Seattle Public Schools Board Meeting - January 18, 2023

Okay.

This is President Hersey.

I am now calling the January 18th, 2023 regular board meeting to order at 4.15 p.m.

This meeting is being recorded.

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

Ms. Wilson-Jones the roll call please.

Director Hampson is not yet here but will be joining us shortly.

Director Harris.

Vice President Rankin.

Here.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

Director Sarju.

Present.

Director Song Moritz.

Present.

Director Hassan.

Present.

And President Hersey.

That's me.

Thank you very much.

I will now turn it over to Superintendent Jones for his comments.

Good evening, board members.

Good evening, audience.

Happy belated New Year.

It's good to see you all again after the break, and I hope the break was a restful and nourishing one.

We have lots of work to do and we have a packed agenda tonight, including another chance to engage with student outcomes data.

During the progress monitoring portion of the meeting, Director Toner and I will be sharing what we know about our progress towards meeting our early literacy goals set by the board.

But before we get to that, I want to take a moment to reflect and recognize this past weekend we observed Martin Luther King Jr.

Day.

The 2023 theme for the Martin Luther King Jr.

Center for Nonviolence Change is it starts with me cultivating a beloved community mindset to transform unjust systems.

As I said last week in a note to the to the community, our schools are my beloved community.

Our beloved community.

And caring for our community is interrogating unjust systems in our district and in our society.

So our community care is also transforming our district to be better for all students.

One form of community care and one way to honor Dr. King's legacy at Seattle Public Schools is through Black Lives Matter at Schools Week of Action.

In just a moment, student member Nasira Hassan will be reading the Black Lives Matter at School Proclamation.

This year's Black Lives, Schools That Matter week action falls on February 6th through the 10th.

And in alignment with our commitment to educational and racial equity, Seattle Public Schools is committed to supporting this week of action in solidarity with our students, family, educators, and the SPS community.

The month of January is also School Board Recognition Month.

That is you all.

Governor Jay Inslee offered a proclamation on January 4th to recognize the dedication to public education service of our board members.

And I'm grateful to each one of you for your unyielding service to our students, your deep care for students.

And it's tremendous that I get to be led by you all in this role.

As a small token of appreciation, I am passing out to you and your names are on this so if you get somebody from somebody else's pass it back the other way.

This if you recall the last time I gave you gifts it was a plant and the plant represent the cultivation of students.

And this time I'm giving you a A gift that represents one of our students, but at the end of the journey.

And so what are you saying, Dr. Jones?

Well, these gift certificates are from Boon Boona Cafe.

And the owner of Boon Boona and founder of Boon Boona Cafe is a Chief Sealth graduate.

So as we start with cultivating students in the early years, we want to make sure that they are college and career ready.

This business embodies what we contributed in part to this student's growth and to now a business owner that's thriving in our community.

So those gift certificates are an expectation that you go participate at one of our graduates' place of business.

And so I'm wearing the pin right here.

Ephraim is the owner's name, and again, he's a Chief Sealth graduate.

So I just thank you.

It's a small token of appreciation from me to you, from us to you, but your service is duly noted, and again, I appreciate it.

So I want to just shift and it's an awkward shift but we will shift to really kind of talking about an update from the social media complaint.

I'm going to ask General Counsel Narver to come up and just give a very brief insight to ground us in what we are actually trying to do.

Counsel Narver.

Good afternoon.

Greg Narver, General Counsel.

Dr. Jones asked me to provide a very brief update.

Is that better?

No.

We'll just take a second.

No rush.

And he can also have mine.

Okay, how about now?

That's a little better.

Can you hear him, Director, Sergeant?

Okay, let's roll with it.

All right.

Dr. Jones asked me to provide a very brief update, and again, Greg Narver, General Counsel, of the social media lawsuit that was filed recently.

We're obviously not in an attorney-client privilege setting today, so I'm not in a position to get beyond what's in the public record or answer questions, we can do that in an executive session, which I think we're going to probably have relatively soon.

But I did want to give for the public and the board just a brief overview of what this case is about.

and where we are in it.

On January 6th, Seattle Public Schools filed a complaint in federal court against the companies that operate Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok.

We're working with an outside law firm called Keller Rohrbach, which has taken this case on what's called a contingent fee basis.

That means we're not paying them any money out of pocket to litigate this case.

If down the line we're successful and we get a recovery in the form of a judgment or settlement, they take a percentage of that to pay them for their work on the case.

But we're not paying anything while this case is being litigated.

And that's a fairly common arrangement in a case such as this.

Why are we filing this?

We are not trying to shut down social media.

We're not trying to get students to stop using social media.

Social media is something we the district use every day as a means of communication.

It can be a good educational tool.

It's a way our students have stayed in touch with each other through the pandemic and after.

We're not against any of that.

What we are seeking is more accountability from these companies and to help change the way they operate and to get them to stop some of the current practices, especially in the way they market and target young people, teenagers and preteens, in a way that has a documented adverse effect on mental health.

And what that in turn does is put a strain on us as the district, as a provider of counseling services and mental health services to these students, And we are both trying to change the behavior that we feel is contributing to a mental health crisis and to seek some compensation for the strain on services that we're feeling as a result.

I would like to urge anyone who's interested in this matter to go to the page that's on the SPS website.

You can find a link to it on the homepage.

It has a lot of information about this lawsuit, some FAQs, and a link to the complaint itself.

The complaint's a heavy lift.

It's about 90 pages long, but it has a lot of detailed information, a lot of which came from documents that came from these companies themselves about their practices.

And so if anyone is interested in learning more about why we're bringing this complaint, the effect we feel these practices have not just on our students but on the district operationally and what we're trying to achieve, I'd really encourage people to turn to that resource.

So thank you for giving me that opportunity, Dr. Jones.

Thank you General Counsel Narver and I will turn it back to you President Hersey.

Thank you, General Counsel Narva, and thank you, Superintendent Jones, for the wonderful reminder of why we do what we do through the gift of coffee to keep us all caffeinated.

Absolutely.

And if you have not been to Boombuna, there are several locations.

There's one in Renton and there's one in now Capitol Hill, if I'm not mistaken, next to Seattle U on 12th Avenue.

It is absolutely, in my opinion, the best coffee in Seattle.

Okay, we will now turn it over to Director Hassan for her comments and a proclamation for Black Lives Matter at School Week.

The proclamation will be circulated for directors and student members to sign individually at their option.

Director Hassan.

Good afternoon everyone.

I'm student board member Nasir Hassan and I'm delighted to be announcing the proclamation of Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action 2023 and Year of Purpose 2022 to 23. A proclamation of Seattle School District number one King County Seattle Washington Declaring the lives of black students matter and recognizing and encouraging participation district wide in the national 2023 Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action February 6th through February 10th 2023 and Year of Purpose 2022 to 2023. Whereas the Black Lives Matter school movement began in Seattle in the fall of 2016 through the leadership of educators and whereas the school Seattle School Board has repeatedly recognized and encouraged participation in Black Lives Matter School Week of Action and the Year of Purpose and whereas The Seattle School Board has also recognized that throughout our nation's history institutional and structural racism and injustice have led to deepening and racial disparities across all sectors of society and have lasting negative consequences for our communities cities and nation.

And whereas as a public school district we are facilitators of the limitless growth potential of human beings with a charge to guide our youth in finding and achieving their purpose with the belief that every human being deserves to live with dignity and whereas in board policy number 0030 ensuring educational and racial equality Seattle Public Schools makes a commitment to the success of every student in each of our schools and charge district staff administrators instructors communities and families with this broadly shared responsibility.

And whereas in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and countless black named and unnamed victims the Seattle School Board adopted resolution number 2019 slash 20 slash 30 to affirm Seattle Public Schools is committed to the safety of black students and resolves That black lives don't just matter they are worthy beloved and needed and therefore Seattle Public School declare that the lives of black students matter and hereby proclaim February 6th through February 10th 2023 as Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action and encourages participation district wide through discussions in classrooms and in homes throughout this week of action and the 2022 2023 year of purpose.

Thank you, Director Hassan.

As I mentioned earlier, the proclamation will soon be circulated for director signature.

Do I have that staff or does student member Hassan?

Oh, you've got it?

Okay, perfect.

At your leisure, no rush.

All right, we have now reached the board comments section of tonight's agenda.

Thank you, Director Hassan, for offering tonight's proclamation for Black Lives Matter at School Week and Dr. Jones for your recognition of the board.

As we open 2023, I am grateful for the leadership team, our board director, Superintendent Jones, and for the first time, we begin this year with student board members advising us.

Yes, absolutely.

I'll kick things off with board organizational announcements and review tonight's agenda and tee up work plan for the upcoming meetings.

First, starting with board organization.

Last year, we examined our governance structures and found that our standing committees weren't grounded in student outcomes and weren't yielding cohesive governance.

We've moved instead to the ad hoc committees working on our key priorities.

This month, we're launching an ad hoc community engagement committee.

I'll be joined on the committee by Directors Harris and Director Hampson, and I am collaborating now with Vice President Rankin to plan for the ad hoc policy committee.

We'll work to identify our permanent structure and necessary policy revisions this spring, with our old policies and committee structures snapping back into place in August if we do not complete that work.

Next, turning to agenda review.

As the first meeting in our next two meeting cycle, we have mainly new business tonight paired with a progress monitoring session on our third grade reading goal.

Following tonight's session, we'll review graduation rates and advance course completion during our March 15th progress monitoring session.

Before we close out tonight's meeting, we will also begin a more deliberate process of self-evaluation, beginning with our first time use evaluation.

Director Rivera-Smith will be monitoring our use of time in tonight's meeting.

We will continue to evaluate time use regularly this year, and we'll also discuss our broader goals and government practices at the close of our regular meetings.

Now turning to the work plan.

Finally, I'll highlight our work on the horizon.

We have a budget work session next week, and we also have several major capital project work streams before us.

Last year, voters renewed our BTA-5 capital levy, and we'll review a board action report adopting an implementation plan for that levy in March.

We are also planning for our BEX 6 capital levy, which is pending future board action.

We'll go to the voters in February of 2025. Our first task will be a work session in April during which we will work to identify the board's guiding principles for the next levy.

Finally, underpinning our work with both levies will be recommendations from the Clean Energy Task Force convened pursuant to a resolution authored by Director Rivera-Smith and former Director Zachary Pullen in 2021. Thank you, Director Rivera-Smith, for your leadership on this.

I'm excited for us to have those recommendations as we engage in capital levy planning.

We'll now move into our board reports and other reports for tonight.

Do we have a BEX and BTA Capital Programs Oversight Committee report?

The BEX Capital Oversight Committee met last Friday.

Director Rivera-Smith and I are both ex-officio members of that committee.

And there was really nothing new to report out.

It was just a status update on how we were spending against our levy.

The previous meeting, there was some concern about the final collection of a previous levy, but that got resolved.

And so, yeah.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

All right.

Do we have a report from our legislative liaison?

Yes.

Thank you.

So the legislative session for 2023 is in its second week now.

As the legislative liaison for our board, I communicate with legislators and staff on Bills related to our priorities, which just as a reminder for everyone, includes in the area of funding, specifically special education and transportation, supporting student learning, supporting student well-being, and stable and equitable operations.

And you can find more details on what's included in those on our website.

So anything that falls into those priorities that we adopted as a board, I'm following and communicating with legislators and staff on behalf of Seattle Public Schools.

Within that there have been a lot of bills that have dropped already and have been introduced in committee related to special education and transportation and I just want to you know and this is we're just at the beginning so many things will evolve and change but I we're starting off really strong and positive and I just want to thank The legislators, our Seattle delegation is showing up so strong, co-sponsoring and authoring a number of bills that related to our priorities.

And I just want to say thank you to the Seattle delegation and to those from outside the Seattle delegation who have been so responsive and collaborative with us on feedback and checking in with us about different implications for Seattle.

We really appreciate it.

And so let's keep that momentum going.

It's great.

I also meet with WASDA legislative representatives.

WASDA is the Washington State School Director Association and I represent our board on that.

