for Brandon, since he's one of the celebrants or celebrantes, whatever the word is.

Is he outside getting the baby?

Yes, he is.

Does he need help?

No, I think there's two of them on it, so.

Oh, okay.

Should work out, yeah.

Does it make sense to do superintendent comments, student member comments, committee liaison reports while we wait?

We could do superintendent comments.

We'll go to Director Podesto.

Does it ever make sense to do superintendent comments?

But that's another question.

So I had a distinct joy and pleasure of attending Black College Expo at Rainier Beach High School on Saturday, which was an amazing event.

there were over 2000 attendees over 700 college acceptances were issued during that event and more than five million dollars in scholarships were awarded.

It was there were you could tell our students from all over our state and region and there were colleges from all over the country.

It was a great event and again another it's always great to celebrate things at at Rainier Beach High School and I was privileged to be able to attend and make a few remarks.

I will echo it or in advance I'll also thank the directors who are enjoying their last regular meeting tonight.

I have spent nearly my whole career working in the public sector and much of that time the majority of that time working around elected officials and pound for pound school board directors work harder than anybody I've ever worked with and the demand the demands placed on you as volunteers and the direct contact you have with your community and the influence you have over the future of this community is just hard to overstate.

And I'm so appreciative of a chance to work with you and thank you for all the support that you've given to me and to the district and to our students.

I will congratulate the whole board on making an excellent selection on Ben Schuldiner to join us soon.

And I'm going to be upstaged by somebody that needs to be attended to immediately so I will cut my remarks short at this point.

We're going to really struggle to pay attention here this evening.

So thank you, Superintendent Podesta.

We just did superintendent comments.

Director Hersey, we started to do some board director celebratory comments, but then we stopped for a minute, hoping that you would join with your new little one.

I don't know if you want to introduce who you have with you here up at the dais.

This is my son Avery and he was born a month ago on Monday.

Yay.

So we've moved up the agenda.

We're doing a celebration of outgoing board directors, Director Clark, Director Hersey and Director Sarju.

I will just say again, similar to what Superintendent Podesta said, this is a very difficult job and I'd say one of the most important, if not the most important job here in the city as we're working to to educate an entire next generation of students.

So thank you all for your dedication.

Brandon what I said about you is I really your roots in education have always shown through and I've really appreciated that as a teacher you've carried that perspective through all of our conversations so thank you.

But I do want to open it up to other board directors who may want to say a few words and or the outgoing directors themselves.

Director Rankin.

I'm sorry.

I have logistical anxiety right now because it's 440 and are we going to get cut off in the middle of this?

We're going to get cut off at 5.

Yes.

Public testimony begins at 5.

Right.

Okay.

that's why this was at the end of the meeting, but we needed to make some accommodations for- Yes, totally.

So, okay, all right, well, does everybody understand that?

Yeah, we should let the people that need to leave make comments.

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

Thanks.

Like, yeah, we only have 20 minutes, so I'm just trying to make sure that the people who have something to say have time to say it.

No, we don't.

We only have nine folks or 11 folks, I believe, on our testimony list.

So let's just, yeah, yeah.

Well, I didn't write anything down.

But despite that, I'm going to try not to ramble, especially with the logistical concern.

Well, I'm so grateful for each of you.

Honestly, I will be having the experience for the first time of serving on this board without Brandon, which is weird.

And I'm going to miss you, but I genuinely am going to miss serving with all three of you, despite what some people like to say or try to do out there in the community.

are quite aligned and enjoy each other, I think.

I mean, maybe some of you are like, I don't enjoy you, Liza.

I don't know why you're saying that.

But from my perspective, I appreciate everybody up here on this dais, and I can't think of times where I have not been glad that each of them are here.

In the recent elections, I stayed out of, I mean, partly being a sitting board director, you don't want to pick who you'll serve with or pick somebody who then you have to explain why you didn't pick the person you served with.

So I didn't endorse.

I stayed out of conversations around that, partly because of what I just said about continuing to serve, but also because this job's really hard and anybody who's willing to do it deserves support.

and so Sarah, I appreciate you coming in at a very uncertain time and your curiosity about policy and willingness to dig below maybe what was just on the piece of paper and ask good questions and your support on the policy committee.

I've really appreciated that.

and I hope that you feel good about your contributions there because they will continue to be felt.

Michelle and Brandon, I'm gonna have to not, I mean, I've just known you for longer.

I've known you for longer.

Our district is better for the time that you have given us.

I'm better for the time that you have given me. and I'm going to miss you guys.

And I just thank you.

And I also want you to call me to the carpet anytime.

we're losing focus or if I, you know, we make commitments to each other, make commitments to our students, and so if there's ever a time where you feel like that's not being honored, I want nothing more than you to tell me.

And I just thank you for everything that you've done for me personally and for the board.

Folks may or may not know this, but I used to foster dogs.

And I had a litter of seven puppies, seven Pyrenees lab mix puppies, which are very large, right before the pandemic hit.

Because what's the first thing you do after you get elected to school board?

Have a litter of seven puppies in your house.

And Brandon adopted one of them.

And so one of my puppies is in his house.

And so whether he wants it or not, we will always be connected in that way.

Yes, his first son.

So anyway, not to belabor it.

I could go on with your accomplishments and different things, but I just will end by saying thank you so much, and I love you, and we'll miss you.

But not too much, because we'll see you still.

Yeah I'll be very quick in the interest of time but obviously just want to thank you all so much for your time and both as a board director but maybe more importantly as a parent in the district just having good smart dedicated people leading the board for so long has been something that has been a pleasure to witness as a new board member and I think I've learned something from each of you and also from the three of you that will be continuing to serve on the board and just very grateful for that and really wish you all the best and also know that I'll see you all plenty in the future and one thing to add is just being that this is my last meeting as the newest board member I think it's It is really helpful to experience things in community, and I don't know how I would have done it without you, Sarah, just being a new board member with me.

So very strong appreciation for you, and it's nice that we got to come on together.

It's nice that there's two new board members coming on at the same time together, so they'll have each other hopefully, but I think that was really important.

Three new, yeah, that's right.

And so it's nice to have that community.

And thank you all for welcoming me as well.

No, go direct, go.

Yeah, I went at the start, yeah.

Okay, I'll also try to be pretty brief.

Brandon, I think the first time I met you was at my house, and I was hosting a house party for you when you were running for school board.

And I remember telling everybody, like, we have to support this guy.

Who would do this job?

Like, who would do this for free?

It's crazy.

And here I am.

So I wouldn't be here without you.

And Michelle, you have been such a huge inspiration.

and an amazing advocate.

Huge respect.

Okay.

And Sarah, huge respect to you as well for showing up to do this job.

I have huge respect for anybody, honestly, who even throws their hat in the ring to do this.

That is more than most people are willing to do.

So my deepest respect and gratitude to all three of you guys.

Director Hersey, Sarju, Clark, anything you want to?

Yeah, you don't have to.

Director Hersey.

Is that not no I think this is it this is it all right cool so I got 13 that's cool yeah I'm not gonna talk for 13 minutes um first off just thank y'all for the very sweet words you want to choose now to turn up my dude Alright, maybe he just didn't want it very close.

Can y'all still hear me through the microphone?

Do you want to hold him?

I said I would let Michelle hold him.

Do you want me to hold the mic for you?

Let's try that.

That might help.

Hi.

Okay, this might work.

You're going to relax or no?

That's okay.

Let's see.

I'm gonna give you the Auntie Michelle.

Takes a village.

Honestly, I'm pretty delirious at the moment as you can imagine.

I thought that our last meeting was in December and was super sad because I thought that, if you don't know, the December meeting is on my birthday.

That's how it happens every year.

And so I thought I had more time.

But when I realized that Michelle and I and Sarah's last meeting was today, I don't know, I just had a wealth of emotion run over me because this has been a long experience.

It's given me some of the lowest lows that I've experienced as what still feels like a young adult.

but those pale in comparison to the achievements, the highs, the feeling that you get when you get to give a student their diploma when they graduate.

The feeling that you get when you realize that in Seattle Public Schools it's no longer okay to restrain and isolate children.

the feeling that you get when you look up and you were able to survive a world pandemic.

Man, it's rare, but I feel genuinely at a loss for words.

I just remember, y'all know me, I've sat in the vice president's chair, I've sat in the president's chair.

Six years, this felt like six minutes when I reflect on it.

and I'm still a young guy, right?

I'm 34. I'm not even 34 yet.

I turned 34 on December 3rd.

And when I, oftentimes when I sit up here and I do these things, I channel my mom and my dad.

For those of you who don't know, I'm sure most of you do.

My mom was a teacher.

She was an educator for many years before she passed away.

And my dad repaired copiers for living in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

and I just have such fond memories of running around and reading these old dusty history books in my mom's AP U.S. history classroom and thinking, wow, how cool is it to be a public servant?

I was that kid.

My biggest dream was to work for the government.

At the time, it was because I thought I got to wear a suit and a tie every day.

But now, It is still a dream, and very few people get to realize a dream like this so early in their life.

And I feel like I've lived many lifetimes and seen many things in this place.

And it is a place that I will miss deeply, but I'm so excited to take some time away from, or at least to be able to move into a different capacity.

I've told many of you that I do not think that these seats are designed for people to live in.

I believe that we are put here to be stewards and the moment that it feels as though your attention is being drawn into another direction, especially for someone like me, I am excited.

Oh, this isn't mine.

Hey.

You're wearing navy, too.

Wow.

I thought you had the baby again.

Well, in many ways, you are also mine.

Yes, absolutely.

I've got a friend for you outside.

I can't wait for you to meet him.

I'm excited for a different chapter in my life.

And I'm also really sad.

because there is so much work left to do.

And we are on the precipice of really great things.

I'm very excited about the board that is going to transition in in just a few weeks.

I'm very excited about our new super, potentially our new superintendent.

But most importantly, I'm excited for the kids of Seattle Public Schools and all of the benefits that they are gonna reap from just the amazing leadership that I know that y'all are gonna provide.

Man, I am...

Just so honored.

This truly has been the greatest experience of my life, and it would not have been possible, especially as a kid from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, now living in Seattle, when I heard that a school board seat was opening up in my district from former prolific director Betty Patu, I had a feeling that, you know, this is something that I think that I would be good at.

This is something that I have a unique set of experiences with and that I think that I could offer a lot.

And I like to think that, you know, along with the help of many, many people along the way that I did a pretty good job.

And there is no amount of training, expertise, education that will prepare you for what this job is, and most importantly, what it isn't.

If this job, if you are not 100% laser focused on children, and specifically in this moment in time, black children, I hope you take time to reflect on why you're lending your time to the district.

And I have confidence that that is true for everyone who has put their name in the ring for this type of thing.

Five minutes.

I say that to say because particularly now, it has become even more personal for me than it was before.

I thought that I really understood how parents felt when they lent their time to come here and give us their opinions.

When they took a moment out of their day to send an email or have a phone call or show up to a PTA meeting, I now know that over the past month that I had no understanding of how real this is for our families.

And I say that with all the humility that I possibly can.

I had no understanding of how hard that every person that shows up, more importantly all the people that don't, how much they care for their children, how much they want for them, what they deserve for them.

And I'm both happy and sad that I am experiencing it now.

And everything that I have given to the district over the past six years, I feel if I had another six, it would have been times 10. I would have dug even deeper.

and that's what I really want folks to take away.

These children are not widgets.

They are not numbers in a spreadsheet.

They are not opportunities to be utilized for political gain.

They are not insert whatever you want there.

What these children are are precious, beautiful little minds who deserve far more than what we have to give to them.

Yet somehow we need to dig even deeper and figure out how can we at least somewhat meet their needs.

So I really want to leave you with this.

There is a baby boom happening right now.

I don't know how many of y'all know it, but I got a lot of friends that are under the age of, let's say, 40. Everybody is pregnant.

You laugh, but it's true.

Everybody and their brother is pregnant.

There is going to be an influx of children that are coming into our system in a very short time.

I know that we are talking about enrollment and all that stuff now.

but there is about to be, my son is born in the first year of generation beta.

Let that sink in for a second.

Generation alpha isn't even all in school yet and we're already on beta.

There is a wild opportunity here for us to build a system that truly is prepared for every student that hasn't even been born yet.

if we can just put these petty differences aside and just focus in on what is actually going to help them, what they actually know and are able to do, because I'm gonna be damned if I'll let y'all screw up my child.

I need y'all, I need, and I know some of y'all have won out in the audience too.

I'm a very kind person, very rarely have any of you seen me upset.

You will not do what you have done to so many students to my child and not hear from me about it.

We have a golden opportunity to serve every child in this district.

The ground is ripe.

We have the team, we have the resources, all of that.

And I'm not going anywhere.

I live in Rainier Beach.

I own land.

I'm here.

This is not temporary.

Hopefully if it's open, my kids go into Rainier View.

Please keep Rainier View open.

But I just want y'all to know that like this, is both the hardest and the most rewarding job, and I thank every single one of y'all for lending your time away from your families to this, especially those with children.

I now know what type of sacrifice y'all have been making, so thank you deeply in a way that I have not been able to thank you before.

And I'm going to miss you, and I'm also not going to miss you because I'm going to be here.

tracking, making sure that for Kai and Avery and every single other child that is yet to enter our system, that this is a warm and welcoming place that is going to push them in positive ways, that is going to help them grow in positive ways, that is going to hold them accountable in positive ways because they deserve the world-class education that we sit up here and talk about day after day in a big way.

So thank you very much, I appreciate it.

I guess I did take 13 minutes, I actually took 14. But I appreciate it, thank you very much.

Thank you, Director Hersey.

It is five o'clock and I do want to give time for both Director Clark and Director Sarju to talk, but we are going to keep with our set time of five going into public testimony.

We have a shorter list for public testimony than we normally would, but It's a little bit jarring, I know, but we're going to move to public testimony and then we will come back to sort of the celebration of directors and then we will move through the rest of our agenda.

We do have lots of content on our agenda this evening as well.

so we would just be slightly mindful of that.

So we're going now onto public testimony.

Board policy 1400 provides our rules for testimony.

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

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

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

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

Thank you, President Topp.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving into our list now, for those joining by phone, please press star six to unmute on the conference line.

And for everyone, please do reintroduce yourself when called, as I may miss some pronunciations as we move through today's list.

The first speaker on the list is Thomas Coffey.

Good evening.

Five years ago, technology companies leveraged the COVID crisis to insert themselves between educators and students.

Now they claim that the emergency devices they introduced during the crisis have ongoing benefits for learning and communication that should be somehow weighed against their evident harms.

But instead of questioning these claims, many school district officials are repeating them, as they will in a presentation you'll see later tonight.

almost as if tobacco companies said that nicotine was good for learning and the district agreed to buy every student a pipe.

In contrast, independent research indicates that these devices are terribly bad for children's learning and communicating, with impacts comparable to using illegal drugs.

The best measures suggest that these corporate controlled devices have erased a generation of educational gains in just a few short years.

These corporate devices prioritize addiction over education, or as the industry calls it, engagement.

Their digital curricula routinely wrap mistakes and nonsense in a slick package with decisions remotely controlled by distant corporate managers cutting educators out of the loop.

Meanwhile, they harvest students' attention, mine their personal data, watch their movements, show them inappropriate material, and subject them to authoritarian censorship and control, all with no public accountability.

It doesn't have to be this way.

In the state of Kerala in India, 50 times the size of Seattle, every program on every school device is free and open source software developed and maintained by educators and the community, and even students can contribute.

The Education Ministry trains and empowers teachers to control their own technology in designated labs and pledges to reject programs controlled by outside corporations.

This frees traditional education, transforms technology education, and saves them $300 million a year.

In Europe, governments are now moving in this direction in order to free themselves from the grip of American tech companies.

If anywhere can do something like this, I think Seattle can.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Michelle Campbell.

Okay, we're gonna move.

Michelle, if you are online, you may have to press star six to unmute.

Okay, we're going to move on, but we will come back to you.

The next speaker is Manuela Sly.

Good afternoon.

A child experiencing trauma cannot learn.

A child experiencing trauma inside a school at the hands of teachers and administrators cannot learn and will have lifelong impact in the way they trust others and how they view education.

My name is Manuela Slay.

I'm a parent and a Student Safety Committee Chair for Seattle Council PTSA.

Seattle Public Schools have a series of policies to ensure student safety.

Those policies have superintendent procedures to implement.

Furthermore, Seattle Public Schools guardrail number two reads, superintendent will not allow the existence of any learning environments that do not promote physical and emotional safety.

but the experience of many students and families contradicts what is in policy and guardrails.

There is a disconnect, there is an accountability piece missing.

Let's start with policy 3240, student behavior and disciplinary responses.

Resolution 201415-35 eliminates out of school suspensions for students in kindergarten through fifth grade for disruptive conduct, rule breaking and disobedience.

Yet, last month a kindergartner student was suspended for 15 days.

Or policy 3246, restraint and isolation.

Students continue to be restrained and isolated across the district.

But the question remains, who is in charge to ensure all school buildings follow policy and what are the accountability measures if they don't?