And we have a lot of things that align between our district priorities and the WASDA priorities and then the WASDA priorities go way broader.

So they are following All kinds of bills that are things that are important to us.

For example, there were four really strong gun violence prevention and gun safety laws that dropped in the House this week.

This week?

Last week?

This week.

With a lot of our CLL delegations signing on.

So thank you so much.

I know that's an issue that's very important to this board and our students and community and we really appreciate that work.

If you are interested in following specific bills, there are a lot of great bill trackers online for organizations that have similar priorities or overlapping priorities with us.

So for anybody out there who wants to follow particular bills or see what's coming up, WASDA has a really good bill tracker.

Alliance for Gun Responsibility sends out action alerts.

Washington State PTA sends out information and action alerts and we're very closely aligned with a lot of them.

So I encourage folks to look there.

As the representative for Seattle Public Schools I can provide information but I cannot direct advocacy which is why I'm not saying you know such and such bill and tell your legislator whatever because I'm like that's not the role that I have so that we're allowed to do using our district resources for that so but the information is out there.

There's a lot of heavy lifts a lot of really great work happening and it's early but I feel really Hopeful that we'll continue to see great work.

I will be in Olympia at the end of next month, end of this month, end of next month, at least with WASDA and possibly other times.

I'm not sure.

Fourth and fifth graders from Wedgwood Elementary are going to Olympia in a couple of weeks.

So yeah, so far so good on session.

And thanks to all of you who are engaged and supportive of stuff for our students and school system.

Thank you.

President Hersey might I ask Vice President Rankin to shout out Seattle Special Ed PTSA for the online meeting with the Seattle delegation.

Oh yes.

Thank you.

That feels like it was a long time ago but it was just a couple weeks ago.

Yes, thank you so much to Representative Paulette and Sam Fogg from Seattle Council PTSA for kind of initiating all of that and organizing.

There were a lot of co-sponsors including SEA, Seattle Special Education PTSA and community partners and it was a really great opportunity We invited Seattle.

Seattle delegation was invited.

I was there and a staff person to represent and answer questions for SPS.

And we had a great, great response.

That is available online.

I think if you go to the Seattle Council PTSA website probably, We heard from students, from educators, from community partners and it really kicked off going into this session very strong.

So thank you for that reminder and thank you Sam Fogg and Seattle Council PTSA and everyone else who participated.

Fantastic.

Thank you Director Rankin and thank you for the assist Director Harris.

Do we have any additional liaison reports at this time?

Go for it.

I'll just give a brief tribal liaison update.

Just as a note I did did have the opportunity to attend the native heritage night that staff and students put on at Chief South which was amazing.

On a very rainy stormy night there was a great crowd in attendance and really good good energy and presentations and dancing.

So grateful for that.

And then I did want to note today we had a government to government task force meeting which is a part of the state law that requires government to government consultation between tribes and school boards and I sit on that committee with representatives from Washington State School Directors Association Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

They have a new office of tribal consultation and we I won't say finalized but flushed out the agenda for a set of meetings that are going to be happening where school board members and tribal representatives will come to have our first initial sessions to learn about what it means to have government to government consultation.

So I just wanted to briefly share those dates.

And locations with you again it would be great to have a fellow board member attend at least one of these with me or more anyone who's interested should plan to attend.

So there'll be one on April 20th in La Conner which is near the Swinomish reservation.

May 5th in Spokane that's more for the eastern districts and tribes and then May 18th in Yakima.

So for us between Yakima and Lacaner Lacaner being the closest one again that's April 20th May 5th and May 18th.

So that was based on initial feedback from tribal leadership as to what that agenda is going to look like and as I get more information I'll be sure to share with you all.

And we I sent some information to Superintendent Jones today regarding how we can better work through the using max data approaches to how we count our native student population and some information to support us in making sure that we are in fact capturing all the native students that we have in this district and that will help feed into what we're able to the agreements were able to enter into with Suquamish and Muckleshoot tribes who are two treaty tribes for this area.

And I think that's it.

If anyone has any questions feel free to let me know.

Oh and I will I have some data that I received from WASDA in this meeting that I will share with everyone I was hoping to have it ready to go but I'm having trouble with my WASDA password but I will make sure to share the link with everyone that breaks down by student group The behaviors it's research that breaks down by student group the behaviors that contribute on school boards that contribute most positively to outcomes for students.

Apparently WASDA has a treasure trove of this data around board behavior and student outcomes.

So we were all really excited to get access to this data so there's some There are some differences between native students black students Pacific Islander students and I will share that with you.

I know what some of the characteristics are for native students but I haven't gotten into it more deeply but look forward to Sharing that with you as well and reached out to Director Rankin.

One of the things on the list of those behaviors is for native families and students is advocating at the state level for things that matter to those students and their families.

And so I immediately reached out to Director Rankin to find out what she knows in terms of beyond organizations that I might know that I could look to to make sure that we're bringing those to the table for specific student groups.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Finally any board engagement opportunities for us to discuss tonight.

Go ahead Director Harris.

Community meeting Saturday this Saturday January 21 2 p.m.

High Point Library.

That's the Southeast corner of 35th Avenue Southwest and Raymond Street.

3411 35th Avenue Southwest.

Lasagna and hopefully two of my fellow colleagues will be joining us.

We have very thoughtful semi rowdy conversations and it's worth your time.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

All right.

We will next go to public testimony.

We will be taking public testimony by phone and in person, as stated on the agenda.

Board procedure 1430BP provides the rules for testimony, and I ask that speakers are respectful of these rules.

I will summarize some important parts of this procedure.

First, testimony will be taken today from those individuals called from our public testimony list.

If applicable the waiting list which are included on today's agenda posting on the school board website.

Only those who are called by name should unmute their phones or step forward to the podium.

Only one person should speak at a time.

Speakers from the list may cede their time to another person when the listed speaker's name is called.

The total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for the combined number of speakers.

Time will not be restarted after the new speaker begins and the new speaker will not be called again later if they are on the testimony list or the waiting list.

Those who do not wish to have their time ceded to them may decline and retain their place on the testimony or wait list.

The majority of the speaker's time should be spent on the topic they have indicated they wish to speak about.

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

Ms. Ku will read off the testimony speakers.

Thank you, President Hersey.

A quick logistical note, speakers joining us via phone, please remain muted until your name is called to provide testimony.

When your name is called, please be sure you have unmuted on the device you are calling from, and also press star six to unmute yourself on the conference call line.

Each speaker will have a two-minute speaking time.

You will hear a beep when your time is exhausted, and the next speaker will be called.

The first speaker on the list is our student from Skill Center, Ireland Scogland.

Hi, my name is Ireland Scoglin.

I'm a senior at Cleveland High School and I'm the Skill Center Program Fight Fire and EMS.

This is my second year in the program and it's actually benefited me in a lot of ways.

I've gotten a lot stronger, more confident and I've pushed myself and I've grown a lot of leadership skills.

Last year going into this class I was a little shy.

I didn't speak up and I was the last to volunteer to do anything that wasn't strictly academic.

This year I'm a company officer and I'm leading other peers in my group to success and making sure they know how to stand up for themselves and how to do new things, even though it was terrifying.

Even this fall through this program I earned my wildland red card which means if I so choose to I could apply to be a wildland firefighter and I was actually the only girl in that entire group of 25 guys and it was pretty daunting but here I am with my wildland red card.

Also this fall Thank you.

Also this fall I was accepted into my first choice college University of Alaska Fairbanks which has an amazing firefighter program which I also learned about through my skill center class.

My plan is to attend their summer fire academy Starting in July and work for the scholarship fire department and be a full-time student firefighter.

I'm applying to that position currently and I'm actually really grateful to say that one of my instructors in my class provided a letter of recommendation for me.

Because of how this class has impacted me I now have a good direction in my life and I'm actually excited about my plan after high school.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins box eight four zero six three Seattle nine eight one two four on proposed construction projects at Montlake John Rogers Alki Madison and West Seattle High School.

Three points.

Number one please pull items number six number seven and number 17 from the consent agenda to allow discussion.

Number two each project is too big for its site.

Number three please vote no on these items.

On the social media complaint filed by the district.

I appreciate the district citation of problems.

The district can also directly reduce problems itself by providing more teaching by humans rather than by machines.

On the school board's own training five points.

Number one the school board is worrisomely following recommendations of an outside consultant about what is sometimes called student outcomes focused governance.

Number two.

Some examples.

District data recently indicated that current district plans to improve academic results were not working.

The recommended response was to change.

Number three.

The board instead accepted the superintendent's plan to quote stay the course unquote because passports supposedly did not do so.

In other words the change was to stay the course.

The board's easy acceptance of this topsy-turvy approach is worrisome.

Number four.

At a recent board work session the consultant called on compliant board members to read out loud supposed definitions of things such as why there are school boards.

It was reminiscent of some sort of cult.

Number five as a part of its training the board is treating concerns of the public as quote distractions unquote that they should deliberately ignore.

This is disrespectful of the public and of the board's duties under state law.

Thank you very much.

The next speaker on the list is Arthur Doros.

Hello, many thanks to the board.

I sincerely appreciate what you do.

Today I spent a good part of all my day before getting here at a school, public elementary school, with talking to 400 kids.

400 meant once for an hour, so that was challenging, and then doing workshops.

One thing they reminded me of is a little levity, which you don't usually have time for here, so I got to wear my alligator nose, so I was good.

But I really do appreciate your work deeply, your good-hearted work.

I've been a 35-year resident of Montlake, where the Montlake project, the remodel and additions are supposed to take place.

And I'm fully in support of that, as are most people in my neighborhood.

However, they're so Everybody says, why so big?

So that's been an ongoing narrative, and I'm going to tap on that today because it relates a lot.

You all are dealing a lot with the BEX and the BEX V issues.

I think it's important, I'm going to tag on to what Dr. Jones said, it's important to look at institutional accuracy or the well-being or correction that we need to try to look at at times.

So in two areas, I'd like you to take a look.

There's a packet up there.

It says BEX V. Voters and population prediction surprises.

We've been surprised that we've been told over and over again we have to make this school for 500 in this tiny site.

We have the second smallest in the city and in practice the smallest site.

Because there are future predictions of size need.

So basically you can see that the district, those are the district's own predictions.

For the next 10 years they decline or stay flat.

That's one thing I think you should really look carefully at.

The BECCS also had a prediction in it.

You can see on this page, if I run out of time, what the data is.

The other issue is the accuracy.

Is that it?

I'm out of two minutes or no?

No, I don't think so.

Okay, all right.

Something happened there with a timer, so I'm really puzzled.

Anyway, sorry about that.

So for many years, we've predicted enrollments haven't materialized.

The next five which Montlake is under was actually we had to go back and dig because we couldn't find where what's the motivation for this and we were told it was projections of growth.

Well that projection from a study in 2017 said it was going to grow from 2017 that there be growth until now.

There has not been growth it's gone smaller not just because of COVID but because of A lot of trends, I'm not gonna get into all that.

But the district themselves, now with the new studies that you have in hand there, there's one that has a yellow sheet for a 10 year study, and it's saying flat or reduced growth.

For a building to be built in excess size, this is an institutional, You know something that seems we don't want to carry on programs that are non-productive.

And as you know from the Becks it's also not true that it has to be done that way.

There was no information and we went back and looked at the voters pamphlets.

We've been told by the district over and over again that this you voted for 500. There's absolutely nothing there about school sizes about 500 nothing.

It's right there in your hands.

You can look at the what the voters had to look at.

And that was all the information that was out there.

And it allows you to make changes.

That's the good thing.

And you're going to be doing that today.

I know in a lot of projects transferring money, you could create equity in a lot of programs by taking some of the excess money from just making like a little bit smaller so it doesn't have the massive impacts that it's going to have by being three stories, three times the height of our neighboring And it's very narrow streets in extremely busy traffic areas.

Some of you may know it personally.

I know some of you do.

And we've already got a lot of traffic going through there.

It's already dangerous.

Every parent just about walks their kids.

No matter what their background, they walk their kids to school.

So I hope that you will acknowledge the realities of the exceptional situation.

and as well as the district's own proven projected flat population growth to build a school that is reasonable response to the situation.

If scaled back to 350 you could use that extra money could reduce a tremendous amount of problems and it could the money could be used in other schools that can sorely need it and I've been surprised we've been surprised that you don't want to move some of that money 80 million dollars move some of it over to schools that really need it.

We're asking for more not less and we appreciate your time and a look at justice so thank you very much.

The next speaker on the list is Victoria Habas.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can hear you.

Go ahead.

Am I coming in okay?

I star 6.

Yeah, Victoria, we can hear you.

Can you hear us?

Okay.

Yep.

You're loud and clear.

I'll go ahead.

Thanks for having me.

This is a follow-up to my testimony at the 30 November board meeting where I walked away a little concerned that you all as a board were not given best information as I heard it.

So I went home and did some homework.

I want to make sure you all are provided with the best available information.

I think you were Misled on a couple fronts, to be honest.

So the real plea from my two minutes here is to ask the board to advocate for this community.

We are not getting a great response from community forums.

There's only been one where we didn't have much time to speak at all, eight minutes in total.

And so we're really imploring upon this board to be our representatives that do the homework and look at the facts and data on these issues.

One example at that meeting the speaker told you that we can't afford to build small schools but truthfully Roxell Elementary was built at 360 students.

So there's an example that we have built smaller schools.

Magnolia is only 490 students so we have built smaller schools.

Hopefully you will ask why Montlake isn't being considered for a smaller school size for its site.

Truthfully it's concerning because we all know that funding is scaled to enrollment so To build a facility that can't reach its target enrollment of 500 students I can't I think you might be concerned to wonder how a facility that size would be maintained if it doesn't hit its enrollment target.

A smaller school has a chance at hitting its enrollment target and being funded sufficiently for its size.

At that meeting you also were told that there was postulation that Seattle will grow.

There might be conversion from single-family to multi-family.

I think we'd rather fall back on facts and data rather than that supposition.

So Arden, some of us have provided you with the actual enrollment projections from your own enrollment department.

And there is nothing to support that type of growth in the neighborhood.

I think you should be poking at that.

Finally someone stated that the ED spec does not include parking that's just factually untrue.

Section 2.6 of the General Elementary School Education spec calls out the requirements for parking including ADA parking.

So in general, I'm just here to beg the board to lean into this issue, to demand better facts and data, to do the homework, to make sure that you're getting truth from your project managers and the teams surrounding the Montlake project in particular.

I would ask you to look at why the cookie-coder approach of 500 kids is being applied to Montlake when it's such a unique site.

Thanks for your time and for all your effort to the important work in the forum today.

That's all I have.

The next speaker on the list is Jeannie Vostach.

Oh sorry I need to keep one copy.

Good afternoon.

Thank you so much for all your work and everyone works for Seattle schools or the union.

I do believe we don't go into this with any ill intent and we all have that common goal of helping our children.

I was personally impacted by a traumatic gun shooting in 2017. Since then, because of the impact when it happens to loved ones, it stirred me to try to do everything I could to make sure it wouldn't happen here.

I started to do a lot of research and learning about it.

And I've been before the board before years ago trying to advocate for a program called Sandy Hook Promise.

It started from the Sandy Hook parents.

They took their trauma and worked on researching also what kind of programs could help prevent that from happening to other families.

It's research driven, it's proven to work, and it's free.

I actually already logged in to all the courses.

The program called Say Something is a curriculum that fits along with our current SEL curriculum.

You can log in right now and watch the videos that kids would be learning in class about how to recognize the science for gun violence, including suicide.

How to report them.

Since the tragic shooting at Ingram, I've seen that we do have a hotline now that's out, but I'm not sure how kids are learning about the hotline or what signs they're learning to look for, including staff.

Sandy Hook's free programs also teach these Know the Signs curriculum.

This petition that I shared with you, I'd like the QR code to be shared also with the viewers at home.

We've sent this to Superintendent Jones, and we haven't heard back yet.

I'm glad that you came out after the shooting, Superintendent, with promises for a district safety and security assessment, community action team, and a child wellbeing council.

We've asked several times, including your own school board members, for an update on that with specifics.

I'd like to know how you're assessing the safety, a list of checklists, and who's involved in that assessment.

I'd like to know who's invited to the community action team and when will they meet and how will that be publicized similar to the ways that Issaquah and North Shore both have public meeting notes on their community action teams that are specifically for school safety improvement and your promise to start a child wellbeing council.

I'd also like to know where we stand on that and what the timeline is.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Christy Renier.

Hi there, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Go ahead.

Okay, thank you.

My name is Christy Renier and I'm a parent to three students, one with identified learning disabilities and another who is showing signs of dyslexia.

I'm also the co-chair of the Dyslexia Committee for the Seattle Special Education PPSA.

Thank you for the launch of new culturally responsive texts into classrooms that reflect the diversity of our students.

This is an important aspect of inclusion representation and joyful learning.

But I have concerns about the report explaining why SPS is not on track to meet its 2023 literacy goal for African-American males and students of color furthest from educational justice.

SIPS a research-based foundational skills program used to help both new and struggling readers wasn't evenly adopted across all schools.

The teachers who were trained in SIPS years ago at the 13 priority schools identified in the report have not received continued training in implementing the program and there are still teachers who were never trained in SIPS.

It is vital that there is continued investment in supporting teacher development in the science of reading.

Do all our teachers believe they have the skills tools and knowledge needed to truly inform instruction practices across all tiers?

That's not what we're hearing.

It is encouraging to see the simple view of reading in your report which states automatic word recognition and language comprehension equal reading comprehension.

Your four-year strategic literacy plan excels at providing rich text for students but automatic word recognition is absolutely essential to creating skilled readers.

Improvement will happen when teachers have the needed tools to support both language development and automatic word decoding.

Research shows this is when we will start seeing the benefit for all students.

SPS please follow the science of reading.

Families want it and our children need it.

I will leave you with a quote from NAACP and literacy activist Kareem Weaver.

If your literacy program is not structured to get the most number of kids to the top there is no equity.

There can be no equity no social justice without literacy.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Jana Parker.

Jana Parker, if you're on the line, please press star six to unmute.

Hello?

Hi, Jana.

We can hear you.

Hello?

Hi.

This is Jana Parker.

Oh Yana Parker I'm so sorry.

This is Yana Parker of Seattle Special Education PTSA board member and I am here today to elevate a teacher's voice and they requested to remain anonymous.

I'm a district special education teacher who taught all grade levels in some capacity for 18 plus years.

Before completing my special education endorsement in 2013. Previously I've worked with preschool to 12th grade students as a teacher in elementary education advanced learning art music and reading intervention.

I want to understand what the district dyslexia dyslexia services are so I can do my part to help you do better for our students.

That's the goal of my testimony today.

I've spent an excessive amount of time trying to figure out what kind of support do students with dyslexia receive from the district.

The district's website mentions screening first and second graders aligned with the state mandate.

Unfortunately that's about all there is that I was able to find.

I haven't located any information about what happens after students get screened and identified nor have I learned How older students get the dyslexia specific reading interventions they need to learn and make progress.

There aren't any names associated with the website only a generic email address that I've not had any luck with.

I've been tasked from person to person at the district level to no avail.

It was not reassuring to say the least to finally be referred back to special education staff because my student had an IEP.

Only to have my query dropped.

It's been very frustrating.

This lack of clear information has left me with a year-long impression of no one that no one seems to know what's available and there's no one in charge.

Who is the chain dyslexia expert in assigned to field these questions.

Is there an actual plan to follow through and help these especially vulnerable students learn to read.

What research-based dyslexia curricular and training have been have been and currently are available for teachers.

It should be much easier to do right by our struggling students.

I like the collaborative literacy program and I can also tell you that it doesn't work for students with more intensive needs.

What is your commitment to creating equitable reading instruction For the population of students who need a cohesive program not something teachers must piece together by making it up.

I appreciated this opportunity to share my experience.

Please let me know how I can be a further assist service.

If you would like to connect with this teacher you are welcome to reach out to us and we would we can send a message.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Sherilyn Crowther.

Hello I'm Sherilyn Crowther my pronouns are she her and I'm the president of the Seattle Special Education Parent Teacher Student Association.

While our PTSA focuses on disabilities including dyslexia I'm here to follow up on questions raised by school board directors in how we teach Seattle students to read.

The progress monitoring memo shows that one third of African-American males and less than half of students of color furthest from educational justice will score as proficient or above on the language arts portion of this year's third grade standardized tests.

Sadly, this is in line with the national trend, but Seattle planned to be different, setting a five-year goal due next year.

We have one year to move both groups from about one-third and less than half to 70 percent.

This gap is why the memo says interim metrics indicate results are unlikely to be delivered without significant changes.

I'm paraphrasing questions by several of your directors in the written Q&A and asking what are those significant changes.

According to the staff answers, we have the right strategy.

That said, we would welcome ongoing conversations about setting annual targets for student outcomes in future years.

Shifting the goal.

They also answer that while core literacy instruction is the most important area, increasing the overall education dose through high dosage tutoring after school can have large effects.

To answer those, I quote educator and NAACP literacy activist, Kareem Weaver, if half the kids can't read without paying for outside tutors, you don't have an intervention problem, you have a core instruction problem.

Weaver calls literacy a civil right.

Let Seattle lead in this critical issue for children and families.

As Christy Renier of our PTSA's Dyslexia Committee said, please follow the science of reading.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Alex Zimmerman.

Alex Zimmerman, if you're on the line, please press star six to unmute.

The next speaker on the list is Brian Reeves.

Hi, Brian.

We can hear you.

Great.

Board members, thank you for your service and for listening today.

I live in the Montlake neighborhood and intend to send my child to Montlake Elementary in a few years.

I look forward to the school being modernized and made accessible for all.

I voted for the BEX V levy but I did not vote for the size of the school that is proposed for Montlake.

As you've heard from parents, neighbors, the media and voters the practice of applying 500 student model onto what is the Onto the smallest elementary school sites when capacity is not justified by projected growth causes both immediate and long-term negative impacts for students and neighborhoods.

The impacts to recreation space, transportation safety, public health, and the natural environment have already been described by others.

A consequence of overbuilding that I haven't heard much about is the potential for school closures.

A few questions.

Will a greater amount of variation in excess capacity contribute to school closures in the future?

What happens to students when the time required to get to school increases?

Do parents engage with teachers at the same rate when school is further from home?

Questions like these deserve answers and transparency.

Please investigate if the school could better apply the practice used by other districts where all projects are designed to support long-term expansion but immediate expansion is to accommodate 20 years of optimistic growth instead of 50 or more years.

Each time the board agrees to overbuild new risks are introduced and it is a lost opportunity to use funds to address urgent needs for major maintenance at deserving schools across the district.

The next time you were able to speak up and ask questions about capacity in an education educational specification or for a specific school I ask you to please do so.

Thank you for your time.

The next speaker on the list is Carol Terrell.

Okay make sure that you can hear me first.

Okay I am here to talk about Al-Kai Elementary School.

My first question is why the rush?

Why are we pushing so hard to get this done so very quickly?

Why aren't we doing an environmental study or adhering to even the zoning laws?

Alki is built on sand.

I don't understand why you're not addressing the lucrification problems and the building construction of it in and of itself.

It feels like you're putting a semi truck in a sandbox in that small footprint we have.

If there was to be a natural disaster, earthquake, tsunami, we are on the flatlands there.

The last king tide we had came up to the road of Alki.

You have three minutes to evacuate 750 students.

You can't even get kids in a bus in three minutes.

I don't know how you're going to get them up to the hill, up to the heights.

The roads will be clogged.

There's two roads in.

Admiral, which is now a two-lane road, and Alki, which is another two-lane road.

You can barely get emergency response teams in there now as it is.

Even with staggered pickups and drop-offs, there's going to be an impact in the area all day long.

I don't understand why you're taking a 1.4 acre site and putting this large building on it a four story building on such a small site when right above we have a 7.4 acre site of Schmidt Park.

We have Sandlot which is an option and we also have Pathfinder which is another good option.