On behalf of those students that have been bullied, abused, mistreated, intimidated inside the schools, I stand in front of you to demand change, a review of the policies that are there to support and protect students and a deep dive in how those policies are being implemented or not.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Megan Call.

Megan Call.

If you're online, you're going to have to press star six to unmute.

Megan?

Hello?

Yes, we can hear you.

She just went back on mute.

Megan, hit star six to unmute.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great.

This is Megan Paul.

Starting with a quote.

I used to think that technology could help education.

I've probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on this planet, but I've had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve.

What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology.

No amount of technology will make a dent.

Steve Jobs.

Megan, I'm going to ask you just to stop for just a sec.

We're going to restart your time.

We're going to turn up the volume here in the room.

I'm so sorry about this, but if you wouldn't mind starting from the beginning and you've got your full time back.

Okay.

Thank you.

This is a quote.

This is a quote.

As a volunteer myself with Mothers Against Media Addiction, I've been studying technology in schools closely for about a year.

I've tried to answer the question of why so much technology has been adopted by schools without any independent research or successful pilot programs to back this up.

In fact, we have examples of screen-heavy schools from before the pandemic, which completely failed, shut down, and which parents pulled their kids from with huge complaints.

My conclusion is that big tech has put fear in parents in schools that if we don't use their products at young ages during school, kids won't get jobs.

It's simply marketing 101. Create insecurity and offer security through a purchase.

Technology companies are not in the business, however, of making kids prepared for the future.

They are just pretending to be.

They don't care if our kids get good jobs.

They care if our kids become their customers.

We must remember this instead of taking their advice on how to educate kids and run a great school.

Google knows nothing whatsoever about these subjects.

We, on the other hand, have decades of quality research on how to get kids reading, writing and doing well at math.

We would be foolish to throw away this knowledge in favor of fancy products that haven't even proven themselves.

In the media, Microsoft frames their three-year AI product donation to Washington State schools as altruistic and helping to, quote, bridge gaps.

It is not their place to use phrasing about bridging gaps when they have no concern whatsoever for disadvantaged kids.

Lacking access to AI at school does not qualify as an access gap.

This is a made up problem.

Giving high schoolers AI is akin to giving a first grader a calculator for math class.

You've removed their ability to learn foundational skills.

It's reckless to allow students to use AI and even heavy use of laptops as is now happening when there's no independent research or pilot programs that show improvements in educational outcomes of these products.

the NAI in schools and discontinued student laptop program in elementary school.

The next speaker is Sabrina Burr.

Good evening.

I'm Sabrina Burr, as you all know.

I want to start off by thanking Director Sarju and Director Hersey.

Director Hersey, I remember when you were trying to get Betty Patu's seat and get that appointment and I really want to thank you for what you've done, especially the work you've done with our students to make sure that we now have students on the dais.

So I'm going to miss you, but you know I'm going to be seeing you on my walks.

So Michelle, I wore this shirt for you, Dear Sister Breathe.

And after tonight, I hope you will be able to breathe well.

I want to thank you for keeping the focus on black and brown children.

And you don't have to be black on the dais to talk about black and brown children.

and I hope we will keep our focus because we're failing far too many.

As I often say, many of these students out here are former students with guns on the street are out there because our educational system put out there.

and we have the tools to make sure that they don't.

I do want to talk about board governance because the board governance that we have, we worked very hard to get.

But we need to be honest.

Seattle Public Schools has not done the work.

We have not collected the data.

and there are some people who I believe it's racist reasons who want it gone because when you look at the data and you put the money where the data is, some people have a zero sum game and they think their students are gonna lose.

We cannot do that.

Going to the Council of Great City Schools has shown me what great districts have done and it's amazing and we need to be partnering and working with them.

What we're doing around safety and police in our schools, we need to be talking to Chicago Public Schools because a part of their safety is staff well-being, taking care of staff, making sure our staff is trained on trauma and all the things that need to happen.

Until we get there, until we make sure our staff are okay, how can we expect them to make sure our children are okay?

So I really want to say we need to take advantage of what we have available.

And lastly, I really want to say thank you to Director Rankin for being a part of WASDA, for making sure not only Seattle Public Schools, but our region is heard.

and I'm glad you put together the resolution for our school board members to go to WASDA.

I hope all seven of you guys go together.

This is a hard job and you need to understand at the state level what you're doing.

It's not about your personal opinion.

It's not about what the people around you say.

It's really about the governance holding the superintendent and the leadership Accountable.

Accountable is not punitive.

Sometimes people don't have the tools and the resources for what you're asking for, and that's also what accountability looks like.

I want to make sure that we take care of our kids, because like I said in 2012 at Governor Gregoire's education press conference, our kids are dying.

And they're asking you for help.

They're asking you to be safe.

and they're not.

We need to listen to them and we need to make sure we stop under educating kids and we make sure they come home at the end of the day.

The next speaker is Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. On exiting school board directors, I wish to thank Brandon Hersey, Michelle Sarju, and Sarah Clark for their service to the district.

And thanks to Director Clark for her op-ed last year against school closures.

On the proposed new superintendent, the board did not allow public review.

Five points.

Number one, the proposed superintendent started a successful high school over the last 10 years, statistics show a precipitous drop in graduation rates at that school.

In the proposed superintendent's current district, 12 out of 24 schools, 50%, had a status whose performance is in the lowest 5% of all schools in the state of Michigan.

Number two, the proposed superintendent suggests giving more budget control at individual schools and that it is relatively easy to eliminate silos and redundancy.

None of this stuff seems new.

Number three, did the board ask the proposed superintendent if he would close schools?

Is that part of the deal?

Number four, what about including the Duwamish tribe and resources for the deaf and hard of hearing community?

Reopening African American Academy and Indian Heritage School, taking a fresh look at math instruction, school construction cost overruns, and de-emphasizing screen time.

Number five, does the proposed superintendent know that the entire board recently approved a contract despite being told that it was the wrong contract?

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Emily Cherkin.

My name is Emily Cherkin.

I'm an SPS parent on faculty at the University of Washington and an activist fighting big tech and education.

Tomorrow I'm flying to London where I'll testify to members of parliament about ed tech and data privacy.

I need to ask, when did this district decide it was okay to give children access to unproven products created by big tech companies who put profits before people?

Let's be clear.

On their school district-issued devices, SPS students can access inappropriate and harmful content.

That is, when they aren't gaming or using co-pilot to do their homework.

What the district says is happening is very different from what is really happening.

And no, filters and blocking software don't work.

The kids find the workarounds.

Nationally, experts agree that increasing access to technology for students does not improve learning outcomes.

One study found that investing in air conditioning yields a 30% improvement in learning outcomes over giving children Chromebooks.

Additionally, there have been numerous data breaches of PowerSchool, SPS's learning management system, and the $6 billion company is currently the subject of a class action lawsuit.

In tonight's work session, I hope staff will address how they intend to obtain parental consent for children's use of these harmful products because parent and consent appear nowhere in the online materials.

As I have cautioned this body before, per a recent FTC amicus brief, relying on the school official exemption to consent is no longer going to cut it.

Directors, I hope you will ask staff the following questions.

One, When did the district decide to provide generative AI products to children that are proven to be harmful and dangerous?

Two, is the district okay with children using these tools to do their homework?

Because they are.

And number three, how does the district intend to actually acquire informed parental consent for each individual EdTech product they use?

I'll end with this.

Before adopting any technology, schools must ask three questions.

Is the product effective?

Is the product safe?

And is it legal?

SPS is not asking these questions.

These technologies deserve scrutiny, not deference.

And directors, we need you to demand the district do more to protect our children.

Thank you.

The next speaker is June Noe Ivers.

Good evening, board members.

My name is Juno Ivers.

I'm the co-treasurer of Seattle Council PTSA.

And when I first joined the council, I heard a phrase that challenged me.

Safety looks like different things for different folks.

For a queer student, safety means like showing up for their authentic self without fear.

For some, it's knowing microaggressions will be addressed and not ignored.

For a student who faces housing insecurity, safety is stability.

not wondering where they're asleep tonight.

It's the frustration of a child struggling to read or write without support and yet being failed up and out of the system.

In America, gun violence casts a shadow as we kiss our babies every morning.

Families attending immigration hearings for fear of losing their loved ones.

Elementary school kids are being suspended and then funneled into the school at the prison pipeline.

Middle schoolers ask for help every week because they are scared of their teacher.

And for a student with a disability, safety means timely access to an IEP and a 504 because delays mean loss of learning and loss of trust.

These are not abstract issues.

They are lived realities of Seattle public students.

and yet we are stretched thin, reacting to one fire after another instead of doing the deep work of centering safe and welcoming schools and not just performative language.

Our investment in students is not optional.

It is a moral obligation to protect their civil rights.

We cannot reduce their futures to a cost-benefit analysis.

Our obligation is moral, not transactional.

These students are human beings whose safety and education must come first.

Let's move from scarcity and fear to equity and courage.

Our communities are rich with culture and diversity.

Let's build a future informed by these lessons and harm we've seen and face these challenges head on.

We empower you to be brave and to guide our community to a sustainable world where we can all live and thrive.

To echo Director Hersey, we are on the precipice of great things.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Samantha Fogg.

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

We're gonna move on to our next speaker, but we will come back to you.

The next speaker is Janice White.

Yesterday, the Seattle Times reported that Seattle Public Schools filed a motion for a new trial in the case in which a former student was awarded $8 million by a jury following a month-long trial.

The former student had been punched in the face by a teacher at Meany Middle School.

I've heard from community members who were able to attend the trial or watch it remotely that listening to the testimony and seeing the evidence was deeply disturbing.

But today I want to address what the role of the school board is or should be.

It's not the school board's job to manage day-to-day decisions about handling a lawsuit, but it is the school board's job to make sure you are fully informed about important lawsuits and ensure that the positions taken by the district in lawsuits are consistent with board policy and the guardrails you have established for our schools.

I believe that if necessary, you also have the responsibility to make decisions on significant litigation strategy decisions, like the decision to ask the court to order a new trial in this case.

Have you been briefed about this lawsuit?

Have you reviewed the evidence and testimony presented at trial?

Were you consulted about the strategy of asking for a new trial?

Have you asked staff or your legal counsel how given the evidence admitted by the court the decision to seek a new trial is consistent with your guardrails and policies?

A lot of people in the community are horrified by what they heard and saw at this trial.

Many of us know that while this was a particularly egregious situation, it was not, in fact, all that unusual.

If the guardrails you passed about physical and emotional safety and anti-racism mean anything, you will not sit by passively while adults continue to harm this former student and his family and all the students and families who have suffered similar harm in our schools.

you will ask the hard questions and direct that the district stop paying lip service to student safety.

It is way past time for Seattle Public Schools to take responsibility for harm caused by staff and to be accountable to the community.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Erin Gray.

Hello, my name is Erin Gray and I serve as co-treasurer for Seattle Council PTSA.

I also work as a special educator in a distinct classroom at Louise of Warren STEM Pre-K-8 where I served as a CPI certified member of the school's crisis response team and helped to facilitate their free food bag program as a liaison for the West Seattle Food Bank.

I appreciate that the work and decisions which come before the selected leaders of this board are rarely simple.

With that understanding in mind, I also implore this team to consider what provisions, plans, and practices have been put in place to help ensure that the current SPS policies are reasonably being enacted in every school.

For instance, most educators are expected to complete an annual Safe Schools training which requires, prior to completing the training, an acknowledgement that we have been provided with information pertaining to SPS policy 3246 SP regarding restraint, isolation, and other uses of physical crisis intervention.

Section 2 of that policy outlines clear expectation for there to be five staff members at each building trained to serve as a team whose purpose is to utilize trauma-informed and culturally responsive de-escalation techniques to respond to emergency situations at our schools.

Given that specific language of 3246SP, I would employ the current and future leaders of this board and in our district to consider what systems are in place to identify whether schools have consistently established a team of trained staff who know how to appropriately respond when emergencies may arise.

Safety looks different to different people.

Though food security does not fall under that same aforementioned SPS policy, I believe it is fair to consider it another basic need for students and their families that can and should be prioritized by all SPS staff.

I would like to thank Megan Hess, an operational equity project manager for the district, and many other staff and community members who helped partner with the food banks and the city of Seattle to ensure that thousands of food boxes were delivered to schools and families this month.

Our communities are still grappling with the fear that arose from the unconscionable uncertainty regarding the distribution of SNAP benefits.

I would ask this board to consider whether there are any policies that could be put into place to help clarify how weekly food bags are provided by food banks to students are managed by staff members.

I believe that together we can continue to center the meeting the most basic needs for all children served at our schools.

Thank you for your time and for considering how to tangibly support those who have offered thoughtful feedback before me tonight.

We're gonna go back and call names of people we missed the first time.

Michelle Campbell.

Please press star six to unmute.

Hello.

We can hear you.

Hello.

Great, thank you.

My name is Michelle.

I'm a co-secretary on Seattle Council PTSA, and I'm the mom of a fourth grader at Sandpoint Elementary.

Two years ago, I transferred my kid from an option school in Northeast Seattle because of an incredibly unhealthy school culture.

Environments like this are not created by one person alone.

This is a group effort, a system.

Many folks were aware of this culture, parents, educators, admin, top central office directors, yet it has persisted and caused harm to students and the community for years.

This is a common thing across the district.

There have been lawsuits, investigations, complaints.

This environment creates a revolving door for administrators, educators, parent leaders, and families.

This is disruptive.

It's not student-centered.

I personally witnessed so much harm in the five years that my family was at the school.

from illegal restraints of black disabled students that went undocumented in statewide databases and sometimes unreported to parents.

to the outright discrimination of my Somali neighbors and their non-verbal autistic daughter, to adults threatening to take away recess and special projects from students, clearly struggling to communicate their needs.

I could go on for a while, but I don't have the time here.

What is clear is that these actions, this culture, does not align with our foundational beliefs, our mission, vision, values, goals, our guardrails, none of it.

These are not isolated incidents.

This is not one disgruntled parent.

This is not one principal or educator that slipped through the cracks.

This is not an extended pattern of harm at just one school.

We have heard so many of these stories across the district.

This is a long-standing systemic culture.

Reading, math and graduation outcomes will not improve, cannot improve in this culture.

Our goals rely on the conditions and the context in which our children need to grow and develop.

The conditions rely on the behavior of adults, the collective behavior of adults.

We need to be able to unpack our personal stuff to be accountable for our actions, to be responsible for our actions.

As a community, we often point fingers.

We always think the problem lies with someone else.

That's false.

We are in this together.

We need collective accountability and responsibility.

And I offer support.

to the district.

I'm offering a hand and I'm here to support and I know other parents are here to support.

Please, let's do this together.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Samantha Fogg.

Samantha, press star six to unmute.

We're changing some settings in Teams.

Samantha, are you able to unmute?

Okay, I think we're gonna have to move on here.

That was our final speaker.

So we know Sam Fogg is trying to unmute, so maybe staff could be able to connect with Sam and get her online and we will continue and we can come back to that.

Is that possible?

Sam, would you mind leaving and then coming back and we will try this one more time?

Any luck?

We see you online, can you unmute?

Can you hear me now?

Yep.

Excellent, thank you.

For the record, I am Sam Fogg, parent of three Seattle Public School students.

In 2018, a middle school student was in math class when he was punched in the face by his teacher and then suspended.

He sued and prevailed, though he's now filed a motion for a new trial.

When the victim's mother was on the stand, the questions from our district lawyers were focused on the things that the student's mother did wrong, implying that she is a bad mom.

Spontaneously, mothers who were watching this trial in person and online started reaching out to ask if they could donate for a gift certificate for this mom to let her know that they too have children who have been hurt by Seattle Public Schools.

And when they asked Seattle Public Schools for help, they were told that they were bad moms, but that they know that she is a good mom.

There was no outreach, no ask, no social media campaign, but within a couple of days, $540 had been raised, raised from mothers whose children had been harmed, physically harmed by this district, and then told that they were bad mothers.

Later in the trial, an expert witness for the plaintiff was on the stand.

He spoke about Seattle Public Schools having a pattern of institutionalized victim blaming and a practice of rewarding problematic behavior by teachers and staff.

Children in Seattle Public Schools are not safe in part because of systems and procedures that prioritize adult reputation at the expense of student lives.

The case of the student at Meany is unusual in that there is so much documentation, video, audio, so much.

But for many of the students who are harmed, there is no video.

There is no audio recording of the teacher saying that he punched a child in the face.

We all have a role to play in keeping children safe.

What is your role in keeping children in our school safe?

and how is your understanding of the systems that are impacting our families, the harm that is done in the name of our district?

Brandon, I hope your child is safe in this school.

Mine haven't been.

And I will work with anybody to partner to keep kids safe in this district.

On the topic of the facilities plan, I want to thank you for the acknowledgement that we need a plan for our students and transition services.

The treatment this year has been shocking and I've been really deeply appalled by the lack of urgency our district brings to inadequate bathroom access issues and disability accommodation.

I want to say to our outgoing directors, thank you.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you for volunteering.