And all those sites could be considered for a K through 8 if you're looking for more students.

That would take the pressure off the two middle schools of Madison and Denny in and of itself.

That's a huge option for you right there.

It wasn't long ago that Seattle Schools Board was trying to get Al-Qaeda designated historic site sorry.

OK I'm just going to sign off with this one thing.

Ms. Harris I was there the night that you decided to run for office.

We cheered you on with the words of you saying you would listen to the small people who voted for you and I hope that promise still holds true.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Mark Terrell.

Yes, thank you so much for letting us talk here, and there's a lot going on for you guys, I get that.

But I'm also gonna, it's really not much for me to say, because everyone else talking about the school rebuilds, pretty much the same thing.

You guys are picking these small neighborhoods with these small footprints that you're trying to Build these large schools at.

It doesn't make sense, really.

Anyone that switched down to Alki, anyone that lives down there or goes down there knows what the traffic is like down there now, especially with the added bike lanes, reducing the streets down there.

It doesn't make sense, really, to grow that big.

Yes, my son went to Alki Elementary.

I love it.

We've been there for over 30 years.

Yes, the place does need to be fixed up, right?

A nice remodel would be great there.

There's still room north of the building, south of the building to expand.

To go up three stories does not make sense.

When you could use that money at other locations, whether it's Lafayette, Schmitz Park, like my wife said, other schools, give them some money to help remodel those schools as well to enlarge their classrooms there, to expand the room for the students.

That makes more sense than going down and building a huge building Down in Alki.

It really is irresponsible to me to hear that.

When I was first moved to Alki, I get it.

We need to grow.

The city's growing.

I was instrumental in adding the remodel to the Alki Community Center when I was on the president of the Alki Community Center board.

I also helped build a new snack shack and storage building at Baris Playfield.

I get it.

We need to make things nicer, make it better for the kids, but let's do it right.

Let's do it respectfully and responsibly and take care of the neighborhoods, not just do it just because you guys think we need to build a huge building to accommodate a bunch of kids.

Let's spread it out.

Let's be smart with our money, take care of the kids, do it right with the neighborhood.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Kathy Kelly.

Kathy Kelly.

Kathy, if you're on the line, please press star six to unmute.

Moving on to our next speaker, Ellen Peterson.

Hello, Ellen Peterson.

I live in the neighborhood of the John Rogers.

Oh, I live very near the John Rogers Elementary School.

I am almost 30 years on 105th Street, and I would have to say the elementary school is a very good neighbor.

I like having that close by, but the project, as I understand it, you have decided to waive environmental review.

I have a number of concerns about that.

Thornton Creek runs right along one of the long edges of the property with some rather large trees there that I would hate to see damaged or any damage to the creek at all.

The kids at John Rogers put salmon fry in there, trying to get them to come back as adults.

I also, similar to the Alki concern, Meadowbrook area is a liquefaction zone.

I learned that only after buying my house 30 years ago.

I worry about putting a three-story elementary school on or near that liquefaction zone.

We have other trees that are right on the property that's going to be changed, and I'm sure they're not what the city calls exceptional trees or groves per se, but they should be respectfully protected during A project and I'm not sure that the developer has taken any of that into consideration, so I would very much like to see an environmental study done on the project before it's finalized.

Thanks.

Before we end today's testimony, I want to go back and check on those who have missed their turn.

The first is Alex Zimmerman.

Alex Zimmerman if you're on the line please press star six to unmute.

And the next is Kathy Kelly.

Kathy if you're on the line please press star six to unmute.

This concludes today's testimony.

Thank you very much, Ms. Clue.

As stated, that concludes public testimony for the meeting.

Thank you all so much for making the time to come and speak with us.

We truly appreciate your engagement.

All right.

Moving on to business action items, we will begin with the consent agenda.

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

You may have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

Fantastic.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Vice President Rankin and seconded by Director, I had it already programmed, seconded by Director Sarju.

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

You say something every week for a year, it gets implanted.

Yeah, no, seriously, seriously.

All right.

Okay seeing none.

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

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

Abstentions.

The consent agenda has passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

We will now move on to the remaining action items on today's agenda.

Let's see.

I believe we have two, if I'm not mistaken.

Okay.

We only have one.

All right.

So the first action item on today's agenda is approval of the 2023-24 school year calendar.

May I have a motion for this item?

I move that the school board approve the 2023 2024 school year calendar as attached to the board action report with any minor non-substantive additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

I second the motion.

Do I have talking points or are we.

Oh, it's the process steps.

Got it, got it, got it.

Give me one moment.

Oh, okay, cool.

So do we have a staff member that would produce?

Okay, there we go.

Sorry, I didn't see you, Dr. Pritchett.

Please take it away.

It's the hair.

It's a little different, so.

Yeah, absolutely.

Good to see you.

Good evening.

Dr. Sarah Pritchett, Interim Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources.

I'm here to present for introduction and action the 2023-24 school year calendar in compliance with our collective bargaining agreement with Seattle Education Association.

We have agreed to and are presenting and recommending the adoption of our school year calendar to the board as stated no later than January 31st.

The 2023-24 school year calendar has been created using the formula as outlined in the approved Seattle Education Association collective bargaining agreement with the exception of the day in between semesters.

As a note for the past two years due to inclement weather we have not had a day in between semesters and as such the 22 23 school year 22 23 I'm sorry 20 23 24 school year calendar has been negotiated with SEA and other unions and does not have a day in between semesters.

The calendar without the day in between semesters will be helpful in the event that there are inclement weather or other delays which will push back the end of the school year.

We will have additional time to be able to make up towards the end of the school year if necessary.

Labor and employee relations staff have invited representatives from all 13 collective bargaining groups to review the revised 2023-24 calendar.

Options were considered including adjusting breaks Seattle Education Association agreed to the attached calendar and other unions have not raised concerns or objections to what we are presenting this evening.

As you are aware, the matter of the academic calendar is primarily a subject of negotiations with SEA and is therefore limited is limited to direct community engagement on the subject.

However, we did create feedback form to capture community engagement on the calendar as well as on the jointly created document, the guidance regarding religion and religious accommodations to inform future calendar negotiations.

For the community feedback, we received over 3,000 responses.

72% of those responses were from family members.

25% of the responses were from staff and 2% from students and 1% from community members.

I won't go over everything but I just wanted to give a highlight of some of the things that we some of them feedback that we did receive.

We received a lot of feedback that the school year should start earlier perhaps in late August so that the end of the school year does not extend into late June.

We did also receive some feedback that people like to start after Labor Day.

Midwinter break was the most discussed item with the vast majority of feedback was to shorten to a long weekend or eliminate the break altogether.

And then we also got feedback that emergency closure make-up days should be done in remote status for permanently.

So we are taking that information, we're sharing it with SEA and we are going to use that as we look at future calendar negotiations.

We also did get feedback around our guidance regarding religion and religious accommodations.

So we've worked together with the Seattle Education Association to create this guidance.

And while we cannot change school year dates to accommodate every religious and cultural observance the district does recognize that individual schools know their community and by using that jointly created guidance we have asked schools to consider the days of religious and cultural observances that would occur within their school community and that they make accommodations and supports available.

And be provided to families and students if they're unable to avoid scheduling educationally significant days on religious and cultural dates.

In closing it is our recommendation that the proposed calendar be adopted so that we can promptly inform staff students and families of next year's calendar for planning purposes.

Additionally the adoption of the revised calendar for the 23-24 school year will allow for development of individual school schedules and for students and families again to plan and schedule family activities outside of school time.

Thank you Dr. Pritchett.

Do we have any questions from directors?

I see Director Harris and then I see Director Rankin and I see Director Rivera-Smith so we'll go in that order.

So it's no surprise that our emails blew up regarding this year's calendar.

I think I counted over a hundred emails and A great deal of concern if not downright anger about that.

So I guess I'm confused A why this is intro and action today and B what power the school board has other than rubber stamping it when we've heard all of that concern.

Midwinter break apparently is Potentially the most contentious part of this proposed agreement, but it seems as though this ship has already sailed, and then next year when we have more snow days, or even if we have more snow days, it's only January, Then our students would be going to school in July and folks are distressed.

So when do we bite the bullet and have a real conversation with community engagement about the calendar as opposed to having it brought to us gift wrapped?

Thank you.

So first I'd like to say that there is contract language which we do have to abide by and we do need to negotiate with Seattle Education Association and come to agreement before we can bring a proposal.

One of the pieces that we looked at when we looked at our feedback and we talked about this with our labor unions that this would be something that we'd like to use as we go forward in looking at what our community thinks about particular days as we look to develop calendars in the future.

As for Any snow days that are coming I'm happy to say that we have worked in partnership with Seattle Education Association to get ready for remote work remote days if necessary for inclement weather.

We feel confident about that.

We're actually really proud of the work that we've done together jointly to get prepared and ready in case this year in particular we have snow days But again, I'll take that feedback.

It can be a frustrating situation to look at a calendar and have it already have been negotiated and then coming forward, and I understand that frustration.

Thank you.

Director Rankin, do you still have a question?

Thank you.

Yeah it's actually a follow up from the question that I excuse me the question that I submitted ahead of time and got an answer to.

So that makes sense to me that the that the feedback on the forums was about midwinter break and the start and end of the school year.

And so my question is when or what would be so the calendar is one of those things that Well, it's one of the only things that directly impacts every single student, family, staff person, teacher, everybody, and even people outside the school system, outside organizations provide services based on the Seattle School District calendar.

It really, I mean, it's unavoidable pretty much if you live in a city with a school district to have anything happen that isn't impacted somehow by, I mean, even if it's just more kids At the mall or something during certain times of the year.

And so it's my question was about how other districts approach the development of the calendar because it does seem it doesn't seem odd to me to talk with SEA and other labor partners about it.

That seems totally appropriate and necessary.

But what does seem odd is that something that impacts everybody isn't discussed with other groups as well.

And so my question is not about the disapproval because it is based on you know as you said but going forward where and maybe this is for Director or Superintendent Jones where Is the space, and I know there's always so many things going on that the calendar seems like almost an administrative detail, but it is really, everybody's life is impacted by it.

And there's a lot of research to show that an extended school year, With more frequent breaks that goes actually further into the summer is really good for student outcomes.

And there's in fact OSPI grants available in several districts in the state of Washington that have employed those grants to look at expanded offerings.

Some of them have done some of them have extended the school year and some of them have used that grant money to not extend I mean by extend I mean spread the 180 required days out.

over more days of the year.

Some districts have done that.

Some districts have used the grant money to provide to keep their base calendar the same but then provide more out of school or out of regular time enrichment and support.

There's even one school district that went to a standard four day And Fridays are for additional opportunities.

And then they're 180 days.

They still do 180 days.

It's just spread out.

So there's a ton of, and I know we're much larger than any of the other districts that are doing those.

But so wrapping around to what my actual question is, Where's the opportunity or what do we anticipate in, I guess, are there plans to further examine this for the next time it is flexible?

And it seems like 3,000 responses is a lot of responses from communities.

So this is clearly an issue that's really important to a lot of folks.

So how can we...

Keep that conversation going and think about what sort of the formula or model that we build our calendar on in the future is.

So this is the first time that we've solicited feedback from community.

I'm sure we can use this as a model going forward.

I don't think we've talked about an expanded school year in the same context that you mentioned, but I think that's eligible for So if that's going to help us with our student outcomes and community believes this to be something favorable and still we want to have the input of our labor partners and our experts internally, I don't see why we couldn't expand the level of engagement with folks as we do this.

Again, we have to honor what's written in our collective bargaining agreements, but I think everybody's interested in having the best model for student outcomes.

Dr. Pritchett, I don't know if you have anything to add to that, but I know that there's been some openness to, again, our labor partners and certainly me and the team to see how we can do this more effectively.

I am open and ready to discuss calendar with all of our labor partners and community and look for the best way in which we can serve our students and work with our families to make sure that we're doing what's best for everybody.

Director Vera Smith did you still have a question.

Hi, thank you.

I'm wondering, so all the feedback that was gathered, was that made available to us somewhere?

It sounded like maybe somebody saw it, but was that provided?

We can certainly get that to you.

We can provide that to you, but it was not provided because the survey was still open while we were collecting data as we ran into the deadline of turning in paperwork so that it made it in time for a board meeting.

So we can certainly get you that information.

Okay so then I'm wondering then was that feedback provided to the work group to make this recommendation for this one or is it purely for the next ongoing future years?

It's going to need to be ongoing.

The timing of when we needed to start school and when we needed to negotiate the calendar it presented an awkward Timing this year in particular.

So that was one of the reasons why we talked about within our meetings with Seattle Education Association that we could use this data at a later time for development of future calendars and continue to get feedback from community.

Okay and then furthermore was that data was that all that feedback disaggregated by demographics so that it can be you know to have a better idea of you know the representation of the feedback and if that is you know actually representing our district as a whole as opposed to just certain groups.

The information that I have or what's disaggregated is based on family staff and then students.

But that was as far as it was going.

OK.

Thank you.

No other questions.

Thank you.

OK.

Director Samaritz.

Just more of a comment versus a question that in future calendars, I would be interested in something that directly responds to a issue that Director Hassan brought up the last time we were talking about the calendar, which is for our students who are taking AP and IB classes that the later start of the school year makes it really challenging for them to learn all the material.

that they do need to learn in preparation for that test.

And so I hope in future work groups that we can make that consideration.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Director Hampson.

I think the I was interested also in looking at that data would just echo the questions that Director Rivera-Smith had and I'm always going to be concerned about data that doesn't disaggregate by student group because particularly when we're doing online at least I took it online as a as a parent and it's we know that they tend to skew heavily in one direction in terms of who responds based on a whole variety of things, including socioeconomic background.

But I think the big question that we as a board need to consider is, by when do we need to indicate to you, Superintendent Jones, that we need for this to be bargained out of the CBA so that we can actually Make sure that the work that needs to be done by any work group is effective in combining equitable survey data with what's best for students because this is truly a student outcomes focus.

There's what we want.

I want a long vacation.

I know it's not what's best for students.

And there is a lot of data as Vice President Rankin said about that.

So I think we would look forward to considering that but we are stuck in this cycle.

So how do we get out of this cycle?

Again, I think this is an opportunity to broaden engagement.

If the board wants to give me a directive that that's something we'll do, readily accept it.

However, I would say that we've heard clarity from you all that you want to have the calendar reflect a calendar that leads to student outcomes, that keeps that in mind.

And so that would be our guiding principle.

I would invite SEA and anybody else into that conversation or accept that charge that our calendar should reflect the best opportunities for student outcomes.

And one thing I would just also like to add is that given that we're about to stand up the Community Engagement Committee, this could definitely be an opportunity for, you know, as we just discussed, we do not have the disaggregated data.

As the board does its own community engagement, it's a good note to keep that as we're collecting these things to think about that because I just want to make sure that we're holding ourselves to the same standard as staff.

I think it also presents an opportunity for the board to do our own engagement and collaboration with educators.

Oftentimes there's this triangle that exists that is like district staff, board, Educators, that doesn't always link up properly.

So what I can commit to as president is having a conversation with the board office and legal to make sure that whatever steps we take are germane under the CDA.

And we obviously want to make sure that district staff and the educators are in the driver's seat per the contract that we have now.

But given the fact that we are taking a new focus on community engagement, I just want to make sure that we capture that this could be potentially one of the things that we go out to community to ask about.

With that being said, thank you, Dr. Pritchett.

Certainly, we appreciate it.

Do we have any other questions at this time?

Do you have a question?

Go ahead.

I can recall if I think Director Harris asked about why was this intro in action.

Was that answered?

Yeah, it's because of the timeline in the CBA, if I'm not mistaken, correct?

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you.

Yep.

No problem.

January 31st is our deadline.

Is our deadline.

Yep.

Yep.

Okay.

Cool.

Any other questions.

Ms. Wilson Jones.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Aye.

Director Sarju.

Aye.

Director Song Maritz.

Aye.

Director Hampson.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Vice President Rankin.

President Hersey.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Seeing as that was the only action item on today's agenda we will now move to introduction items.

The first introduction item introduction item number one is approval of courses with new content as defined by the superintendent procedure 2026 SP approval of this item would approve the new course additions for the school year 2023-24 as attached to the board action report see Dr. Perkins approaching the podium please take it away whenever you're ready.

Thank you very much, President Hersey.

This is Caleb Perkins, Executive Director for College Career Readiness.

I'm here on behalf of Dr. Keisha Scarlett, Assistant Superintendent for Academics.

As always, we thank you for considering the new content courses board action report as context.

And as many of you know, we submit a version of this bar every year to the board at this time so that any new courses are available for preregistration for 23-24 school years starting in the coming weeks.

Moreover, apart from this bar, we annually make efforts across all of our content areas to improve course offerings in terms of quality, equitable access, and ensuring offerings are truly sequenced towards readiness.

We bring these courses that are considered to have new content per the Procedure 2026, as President Hertz just stated, So the Board Action Report is asking for your approval of five particular course requests, American Indian Studies Natives and Media, Kiswahili 1A and 1B, Latinx U.S. History, Public Health, and Somali Heritage Language 1A and 1B.

As you'll see in the Board Action Report, in terms of racial equity analysis, there are several equity considerations, one about increasing and enhancing pathways to graduation, and the other, our mandate to institute new courses that meet district expectations for promoting and recognizing diversity and inclusion, particularly for our students of color, further from educational justice.

If approved, we look forward to working with school leaders, educators and others to ensure access to these courses.

Related to this, we appreciated your many questions about how we actually offer these classes.

As with each of these classes, we start small, we go with interested schools and eventually expand outwards.

We feel confident about the strategy just based in part on the recent success we've had with ethnic studies and black studies, which had dramatic improvements in student enrollment over the last couple of years.

As an example, Latinx U.S. history Alexander Ray, our program manager for ethnic studies, has already been reaching out to schools about potentially offering it for next year.

And we potentially are going to offer virtual options in Somali and Kiswahili that Dr. Thad Williams is working on, our program manager for world languages.

We look forward to continuing to work with our content managers to support schools in these new classes.

And before I conclude, I'll just note another important question that was asked in terms of how we settled on the term Latinx U.S. history.

After consulting with my colleagues, I'll just share that Latinx is not a new term for Seattle Public Schools.

In fact, several years ago it was recognized as a preference after student and community engagement.

and in past work that was done by DREA.

And we've connected with multiple community groups around this, including El Centro de la Raza and NAACP.

Finally, I would like to thank a number of people in CAI and others who worked on this, and including community groups who helped shape the Latinx U.S. history class, El Centro de la Raza, Vida Comunitaria, program managers Alexander Ray, Gail Morris, Shanna Brown, and many, many others.

So we thank them.

And with that, I will take your questions.

Thank you, Dr. Perkins.

Any questions from directors?

I guess you did a great job.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to introduction item number two, approval of the 2021-23 collective bargaining agreement hereafter CBA or agreement between Seattle School District number one and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters local number 174. Teamsters 174. Let's go.

Approval of this item would approve the 2021-23 CBA between SPS and Teamsters 174 and authorize the superintendent to execute the agreement in the form attached to the school board action report with any minor additions, deletions, and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the terms of this agreement.

Please take it away.

Hi, Tina Meade, Director of Labor Relations.

Some of you have known me in a different position.

I'm in a new position now with Seattle Public Schools.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

And in earning a new position in Seattle Public Schools at the end of August, I was handed the gifts of having to negotiate Currently four open contracts in particular this is one in particular Teamsters 174 are truck drivers.

So 15 employees who support our warehouse deliveries to and from schools and then I think believe two employees in our maintenance department who support all of the critical and major preventive maintenance across the school district with respect to delivering the large Tools I say I would say that the majority of the changes or negotiated changes really reflect current practices of the district.

The addition of the Juneteenth holiday some language around Requests for leave being not unreasonably denied.

And then a particular wage increase for the general dispatcher that is currently in practice to be memorialized.

And of course two substantive changes.

One substantive change was around addressing when Teamsters 174 members were not available due to absences or unplanned absences.

And then having members from Teamsters 117 support the work in emergency situations.

The other major substantive changes is of course a wage increase.

And understand that this contract had expired August 2021. It's my understanding that ongoing negotiations were unable to get a tentative agreement until recently.

And so the wage change reflects last fiscal year, 21-22, and then to this current year.

And then this contract would expire in August 2023. I think the majority of the information is also in the bar, but I'm happy to take any questions at this time.

And this is just for intro, no action tonight.

Thank you very much.

Any questions from directors on this item?

Go ahead, Director Rivera-Smith.

Hi.

So I heard you correctly that this one only goes for like the next seven, eight, nine months.

So is the process now still ongoing as you work towards obviously another one here?

Right.

I think the biggest impact right now that's impacting that is the current budget Issues that the district is facing and the ability to work with the budget that we have the budget deficit and having those contract negotiations around that with not just the Teamsters 174 but the other three other opens.

And then we have two others Teamsters 117 and Local 302 which theirs also expire in August.

Lots of good work, conversations happening.

I will say that the conversations with our labor partners and I call them the operations division is very positive, collaborative.

There's a recognition of the difficulties the district is facing in terms of the budget.

So in knowing that this needs to be renegotiated here soon, were there any items in particular that are going to be front and center as you do another negotiation?

Wage increase.

Wage increase.

That's it?

Pretty much.

Okay.

Well, thank you for the questions.

Any other questions on this item?

All right.

Thank you very much, Ms. Meade.

Certainly do appreciate it.

Thank you.

Have a good evening.

You as well.

Okay, so we have a progress monitoring session today on goals 1.1 and 1.2.

I will pass it to the superintendent to now begin the progress monitoring session.

We are also joined by our student outcomes focus governance coach, A.J.

Craybill, with the Council of Great City Schools.

President Hersey, may we have a three to five-minute transition period down to the floor?

Only if you actually promise to be in your seats in five minutes.

Yes, absolutely.

We can have a five-minute recess.

Much obliged.

No, don't do that.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

Okay, you want to start?

I'll shame you in a heartbeat.

All right, we are recessed until 5.57 p.m.

You've got less than a minute to be easy.

I know right?

All right, we are all back on time.

Thank you so, so, so, so, so much.

The board meeting will now be reconvened at 5.57 p.m.

We will now be turning to our progress monitoring session on Goal 1 and 2, or excuse me, 1.1 and 2. And AJ will be joining us shortly after 6 p.m.

So let's go ahead and get started, handing it over to Superintendent Jones.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Let me briefly outline the agenda for tonight's conversation on student outcomes focused governance for the third grade reading goal.

I want to start by recognizing the contributions to this memo across the organization.

Many people from the Office of African American Male Achievement, Research and Evaluation, Student Services, Curriculum Assessment and Instruction and others all contributed to this memo.

I'm very proud of the way our organization is coming together around this and other strategic plan goals.

So the alignment we're seeing in our system is really unprecedented for us as a collective and the memo I hope reflects that.

Last time we had 10 minutes to read Doing an independent read, and I understand that that was something that we don't need to do this time, but I will deviate for just a minute and give you all a three-minute catch-up if the chair allows.

Okay, so we're going to have a three-minute independent review, and then we'll get started.

So President Hersey is going to start the clock.

I'll start it for you.

Okay, thank you.

And I was remissed by not introducing my colleagues, Director Cashel, Toner, and Associate Superintendent, Dr. Consti Pedrosa.

They're going to be co-presenting this with me.

I'll take the lead, but I'm a smart man.

I know who the experts are to help me walk through this so that we give you the most clarity.

And welcome to AJ.

I see you on the screen.

Good evening.

So next I'll briefly review the goal status and the executive summary.

I'll then comment on the student outcome measures and it is here that I'll pause after each data point for clarifying questions or discussion.

I'll conclude with brief comments on the strategy SPS is enacting to change these data and propose a path forward beyond our current strategic plan.

Any questions?