Thank you for doing work that is hard and often comes with attacks from the public.

and often comes with heavy and traumatic things.

And the mothers on our school board are also often not exempt from the weaponization and the blame that women face.

And I want to say to all of you, I appreciate you.

And Director Sergio, you've talked about advocating from the podium in the future, and I look forward to that partnership.

And Brandon, your baby is beautiful.

And I am so appreciative of your partnership over the years and at the meetings that we've been in together.

Thank you so much to all of you.

I apologize everyone for my technical difficulties.

Our kids deserve to be safe.

They particularly deserve to be safe from the people that we pay to educate them.

And I just want to say that it is never okay and no teacher who punches a child in the face is a good teacher, no matter what is said on the witness stand.

Thank you, everyone.

I appreciate you.

That was our final speaker.

Thank you everyone who came out to speak tonight and provide public testimony.

We appreciate your time and the time that it takes away from your family and your evening activities.

We're going to move back now again this is very jarring and I'm very sorry about that but back to the celebration of outgoing directors.

I want to give Director Clark and Director Sarju an opportunity to speak and also for Director Sarju to introduce who she has with her today up here at the dais real fast maybe if we want to hand her a microphone.

What's your name?

What's your name?

Say Kai Marcellus Sarju.

I'm going to go to Director Clark here and then Director Sarju.

Director Clark you have the floor.

Thank you, President Topp.

Similar to Director Hersey, I didn't realize until I got here that this was the last meeting, and so I've been sitting up here trying to write something to say because I was not prepared but you know I think you all know that I'm an SPS grad and you know didn't have the best history with this district and when I think about my life up until now, the fact that I'm up here, have been up here at this dais wanting and trying to serve kids currently in the system is a bit of a miracle given that I was brutally attacked in my high school 20 years ago.

and so it's been a personal victory for me as a human being with PTSD to come back here and I hope that me saying this just underscores how big my commitment is and has been and will be to all of our kids getting access to the safe welcoming schools that they deserve, where they are all educated and treated like the amazing human beings that they are.

We've made progress in the last 18 months in updating policy, digging into finances, passing new goals and guardrails, and hiring our next superintendent.

I think I'll just keep it short and say that, you know, as President Topps said, the mission for our continuing and incoming directors is more critical than ever.

And as I leave, I'm truly hopeful that all of you will make progress together for our kids.

So thank you.

Thank you, Director Clark.

Director Sargeal.

So first of all, happy birthday to ya.

Happy birthday to ya.

Happy birthday.

I can sing a little bit.

Happy birthday, my son in love, Evan.

It's his birthday today.

Can you say happy birthday, Dada?

Say it, happy birthday.

Yeah.

All right.

Well you all miss the dance party, I'll just start with that.

I played a celebration and then they not like us.

We had a little party up in here.

But I'll just get to my comments.

Here we go.

For a moment, I'm going to take us back.

It was the end of May 2020. Those of us paying attention witnessed an abomination.

those of us paying attention were not surprised, and yet we still could not believe our eyes.

Yep, those of us paying attention understood exactly what we witnessed, a modern day public lynching of a black man.

Say his name, George Floyd, and there would be more.

For many of us, that was a catalytic moment a moment amid utter despair that propelled some of us to do something.

My despair led me to join in protests.

I led in over eight minute down on your knees silent protest on Capitol Hill.

It was eerily quiet.

No one said a word.

In those eight minutes, I imagined George as a little boy.

I heard mama, mama, mama over and over again in my head.

I heard, I can't breathe.

I thought about my own children.

That moment in time changed me forever.

Let me also remind us, we were in a once in a lifetime global pandemic.

Remember the daily news updates of how many people died on any given day?

I do.

I was deployed to work at the nation's first isolation and quarantine site.

This was yet another catalytic moment for me.

In a matter of days at working at the site, I would meet a little girl and her mom.

They were fleeing domestic violence.

The little girl was enrolled in a Seattle Public School school.

We went to work for her.

I picked up her computer so she could be online in her hotel room with all the other online kids in her class.

I coordinated a social worker to stand outside their room and provide emotional support because they could not leave.

We bought her toys.

But most of all, we just loved on her and her mom.

I also began to follow what local area schools were doing to support our kids.

These two moments along with the imprinted deposits from my long gone ancestors propelled me to run for school board.

Oh wait a minute there's Marina another story for another day.

I will say this about her.

I have no doubt one of my ancestors visited you in your dreams because there's no way possible you could have known what I was contemplating.

I hadn't even told my family yet.

And thank you for my lifetime paid subscription of Prosecco.

Now we fast forward the tape.

I decide to run for office.

Thank you, Brandon.

I followed the script and got consultants.

Thank you for my pictures.

I set up a Zoom meeting with all my family members around the country to let them know my plan and get their blessings.

One quick detour.

One of my cousins joined the meeting.

What I did not know was that would be the last time I would see him because a couple weeks later he transitioned to join our grandfather, two uncles, and another cousin who also died in the previous months before him.

This cousin was on the cheer team in high school.

I believe he was up there leading my family in chants of, Go Michelle.

Back to the run.

I met with my consultants to develop my priorities.

I was serious about accomplishing everything I stated.

My priorities were about kids, the most marginalized kids.

To name just a few, safely reintegrating students from pandemic homeschool to back to the classrooms.

Securing more funds for mental health support for students and teachers.

increased focus on K to third grade support, the most foundational educational period of a child's life.

That was the easy part.

The rest of it, what can I say?

I didn't exactly follow the playbook for running a campaign.

I'm sure that's no surprise to some of you.

Here's where the first set of thank yous start.

Upper left stuck with me, even though I kept saying, well, I'm not doing that.

Thank you to Olivia for letting me be me.

Thank you to Adam, my at-the-time 18-year-old campaign manager for doing the things I refuse to do.

I won my race on a platform of racial equity and a laser focus on what is best for the kids being left out of the equation, the kids being left behind, the kids who want to succeed in a system that was designed to fail them.

Upper left, you allowed me to be honest and authentic, a hallmark of our campaign, and I am grateful.

Nothing can prepare a person for the job of school board director.

I quickly discovered that not all adults are truly focused on what's best for children, particularly the most marginalized children.

I learned that the status quo is the desired path.

And the game plan is just to repeat words like, the kid's furthest from educational justice, to sound like adults are doing something while doing nothing.

or doing the same things as always and pretending there'll be different results.

It became crystal clear that a systems disruptor like me was not welcome.

I was labeled a bully, a bully for demanding honesty and transparency.

Delusions that I was part of a voting block emerged.

Attempts to control me with performative Robert's Rules of Order failed.

there is not a ruling Robert anywhere that can tell me what to do, what I'm about, whether or not I'm an ally or anything else.

When this black woman casts a vote, I'm voting based on what I believe is best for marginalized students.

I'm not your Negro.

I'm not intimidated by the loudest voices or toddler-adjacent feckless adults who are hell-bent on maintaining the status quo because the system works just fine for their kids.

Bulletin board posts written by self-promoting vultures wallowing in the gutter, ranting about nonsense are neither compelling nor relevant.

At best, it proves that some people have no capacity or sense for being objective or neutral.

What is relevant is that these seven chairs vote on what's best for all kids, not a few, not some, all kids.

I'm getting there.

Now I'm gonna talk about what we accomplished, and I mean we, I mean the student board directors, I particularly mean you, Ms. Sabi Yoon, on your second tour of duty here.

There's a long-standing basketball adage.

There is no I in team.

A basketball team cannot win with just one single player.

Right, Nyasha?

She knows.

It takes five people on the court working together toward a common bowl.

Yeah, I'm almost done, sweetness.

School board is similar.

Directors need to agree in a quorum model with a majority voting the same.

Directors must understand their role.

A lack of understanding results in confusion, distractions, and dysfunction.

Ultimately, progress is stymied at best and a system failing certain children continues.

Far too often, directors are focused on the most privileged, loudest voices intent on maintaining the status quo at the expense of silenced others.

When board directors are laser-focused on their roles, great work can happen on behalf of all children.

You get that, Liza?

Sometimes this means abandoning the popular for the proper.

All the time it means student-focused, not adult-focused.

We proved we could get our kids back in school as safely as possible.

Yes, Sweetness, just a minute.

We proved that when we focus, we can perform effective progress monitoring.

These seven chairs proves that we can stay laser focused on students, that when we stay laser focused on students, remarkable things can happen.

Yeah, can you give me a minute?

One minute, okay.

Go see Liza.

Just for a moment, I will highlight a few things I'm most proud of.

I must admit that staying on the course of a systems disruptor is not easy.

Maintaining my focus on students, staying in my integrity, and not settling for anything less than the best for marginalized students came with a price, a price I was willing to pay.

to the deaf and hard of hearing community.

We did it, and we didn't have to sue.

I agree with you that it should not have been that difficult.

The late and great John Lewis said, nothing can stop the power of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society.

I'm confident that we have sent a strong and lasting message that will live long after we join our ancestors.

I'm honored that you trusted me to work on your behalf.

Thank you.

The crown jewel.

Board directors, we did it.

I'm confident that last year, none of us thought we would be in yet another superintendent search.

For the first time, for the first time in four years, I felt like we were all laser focused on the same goal, hiring the best superintendent possible to sit in the eighth chair.

Thank you, my friend, Superintendent Podesta.

and break this revolving cycle, revolving door cycle that is SPS.

To my surprise, it was easier than I could have imagined.

Yeah, come on up here.

We stayed focused on the goal, drowning out the noise of hidden agendas and ulterior motives.

We presented the results of our hard work with a 6-0 unanimous vote.

We proved that when we stay focused, we can deliver greatness on behalf of Seattle Public Schools students.

My hope is that focus represents the new way of doing business for the board that will be on December 3rd.

The future occupants of these seven chairs will be instrumental in creating conditions where all students can thrive.

These chairs should not serve as an audition for a future elected positions, as has been in the past.

These seven chairs need to adopt a mindset, focus, and commitment oriented towards those students this SPS school system is failing.

Hi, where's Liza?

These seven chairs must create the conditions that will set up Superintendent Scholdiner for ultimate success.

He has a proven track record as a teacher, principal, school board director, professor, superintendent.

Thank you to us.

and has demonstrated deep commitment to high quality public school education for all students.

The formula for success, board directors do your jobs and let the superintendent do his.

Future state, here it comes.

For the first time in decades, this board is gonna be almost exclusively white.

For those who are currently on the dais who are returning as board directors, you will have an opportunity to model what it looks like to be all together in support of the kids SPS is failing.

You are at a crossroads and the decision you make now will signal what to expect in the future.

It is time to stop speaking about kids furthest from educational justice and let your votes speak.

If you all do that, you will begin to dismantle a 60-plus year history of accepted failure.

Now, to thank a few people, don't worry, I ain't taking another 15 minutes.

I recognize that I can't thank everyone, but I must thank the security staff.

Jerome, Mary Ann, Pam, Leonetta, Marianne, my girl, by the way, Michael, Viet, Hakim, and Kwajaleen.

If I missed anybody, you can blame Eric because he gave me these names.

What a team y'all are.

You perform your jobs with a visible commitment to excellence.

I'm sorry you'll no longer have anyone to help you herd the cats out of here after a long meeting.

Other SPS staff, Ellie, Carrie, Julia, and Eric.

You know why I'm recognizing y'all, and if you don't, see me later.

To my comadres in the audience online and at the celebration that's about to happen, you also know who you are.

You showed up when it mattered most.

Now we must turn our attention to supporting this superintendent as he comes here to share his superpowers to transform this district to the best in the nation, as he said.

To my family, both living and ancestors, my dad, who's online, who gave me FBI communications and public affairs pro tips.

Yeah, I did a lot of talking.

I'm doing a lot of talking now, and you can't say anything, because you're on mute.

Ha, ha, ha.

I did a lot of talking and I mostly took your advice to my Aunt Betty, my quintessential role model.

She took me to college with her in the 80s.

She spent her entire public service career focused on the most marginalized children.

I've tried hard to follow in your footsteps.

Thank you for those hour-long conversations when you worked for Head Start.

Those conversations molded and shaped my career trajectory.

To my grandmother, wherever you are, your early deposits in my life paid off.

It was your voice that led me to run this race.

I hope you're looking down and feeling proud right now.

To my children, I could not think of precise words to describe what you all mean to me without breaking into an ugly cry.

Your words of encouragement to run and during these last four years buoyed me.

I'm the luckiest person in the world that God chose me to be your mom.

The best gift of my lifetime.

Well, maybe the best.

The next comes the Grand Beans.

Kymar and the Grand Bean on the way, I will fight like hell for both of you.

Thank you, Brandon, for saying all that needed to be said about what to expect if you try to mess with that.

Who knows, maybe I'll take you to meetings like my grandmother did during the Brown V times.

I think that's the only way another Sarju may grace this stage.

As I exit the premises, I exit knowing I did what I said I came to do.

I leave knowing that I ran this course standing in integrity, fighting for equity and justice, never letting the haters distract me, standing up for what is right, even when it means losing something else.

Yeah, I lost some things.

And getting into good trouble.

Good damn trouble.

What a time it has been, and I don't regret it.

For over 10 years, the following quote has been on my personal email.

The question is not whether we can afford to invest in every child.

It's whether we can afford not to.

Marion Wright Edelman.

I still believe that.

Do you?

Security staff, I have some gifts for you.

And Ellie and Eric and Carrie and Julia, I have some gifts for you.

And maybe I have some gifts for some other people, but I don't know.

We'll see what I have left.

Thank you very much.

Oh, I have gifts for board directors.

I'll give you those.

Okay, bye-bye.

Again, I just want to say thank you to Director Sarju, Director Hersey, and Director Clark.

Could we just get a collective round of applause for all?

Thank you.

and also I might make it mandatory that we have kids up here at every meeting because it just makes it so much better and so much more fun.

We are going to take a, you're a 16 year old as well.

All right, so the middle schoolers apparently and the high schoolers have no interest in being here, but the little ones, they're fun.

So we're gonna take a very quick five minute break.

So think 6.07, we're going to return.

We're gonna come back for board director comments and student comments, but because we are short on time, Director Rankin, because we're short on time when we come back, think board director comments and student comments one to two minutes.

So rethink your remarks if you need to during break.

Also, if we make it to self-evaluation at the end, folks have their assigned roles.

If you haven't done your homework previously, please look at your assigned role or see Carrie for your assigned role and get that out of the way.

Okay, 607, 608. Okay, I really was serious, really just a five minute break and that was five minutes.

See, we're missing a quorum though.

Okay, I really am gonna call a quorum back and we're gonna start with student board director comments, so I...

All right.

We'll now go to our student members.

Thank you for joining us this evening.

Again, we're gonna condense a little bit, so try to think one to two minutes for remarks, but looking to students, Director Yoon.

Thank you, President Topps.

So just update to everyone, we are continuing to revise policy 1250, which is a student board member policy.

We received student feedback from the Superintendent Advisory Board during our second student board member training, and we are working on scheduling a meeting with NAACP Youth Council and also the original students who drafted the policy.

This will be our second meeting with them because we actually have previously met in July to introduce these revisions and also gather their input and clarify the intent behind these revisions and to ensure that we are remaining aligned with the original student driven vision.

We also plan to meet with the rest of the board and brief them on these revisions and also provide updates on our progress.

In complement to the policy, we are also creating a student representative handbook, which will outline expectations, responsibilities, onboarding procedures, and resources to support future student board members.

We also plan to introduce the handbook to the board, NAACP Youth Council, and the original student policy writers.

Our plan is for the new policy to be implemented for the next cohort of student board members.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is just our main goal this year as student board members is to engage with as many students as possible.

Our role requires ongoing discussions from different students who have different like diverse backgrounds because when we are coming up to the board and giving student voice, student input on decisions, we need to make sure we have a broad perspective of all students in this district and it's really hard to do that.

when we only attend one high school and are not part of all student communities.

As part of this commitment, we have launched the ASB Executive Council and have also included the Superintendent Advisory Board on many of our initiatives, including the training, as I mentioned before.

But we also recognize that These student groups do not represent the full diversity of the entire SPS student body, so therefore we are in the process of planning ongoing engagement sessions throughout the year.

Our intention to hold these sessions, it's not just a one-time thing, we want it to be multiple times because We think that authentic student engagement requires for it to be a consistent effort and not just kind of like a single touch point or like a reactive response after a decision has already been made.

This approach also supports our broader objective of just ongoing visibility of our role and also building trust with students in this district given that A lot of students actually don't even know what a student rep does and that we represent them.

So that is all for my updates and I'll pass it on to the other student board directors.

Adding on to our meetings with student groups, we recently met with the ASB student council, during which we had the opportunity to discuss with Carlos Ovalle, who is the superintendent for technology and optimization on student perspectives on current cell phone policy and its impact on learning and school culture.

We discussed SPS life readiness expectations with Dr. Perkins, raising questions of do students feel prepared upon graduation.

Some students brought up concerns surrounding how some schools lack a variety of course options, which may affect students' ability to meet life readiness goals, explore interests and future careers.

In addition, I was able to attend the farm to school celebration at Viewlands Elementary School.