Okay, so talking about the goal status and executive summary, as a reminder, we currently use the third grade smarter balance assessment.

I'll be referring to that as the SBA as our top line measure because it is strongly predictive of future student success in K-12 and beyond.

To track system progress on an interim basis in grades two and three, we use MAP, also known as the Measures of Academic Progress.

This is tightly correlated with SBA outcomes.

We also use a number of other data sources, such as student, parent and teacher surveys and focus groups, as well as DIBELS, to monitor and implement internally.

Tonight, though, as part of Student Outcome Focus Governance Protocol, We're going to hone in on SBA and MAP data.

So we're projecting this spring that we will not meet our 2023 target of 58% of African-American males scoring proficient on the ELA English Language Arts portion of the Smarter Balanced assessment.

Based on fall MAP results, we anticipate that 33% of African-American males will score proficient which is below target, but it's stable relative to historic trends.

SPS's 2019 to 2022 trend on a third grade SBA are similar to statewide and national data.

Because state and national data don't disaggregate by race and gender simultaneously, we'll have to look at both girls and boys for these comparisons.

Between 2019 and 2022, the percentage of all African American students in SPS scoring proficient or above on the SBA declined by three percentage points from 33 to 30. Statewide, they declined five percentage points from 38 to 33. Nationally, we have to take a look at the fourth grade National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, Although it's a different reading assessment and a different grade level, the trend level comparison is still relevant.

Here we see that African American students decline one percentage point from 18 to 17 scoring proficient.

While the SPS data are similar to state and national trends, they fundamentally reflect the failures of our system and other systems like ours to provide black students the education they need and deserve.

Our plan, Seattle Excellence, has always aimed to address those failures through a number of high leverage, district-wide, and targeted investments discussed in this memo for your background reading.

So unfortunately, it's clear we're not going to meet our ambitious targets that we set at the start of the strategic plan and before the pandemic.

But I don't think any of us are apologetic about being ambitious.

We just need to make sure that we recognize where we are and we take the requisite steps moving forward.

So let's take a closer look at student data now.

On page four, figure one, You'll see the solid blue line that represents the rates at which African-American boys achieved ELA proficiency on the Smarter Balanced Assessment from 2017 to 2019. Note the two years of missing data in spring 2020 and spring 2021 as a result of the pandemic.

The SBA resumed last spring when 32% of African-American males scored proficient.

The dotted blue line represents the annual growth targets SPS set for itself at the launch of the strategic plan.

They start at 33 percent in spring 2020 and climb to 70 percent by spring 2024. I'm going to pause for any clarifying questions that you may have at this point.

Dr. Jones, thanks for highlighting that the state and national trend comparison was for boys and girls.

I missed that when I read this originally.

And so I just want to make sure that I understand that 30% of our black boys and girls met proficiency in the spring.

But if we're just looking at boys, it was 31.8%.

So girls significantly underperformed boys in the spring?

Yeah, that's correct.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, if we go on to figure two, you'll find the top line results disaggregated by smarter balance achievement level for four different student subgroups.

While language status and having an IEP are relevant factors that impact SBA outcomes, they are as standalone categories.

These are large student groups with significant heterogeneity.

The same is true of African-American males and students of color furthest from educational justice.

Pause here for any questions about this slide or this figure, too.

I'm okay with uncomfortable wait time.

It's a lot to digest.

Okay, moving on to page five, figure three, you'll see the results from the interim indicator number one, and that's the fall map assessment for grade three students.

These results form the basis of our projection for spring 2023 Smarter Balanced assessment.

And you'll find the results for a fall third grade map disaggregated in Figure 4. Any questions about these?

So just a point of clarification is worth noting that indicator number two will tend to be less accurate than indicator number one, because at the time of testing, these students were about 1.5 school years away from taking the Smarter Balanced assessment.

So interim measures give us an early look at our progress and when viewed in combination with other data at the school level, they can inform our implementation decisions.

Any questions about what I just offered up?

Let's look at figure, I'm sorry, we didn't go to figure five and six.

Let's go to figure five and six.

All right, any questions about figure five or six?

Okay, finally in figures 8 and 9, these are on page 7, you'll find examples from our portfolio of measures.

It's these kind of data that will help us create a more nuanced understanding of student success and help us monitor strategy implementation.

Did you mean to skip figure 7?

I did not mean to skip figure seven.

Figure seven are figures one through six summarized.

So please go back.

Thank you.

So this is the roll up from figures one through six.

Thank you, Director Harris.

Okay, moving forward, now go to figures eight and nine, and you'll find this again as our example of portfolio measures that help us create a more nuanced understanding.

And so when we heard, I actually listened when folks in the audience said, well, what are you doing that's different?

I think this is somewhat some aspect of what's different as we're looking at not only academic strategies, but strategies around welcoming environment, a sense of belonging, which we believe we don't have a direct correlation, but what we believe have a tremendous impact on our students ability to be proficient and beyond.

So if you want to learn a little more about the other measures in appendix number two, there's some other listings of some things that we're doing, but in keeping with the purpose of student outcome-focused governance and staying focused on student outcomes, we did not report all the measures, all the other data for these other measures.

So I said a lot, pause right there, and then we want to go on to talking about strategy.

Any reflections on the data so far?

Any reflections immediately on the data?

Go ahead.

Yeah, it was mentioned I think in testimony and also just here about the, that it's, this is based on the five-year strategic plan.

That's a really good point.

But the data that, the specific goals, top line goals that the board has given you haven't been around for the whole five years.

in such a specific way.

So can, I guess, can you share or are there ideas about how the strategic plan timeline versus like concerted monitoring or concerted goals and interim goals set here relate?

Like how far back, we're not looking at data back to the beginning of the strategic plan.

But the timeline is coming up.

So just help me with that.

Does that make sense what I'm asking?

Yeah, I think that's a great question.

And I think when we first launched the strategic plan, the goals were very broad.

They weren't written in smart goals, strategic, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

And then we got very specific when we adopted the framework for student outcome focused governance.

So the goals in general around academic outcomes are the same spirit, but it doesn't have the same specificity.

We also didn't have the same intentionality with what we were trying to do to really impact Really impact the outcomes because we had global things that we were doing, but now the concerted effort across the organization, we've honed in on a few very specific strategies.

And so while the goal is still the same essence, it's more specific and it's more targeted as we move forward.

I'd like for Concee or Cashel to weigh in on that as well.

Sure.

Good evening, everybody.

So that's a complicated question, right?

When we set the top line measures originally at the onset of the strategic plan, they were a combination of aspirational and Set a pretty steep growth curve, right?

Then when we began the student outcomes focused governance process, we needed to think about what are the top line measures and what are the interim indicators.

And remember last time we had this conversation, we used DIBELS as a conversation point, recognizing that that wasn't probably the best fit because that's a teacher administered tool.

As we're building our portfolio, we're gonna have More opportunities to look more precisely at growth as a system.

And remember this team approved MAP assessment in fall and spring.

So now that gives us a system-wide look into that data point as well.

That might lead us to the opportunity to think about MAP has a feature there around student growth.

Specific student growth, and that might be something we could be curious about as we move forward.

But as we are now, top-line measure is SBA and then MAP are leading indicators.

Can I just offer one thing really quickly before we move on just for context to make sure that everybody is super clear because I've also gotten a lot of really good feedback about progress monitoring sessions so I think people are watching but I've also heard to director Rankin's point a couple of comments especially during public testimony around how this is all shaping up so just to be clear with The timeline from the strategic plan, student outcomes focused governance, and what we're trying to do here.

The strategic plan is a five-year plan.

We adopted our golden guardrails last year during 2021 or two.

Anyway, point being, we just made them specific.

So what we're really looking at is effectively a year, in some cases less, and in some cases a little bit more, of actual interventions to hit those specific targets.

So when we are being super honest with the fact that we are not toward our goal because we set these lofty goals, because we know what has to be on the other end of what our students experience in COVID, we hope that the public understands and sees how big of a transition this has been from the way that we've done things in the past generally.

And we're taking ownership over those things and being really clear with where our students are academically so that we can actually hold ourselves and the system accountable to fixing it.

So just keep in mind that these interventions are like 20 minutes old and we will continue to monitor them In these types of fascists on a regular basis so just wanted to provide a little bit of context so folks might understand because I know that for the public it can be very scary to see we have a really bold strategic plan that focuses on black boys and we're not meeting it right so.

Want to hand it back over to the superintendent oh sorry were there any other questions before we move on yes director Hampson you just said that forgive me.

Actually, this is a bit of a follow on to what you were just highlighting, President Hersey.

With respect to specific questions about the data presented about which I asked a number of questions and there were very thorough thoughtful answers provided and I think where I want to ask us to go a little deeper in the future in terms of these questions and responses The last statement from one of my questions says, given that we are only 1.5 years into in-person implementation, right, because we also had COVID, we are not yet seeing data that would indicate a need to shift our approach.

So that's something that we're trying to Speak to right now this notion of we're staying we're not going to meet our goals but we're staying the course and the incongruity between those two statements and I think what my expectation would be that just as we would have for a student in a classroom if we don't know if you you're not done with that yet or you haven't completed the work yet you're telling me and really great narrative that this is coming, we're collecting this, but I don't have any specificity in terms of when should I expect that?

How do I know that you will have met your own and therefore our expectations for having that level of analysis?

So for example, It's important to acknowledge that our district is not adequately staffed to conduct a comprehensive formal evaluation of each strategic initiative that would allow for analysis of relative efficacy.

We are confident that our efforts to use a range of data sources will shed light on which investments are having the desired impact.

That goes to other strategic conversations, and yet what I'm asking about in terms of the data is, yes, but we've got to get there.

We need to be able to have...

I didn't see it presented in this particular progress monitoring report.

We talked about it a little bit in the last one, but what's the missing ingredient there in terms of Being able to show that efficacy at the building level and the classroom level and have all of that rolling up and in concert with the actual, there not being a belief gap that students can achieve at this level.

That's kind of what it, so my, yeah, what I'm trying to get to, so I already accidentally, I rambled on, but I want to know when are we going to get the more specific date?

What is the plan?

What can we expect of what are the dates?

That's what I would like to see coming forward is here's when we think we can have that by so that we can hold you accountable to it.

Yeah, so I think wrapping up these three, these last three great statements, questions, it all is hinging off the statement that I made or we've made around staying the course.

So when we talk about stay the course, we're talking about Fidelity of implementation.

We're talking about the curriculum enhancements, the interim measures, the dibbles, the structural alignment, integration, learning, and continuous improvement that we haven't had the opportunity to fully mature.

And so that combination of those things are what we're talking about when we say state of course.

State of course wasn't, if it's not working, keep going down that same path.

We just need an opportunity to continue to adapt, improve, be honest.

uh be be open for uh feedback and changes and uh really engage with those who are uh delivering at the at the at the classroom level and so uh i'm glad that um whoever mentioned well stay the course you're gonna stay the course on something that's not working no we're not talking about state of course on something that's not working we're just not at the level yet that we can say that our Our science of reading and all the things that we know are tried and true in terms of research, we haven't had a chance to manifest them yet.

And so I also want the board to know that we are flexible and we will adapt as we need to, but we just haven't had that full round of opportunity to take advantage of those continuous improvement opportunities.

And I'll just add two small comments, one in agreement with Dr. Jones.

If you see this, you'll see an additional strategy that's been embedded that's pretty targeted.

When we go a little deeper through that, that's a shift for us, right?

We're getting more precise.

Right.

In our strategies, more succinct.

When we're learning, we're then taking that learning and then adapting it and shifting it because our strategies, our big-level strategies are going to remain the course.

Our goal is fidelity, fidelity to the information of the science of reading, and then making sure that we have our targeted approaches really refined.

So that's one piece.

The second piece I want to share is if we do this work right internally, So that's the work that Dr. Jones and I are leading around project management oversight in terms of how this work gets done.

If that work gets done correctly, then you should see evidence of that in other bars moving forward, which I actually expect you to have lots of questions when the CSIP bar, for example, the school improvement bar comes forward to you, is an example of evidence of this in there.