All student representatives visited one school each, Garfield High School, Madison Middle School, and Viewlands Elementary School.

This was hosted by the City of Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment, and the School Meals and Food Education Working Group.

I got to talk and interact with students during their lunch period, and students got to discuss goals they wanted in school meals through taking an interactive pull.

Thank you.

Director Mankelson.

Thank you.

Yeah, I also wanted to touch on the Farm to School celebration.

I had the pleasure of participating in it with the many people who contributed to the effort at Madison Middle School.

In addition to providing these fresh, diverse lunch options, we got to interact with students and received a lot of helpful feedback on ways students want to discuss their lunches with the district on their own terms.

I'm really grateful to be a part of this as this is the first and not the last time student board members have been able to engage with the younger students of the district.

In this role we are responsible for representing all students and this was a great step in that direction.

I think it's also important to touch on the student advisory board and student board member trainings that we just completed with Mary Furtakis.

I want to thank President Topp and Director Rankin for attending the last two meetings as well as the SCPTSA for providing snacks and pizza for us.

I felt the trainings were incredibly valuable as I step into this role, learning about policy, power dynamics, and a new language as Mary Furtalk has described it.

We're really grateful that Mary plans on continuing to work with us and the Student Advisory Board.

One last thing, starting tomorrow and Friday and Saturday, we're going to be at the WASDA conference and I'm incredibly excited to get to interact with a bunch of different students and directors from across the state and I think it'll be a really valuable experience.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you to our student board directors.

I'll just start there.

Directors, student members, and staff will be attending the Washington State School Directors Association annual conference this week, and we're excited for those learning opportunities.

We have boot camp tomorrow from 9 to 2 and ending in a social hour.

And in December, we'll have time at our board meeting to share a little bit of what we have learned.

take some good notes board directors and we will also I believe be joined by board directors elect.

I also just want to acknowledge real fast on our agenda this evening we will be voting on approval of the superintendent contract with Ben Schuldner.

We were thrilled to have Superintendent Schuldner join us a few weeks ago here in Seattle and are grateful for the warm welcome from our community.

I know Superintendent Schuldner is eager to get to work and the board is excited for this next chapter for Seattle Public Schools.

Finally, I will just say December 23rd, December 3rd is when we will swear in new incoming board directors.

And we will both have, we'll do the swearing in, we'll have speeches and a full board photo.

So please come prepared that day for the photo.

I know, some interesting housekeeping.

Other, other.

Yes.

Do other board committee chairs or liaisons have any reports?

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

We have one more meeting of the policy committee before we bring a set of recommendations to the full board.

We won't be asking the board to vote on them, but we will have then met the deliverables of the charge authorized.

by the board, and so folks will have a chance to interact with those, ask questions, and then we'll kind of pick back up on recommendations in the new year and also set a course for, you know, what new charges we may want to give the committee, what new composition there may be, et cetera.

So one more meeting, and I can't remember off the top of my head when it is, but look on the board website if you're interested in tuning in.

Most of the update that I have is about state legislative priorities, and since we have that item on on the agenda.

I won't talk about those, but I have two things to share, a federal update and another statewide issue.

The federal government is opening back up after the 43-day shutdown, the longest in our country's history.

And there was an agreement signed to fund the federal government through January 30th.

So we'll all get to revisit the uncertainty and who knows what at the federal level again in January.

But Some staff is coming back, some things are moving again.

For education, though, specifically, the education secretary claimed that the shutdown proved that her department would not be missed and that she and the president will continue to try and shut down the U.S.

Department of Education.

Her claims were that students kept going to class, teachers kept getting paid, and there were no disruptions to sports activities or bus routes.

as if the Department of Education has anything to do with those.

So that's, you know, speech is the best.

Dismantling the department would be devastating for students.

There would be no more civil rights investigations.

So at the state level, if you have a civil rights complaint and it's not resolved at your state or it's a bigger issue that needs to be taken up, the Federal Department of Education is the backdrop for protecting student civil rights.

If the department is gone, that is gone.

And so there would also be no grant making or technical assistance offered from the Department of Education.

That means the backstop and enforcement of federal statutes and protections would be gone, even if the grant funding is diverted to states through another mechanism.

The argument is that they're just a pass through for money, so they don't need to exist.

The money can be passed other ways.

But the money without the federal enforcement puts are most historically marginalized students at risk, because the dollars without the direction and the enforcement don't mean what they were intended to mean.

And the argument that they're returning education to the states is also misleading.

States already have the responsibility and authority to provide public education to those within their borders.

Should these efforts to dismantle continue, the reduction of federal oversight will mean that we as districts and as states need to up our own monitoring and prioritization of supports for historically underserved students.

or they're gone.

Federal grant funds account for about 6% of our operating costs in SPS, which doesn't sound like very much, but it's about $100 million, which is what we've been challenged with already.

And again, it's not as much the dollars as it is the calling out to protect certain groups of students.

If it's just the dollars, without that, multilingual students, students with disabilities, training for teachers that serve those students, those dollars become They could just be swallowed up by general funds, depending on the state.

So we will be continuing to monitor that and participate in advocacy as possible.

The state issue is we've talked a little bit about before.

There are two ballot initiatives right now that have signature campaigns circulating across the state.

to bring initiatives to the legislature in the 2026 session that if passed would Sorry, I'm trying to avoid a legal problem.

They would reverse some portions of the parental rights law that safeguards student privacy, access to supports, and some student rights that were codified just earlier this year in the previous session.

They would also place some restrictions on transgender athletes.

There's a number of legal limitations and restrictions around boards taking positions officially on ballot initiatives.

But the information I will share is that We will continue.

I will continue.

We all will continue to monitor the progression of these initiatives if they gather enough signatures to come before the legislature, and we will keep assessing what impacts there may be to our district and our student staff policies and budget.

Continue to communicate with our state-level partners, legislators, education stakeholders, and community about the implications of these measures.

and we as a board have stated an explicit focus on advancing educational equity and ensuring that all students, including LGBTQIA plus students, are fully supported and thriving.

Our existing policies and positions are aligned with state law and our community values and are strong in their support and affirmation of LGBTQIA plus students and their right to exist, be seen as whole and valued and participate in activities as any other student can.

And that is not going to change anytime soon.

So yeah, between now and December, I will work with the board president and our legal team to see if there's any further statement we can make, but our policies very clearly support our students' right to access education, right to privacy, right to be safe, right to identify as they want to and be recognized as such, and to participate in all the activities that we provide.

Other board directors, committee reports or liaison reports?

All right, then we have reached the consent portion of the agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

President Taup, it's my last time saying that.

Are you sure you don't want to wait till we get to Ben Schuldner's contract?

Oh.

Director Sarge, do you want to second this one?

You can second this one.

You can do all of them.

Vice President Briggs, it's back to you then.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

All right.

So approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Vice President Briggs and seconded by Director Sarju.

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

All right.

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

Aye.

Those opposed?

The consent agenda has passed unanimously.

Okay.

We are now moving along.

We'll move to the action items on today's agenda.

The first one, not yet though, just wait a sec.

Okay, the first one is the approval of the 2026 state legislative agenda.

May I have a motion for this item?

I move approval of the 2026 state legislative agenda.

Second.

This item has been moved and seconded.

Director Rankin will you be introducing this item?

Yes, and in collaboration with our key staff member on legislative issues, Julia Worth.

I don't think I have talking points, but you can see in the bar, a legislative agenda is something that we adopt annually, and it provides explicit direction and authorization from the board to the district to advocate in certain veins.

We can always support anything that's aligned with our policies, but there's tons of bills, there's tons of policies, and it is a short session.

So we try to focus our attention on what we think is likely to come forward, what can be advanced, and what's of highest priority.

So as I mentioned at a previous meeting, I think Washington State School Director Association also adopts a platform that has been published on their website.

Many things in common.

The sort of, you know, we talked a lot about the big three last session in advocating for funding, and this session is really about protecting that funding, protecting those investments.

The state has a new budget forecast for the state came out, I think, today or yesterday, and it's not very It's not good.

Legislators are going to be looking for a lot of ways to make up their own gap between what they budgeted and the resources that they have.

Our main ask is to protect the funding that's already been allocated to us.

Don't use K-12 to fill your budget gap.

and so we've outlined a couple of those big threes are outlined again.

We added an additional kind of call out that the state's budget was under a certain assumption of student enrollment Our ask, or as I'm proposing is our ask, and as some other partner groups are also asking, is that if the actual state enrollment is lower than they budgeted for, rather than see that difference as savings for the state, to recommit those funds to K-12, if that makes sense.

to find another way to commit those funds.

Because, obviously, if the students don't exist, they're not going to give us the per pupil funding.

But our ask is, if you budgeted for X amount of students and only Y amount of students show up in the system, that's still money that you already said you were going to spend on K-12.

And so please continue.

Please find a way to continue to spend that on K-12.

and then there's some other, I don't think anything's particularly surprising.

One issue that I've brought up before is the sales tax that the bill number is escaping me, but it's in the agenda there that I brought up before that was passed last session.

They said it wasn't going to impact school districts.

It was intended to raise revenue for school districts.

50 at 14, thank you, Director Clark.

And it is impacting school districts.

The impact to SPS would be about $2 million, we're estimating, which sounds small, but we're trying to, you know, we're trying to spend every dollar we have in our classrooms, and so that's, you know, That's a lot of support for students right there that wasn't planned on being given to the state from the dollars they give to us to provide education.

And then, you know, some districts like North Shore is a much smaller district, but they're estimating about a million dollars.

So it's really variable.

It's having a negative impact.

We have some Seattle legislators who have committed to bringing forward a bill that we are working with.

And so that's the one very specific ask that we'll have.

And then the other things should be, yes, just please protect funding center students and maintain the commitments that they've already made.

and it's a 60-day session, so things will happen very fast.

We will have, I think, Julia, correct me if I'm wrong, Julia and Cliff will come and give a briefing or a mini training.

If you remember last year, we did a training for the board about the legal restrictions on us in terms of lobbying and activities, we will have a mini training before the session starts for us.

And I think that is it.

Was there anything else that we talked about that I was supposed to mention that I didn't?

Okay.

Okay.

Perfect.

Do board directors have questions?

All right.

Seeing none, Ms. Swarth, please call the vote.

Director Clark.

Legislative agenda.

Thank you, Director Clark.

Director Clark, aye.

Director Mizrahi.

Aye.

Director Rankin.

Aye.

Director Sarju.

Aye.

Vice President Briggs.

Aye.

President Topp.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

We'll now move on to approval of the superintendent's employment agreement.

May I have a motion for this item?

I move that the school board approve the proposed superintendent's employment agreement as attached to this board action report and authorize the board president to sign the agreement with any minor additions, deletions, and modifications deemed necessary by the board president.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

Okay, this motion has been moved by Director Sarju and seconded by Director Mizrahi.

I will be introducing this item.

Following the board's vote on November 5th, Vice President Briggs and I were authorized to begin contract negotiations with Superintendent Schuldner.

We worked closely with our outside counsel and negotiated the employment agreement that is before you this evening.

Reaching this agreement was a collaborative and reflects our commitment to the partnership and our genuine excitement to welcome Superintendent Schuldner to Seattle Public Schools.

Superintendent Schuldner will officially begin on February 1st, 2026, and his contract runs through June 2028. As many in our community know, he brings a strong record of improving graduation rates, attendance, enrollment rates, and has led both with innovation and stability in Lansing.

His experience as superintendent, principal, school board member, professor, educator gives him a deep understanding of what it takes to move the district forward.

The contract provides a base salary of $365,000 with retirement contributions, standard benefits including healthcare, leave, car allowance, and transition support such as moving expenses.

There is also a retention bonus tied to continuity of leadership over time.

We are excited to have such a successful result from this process.

And again, I want to express our appreciation to our community and to Superintendent Schuldner for the work ahead.

Our students drive this work and this agreement marks the beginning of the next chapter for Seattle Public Schools.

So I'm going to take questions from directors, but if they're real technical, I'll call Ms. Wilson-Jones up to help me.

Director Rankin.

Thank you, and thank you to you and Director Briggs for spending that time doing the contract negotiations.

The contract, you said, runs from February 1st to June 2028, right?

Yes.

So that's two and a half years?

Yes.

Legally, we can't go past that.

The June date.

Oh.

That's a state law requirement.

Okay.

Okay.

I knew it was you couldn't go more than three years, but it's, is it over three school years?

Okay.

So that's, that's helpful.

And that's actually, that's convenient in terms of thinking about evaluation cycles and stuff.

So basically, should we all make it to June 2028?

If parties agree and that's what we want, a full three-year contract could be offered or whatever.

It's two and a half years, but really it's like a three-year contract.

Is that correct?

It's the longest period of time that we were able to offer under state law.

And Ms. Wilson Judge, you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Nope.

Okay.

Great.

Others?

Thank you.

Alright, I will now call on staff for the vote.

Director Mizrahi.

Aye.

Director Rankin.

Aye.

Director Sarju.

Hippity, skippity, hoppity, aye.

Vice President Briggs.

Aye.

Aye.

President Taup?

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Okay.

We're going to move now since that was our last piece of business to the tables for our work sessions.

Before we move to the tables, do folks need another break?

It hasn't been Okay, there is a five minute break so we'll be back at 641 and again I will put a plug in for if you haven't done your evaluation homework, do it now.

If you haven't done your evaluation homework, do it now.

Okay, we have nowhere near Quorum Alright, welcome back folks.

We are going to move into work sessions on tonight's agenda.

I just really want to wait just a second here.

Alright we have two presentations this evening both on the use of technology.

We will begin with a student cell phone presentation and then we will go to an artificial intelligence and data privacy presentation.

I want to thank Vice President Briggs for suggesting this as a work session topic.

and for really leaning into this work.

Obviously I think we have all been hearing concerns about both cell phones and AI from parents, our community members and educators and I know that Fred and I went to Cleveland High School and one of the discussion points was their cell phone policy and it was fascinating to hear the students' responses and what they thought of their new cell phone policy.

So I'm excited to hear what staff has to present this evening.

I'm going to hand it over to Superintendent Podesta.

Yes and I'll be brief.

I don't think it's a shock to anybody.

We all know living in the world of smartphones and other digital devices that you know they're a blessing and a curse and the challenges they present to adults are the same challenges they present to students.

challenges they present and benefits they present in lots of environments are the same as schools.

And so there's been a lot of national dialogue about this.

We've been looking at it within the district to try to standardize our policies, try to gauge students and staff reactions.

We still have a bit more work to do to understand parents' and families' feelings about this.

Since it's really an educational environment issue, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Torres Morales.

Mr. Del Valle will work with him to give you this briefing.

Thank you, Superintendent Podesta.

I'm going to start us off talking about the cell phone, student cell phone policy and personal technology, and then I'm going to turn it over to our chief technology officer, Carlos Del Valle.

Are you on?

Okay.

Okay.

So why cell phone limits matter?

So what we know or what we've noticed is that fostering a healthier, more engaged school community is important.

This aligns with guard rail two, which is the superintendent will not allow the existence of any learning environments that do not promote physical and emotional safety.

So one of the things we can look at is limiting cell phone use during the school day to promote improved student focus and peer relationships.

The limiting of cell phones helps to limit distractions, encourages more face-to-face social interaction, fewer online conflicts, and decreased incidence of cyberbullying and social media related stress.

Some of our existing policies currently is board policy 2022 and 2023. It promotes positive digital citizenship, responsible, appropriate, and healthy technology use for students and staff.

And there's also the accompanying superintendent procedure, which guides the use of district electronic resources and internet access.

This does need an update from our perspective.

Clarity needs to be given for the expectations for personal device use and learning environments.

and align with current best practices and state requirements for digital learning and student wellbeing.

So in the presentation, which I'll note, I'm not gonna read this to everybody, but on the bottom is the quote of what is in our current superintendent procedure that we're saying is going to need to be updated from our assessment.

So the current district cell phone procedure is what?

Procedures about cell phones in schools, how?

The implementation approaches, this is left to the schools, but it is slightly different.

There are some schools that are using pouches, some schools that are using wall sleeves, particularly in a lot of our high schools are using wall sleeves.

in the high school specifically is at teacher discretion because some of the teachers do allow the use of cell phones for educational purposes in the classroom and that is done with the students and also around personal responsibility.

So the revised procedure will focus on what standards we hope to set, not necessarily the how.

One of the things that we heard when we engaged with ASB leadership across the city from all of our high schools was the idea of they support what we're talking about with cell phones.

However, they do not want us to be overly prescriptive and do want to leave some autonomy at the teacher level and at the school level for the how to do it, but that overall there should be some standard as to what is it.

So to not prescribe the specific tools to enforce those rules.

At this point I'm going to turn it over to Assistant Superintendent Del Valle.

Hello.

Good evening.

Let me talk a little bit about the engagements that we, can you guys hear me?

Yeah.

The engagements that we have been having over the past year.

We engaged with five schools, Hamilton Middle School, Robert Eagle Staff, Cowie, Ballard, and Rainier, and we started a study last year to try to understand the good things, the bad things, how they're doing the work, as far as the civil policy within those schools.

We have learned a lot.

We came out with a briefing paper, a preliminary briefing paper last February, and we learned a lot from those schools.

Also, we had a couple sessions with students as well, and it was very interesting to see their responses.

Let me read real quick here.

Some of the responses were the current practices vary widely from schools to schools.

Some will have this red, yellow, green day thing on their classrooms.

Lincoln enforces mandatory phone zones where they can have them or not.

And Nathan Hill permits phones for instructional as well.

They also mentioned there were some enforcement challenges.

The students observed that the rules are applied differently across teachers, creating a lot of inconsistency, not just within the schools, but across all schools.

Also, the phones as an academic tool, academic tools, they were mentioned that many students stressed that phones are essential for learning because district laptops are restricted.

We do filter the laptops, we do block a lot of sites, some of them, you know, later on we're gonna get into AI, but we block a lot, GPT's blocked, Gemini's blocked, there's a lot of things that we don't believe that should be open for the kids.

Safety cyberbullying, this was an interesting one.

The students reported their minimum cyberbullying, but they acknowledged that that might vary between the environments in different schools.

And then bigger concerns beyond the phones, they spread the frustration with blocked websites, again, the AI, and they feel that they should have access to do their own research.

Now from the school leaders, we did a survey last year as well and we have 76 responses and they mentioned that there was some improved instructional time They said they would reclaim up to 10 to 30 hours per week.

That's a lot.

Increase the student focus.

Many schools noted improvements in student attention, peer interactions and social behavior.

Reduced behavioral incidents.

They reported the decline in a lot of cyber bullying and social relief.

The consistency across schools is a recurring theme, the district-wide, and that we need to standardize the policies.

They were very adamant about that, that we need to be clear on what those policies are.

And also the partnering with parents, we recognize that the parents and the Gardenians are the primary decision makers regarding their children's access to cell phones.

So our role is to collaborate with the families to seek the best routes for these standards.

Yeah, go ahead.

So three themes came out, and it's basically our hypothesis that we would like to move forward, both between the students and the principals, educators.

we came out with three different areas for elementary schools not to allow cell phones, for middle school to have away for the day, and then for the high school away during class unless the teacher gives permission to utilize it within classrooms.

So how are we bridging this procedure and practice?

We intended to give direction, clarify the direction that is presently on the SP and then be more intentional about what needs to be happening across the district.

That's going to align the procedure across all schools.

we are seeking to close the gaps that exist between those schools and then also once we put the implementation we are targeting next year, the beginning of next year, help the principals and the students with tools, training or whatever resources they might need to be procured to execute this effectively.

So where we are right now is we have some additional engagement we have to do with families.

First of all, we want to validate what we found during the five school study, during the surveys, the student surveys, validate and see where it falls with the families, what the families intend for this policy.

And then refine it a little bit better, a little more towards the middle of December, where we're gonna be giving a recommendations to the superintendent for signature, for the changes in the revision, and then implementing on the beginning of school next year.

Yeah.

Okay, that's the end of the presentation, so we're open for questions.

I think one of the things that, if you go back here, I can go back here.

to the difference in the high school guidance versus middle school.

That was one of the things that we clearly heard from some of the high schoolers.

In terms of their life-ready status, they're talking, a lot of them, especially the juniors and seniors, they're getting ready to go to college, so the idea of almost over-policing their cell phone use, they didn't feel was appropriate as they get ready to go into college.

They said they're gonna have to be their own responsible digital citizens, why they were feeling that this felt most appropriate, and that it's not, at this point, from the students we've talked to, being abused.

Open for questions.

And circling back to President Topp's point, we had a long conversation with students at Cleveland and they were going by the slogan, no cell bell to bell, if I remember.

And they were pretty enthusiastic about it and saw the benefits of it.

Director, Vice President Briggs.

Okay, I've got a few questions.

Can I just say them all at once?

Okay, so...

Okay, I'm trying to think if there's an order that makes sense.

I guess on the topic of consulting with students, obviously we gotta talk to the students and figure out, include students in the process for sure.

That said, as the parent of two teenagers, they're definitely gonna tell me that they want to have more access to their phone.

It's a fight that we constantly have.

So I think my concern here is that So with this high school away during the day, I feel like this does nothing to address the inconsistencies across, even within school buildings.

I mean, because some teachers feel more empowered to enforce this in their classroom than others.

So even from class to class, even in the same high school, you might have various levels of enforcement.

So it essentially amounts to a non-policy.

It's impossible to implement that consistently.

So I have concerns about that strategy.

I also think that the kids already know how to use their phones.

They know how to be digital citizens.

They've learned that since they were babies.

They don't need to have them at school in order to be ready for college.

Come on.

I mean, I'm thinking, I can totally picture my own kids trying to make that argument and it just doesn't fly.

So I guess my overarching question is, I hear that you've engaged with school leaders and teachers, I mean, yeah, teachers and students, but what research has gone into this?

Like where are the best practice guidelines, what other districts have you looked at that have policies?

I'm not seeing a lot of evidence-based in any of this, so I'm just wondering where these guidelines came from and if you've looked into how much research has gone into developing these.

Let me answer that.

As part of the briefing paper that we posted, as part of your package, the study is in there where we'd reach.

Also in the appendices of this document has a comparison to neighboring schools as well and the breakdown of what it looks like across our district as far as methods.

A lot of that work was done when we engaged with the study with the five schools, which it was not only just the principals and the students, there were also families, parents that they afforded to this study.

Director Briggs, just to make sure I'm understanding, your concern is at the high school level, Is it the teacher allowing permission during class time or are you advocating for a similar policy to the middle school that cell phones would be away for the entire school day at high schools?

Yeah, I think that is what I'm advocating for.

I mean, my kids who are in high school have, in theory, they're supposed to have their phones away during class time, and I know for a fact that that doesn't happen.

So it's not being enforced.

And I do think it puts an unfair, I've spoken to a number of teachers who are like, we do not want to police these kids, and they shouldn't have to.

So I don't think that it works to have have kids either police themselves or ask teachers to police them.

At that point, you might as well just not bother having a policy is what I've observed in my own kids and their experience in high school.

So before, can I just ask, do we know exactly what, Fred, Superintendent Podesta, you and I went to Cleveland High School.

I was very impressed with both the students' excitement for putting away their phones during class in like a pouch system type thing.

Can someone explain to me what exactly Cleveland's policy is?

Do we know?

I think it varies from the mechanism on classroom, but mostly using the wall pouches, not the locking pouches, but something that looks kind of like shoe rack, where the phones go into a set of canvas pouches.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Director Mizrahi.

OK, three questions.

So first, mostly focused on the difference between the middle school and the high school policy.

You mentioned the teacher discretion and educational value.

Other than circumventing protections that we have, like not using AI, what are the other reasons why a teacher might want a student using their cell phone in the class?

One of the things that we find out is that the instructional flexibility that they have in the classrooms for those teachers that allow to use them.

They use the phones for research, polling and digital tools lessons within that curriculum.

The high school students are expected, like Dr. Torres says, to learn regulation skills for when they hit the real world.

Also, the equity and practicality of it.

Full bans are harder to enforce, so we're pretty much setting the stage for the principles with the guidance to follow the methods that we will provide in the superintendent procedure.

Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up because that was actually my second question is what is on the enforcement piece because so my kids go to Hamilton and with my eighth grader I got to see the two different policies where when she was in sixth grade it was really more like the high school policy it was away but some teachers had discretion it was not this like zero tolerance policy and then now for seventh and eighth grade they have the pouches and they have what really is a zero tolerance policy which I can speak to because I've had to go pick up the cell phone in the office out of the safe before as a parent, so I know that they strictly enforce that.

And one of the things that we heard from the teachers was that it was actually much easier to enforce the zero tolerance policy where they felt like in the sixth grade year, for the whole school, not just for the sixth graders, but in that year, they were doing much more phone policing because it was like different teachers had different rules, sometimes it was allowed, sometimes it wasn't, where in this zero tolerance environment, it didn't matter what teacher you had, it didn't matter where you were, it didn't matter if you were between classes or in a class that allowed, there was no class that allowed it.

had to be a way.

So in your conversations, I'm mostly curious with building leaders and teachers, did you get feedback about what would be easier to enforce, I guess?

So I've met with some of the leaders to discuss this and we have heard that, basically what you're saying, that it is fairly easy and falls into line if and when there is the building wide ban during the day.

So some of our middle schools, even if you think about Mercer Middle School, you think about Eckstein, they don't use pouches at all and they have an away for the day and it still works, but it's because it's a policy they're enforcing similar to what you're saying.

So I think if I'm hearing you the question becomes why the difference between the middle school and the high school and I think part of the work session is to receive some of the feedback so I think that's some of the consideration we would take back for in developing the superintendent procedure around should we also in the high school do something similar knowing that in our middle schools we've seen the benefits and that it's in general what I'm hearing from the leaders is that it's been working fine with or without the pouches.

Yeah, I mean, so actually you guys are doing a great job helping me segue to my next question.

Third question is on pouches.

So as you roll this out to more schools, I'm curious if you were conceiving doing pouches or something else.

I would say very anecdotal, but I think the pouches are not actually used as much as they were intended.

I don't think my kids have ever put their phone in the pouch.

But the presence of the pouches, I think, it helps enforce that zero policy rule, even though in their backpack they have an empty pouch and a cell phone sitting next to it.

But it has to be in the backpack, because otherwise the teacher can say, why the heck isn't it in the pouch?

So it's been an easy enforcement mechanism, even though the pouch may not be used.

So do you have any plans to roll out something to help enforce a policy, like a pouch or something else?

At this point, we do not have plans to enforce a pouch all over the district, and we do have evidence of some of the schools that are not using it and getting the same results from the stay away policy, basically, and it ends up being similar to what you're saying, like in the backpack, et cetera.

In meeting with the principals, they said they've had minimal issues but it partly is the consistency and the family engagement leading up to it around like what happens and to your point the family meeting happens and then the phone pickup happens and what they see is that it starts to diminish quickly because all the kids they're middle schoolers they talk they're like oh yeah my parents had to come get my phone.

We do not rush to pick it up that's true.

Yeah so.

We'll go around the table and we'll come we'll come back again Director Sarju.

I quickly wanted to respond to the self-regulate comment.

First of all, the brain science does not support teenagers being able to self-regulate.

There's just zero evidence.

We have adults that can't even regulate with the cell phones.

And so that can't be...

that can't be something we accept.

It's factually false.

We can't be sort of one teacher believes that they can help students self-regulate and another teacher locks up the cell phones.

There has to be, in my opinion, a zero tolerance policy.

Teenagers cannot learn.

They're not gonna learn to self-regulate.

the brain science says maybe by the time they're 27 they've reached full brain development.

I mean, don't take my word for it, look it up yourself.

I'm not the one who's done decades upon decades of brain science research.

And so my belief is zero tolerance policy.

We have come to accept that We've just abdicated what we know is best for kids in the name of, what do we call that?

I need to leave this meeting and go get something to eat.

Autonomy, autonomy.

There are some things where we don't, where we just say this is not the place or the time for autonomy.

So I'm gonna be real adamant.

I don't wanna come back to the podium and be talking about self-regulation because it's just, it's not true.

It is not gonna happen.

It is unrealistic to think that that's an acceptable answer to why some students will get to have the cell phones and others won't.

Staff, Director Rankin.

All right, thank you.

I have four things.

Well, I've got four questions, and then we have another thing.

So about data, I'm actually wondering less about, I mean, I think it's clear that phones have an impact and that they interfere with the educational environment.

I don't think we necessarily need a whole lot of more data to tell us that that's true.

But what I'm wondering that I don't see is, what kind of incidents or behavior are happening now that we attribute to cell phone use that we should expect to see a decline in with the cell phones gone?

Maybe that's not something that's really reasonable unless we have a bunch of psychology students at the University of Washington that want to do a thesis or something like that, but is there a way we can somehow capture things that are happening now that we want to minimize to see if they are in fact minimized as a way of seeing is this effective because otherwise we're kind of throwing around problems and solutions and like what is the thing we're trying to accomplish and how do we know if we did or not?

Can I reframe the question?

Yeah, please.

Is it somewhere in the vein of around Incidents resulting from cyber-bullying or cyber-incidents that resulted in disciplinary?

No, not maybe, but no, more just like...

Academic achievement?

Or interrupted instructional time.

Like if a teacher is spending a lot of time managing cell phones that could instead be spent delivering instruction and working with students.

Again, like I said, unless they're psychology students that want to do some kind of quantitative study where they're doing major classroom observations and, you know, tallying Looking for these kinds of things, I don't know if that's possible, but that's a wonder that I have in terms of I don't need more data to convince me that cell phones are disruptive to the environment.

I know that they are.

Is there another way we can measure the effectiveness of a policy once implemented based on these things used to happen at this level, now they're happening at this level?

That's a wonder.

Because then in two years or something, when nobody uses cell phones anymore and we all have a chip in our right eye, I don't know, but just how can we actually evaluate our own impact?

So that's one thing.

And again, that's sort of a big wonder, I know.

Maybe somebody from the University of Washington does want to do that study.

If so, we should partner with them and have them come in.

The other thing has to do with what Director Briggs was talking about.

If we don't have the consistency, it's not really happening.

And I think that's part of why we're being asked to look at this, is because there's an acknowledgement that there's not a consistent expectation, and it is very variable.

What I wonder about is, I mean, and again, we do not need more convincing or proof that cell phones are interrupting the educational environment.

But in terms of what to do about it, I think a consistent policy would be really helpful, but the procedure really matters, and I know that's not what we would approve, Any policy that's gonna rely on individual teacher judgment and capacity and tolerance for different things is gonna totally fall flat.

We need to support our buildings by principals being able to say, this is the district's policy, and teachers being able to say, If this happens, I do this.

If this happens, I do this.

Let's take some of that guesswork out of like, do you confiscate the phone?

Do you send it to the office?

And maybe that's something that should happen at the principal level.

That's not my place to say, but I think the consistent policy is important, but also the because teachers are holding so many different things in their minds at any given time and also expecting them to make consistent and fair and safe decisions about kids' cell phones.

If there's a flow chart, I don't know.

that also just leads to more easy and consistent enforcement within the building and across the district.

Let's take the guesswork out of it.

The one question I have is about accommodations.

I think some students may use There's not an interpreter, so there's a Google Translate, something on their phones.

We can't take that away from kids who are using it to access education.

And it's okay.

Kids actually do understand.

If they say, well, how come they get to use their phone and I don't?

Well, they're using it to access education.

They're using it to translate.

Kids generally will be like, oh, fine.

Let's not put that burden on children to have to explain why they're an exception.

Just say, yep, in general you don't get to use it.

This is a tool that's being used at this time.

So how do we make sure that we don't eliminate access.

I do believe that the language towards teacher exceptions were for that when it was a planned part of something needed in the classroom was my understanding.

And I guess a question I would just, I want to get on the table for the team is we've done a significant amount of outreach to students.

has there been any advocacy at the high school level for a full ban?

We make many statements here about student voice, and I just want to get that on the table if that's the direction that we're getting.

But even if it's away for the day?

Away for the day?

That's not what we've heard from students so far.

It's my understanding, but I want the team to correct that.

But I think also to do with that, with the teacher exception, it should not be up to an individual teacher whether or not a student has access to an accommodation.

Just that clarity about...

No, I hear you.

I think the accommodation piece noted, especially when you think about...

And I don't know how many students use it for that.

No, but we also do have some students with disabilities that have things as accommodations, so noted for procedure.

I think what I would say is we have not heard that from the high school students, but that doesn't mean, similar to what Director Sarge is saying and Director Briggs, that we don't take a stand on it as the adults, but I think that I just want to recognize that we have not heard that.

from the high schools.

I just want to be clear that I would like to hear from the student directors as well.

Anyway, we've made other decisions in the past recently that were counter to some student expectations and we had conversations about this and if we're going down that path, I just would like to hear about it.

This is also not intended to accuse anybody of anything, but I would assume that students who require a phone for access to education are probably not gonna engage with you about the policy.

So unless you have sought out students with disabilities who use their phones as access to provide that feedback to you, they are unlikely to have participated in student engagement.

But I'm just talking about access to phones during passing periods and launches, which was a significant amount of the feedback we heard.

Am I misunderstanding?

I think there's a miscommunication.

You're talking about access, special access, and I think Fred's just talking about general feedback from high schoolers, not specifically about ones who would still have access to a phone despite a ban.

I mean, yeah, you're not talking about the same thing, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Well, then I'm confused, and I don't know.

Am I being understood?

Yes, yes.

Yes, you are being understood.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I guess I'm not making a statement on whether I think away for the day or whatever, just sort of a separate carve out that no matter what it is, it shouldn't be at teacher discretion if a student needs an accommodation.

And away for the day, we should all be understanding of the fact that an exception is not, but what if my mom needs to call me, but is, I can't participate in the learning environment without this tool.

And then lastly, I'm wondering about what our expectation is, or if we have one around staff use of cell phones, and if they have access to a landline in their classrooms, or if the expectation is that if they need a phone, they're using their own phone.