So just coming ahead, But I just wanna say that then you should start seeing evidence infiltrated in other areas coming down the path as we become more precise, and our internal work and our actions are in alignment as well.

So I just wanna put that up there, that's future forecasting for all of you, but I expect this board to look for evidence of that, and I expect you to, and I actually welcome those questions.

Really quickly, I think we have a couple more questions.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, I just want to say, and then one more thing is we also are, we believe in visual data, and so we're working on a dashboard so that we can have that information, I don't know about real time, but close to real time around what we're trying to do and how we do it.

And so that holds us all accountable because we see it regularly, often, and it just gives us motivation to continue to improve.

So I think that's a big deal to have A dashboard, a scoreboard in front of us for us to look at all time.

And so we're just days away from finalizing that and that's going to be something that we'll have on display.

I don't know who had another question.

I've got one.

You've got one.

Did you have a follow-up?

Okay, my question really quickly is, given that we are on an implementation timeline, could you give the board information about what the extent of that timeline looks like so that we can know when we are looking at data that is past the point of understanding whether the measures are working or not?

And it's okay if we don't have a dead answer for that right now, but I would really like to receive that at some point.

I want to understand your question a little better.

Can you add a little flavor to it?

Yeah, let me take another shot at it.

So Director Hampson just asked, like, we need to know, implementation is a thing, it's an important thing, and we need to implement with fidelity.

What is the day that we have hit target to know if we have implemented a specific intervention with fidelity?

And if we could figure out that day, that would position directors, I think, to ask our questions in a specific lens and communication with the community around where we are and at what point will we assess if we need to pivot.

Yeah, so as I talked about the dashboard, that's the real-time progress that we're making.

So we should be able to see like a thermometer in a fundraising campaign.

No doubt.

We should be able to see how well we're doing towards that.

And so that's coming.

Cool.

But as we do this, we have annual targets.

And so the annual targets aren't enough, I think.

I think you all want to see things probably on a 30 to 60-day schedule.

Timeline as to what progress we're making.

I don't know what the what would be pleasing to the board.

But again, the dashboard allows us to see kind of the progress that we're making in an interim phase versus the interim phases right now are year to year to year.

The ultimate outcome is at the end of the five years or the end of 2024. This is where we've gotten to.

So we're off track on the targets now, and it looks highly unlikely based on our trajectory that we're going to hit the five-year target.

But all we've committed to right now is year to year to year tracking.

But what we need is more More tracking on more of a month-to-month so that we can make adjustments accordingly.

Yeah, so what's kind of popping into my head is like it would be useful for me as a board director to see a checklist of what needs to happen for y'all to say that we have implemented something with fidelity and a date by which you're expecting to have those things done.

So I'm going to give an example.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Hello, there we go.

So one example I believe, so for example, this is the first time we've ever used MAP, for example, for a full year cycle.

So that would be a good indicator, for example, of a full year of implementation to assess and to look at so that we can learn from that experience.

It's premature to actually make that assessment until we have that one full year of implementation.

Sure.

Just when we think about the district, how we all, for example, strategic plans, typically the evidence and research shows to implement a long-term strategy, a long-term strategy and vision, as you probably know because you've heard this in your life as an educator, it's three to five years of implementation from a district standpoint.

Yep.

Right, to see that.

So we have to couch all of that.

But then the student measures, we have to use that.

And that's why when Cashel talked about growth, I think we should talk about growth eventually in combination with the outcomes that we've laid out.

So growth measures are important for that.

But I think we have to look at one year of implementation.

For full fidelity.

And we're actually doing, just FYI, a review of our fidelity, for example, of our curriculum.

Just making sure we are really having that assessment.

So that way we can look at full fidelity implementation.

We're targeting our 13 schools, but we're looking at district-wide.

So that's another information we can provide as well.

Yeah, go for it, Director Hampson, then Director Samaras, and then I just had another follow-up question.

I appreciate the way that you laid that out, and what it helped create for me is the visual in my mind of That there are all these kind of little boxes of analysis that tell us how these things are working together, and it would be helpful for us to see the timeline for implementation and what those little empty boxes are, right?

Because I know that when you're looking, when we get to that point, I've used this example before of, you know, differences even between schools and how they're Moving forward positively in one regard versus another and therefore have information to change their strategy in that one tiny little box area.

It's a highly bureaucratic way to talk about it.

Because we want to see it not just in the CSIP.

Yes, we definitely want to see that.

But the fidelity that we want to see is all the way down to how is that impacting individual students and showing up in the classroom.

But understanding that we're not there yet, but let's lay out the empty boxes.

So ideally that the box that you talk about would have elements of implementation in it.

So how well are we adopting curriculum?

How well are we implementing screeners?

How well are we implementing the dibbles?

This series of this combination is aggregate of different implementation pieces.

You would think if a school was supported enough by district office that they were implementing all the things with fidelity, we'd see some tremendous gains.

And so another measure I would think, and I'm making us accountable to something else, is schools measure how well were central offices supporting them in their implementation.

I think that would be something that you all would be interesting as well.

And so we're open to how effective we are going to be for efficacy of implementation, but there's a multitude of things that we're doing simultaneously that needs to be contained in the box that you described, right?

So it's not just one thing.

You should be looking at how are the five or six or 12 implementation things you're doing, how are they working?

I think that for me where I have more of a belief gap is around my lack of understanding of what the strategies are.

So I'm wondering if a different approach to this could be helpful, particularly to parents and community members, which is currently we've got a student who is not meeting proficiency.

What are the strategies we're currently adopting and by the end of our You know, implementation, like what has changed?

What is different about the implementation?

The strategy map is helpful, but I think I'm having a disconnect between what is actually different from the student experience, and I think that would help me close that belief gap around how we will actually get to the 70%.

You want to take a crack at that?

Sure.

Was that a statement or a question?

I think that's kind of where I'm struggling.

I see the strategy, but I don't actually know what it means.

Can I respond to that?

So first of all, I hear your comment as a request to view the work from the student perspective and what would it feel like to be like a student who is below grade level and what experiences would you have through the lens of this strategy?

So that's interesting perspective and I thank you for that.

Offering I would put in this space would be Oftentimes our instinct is to do something differently, but it actually wasn't that fun to write this memo in some ways because we are very honest here and saying we actually haven't been doing some of the core work.

So before we think about doing different, We actually need to do the core work.

And you heard some folks tonight talking about Kareem Weaver from the NAACP.

I was so happy to hear that because he was actually our keynote speaker when we brought together our principals from our 13 schools and our early literacy improvement network that we wrote about in this memo.

And his call to action is to really not do different, is to do our core responsibility, which is teaching foundational skills.

And the gap between what we perceive as what students need, fancy, new, flashy, actually isn't true.

We need to do the foundational work, which sometimes isn't exciting for adults.

It's very pragmatic and scientific.

That's where that science of reading comes from.

And his call to action is that's actually a racial equity move.

to provide that predictable instruction inside of our core classrooms.

Say that again.

I think that needs to be said again.

Say that about the racial equity move because I think there's an opportunity to kind of enhance how we talk about racial equity with this right here.

Yeah, so he made the connection between our core responsibility of teaching foundational literacy skills as a tier one equity move for all children.

And when we skip that move because we think about doing different or other, we're actually doing a disservice to black children and students for educational justice because you miss out on that foundational literacy piece.

So I was happy to hear folks talk about Kareem Weaver because He's been one of our keynote speakers.

Wet Blanket.

Director Wet Blanket here.

Excuse me.

Dr. Wet Blanket.

Our superintendent.

We talked about central office support.

We know we have turnover.

We know we need professional development to drill down on those fundamental issues, dyslexia screening, et cetera.

We spent a painful hour and a half this afternoon in a two-by-two with respect to the budget.

Are some of these strategies sacrosanct and untouchable With respect to the budget cuts.

I mean, how much do we believe what we're saying here?

Because money talks.

Untouchable and sacrosanct I'd say would probably be too strong but commitment to you will see that in our ultimate budget balancing that we we bring to you I mean it's it's with the pain that we're having is how do we work around that and then keep all the requisite supports so that we can provide healthy support adequate support from central office and so As we're doing our analysis, those are the questions that we're asking each other is, how are we protecting this work?

And so one of the things that we talk about is, you know, the supporting educators with the research training and tools that they need.

We're trying to put up a moat around that, put a moat around that so that no one can get to that.

But I don't know if we can I think secondarily we may impact that by the cuts that we're probably going to have to make, but directly, no.

Is that adequate?

Okay.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you for the answers to our questions from the sheet here.

I have, first, I will say, when I asked the number, there was number, I think it's number 44, regarding the, let me just read it.

I'm going to get it wrong if I don't.

I asked what evidence data do we have that things like the CHRE initiative, high dosage, literacy, et cetera, are or will correlate to extra and improved outcomes.

I thank you for the links to the evidence that you're using for that.

However, I need more direction than these links.

I go to them and like they are One of them is 78 pages, one's 10, one's 48. One's a page of just more links, and one's 165 pages.

So if I could get more direction on what I'm looking at in those links, because I'm not as up on these things as you guys are, and I appreciate having that link to the evidence, but I need, if you can, point to what we're actually talking about.

Out of 165 pages, I'm not sure what I'm looking for or where I'm going to find it.

So anyhow, that's just one note on the responses there.

On number 20, and the same with number 39, we talked about that one of those goals was in a memo.

Could you please attach that memo?

And you just say, it says SOFG memo.

We have a lot of SOFG memos, so be more specific too about which one that would be, just for better direction there.

And my last question comment is on 28. You say in the response that you welcome ongoing conversation about setting annual targets for student outcomes.

And I think that I appreciate that because I really want us to look at because we've set this great goal that we're clearly not going to meet.

I think we should talk about goal setting and how we do that.

Because when we set this goal, we did have the options of what kind of goal to set.

Was it going to be an achievement goal, a progress goal?

I'm probably getting the words wrong.

And I remember, you know, because at the time, I was actually more in favor of a progress goal as opposed to, like, this percent makes it and this...

Because I was honestly worried about our ability to reach that goal, given all of the things weighed against us with COVID and remote learning and our lack of all the money we need to reach these things.

So I do look forward to having more conversations about our goal setting just so that we can, you know, Be honest about what our abilities are.

And this is not our students.

Our students can do anything.

We have to do it.

We have to get them there, though, right?

We have to provide the resources that we haven't been able to clear to this point.

And to my last question comment.

Of all the strategies, something's not working.

And I'm hearing it's not working because of time.

We haven't done it long enough.

But is that really it?

Is there something else that's not working in there?

Or is it simply we haven't had enough time to do them?

Can I give it a go?

Well, there was three things.

What's the efficacy of the strategy?

And when do you adjust and rethink about where you go?

We should have a goal-setting dialogue around what's attainable or what's relevant to here and now, given where we are.

And I heard on the responses to questions, be more concise and give you a little more context.

So, Cashel, will you respond to the first piece?

Or her last question?

Tell me which one.

Around when do we move from the current path to a different path or one strategy and enhance that strategy?

Yep, so I know that this is going to sound very much a bureaucratic response to say we need time, but I have to say, recovering from a pandemic where the strategy rests on foundational literacy skills and recognizing that we're back in school now in person for about a year and a half, the children were were actually measuring had kindergarten and preschool potentially virtually right so that has a compounding impact so we're doing significant catch-up work with all kids and specifically around foundational skills work So you might say, Cashel, what does that really mean?

Well, at our 13 schools, we've done lots of training around SIPS instruction where the curriculum usually would be the, being a reader would be our tier one plan.

Many of our classroom teachers are using SIPS because it's actually acceleratory.

Being a reader is designed for a typical year's worth of growth.

CIPS is designed for an acceleratory experience, right?

And we need to actually accelerate the growth with our kids because we have that much learning to make up for and to help our kids meet their full potential.

So we need more time to work with our kids with specifically around the foundational skills component of this work, which is the science of reading work, right?

And I know that that's probably frustrating to hear, but I can't imagine a more true scenario for that to be a reasonable response.

Well, yeah, and I appreciate the public testimony person who said we don't have an intervention problem.