And then I would also include board directors in do we wanna consider adopting a set of standards for ourselves about our own device use during board meetings?

Just putting it out there.

If we're expecting, if we're saying it's a distraction, it's interfering with the collaborative environment, that'll apply to us too.

and I'm not asking us to answer that now, just putting it out there.

But I am curious about this.

Was that suggesting that board behavior could be encoded by a superintendent procedure?

No, but our own set of expectations for ourselves.

We're going to go to Director Yoon.

but I do wanna actually hear about do we have an expectation about staff cell phone use and do staff have, because we don't wanna be do as I say, not as I do, right?

We aren't studying that issue.

And then do they have access, have we removed all landlines from schools or are they still there?

We did hear again in our student outreach that they expect the same behavior from adults as children.

I mean, I know.

I have a 13-year-old, 16-year-old.

If I'm like, well, you're not allowed to be on your phone at dinner, and then I sit down and I'm on my phone, I'm definitely gonna hear about it, and fairly so.

We're still at the concept stage.

I think there'll be labor considerations and other things to think about, but that point has been raised.

Again, I'm not recommending or stating a preference.

I'm just, these are questions that I think need to be considered with this.

Thank you.

Director Yoon?

Thank you.

I had two questions.

I think I'm misunderstanding something.

I just need clarification on what away for the day means for high schoolers.

So would that mean like phones are completely away the entire school day, including lunch and passing period, or is that just classroom time?

No, in the middle schools, when it's away for the day, it means the entire day, including lunch and passing times.

Yeah, and I think your question is if we say away for the day for the high school, do we mean lunch and passing times?

That is what away for the day would mean, yes.

Is that something you all are considering currently?

That isn't our emerging procedure.

We're here to get feedback.

That's why there's a distinction between middle and high school.

What we were studying was access to phones at high schools during passing periods and at lunch.

Thank you.

My other question was on one of the slides that says why cell phone limits matter.

So in one of the bullet points, it says more face-to-face social interaction.

I guess my overall question is, the plan to limit cell phones, what is the end goal for this?

Is it to improve student relationships?

I'm just kind of confused.

if you could just clarify that.

I believe this aligns a little bit with what Director Rankin was asking earlier around, so what are the metrics that we're looking at?

Like what's the why behind it?

Some of this has to do with some of the information that Mr. Del Valle put into the briefing paper around there is a national trend in conversation around the why.

And what we're seeing is that most school districts across the country are moving to some sort of policy and procedure, even some are going really deep into just full on bans.

And so it is something that we're gonna have to consider as well.

And so what was in the presentation, and I'm trying to get us back to the slide.

I don't know if we can go back to it, but.

was that this is some of what are the benefits that have been noted in some of the research and conversations and different things that we're seeing nationwide.

But duly noted on if we're going to go here, what's the why and what's the metric?

What are we thinking we're going to get out of it?

There is no why.

Does that mean there is no specific targeted goal for limiting cell phones?

I'll let you answer first.

No, I would say there is the why.

The why is around the limiting distractions, the more face-to-face interactions, the increased instructional time.

The way that I'm interpreting what Director Rankin's comment was earlier was around codifying that as an actual metric and something that we're going to look at.

But the goal would be that cell phones are no longer going to impact instruction in our schools and some of the social issues that have happened in the past.

I can agree with the instructional time, but as a student, There is a little issue with face-to-face social interaction.

Just because you put cell phones away and students are face-to-face, that doesn't mean they're going to talk with each other.

A lot of times it's just awkward silence.

So that's why I was kind of confused on what the goal was and how it plays along with each other.

I mean, my teacher just calls us out when he makes us put our phones away and we're waiting five minutes for him to give us instruction.

We're just sitting there in silence.

He's like, talk to each other.

I think that might be part of it, is that there's a whole, I don't want to date myself, but there's a generation of us where we knew what to do with those five minutes without having to be prompted, and so I think that's part of why we're having this conversation and discussion as well.

Can I just follow up on this point?

Yeah.

So Director Mizrahi wants to follow up on that point, and then we'll go to Vice President Briggs.

I just want to follow up on one thing that Director Yoon was.

So if there were a stricter high school policy than what's here, there could also be something that isn't quite as robust as a way for the day in middle school, like during lunches and passing period, but zero in the classroom.

There could be zero tolerance in the classroom, but allowable during, especially the thing about open campuses, you're not going to be chasing kids around Wallingford, right?

But cell phones during lunch, maybe during passing period, but a zero tolerance during any classroom time, no matter what any individual teacher might want.

Yeah, it could easily be modified to away during class and just get rid of unless teacher gives permission.

Vice President Briggs.

Okay, so the problem with that is that then we're back to the onuses on the teacher and like the kids are still showing up to the classroom with their phones.

So what I have read about international best practices around cell phone use is a way for the day is just for everybody, for all K through 12. and away for the day means it's not in their backpack, it's not in their pocket, it's not in their locker.

They do not have access to the phone during the day.

That's what that means.

And that is what best practices are as far as I understand them.

I have no doubt that high schoolers will not like that.

I know that my kids would not like that but I do think it is what is best for them and it is my job as their parent to enforce that rule because I think otherwise it is causing them harm.

So when kids have their phones in their pockets and they're not supposed to have them in class, it creates that same, it doesn't solve that problem where where the only way to make it a non-issue is really to just have them not accessible during the day.

And I don't even know where I heard this, but I recently heard, and I actually think it's a really good idea, kids get to school and they take their phone to their last period class, and then they pick it up at the end of their last period class.

And so it's there, but they don't have it until the very end of the day.

So, I mean, I think the other thing that I wanted to say too is that certainly, yes, engagement and gathering feedback is important, but so is education.

And there needs to be a lot more education for all parents, all staff, teachers, principals, everybody needs to be on the same page about what the research shows and what best practices are.

Because when we all are working with the same information, I think that it will become very clear to us what the right thing to do is.

But when we are working with very different understandings of what the research shows and what best practices are, then it will be harder for us to reach consensus on this.

But I think that there's a lot of clear cut evidence and best practices that we don't need to invent the wheel here.

In fact, we need to catch up to the wheel that's rolling.

So yeah, I'll be done with that.

Director Mizrahi.

Part of the goal of this was to get feedback.

I would say I think we should have a stricter policy for the high school.

I like the away during class, scratch out the unless teacher gives permission.

I think lunch with open campuses, I think lunch is probably, you should be allowed to have a cell phone.

Passing periods is sort of, I understand the point that if you're walking in with your classroom, the teacher's got to do a lot of work there.

So I would defer to the experts on the passing period issue, but that's my feedback.

I think I would be aligned with Director Sarju.

I just want to put on the table that we're assuming that every student can afford a cell phone.

We just assume we walk in here with our thousand dollar, however much this thing costs, and think, well, everybody can do that, while we have students silently not able to express that they don't have a cell phone because they actually can't afford it.

And so, once again, we're showing our class, we're showing our privilege, we're showing our bias, and if we follow the science, if we follow best practices, then we don't put certain students in a position to be embarrassed or ashamed or, you know, whatever the isms are.

But we have to remember that, yeah, I think I've said enough about that.

Director Rankin?

Seems like there's consensus around elementary school.

I would ask though that there should be some kind of guidance or procedure.

It says elementary not allowed and I think I'm not hearing anything that is saying, well not allowed is what it says.

But we can't just say, well, they're not allowed in elementary, so we're not going to think about it.

Some elementary kids will still have a phone.

I didn't let my kids have a cell phone until they turned 13. But they were like the last of their friends to get cell phones.

and so some guidance about is the, like, because we can't, we really can't, I don't think, expect that if we just say to parents, well they're not allowed to have them, they're not gonna give their kids.

Some people, that's gonna happen.

So is not allowed to use them.

again to prevent the principal and the teacher from being the cell phone police.

Is the expectation just it stays in your backpack and your locker?

What happens if it becomes a problem?

Just some kind of guidance or expectation.

And I think this is maybe back when more kids had cell phones.

I know I had a friend who was a teacher who was like, I don't want to confiscate something that would cost me $800 if I lost it.

Or like, can I even confiscate this without getting in trouble?

Is the school district responsible for it, or am I?

So the more we can take those things off the table for people, just the clearer we can be, I think the better.

So it sounds like there's no, I don't think there's any contention around elementary school.

middle school away for the day.

I would love to hear more directly from Robert Eagle staff.

I know that they have had really positive experiences.

Do they have any data about pre-phones, post-phones, about student behavior, about student interaction?

I do think middle school is a developmentally very, very, very important time that we neglect between early learning and high school.

and that it is probably, I would guess, aligned with research.

It's probably better that they are able to interact and navigate conflict and just learn to be people without phones.

and then high school, I don't like the unless teacher gives permission.

We've already talked about that.

We need to be really clear about if there are times when a cell phone is allowed, when is it allowed and why, not it's up to some adult based on we're not sure what and maybe that's what was intended but I think we have to be really clear about that.

I think to Joe's point, with open campuses at lunch, that's gonna be a big issue if students are not allowed to access their phones during lunch.

That seems like that's not gonna work.

So, you know, we shouldn't be doing any of this based on the opinion of seven people.

But that is my opinion.

What I would like to see is that kind of combining some things that we've talked about is the why.

What do we actually, like, if we're just looking at this as like, well, it's to decrease cell phone use.

okay why and then why again and then why again and then also how do we know that it did the things we wanted it to do and how do we all you know I mean essentially we're talking about creating safe and supportive learning environments but if we implement a cell phone rule and it turns out that's not helping, what do we do instead or what do we do as well?

We may be able to rely on climate surveys and some other issues.

I don't think we have baseline data that records each instant of a cell phone distraction.

And again, unless somebody wants to do a study, that's not going to happen.

Yeah, that's going to be difficult to do, but I think we also have some faith in school leaders' and teachers' observations.

on how they think this affects the learning environment.

So I do think those are the right elements of the goals and the why.

It's difficult, but it's not impossible, certainly, to attach numbers to those.

But we don't have a starting point.

I think health and well-being I mean I have a 16 year old and a 13 year old so I have been through middle school once with sixth grade being the remote year and the engagement that kids do and learn to do online even if it's the same people is really really different than in person and oftentimes it's not the same people and we want kids to learn how to navigate conflict make friends find common interests and also I worry about their eyesight but I don't that maybe that's that's me being like an old lady.

Director Mangelson.

I just kind of have too many questions regarding elementary school, actually.

Not that I disagree on the no cell phones allowed, but first is just and I can kind of combine these, but first it's just when you say not allowed, do you mean to stay at home or do you mean in backpack and cubby?

Because I know that, I mean, when I was in elementary school cell phones weren't a thing that we had, but when my younger sister was in elementary school, she did have a phone and it was kind of just kept in her backpack and I didn't hear about any issues with that.

I believe that was the intent, otherwise that would be a way for the day if the devices were allowed on campus but had to be kept away.

That's a subtle distinction.

I think the intent is Again, folks don't have access.

The supervisory support and things at elementary schools are a little bit different, so I think that's part of this.

It's easier to administer if they're just not allowed, but I'll leave it to my colleagues also.

Of course.

Well, that's true of every, I mean, we confiscate lots of things.

And unfortunately, at an elementary school, if that is going to be the principal, it is going to be teachers, because that's who's there.

And there really aren't other people to do that.

I don't know if you guys want to expand on.

No, no, I think it's something we need to take into consideration, because as we were working through this, that is one of the things we started to talk about.

This is where the recommendation is at this moment, but one of the things to also recognize is exactly what you said.

We're in a different time where there are students all the way down into elementary school who do have devices that is a parent's choice whether they want to give their child a device or not.

And we've heard different reasons about why.

Some of it has to do with safety and commute to schools, different things like that.

So it is something that we should probably take into consideration as we're working the procedure for sure.

Yeah, one of the reasons I brought that up was actually, I mean, I know my sister and I had friends who did this.

They walked home alone starting in like as young as like third grade.

My sister walked like 40 minutes just because she wanted to, and it was really important to my parents that she had a way to communicate with them.

I know that's kind of a smaller issue, but that might be something to take into consideration, especially for students whose, you know, their parents might not be able to pick them up, parents who, or students who take the bus, you know.

but one, and also adding on to what Director Rankin said about students who need specific accommodations, I have friends who have had type 1 diabetes since they were as young as seven.

I have a mom with type 1 diabetes, I have friends with heart monitors, so I think that's, especially important to consider when you get it moved into not having it allowed at all in the building.

My last thing is maybe a different conversation, but I had a conversation with a teacher who mentored me at John Muir Elementary when I interned in a kindergarten classroom who, when talking about cell phone restrictions, she brought up an issue that was probably, I think it was about three years ago, where a student would not stop calling her mom on her smartwatch.

And I think she was maybe a first grader.

Yeah.

So I'm just kind of curious.

I mean, I know that that was a really big issue.

So they had to send out emails and figure stuff out for that.

But I was wondering if smartwatches or other devices are included in the procedures you're talking about.

It is part of the conversation we've been having as well for the exact point because if you don't have the device on you but you have it on your watch, is it really a way?

And so it has been part of the conversation that we've been engaging in over when we come to like finally saying this is going to be the procedure, what are we doing about smart watches and other technology as well.

Director Yoon.

I have a lot of questions but so I also agree with what Director Rankin said we need to be clear on what we mean by unless a teacher says so because that could mean instructional time like oh you need your phone for like to scan a QR code take a survey but it could also mean I don't have any more like you guys finish your work you could just go on your phone for free time.

or something, then that directly goes against what you all are trying to promote which is the face-to-face social interaction.

My other question is for the timeline or next step slide.

So it says like additional engagement.

What other engagement are you doing with students directly other than talking with ASBs that are established groups and reaching out to students that may not know that this is even happening?

And also adding on to what Director Mangelson said about just technologies in general.

is the current policy and also are we gonna incorporate policies around personal laptops?

Because I know that has also been a concern and people can't get distracted with personal laptops.

Non-SPS district issues like Apple, HP, like whatever, yeah.

I think it would apply to all personal devices, laptops, tablets, or another source that act pretty much like a cell phone.

So that's the intent.

And with regard to the I think I introduced this confusion about unless a teacher gives permission in my clumsy interaction with direct to Rankin.

I believe the intent of that was gives permission for a specific educational purpose, not saying, oh, you know, if you guys want to use your cell phone, that's fine.

If it was part of a lesson, you're right, an accommodation shouldn't be in that category, but that was the point I meant to raise is if that's as a result of the teacher instruction I think was intended because as part of this lesson we want people to look at a QR code or we want access to a device.

That also implicates Director Sarger's point, well what if people don't have them?

But anyway, that I believe was the intent there.

It wasn't just a one teacher chooses to have a different policy is they have a reason.

And I believe we heard from educators that there are sometimes they use devices as part of a lesson.

Can we be sure that you made a note of Director Josephine's comment?

My daughter who was here tonight has type 1 diabetes.

She does not have a choice about whether she walks around with her phone that's connected to the thing in her arm.

My oldest does too, it's wild.

I have two kids with type 1. But those are the kinds of things that I believe adults can figure out.

and if the adults can't figure it out, we have a real problem.

But thank you for bringing that up.

And then I think Director Yoon had a question about the further engagement we have planned.

It's a planning process for them.

My understanding is also we do need to talk a bit more to parents because at this point I believe we have more anecdotes than structured engagement that just like you raised the point of an elementary school student might, the parent might want them to have a device for their trip home.

We've heard some from parents that we know we need our student to have access to their phone with some set of parameters and I don't think we have that.

That's not a group I think we've engaged with yet is how do parents feel about their students not having or do they have any parameters for us?

Okay, one more quick thing, Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Hang on, just a second, real fast.

I just want to make a quick note that we do have Director Mizrahi online, so we continue to have a quorum.

Great.

Oh, yeah.

With the engagement question, I think if we say, what do you think about cell phones, you're going to get a whole bunch of stuff that's going to be all over the map and may or may not be actionable.

but if it is this is the recommendation that OSPI has made, how should we implement this in SPS?

I think you will get more tangible, valuable feedback because we're not really asking whether or not we should have a policy, we're going to have a policy.

What we're asking is what's the best way to implement it in SPS?

And so just kind of.

start from, we're looking at this, here are these recommendations, here's what we know based on these middle schools or whatever, here are the things we're considering, what are your feedback on these things, not what's your idea about cell phones in society in general.

And that may address too the OSPI, the recommendation from Superintendent Reichdahl is to develop policies restricting cell phone use during instructional time.

lunch can be instructional time.

Before and after school is not instructional time.

So that, we do have to think about a little bit if students can't bring them to school at all that you're limiting access to that before and after time.

But in terms of what do adults, what do parents think about it?

I think if we stay more focused on instructional time, I think we can probably get a little more clear rather than just like, what's your position on children and cell phones in the world?

Can I just tag on really quick to that, which is just that I want to underscore what you said earlier, Liza, about this should not be about our opinions.

None of us are experts in this.

Same goes for the larger community.

People might have opinions about it, but that's not the same as informed knowledge.

And so I think we do need to think about engagement being more of, this is our plan for SPS based on this evidence and this research, and this is what we're doing and why.

and people do need to understand why, but I totally agree that it's a total, sorry, I was trying to censor myself, not using a bad word, not a great idea to solicit all kinds of opinions.

There's nothing good that can come of that, especially because there is, there are actual best practices around this and we just need to rely on those and find a way to implement them.

I appreciate this conversation.

I appreciate you coming to us with where we are headed and sort of the next steps with the additional engagement, the procedure revision here in the winter of 26 and then and then the sort of roll out and support of schools in 26, 27. So thank you for listening to our opinions as community representatives of what we are hearing and seeing.

And with that, we'll move to our next work session, which is on artificial intelligence and data privacy.

And I'm gonna send it back to you, Superintendent Podesta.

Thank you, we're going to be joined by Assistant Superintendent of Academics, Mike Starosky, Dr. Mike Starosky, who has been working along with Mr. Dovalle and a team, interdisciplinary team within the district who I really want to thank, doing research on the implications of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies have both on instruction, have on, and Mr. DeValle has been working on those impacts of some of those technologies and other technology advancements on business systems and other things that we do.

So I'll turn it over to the team to describe their work and what we've learned so far, this is, I thought the cell phone policy would be the easy discussion, so this is a much more fast-moving field right now, and there are many, many implications, and like many institutions, we are on a treadmill trying to keep up.

Good evening board directors, Mike Strotsky, assistant superintendent of academics.

I'm representing multiple people in academics and digital learning and technology who have over time tried to come up with a thoughtful policy response, some handbooks, some guidance for a very fast moving issue and that is artificial intelligence.

And so as Director Briggs had said about cell phones, the wheels are not reinventing the wheel but it's already spinning We acknowledge that policy and lags behind what is actually happening out there for our students and for our teachers.

So this presentation is to talk about what our current state is, what we've been doing in response to AI in service first and foremost of student learning and how it has the opportunity to do some really positive things for students.

And also it has some real limitations in its use.

And also we want our students and our educators to do so when they're engaging in AI in thoughtful, proactive ways, knowing its limitations.

and then also for us to be able to be responsive to how things are changing.

And so what you'll see on the next slide is I just like to kind of center what we're talking about and if we're centering our students.

And so if you think of a student that I met recently in high school, and she's a sophomore, and she is at one of our area high schools.

And she's bright, she's curious, and like so many of our students, she's got competing issues for her time.

One is she has her after school activities in addition to her course work.

She takes care of her younger brother after school.

And one night she's stuck on something that she can't quite figure out about her chemistry homework.

and so it's confusing her.

She doesn't have access to her teacher and they're not available at this time of night and so she opens up her district one-on-one computer that we provide in Seattle Public Schools and she interacts with AI technology and she asks a question and she says, I don't know about covalent bonds explain it to me as a 15-year-old.

And she gets something and she reads it.

She thinks about it and she asks it another question and she gets another answer.

And as she's doing so, she's questioning the accuracy.

She's questioning does she understand it?

What else is she curious about?

All in an effort to deepen her understanding.

and then when she comes to class the next day, she participates with confidence ideally, but in order to do so, that's the story ideally you want to be able to tell about how AI could be helping our students, their independence, being critical thinkers, consumers of technology, but also do in a way that we can help guide and control as best as we can as a system.

So we know that ideally it's not dependence on AI.

It shouldn't be about shortcuts, but it should be about empowerment, equity, and doing so in a safe and meaningful way for our students.

So we have a theory of action that's guiding us, and it's based on, and when I say us, I'm specifically speaking to our technology steering committee.

And our technology steering committee is made up of 19 members, eight SPS employees, eight community members, and three students.

and what they were using is this ideally a theory of action that's based on OSPI guidance that if Seattle Public Schools provides AI literacy training and lessons for our educators to empower them and to teach students about artificial intelligence, its capabilities, its limitations, its ethical implications and safe use.

And if all staff and students are given access to safe, instructionally valuable AI tools with supportive, well-structured learning environments, then what's going to happen for our educators?

Then educators will be able to integrate AI meaningfully into instruction and students students will develop the skills and understanding needed to use AI responsibly, creatively, and critically to support their learning and their future success.

It's a tool, it's not the end all be all.

Therefore, Seattle Public Schools will foster a community where AI enhances teaching and learning and promotes equity access to emerging technologies and ensures students experience safe, purposeful, and future ready digital learning.

So for us, when we're thinking about what we're saying about AI.

Next slide, please.

I'll just kick you.

All right.

So not to conflate what we're talking about, but when I'm saying artificial intelligence, one way to think about it is realizing it's not magic.

It's a pattern in recognition.

It's similar to systems that Amazon or Netflix used to make a prediction about what you might like or make a recommended recommendation of a show.

What you see there is on the left side.

It supports personal recommendations, detecting patterns, but there's also generative AI.

And generative AI is what I'm talking about tonight, specifically for our students.

So it creates new content, text, images, code from learned patterns.

It's getting all this large data and it's trying to make some sense or make some predictions about learned patterns.

So it goes beyond prediction and it supports creativity and personalization.

Possibly.

Possibly.

So examples for us would be ChatGBT, Copilot, and Gemini.

So for us moving forward, what we wanted, we knew that we had to come up with some guardrails and not to use the guardrails that the board is thinking about and uses, but give some parameters for our educators first and foremost about how they should be or could be using this with our students because what we do know is that if our teachers are not comfortable or aware of a tool, it's going to impact what they give access to their students and how they use it with their students.

So we always want to center humans in this policy, in our procedures, and how we think about AI.

Humans are at the center of it.

And our humans that we're specifically talking about this evening are our students.

and by proxy are teachers.

So we start with the student learning, human centered, and what you see up there is just a cycle of improvement that the steering committee is using to inform itself about how they assess information that's coming in, because with AI specifically, it's changing on a weekly basis, if not daily basis, or hourly basis.

And so our team needs to be nimble and responsive to how things are changing.

And so that's assessing, that's investing, in time and people about how we're providing professional development to our educators in service of our students and then also we need to refine and respond to things that are changing and I'll give an example of that a little bit later here.

Gotcha.

So if you're out in the public and you're listening, we would like to direct you to where you can find a number of our tools.

that our steering committee has created.

Specifically, they're based on superintendent procedure 2022, which empowers educators to guide classroom AI use.

We also, as a result, have created this website that is specifically designed for AI, artificial intelligence, our commitment in education, and it gives all the resources that we're providing to our students, their families, and to the public.

And then also we have specific tools that we're providing to our educators.

So through policy 2022, Specifically, we added an AI section in the last year because we didn't have one when it was written.

And also our data privacy, which Carlos will be talking about a little bit later.

Our steering committee knew that guidelines needed to be grounded in school board documentation, which included these changes.

they include a link to our handbook which is there in the grain to be able to give schools practical guidance with the steering committee could easily update and it's also what you'll see.

Next slide please.

is that some of the tools that we have landed on in training is starting with our teachers, is making sure that they are, number one, that we're raising their awareness about how it's being used, how your students in many ways are already interacting with it.

So we have an intro to AI synchronous and asynchronous course for our educators.

We're also leveraging generative AI for our educators by listening to them about how they're currently using it with a pilot that we launched last year.

And also you can see our website that has these materials embedded in there.

So our piloted tools that we use in Seattle Public Schools are co-pilot, for our educators, and then Magic School for our educators is the AI tool, and also Magic Student is for our students, which I will talk about in some detail here in just a minute.

So what we know is that for AI specifically it has to be developmentally appropriate and for us in the steering committee's recommendation was that AI tools, if they are going to be opted into and are approved, happen at the teacher level and are teacher approved, but they have to and are directed to use co-pilot as educators in Magic School.

And then Magic Student is for students, which are essentially rooms that a teacher creates and opens up for their students and is not just open up like chat GPT that's just open for everyone to get in there.

It's specifically disciplined in what we're providing to our students access to.

So last year, as a result of the emerging policy in the handbook, what we wanted to do and knew that we needed to do was to get some feedback from schools, from our educators, from our principals, assistant principals, our teachers, and most importantly our students.

And so last year there was a cohort of seven schools across SPS that accounted for 36% of all of our students, grades six through 12, who engaged both teachers and administrators about AI exploration.

And so we used pilot guidelines, AI literacy lessons, and classroom practices.

They provided us feedback to shape our district wide resources.

and the schools that were engaged were Ballard High School, Cleveland High School, Franklin High School, Madison Middle School, Seattle World School, West Seattle High School and Whitman Middle School.

So as a result of listening to the people that were interacting with these tools, there was some recommended tools that helped us land on Magic School for our educators and Magic for our students, which Carlos will be able to talk to specifically about issues around student privacy.

our AI tools are approved for our students, but also for elementary students we don't allow magic school student or magic student access.

And so for us as a district there's a number of things that we use where we set classroom expectations that should be happening at the school level or the classroom level, but we want to be able to give our educators guidance about what they have access to.

So we have a group of students from West Seattle High School that I would like you to hear from this evening that were a part of the pilot and they have various ways that they interact with AI and let's listen to what our students have to say and then we'll move on from here.

So these are our students who are in our pilot from West Seattle High School.

Unfortunately not Go ahead, Carlos.

I think this is important.

Well, it is in the materials and people can check it out, but I will.

It's a hardware problem.

Alright, moving on.

Technology, this has nothing to do with AI though.

Okay, but let me summarize what our students said.

So when you go back and watch the video, and I really encourage everyone to please go and watch the video because it centers our students' voices.

You'll have Sophie who talks about that she uses it for fact checking and she knows that using it for AI That she used it for fact checking, Anho who uses it for inspiration, Reese who uses AI as a study partner, and Reese talks specifically about maxing out their ability to do things with others and using it as a study partner but basically asking different questions to improve their thinking and their knowledge.

Jack is using it and what Jack says about it specifically is he's concerned about the environmental impacts of AI.

which we all understand and are beginning to understand but also it's a very real thing that he brings up that many of the students had agreed with and some who hadn't thought about the environmental impacts that AI could be having.

But even Jack who says he's concerned about the environmental impacts describes how he does interact with it, how he comes into that intersection of using AI as a high school student.

Another student talks about needing more resources than her classroom can offer them.

And these stories reveal a hard truth is that there can be a digital divide that we could be creating or maintaining and one that we want to do just the opposite.

We don't want the digital divide to become even bigger.

and we know for our students, right now it's AI is the topic, but we know that having access, being a critical thinker, knowing about the cognitive load that we want our students to be able to have.

Again, what you haven't heard me say up until this moment is about it being used for cheating or fast tracking because the issues that our students were talking about where very quickly went past that to about how they're interacting and how they're utilizing it to benefit themselves about what they're learning, about what they're curious about, and then also to expand their thinking.

But we want them to be able to do so in a safe way as much as we can possibly provide as a system, but also knowing that our educators are going to need some tools that help them navigate this alongside with their students.

So please watch the video if you can.

So what this resulted in or what this is resulting in is the steering committee by listening to our educators and our students realizing that there was a need to create some lessons for students K-12.

about literacy, AI literacy specifically.

And so last March we had an AI literacy day in that we provided lessons for students and educators K-12.

and specifically you can see what you're looking up there is the topics that were bigger buckets.

Number one starting with what is AI, how is AI trained, what are AI chat bots, AI bias, algorithms, facial recognition, AI and ethics, AI in society, AI in plagiarism.

I mean like huge topics, but the one that was not leading was the AI in plagiarism.

because what we want our students to be able to think about is what are the opportunities, what are the benefits, what are the risks, but also what is the, again I'm talking about the cognitive load, about the thinking that it takes when interacting with these tools and when they're appropriate and then also the ethics behind these.

So for us we know that we're going to continue and there was a request for us to post these lessons online and my team's commitment is to make sure that we get those posted up onto our website so people can see the subject matter for our students and our educators.

So how to look at this slide is specifically is just talk finally about the tools.

Students have only access to tools that teachers intentionally open up for them and those are the things that teachers formally do.

We know that things that students have access to and you were talking about cell phones for a good long while but just technology in general students have a lot of access to things.

but during the school day, during our school time, during our district adopted tools, which include our computers, that we want to make sure that our teachers have access to tools starting.

That's why you see the magic school AI.

and so you'll see that what's the generative AI tool, who's the audience, and then what's the purpose.

And so for our teachers, it's Magic School AI is the AI tool, and then also they have access to Microsoft Co-Pilot.

and so you can see some of the ideas that teachers could possibly be doing with drafting content, lesson plans, ideas, streamlining tasks.

What it's not doing and what we don't require and are not interested in is that our educators are using AI tools to grade students, say, for their writing, for example.

What we should be doing is showing our educators how they can use rubrics generated to standards, to the lesson, and being able to show those to our students about how they can check their own writing against those tools.

So for our students in sixth through 12th grade, they have Magic Student AI.

and so those are again those custom classrooms that are guiding our students in a structured way and then also that our educators, our teachers, have access to what's happening in those classrooms.

So that supports students learning for their writing, assistance, study aids, personalized feedback to build skills and confidence.

Also within those tools in Magic Student AI they have Adobe Express which is for teachers and students that creates engaging graphics and presentations such as something like this but not this wasn't generated by AI.

Next slide please.

So finally, what I think is important for our public to know and for our board members to know is that AI is embedded in a lot of spaces and places in our structures.

You can see it again in Schoology, Seesaw, Canva, Clever.

Clever is the way that our students access the magic student AI.

but there's no chatbots that we're allowing.

There's some access to that for Schoology but those are turned off.

We don't allow that access.

But also for us moving forward, I just kind of want to sum it up in a very clear way is we know we don't have it all figured out.

We know we need to listen to our educators and our students to get this better and our public better and do it in a careful, skilled way.

But also we know we had to put something out that we think gives us some clear guidance that's rooted in superintendent procedure.

and also OSPI guidance and also when I think about the student that I was talking about at the very beginning here, she didn't become a better learner because of the machine or because of AI.

She became a better learner because she had a knowledgeable teacher, ideally, who knows how to help our students navigate AI.

that they have a safe tool, that they have clear guidance and that they're using these skills in a reasonable way and that AI is not replacing her thinking, that AI is hopefully as a potential tool, not the tool, a potential tool to unlock her thinking.

So it's not hype, it's not fear, but it should be about human-centered empowerment and our responsibility first and foremost is to our students and our work around this is to be listening and so we're here to listen, we're here to improve but also knowing that AI is here, it's been here, we're late to the party of how we're responding to it.

We know that there's many issues that impact our students first and foremost and our educators and that we want to build our students' skills, their literacy in technology and then also make sure that our students have equitable access and that we're not creating bigger gaps as a result of this.

So right now we'll move into the student privacy piece and then we'll take questions or comments.

Yes, we thought for time, but also make sure that Carlos I think will probably answer some of the questions that you might have.

But we will definitely be around for questions.

Good evening, again.

Let me talk a little bit about the data privacy and protecting the students' digital resources.

First of all, let me thank DOTS because they are the ones behind the work that keeps our students daily, ensuring that our environments are safe for the kids.

So we have our foundations, the district policies are the same, district 2022 and 6501, and the superintendent procedures.

Just to make sure, just an understanding, technology, like Mike mentioned earlier, it changes daily, by hour.

Literally.

So these are the documents, they're living documents that we seek to update as new technology becomes available and new challenges basically.

We do have federal and state compliance protection laws, FERPA, COPA, and that drives us where we have to go as far as what controls we put for safety.

As far as the student device safety and cyber hygiene, we have worked very hard to do annual cyber security audits.

We have an environment with the student email is Walden Garden for privacy.

They cannot email folks outside the district, only teachers.

and also the web filtering, the blocks on safe sites.

I mentioned earlier we have blocked chat GPT and Jamie and I because we don't believe that that's appropriate for the case to be accessed and there's thousands and thousands of more sites that we secure through their firewalls.

Again, it's a guacamole game because every day there's a new vulnerability that comes out to live against our networks.

So we have to keep up with that.

We have a cybersecurity awareness training for staff and educators and then also an incident response plans which I'll talk about here a little bit longer.

We have developed over the years what are the priorities for the districts and how do we reconstitute in case of any incidents.

Also cyber hygiene, this happens, we just did this this year, we increased to the 12 character password for students and then we do also regular account reviews and web monitoring in real time for credentials to ensure that nobody that doesn't have the access to our network will access it.

Also the laptop drive encryption and malware protection, all of our data through the and the laptops and our data centers, they're all encrypted for communications.

And then also the restricted applications installs, they cannot install any software in our devices unless it's ever requested through our software intake process, which we review if there's ADA concerns or cyber concerns.

We have state requirements and federal requirements that have to be analyzed and whatever that piece of software they want to be installed.

And the software management process is the one that cuts and understands which software we can put in the network and which one not.

As far as the vendor risk management and data classification, when we seek for a software, we do a request for a proposal from vendors.

and also it goes through the software intake process, which I just mentioned, which analyzes the security controls of whatever that software is being put in the network.

Data sharing agreements prohibit unauthorized use in the specified destruction timelines.

We make sure that we run agreements, MOUs, DSAs, and all of those goes through legal review of the contractual obligations that we have with whatever company we go with that we select through the RFP process.

Now as far as the data classification and retention, we do have a set of rules that tells us how long to keep the data on the data center.

And also we categorize it by sensitivity, meaning that there's a role of authority of who can access the data and at what time.

The retention schedules, how I mentioned, is how do we just to delete the data that is no longer needed.

And there's some rules also on the state of how long we can retain it.

How I mentioned earlier, we have an incident response and continuous monitoring.

The incident response, we've been working for the past three years of putting together a document plan that allows all the roles, the actions, and priorities for the efficient recovery in case and wood, nefarious acts come in.

But we have a pretty good architecture, I'll say, against nefarious acts.

So we do this just in the case of someone coming in.

We'll pull the plan and we're ready to execute the plan.

We've already defined the roles and actions and how the priorities on what systems to bring, whether either business systems or academic systems.

There's a priority list that we have worked with the team to ensure that we continue operations.

As far as continuous monitoring, we do monthly vulnerability scans and annual penetration tests.

We had a couple of these scans and penetration tests last year and we were very happy with the results because there were only like four recommendations.

They were actually very happy to see all the controls that we have in place as far as cyber security.

We do the ongoing monitoring for security compliance and unusual activity.

How I say data is our number one priority for safety and you have to have the authority to access whatever data you are entitled to see.

And then early detection and containment of threats.

The way we have the network parsed out and this is just computer talk, logically.

We have it parse out the network in such a way that if someone's trying to hack, it gets contained right away and then we can clean that area instead of spreading throughout the whole network.

And then business continuity, Jose, we do, we have the plan, but also daily we have backups of the data.

The data is recoverable within 24 hours.

We have offsite hosting of this data that we have, we take the tapes and we move them at an offsite just in case.

Regular recovery testing and critical systems, we do that.

And then we have three regional data centers for distributed available services, digital services across.

One goes down, the rest, the two other data centers pick up.

They're all replicating at the same time.

Good news, we are in the final stages of bringing to operations.

The third one, which is Rainier Beach, the building that just got finished, but we have a little bit more work for the data center.

And then the compliance, we have these security controls that we have to adhere from FERPA, NITS, which is cyber security stuff, COPA, CIPA, you name it.

We have a lot of controls that we have to ensure they're in place when we are selecting software or just running the software.

and then services secured behind the firewalls with monthly patching.

That's just regular maintenance that we have.

We have pretty good relationships with the major systems engineers that that we provide for the district.

These engineers are constantly sending if there's a vulnerability that comes out tonight, by tomorrow morning we have already either the patch or some steps of what to do.

And also the regular internal audits, how I mentioned earlier, it keep us here into controls and ensure that everything is working the way it's supposed to.

and ask that for privacy.

Director Manglison.

Okay, so I kind of have one larger question and then one question slash comment.

My first, it's kind of a big question, but It says at the beginning of the AI presentation that the generative AI supports creativity and I'm curious how creativity is defined in this situation because how is I feel like a lot of the time, the principle of most of the assignments that students are, I'm talking specifically in the case of students using generative AI, the principle of the assignment is to be creative.

It is to create your own ideas.

It's to learn how to create your own ideas and thoughts, especially in the case of writing an essay or art specifically.

So that's kind of my big question is just, in what ways specifically are you seeing this generative AI support creativity?

So I think that was used as a general term, not meaning that we're taking out human creativity, but it's for people to be able to be curious about anything.

So how people read a book, listen to music, get inspired by something.

Creativity happens in all kinds of ways.

It could happen through AI, it could happen through digital tools, it could happen through a conversation, but creativity has a lot of opportunities for inspiration.

This is just a potential way you could use AI is for creativity as a tool.

One more comment on that part of my question.

I know that for myself and in my own classes, especially in my art class.

We are not allowed to use AI in any sort of way, which I think is a good thing in this situation.

as specifically for art and for English, in what I said, that is the point, is to be creative.

I think that in these cases, AI takes a lot of that away.

It takes away the creative thinking aspect of just what you're working on creating, I guess.

But I do have another question.

So in regards to the video that wasn't able to be played, I go to West Seattle High School.

And so I would like to watch the video at some point to see who's talking about this.

I know you mentioned how the students kind of pushed past the part of discussing cheating and using it nefariously, but I mean as a student at West Seattle High School who likely knows some of these students who are talking about that and disregarding that aspect, I know for a fact that the main use of AI at my school so far has been cheating.

and using it for creating essays or cheating on tests.

We had a really interesting incident last year in my AP World history class where a student emailed my teacher telling him about the sheer amount of students who were pulling out their phones during our tests to scan their questions and get answers to it.

and so I think in this, I mean I obviously, I would hope you understand that I think that student voice is incredibly important in every way, but I think this is probably a situation where we need to prioritize the voices of teachers who are seeing the use, this use of AI that's very, very prevalent and very visible from my perspective.

Yeah.

So I think this brings up a number of issues.

One is I'm not trying to minimize that cheating doesn't occur, and it's not a reality of how some students use it.

What I was making reference to was your classmates at West Seattle High School said, yes, that's an issue, but here's the issue that I'm concerned about.

Here's the issue that's important to me. and they did mention that they didn't fly over that at all.

So if I gave that impression, that's not what I intended.

The other thing I think is important of what you're mentioning is that your teacher or your teachers have the ability to be able to restrict your access or your use of it and not give you permission to use it intentionally.

and so a teacher can recommend that you can use it.

They can permit it to be used or they can say no it cannot be used.

But also I think for us is trying to create the dialogue between educators and students about how it can be used.

One more thing.

Kind of adding on to what you just said about teachers being able to make decisions regarding how AI is used in their classroom.

I feel like this is another situation where more responsibility is placed on teachers, kind of similar to how cell phones are regulated.

And I don't think it's fair to expect teachers to bear the responsibility of regulating and deciding how this tool is used on a daily basis during their thing.

I don't think that's necessarily the most important issue.

I just think that's maybe a smaller thing to consider.

Director Yoon?

We're just going to go around the table.

My first comment is, I just went to search up what creativity is to make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

It's to produce an original idea.

And AI is utilizing patterns from the internet, like books, Wikipedia.

I don't really know how that would be an original idea, so that's just my comment.

My question is, this kind of goes with what Director Mangelson said of mis-usage of AI.

Are there going to be policies around the mis-usage of AI, including having the chat GPT, for example, generating your essay?

Because from this presentation, it seems that we're trying to promote the integration of AI into education and I mean in some ways there's probably pros of it but I think we really need to lean on to the cons because as Director Mangelson said this is really a topic we need to speak with teachers because we all know that AI is replacing a lot of jobs in the workforce and I also think in the front page where it says we need to have AI literacy training and lessons, we should definitely add about how it's affecting the workforce because this could go against some of the programs we have that are promoting, I don't know, non-traditional pathways or traditional pathways that AI is replacing.

And students need to be aware of that because they might have their jobs taken away.

And my other question is what, so you said we don't need to reinvent the wheel.

What kind of research have you all done to base off a model, I guess?

Because I'm assuming when you say you're not reinventing the wheel, you're basing it off some kind of model from another district or state.

So specifically about teaching, I just think for us, we're not looking to supplant teachers at all.

Teachers need to be the center of the human interaction between a teacher and a student.

We're not interested in that at all.

What we're interested in is making sure that teachers have access to tools.

Now if a teacher is used to teaching a particular unit in a very traditional way for the last 15 years.

AI is going to change that, impact it in some way for the very reasons that you're talking about, pulling out your phone and being able to find ways to cheat or take a shortcut.

Just being clear also that cheating didn't all of a sudden just happen when a chat or AI came about.

some human nature and there's reasons for it, but specifically about how it can enhance teaching.

We are listening to the educators.

We know we need to hear more from them about what it is that they're, how they're using it, what they're concerned about for some of the issues that you raised.

Hello.

Let me add to the data privacy of that.

We're not utilizing LMs from minor school or something outside the network.

The tools that we have selected keeps the data within our management.

So LMs, we're utilizing the base LM within the system locally.

Just a follow up question, does that mean there is like no research on seeing what other districts are doing about AI or so is it just like within our district tools kind of issue?

So the steering committee has and it's on our website we have some of our research based materials are on the AI website but also it's so new we're sharing with other districts about what we're doing and we're trying to learn from what they're doing like the Peninsula School District about what they're using for their guidance in AI.

So we're definitely listening to what other districts are doing and also we're listening to our community members who are on that steering committee about some of the things that they're seeing in the professional sector that we should be aware of or concerned about or learning from.

Director Rankin.

I probably have two hours worth of things to say but I'm not going to.

We have 17 minutes and something else on the agenda.

I know.

Oh my gosh.

Okay.

I think that all together what I feel like is missing here is the why.

There's a whole bunch of what.

but I don't see, I think, I'm seeing a need for and not seeing reflected here a difference between AI as a tool for adults to streamline, to maybe cut out some busy work, to use in ways that, I use AI, I tend to, be really wordy in my writing.

I know you're all very surprised to hear that.

And I have some learning disabilities, and it saves me a lot of time to be able to word dump and be like, can you restate this at an eighth grade level?

Or can you eliminate the redundancies?

Or help me say the same thing in half the words?

and then I read it again myself and make more edits, but that's an example I feel like I'm using that as an efficiency tool.

So I can think of a lot of different ways that educators might benefit from using AI to create some efficiencies.

That's a totally, totally, totally different thing than using it in the classroom for instruction.

It's also a totally different thing than students using it to express themselves.

And so in the theory of action, I don't see those separations.

And so this, like, I mean it's a lot of information for any time of the day but especially the last time like this was just like oh my god there's so many there's so many different things here but the the thing that's missing is what are we doing this for?

And while it's out there and it's here, is not a very compelling reason to me.

And so when I think about our goals and guardrails, how is using AI helping us make progress on our goals?

How will a policy on AI help us make progress on our goals?

How will a policy and procedures on AI honor our guardrails?

I want to know that from the big picture.

and then I think we're putting, I mean, so that AI is new, is fun and exciting and interesting for adults and for students.

And maybe there's a space for like, let's just see what this can do, this is kind of cool, but what I don't see are the boundaries between like, supporting educators, and here's a tool that you can use to streamline.

Here's a tool that you can use to improve education.

And then here's also education actually about this tool.

There's all kind of these different uses, and I'm having a hard time seeing where all the pieces are, which I think is going to make any kind of implementation confusing.

I feel like because it's new, adults don't know enough about how to use it to be able to be the go-to source for students for how to best use it.

So how can we support educators in, again, the different buckets, using it for their own professional practice versus using it in the classroom?

As an artist, are we teaching about copyright and intellectual property law?

How much of something is proprietary and how much there are certain percentages of change that you can make to an image where it can be a reference to the image as opposed to where you can call it your own work, but there's very clear legal thresholds about how much change has to be made.

So are we talking about that with students about the difference also between plagiarism, inspiration, reference?

When I taught set design, I had to do a lot with students, first teaching them to think about how to do visual research when they're used to doing writing papers, where you're going to look in books at images that belong to other people for a way to build a vocabulary to say to the director, this is sort of what I'm seeing as you start to also do your own sketches, because you don't want to fully design a show and then have the director say, well, that's not what I was thinking.

So you do do a lot of pulling from other things.

And I had to teach the students about the difference.

They were like, well, isn't that plagiarism?

So you're not going to take that image and pass it off as your own.

But we reference old work and each other's work and thoughts all the time.

That's not a problem.

That's kind of a cool thing about being a person.

But so where is that teaching coming in in terms of intellectual property and copyright?

And then I'm really alarmed that somebody's using it for fact checking because at some point, AI is just repeating what AI has been provided that may or may not be true.

So that's also, again, with media literacy.

That's like, whoa, don't do that.

The environmental impact is big.

I don't know why AI has come to the forefront.

Streaming on TikTok uses a ton of water as well.

Anything that goes through these big data centers is going to use a ton of energy, which I think is something we should talk about and be aware of.

So that's I mean like I said I could keep going and then on the way the other spectrum I think it would be pretty cool and this is just a this is a Liza thinks this is cool.

This is not a policy recommendation.

We should have an option in the high school called high school of the future and let kids like who opt into it they could be on the cutting edge of like what's next.

with responsible constraints and with adults who are also in that industry excited to do it.

That could be something that is very cool for people who want to do that.

For everybody else, I just think the boundaries around when it's a tool, when it's instruct, are you using this thing to learn?

Are you learning about this thing itself?

and also when we know that just because AI is there, it's okay not to use it.

Speaking of Rocky aging himself, I remember when Google first came out, it was just like, you just wanted to look up everything.

Just because it was like, ooh, what will come up if I look up this?

So some of that will fade away.

Some of that people will realize what's useful and what's noise.

I am really concerned that we don't kind of do that experiment in real time with our students in schools without being really clear about the why.

So a lot there.

Just one second real fast.

I want to give you a chance to respond.

I also want to give Evan and Joe a chance, but I'm wrapping this meeting up at 855. So in nine minutes, I have to wrap this up.

We will not get to self evaluations.

Please fill out your packets and get them to staff.

With that, I'll let you go.

Very quickly, one of the inspirations about why we have been moving the way we have is because of an RCW state law that requires us to do so.

We have to do something.

And so we're trying to be mindful of that.

And then also for this presentation, knowing there's a million ways we could have gone down this one.

And one, it definitely will be in the future, is being able to specifically talk about the teacher perspective.

and implications, but we know and recognize there's a lot of great discussion and more information to talk about on a number of the issues that you mentioned here, specifically around teachers.

Vice President Briggs.

I'll try to keep this really short and high level.

Yeah, I guess I just, there's a lot of red flags here for me.

A lot of this sounds like big tech, like talking points, and people who have a business interest in this pitching it as why it's good, and I don't believe that that's true, and I don't, getting guidance from OSPI.

They even have on their website that their guidance was written by AI.

It takes so much intentionality to seek out information that is not influenced by the tech industry itself.

and I'm concerned that we're not getting that information because this plan doesn't seem to be informed by that information.

It seems to be informed by what the tech companies who have a profit to make want us to believe is true.

So that's a major concern of mine.

I think obviously community engagement and listening is very important, but this is another one where it's like we can't go out into the community and listen to what people, people don't know or understand how this works.

Very few people understand the implications of this technology.

So it isn't really a let's get everybody in the general public's opinion about AI.

Most people do not have informed knowledge about this technology.

So we need to go to those people in order to figure out what best practices are.

And then just as Liza mentioned, learning about the technology is not the same thing as incorporating it into the classroom.

And it is very important for students to learn from it.

But all of these all of these programs that we're buying, I mean, I feel like, to quote McLemore, we're being tricked by business.

I mean, it just, the co-pilot, for example, I'm trying to find the page where we talk about that.

And Evan, they're all trying to figure, so much money has been invested in AI,

and they're all trying to figure out how to make it profitable.

How to monetize, I know, 100%.

So that's a tale as old as time.

That's the engine on which this entire enterprise runs.

but students do not have access to this AI.

I know for a fact that that's actually not true, that they find workarounds for it.

They use the voice memo or whatever voice recognition aspect of the software and the thing spits back essays for them.

So kids are always finding workarounds.

As I think Director Yoon pointed out, or maybe it was Director Mangelson, I can't remember, but you both made excellent points and asked really great questions.

It's a lot to put on teachers too, to have to monitor what kids are doing.

with this technology that is so accessible, it's like literally on their phones, which is why this like cell phone policy is also, you can't separate these things out, like it's all interwoven.

Yeah, yeah.

So I think this is obviously a much, much larger conversation that we cannot have in depth tonight, but I guess my high-level feedback here is that I really want to have information that is not coming from any tech platform itself.

I want to know that the guidance we're receiving is from other entities that do not have a financial interest in promoting the use of these products.

Director Mizrahi.

So we might have a tech issue here.

Hang on, Director Mizrahi.

Not the best time.

See, it wasn't the video.

Director Mizrahi, we can't hear you.

No, we can't hear you Director Mizrahi.

Director Mizrahi, we are having technical difficulties with this sound.

If you have a specific question, if you want to put it in the chat or if you want to call me and I can put you on my microphone, I think that could also work.

Alright so we are going to work on the tech issue before our next board meeting.

No worries.

I do think that you know this is a large topic and we are having to cut the conversation somewhat short this evening because we need to be adjourned by 9 p.m.

that's when we lose our inter or ASL interpretation.

So I think with that we'll just sort of wrap up in this moment and Director Mizrahi, I think that both getting your question to staff and the board office can send around your question or your statement so we can all have an understanding and see it.

I appreciate the presentation.

Thank you all for being here.

Just one last sort of housekeeping item.

Again, we're not gonna get to the evaluations tonight, so please put in your score in the sheets and the packets and get that to the board office.

I appreciate, this was a long meeting.

I was not anticipating it to go this long, but I can't imagine if we had a full public testimony list, but I appreciate folks staying here.

to this hour and there being no further business to come before the board.

The regular board meeting is now adjourned at 8.54 p.m.

Thank you all.