It's a core instruction problem because if you rely on an intervention to get there, that's not a long-term solution and that's not fair to actual ongoing work with students.

So thank you.

Got a couple of questions.

Some of them might be kind of like rephrased versions of earlier just for my own thinking, so forgive me.

But one of my key questions, and this could be delivered at a later point, But having a really clear vision from y'all's perspective of what would look different in a classroom that is not yet at fidelity, that is moving toward fidelity by the end of this year.

Because for me, understanding that like All of the different interventions will ultimately compound.

There will be instances where adding one piece will make some growth, adding two pieces will make more, adding a third might not impact it.

But having a clear understanding as we are moving forward and looking at the data about what has been implemented to this point, where is it at, in your opinion, about the fidelity pieces of that would be super helpful to me as a board director, especially as I'm having conversations with community.

The next piece is understanding the individual relationship between all the goals that we need to meet with all of the resources that we're providing to our educators and what does that improvement plan or learning plan for an individual educator look like.

So, for instance, if I'm a teacher teaching second grade trying to implement DIBELS, At what point do I as a board director know if these things are actually being implemented with that teacher in that classroom?

And how are we measuring that?

Because it's one thing to provide professional development.

We don't have a good way of measuring if it's actually taking or being utilized.

So understanding what are y'all's look-fors in a classroom that says this is happening, and how are we measuring that on a school-to-school, to classroom-to-classroom basis?

So let me frame what I heard.

One is what's the individual learning plan for a teacher in his or her development and ability to Implement effectively.

Yes.

In the classroom.

Yes.

And then going from classroom to classroom, what are you seeing in different classrooms that would look like an aggregate?

Yeah.

Effectiveness.

Is that fair?

And just one quick add, what is something that you're looking for across all classrooms, right?

Like what are those big things that we weren't doing before, that we are doing now, that would be representative in every classroom?

So I'd like for either Concie or Cashel to respond around what we're trying to do with learning walks.

When we're trying to make sure that each level of the organization in terms of central office is focused on how we making sure our support is helpful and relevant and timely.

So if you could talk a little bit about what the learning walks are, maybe that answers President Hersey's question.

So we do have that information.

One of the shifts that we've made internally, so I'm going to talk about from a broader point and then Cashel can talk specifically, is shifting our learning processes, but specifically aligned to the goals.

And so a shift for us has been that coordination and collaboration.

So we have designed and co-designed with the directors of schools and C&I, the literacy team look force, right, around that.

In fact, so now our central office team is actually going to be going to and piloting these look-fors.

These are things that have been developed with a long time with Cashel, CNI, all that work, AMA, all of that has been designed together.

It's an early literacy project that's been ongoing.

And so that is the work that we're going to use as a central office.

to inform ourselves in understanding what we're looking for to see that alignment from the student outcomes focused governance to the project management oversight into implementation in the classroom.

So that's what we're working towards and we're gonna do that with all the goals moving forward.

So that's just one level that we've done a major shift on and then I'll have Cashel talk more specifically about some of the details and the nuances of that work.

Sure, so you could think about it with like concentric circles, right?

So the first one, and maybe before I go into that, thanks for your question.

It's really nuanced and complicated and speaks to the complexity of the work, how all the different inputs or strategies need to work together in order to build a system where all children can be successful, right?

Okay, so in order to monitor implementation of a various component of the strategy, let's just hold on foundational skills for a second, right?

So that would be maybe SIPs or bar instruction depending on the group of kids that are in your classroom, right?

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

SIP, can we just define SIP and BAR real quick?

Like SIP or BAR instruction?

Sure.

So BAR would be, and you can look in the appendix for acronyms, but BAR is being a reader, which is like I said before, general, like tier one, typical year worth of growth, strong instructional, adopted instructional material that we use across Seattle schools.

Got it.

SIPs, systematic phonics.

I have to look up all the acronym myself.

Yeah, phonics.

But what it means is it's a science of reading aligned instructional pedagogy or routines, you could say, that accelerate the foundational skills teaching and learning in a classroom.

So anyway, back to the concentric circle, right?

You're looking at the classroom practice.

Imagine we all teach second grade and we could select an instructional priority inside of our SIPS instruction.

Let's say one of the routines we could select.

Right now what's happening in our 13 schools is that group of second grade teachers select that instructional priority, have a lesson plan, look at it together.

One teacher goes into the classroom, teaches it, videotapes their teaching with their coach, comes back to their PLC and watches that video together and gives feedback to each other.

Imagine if you play a sport and you're watching tape or reel of your sport.

It's the same idea, right?

You're looking and getting feedback about getting better at whatever sport you're talking about.

So that practice we're building inside the professional learning communities at our 13 schools.

Now go out one layer.

We need to work with our school leaders to be able to give feedback around those instructional practices.

So that's where we're building this called the Early Literacy Improvement Network.

We actually have a meeting tomorrow morning with our 13 schools principals.

Yep.

Where we get them together and practice watching instructional videos.

Well, actually, we get some professional learning first, maybe from a guest speaker like Kareem Weaver or something like that.

Yeah.

And then we look at some classroom lessons aligned to that instructional priority and practice giving feedback aligned to a look-for tool because we need our principals in partnership to be giving that on-the-ground feedback to teachers, right?

Then go out one more level.

That's the practice that Dr. Perdoza and Dr. Jones were just talking about.

We've been working in partnership with the directors of schools to calibrate around those instructional priorities and say, what does strong instruction look like in this classroom?

What can we learn here?

What does strong instruction look like here aligned to that instructional priority?

We're going to practice that same protocol with our small cabinet out in schools.

So that we can all learn what does this actually look like when it's going well and then what course corrections might we consider as a system.

That's super helpful.

I just want to add one piece.

Cashel ran by it, but I'm grateful to our educators for those who are allowing themselves to be videotaped in order to improve their practice.

That's a big deal and that speaks to their commitment, their vulnerability to get better and to provide stronger instruction to students.

No, that's perfect.

Speak to that.

Absolutely.

And echoing that one quick follow up.

So I loved that explanation.

Here's my question.

How do we know?

Because as a teacher, I know some PLCs are great and others are not.

I don't even know if tracking is the right word, but what is the measure supporting whatever the word might be?

Because there will be instances of some PLCs that are not watching these videos and doing this with fidelity.

That's just the case with any system.

How do you know for a fact that that is happening in as many PLCs as possible, or are we trusting that?

Do we have a mechanism for that?

Let's be honest.

I don't know.

I don't know.

So we have like coaching logs and meeting.

So we do have some soft data around that, but I would just maybe back up one minute because I mean, you know, when I taught kindergarten and first grade, you want all kids to learn, right?

And to meet their full potential.

And sometimes it takes building some trust.

And in this whole process, it's trust building.

Learning and taking an inquiry stance and thinking about what's working and not working.

So it has taken us some time to build those trusting relationships to be able to do this deep work at those schools.

So I'm not sure we'll ever get to a point to say, yes, I can guarantee that every PLC is You know, 100% high functioning.

Right.

I'm not sure we're going to get there.

I do think, though, that we will be able to get to a tipping point.

Our majority of our teachers are trusting in the process and trusting that it's not a gotcha process, that it really is inquiry and growth from all sides.

My own professional growth, my goodness, I've learned so much over leading this work over the last several years.

And it needs to come from that space.

Yeah, no, no doubt.

I think, again, just what I'm really trying to get at here is like knowing full well and 100% agreeing with you that the trust piece is the most important part.

With that, if one of our key indicators is like, say, and this could be applied to anything that you're doing, right?

This is not limited to videos being watched in PLC.

But if we don't for a fact know that one of our indicators is happening, how can we as board directors know That the decisions that we are making on behalf of our students are the right ones, right?

You see where I'm kind of getting at and please forgive me if I'm like not asking this question in the right way, but there is a level, there's a gap there for me between trust and fidelity that I don't think any school district that I've ever worked for been a part of has done well.

But I'm missing that there, right?

Because I'm seeing it from both ends.

I'm seeing it from my perspective and what I hear, and I'm seeing it now as a perspective in a board director's seat.

I'm wondering, like, If we don't have the data to say exactly that we're implementing these things and we know that we're implementing these things, how can we then trust if our interventions are working?

That's all I'm asking is like, what can we point to to say?

And the teaching logs were a great example of that.

But if that is a question that I have for this one input, I would imagine that there are probably going to be similar things for all the other inputs as well.

And that's how I'm trying to, like, really dig into this to see, like, okay, Dibbles is being implemented with 95% efficacy.

I know that because why, right?

I might not know, like, if I'm presented with this information, That doesn't necessarily tell me anything about how that is actually happening in the building, right?

And I might not need that granular level, so AJ, please correct me if I'm going way off on a tangent here.

But what I'm really trying to understand is how are we measuring it?

How are we measuring the inputs in a way that actually tells us if these things are effective or not?

And I would love for either of you to correct me.

I think we can measure just about anything.

Sure.

And I think we have the tools to do that.

What I don't think we have is the maturity yet to roll those in and to tell a broad narrative around what's happening.

Got it.

And so through logs and through surveys and practice observations, I think we can I would safely say we can measure just about anything, and we actually have the things on the ground to be able to make those determinations, but I don't think we have the aggregate tool package that we roll it up and say, okay, this is what effectiveness looks like.

So what are you going to do to get there?

Because it can't just be trust.

We can say we're going to build trust.

That's not finite.

That's not a smart goal.

So I'm wondering, how do we get from building trust to accountability?

I think that's our next level of maturity, frankly.

Again, we have lots of, and I will claim robust tools, but we don't But we need a general contractor, if you will.

You got all these different experts and different tools, but we need to bring it all into one package.

But help me out with that if I'm off base.

Well, and I'll just also talk about the reason why the priority, just reminding everyone why the 13 schools, is to figure out what's working to actually, it's kind of like that target, and to expand those learnings through other schools, other principals, other school leaders, other educators.

And I will say, having been a teacher for a long time in elementary as well, You know, when we talked about what the portfolio of a student learner, right?

It's super complex, right?

It's super intricate.

I think we're talking about the portfolio of student learning for the district.

And I think it's still as complex, right?

And I think we're still working on some of those pieces.

And I think once we really identify our fidelity piece, like I said, we're doing even just an analysis of our fidelity for the curriculum implementation.

Those are where then we can, as a system, when we analyze all of that, just one piece, that's just one piece, then we know where we need to support, which schools need additional, or even accountability pieces, right?

And so I think, I actually like the notion of implementation fidelity, that timeline piece, because then I think we can become a little bit more precise, and what I challenge is for that portfolio of our district work, then we can be really, we can't do everything.

But we can, as a system, say, well, these two or three things, we can actually really measure and measure our fidelity and implementation, and then actually have some accountability attached.

We can't do everything, but then we can talk about our priorities or what are the most essential things based on what we've learned.

That's super helpful.

And I think we can get there, but I think I agree with Dr. Jones.

It's something we're going to have to develop because we have just launched certain strategies and we haven't completed a full cycle on some of them.

So that's just the honest answer.

No, and trust me, I appreciate the honesty.

I think that this has been rare.

I'm coming.

I promise.

I'm super sorry.

I think that this is just a rare opportunity that we have not had to dig this deeply and honestly with y'all around what's taking place.

So just again, thank you for your vulnerability and y'all trying to get the information that we need.

So, Director Sarju.

Thank you, President Hersey.

I don't have any questions.

I'm absorbing all of this and quite frankly, I am optimistic.

I have not been optimistic my first year as board director and the conversations we're having now are very different than the conversations we had this time last year, which gives me optimism.

There have been A variety of comments that I think have similar features, both in public testimony and then in our proximal conversation around the goal and not meeting the goal.

And I want to remind us what Cheryl Lynn says consistently.

The system is not broken.

It is masterfully working exactly the way it was designed to work.

And what we're trying to do is, in the midst of that, create a very different system.

And we're fighting an uphill battle.

So first I want to acknowledge, you have inherited a system that is working well.

That's why only 30% of black boys are meeting whatever standard.

It's working really well, right?

And it has been working really well for hundreds of years.

So when we think about the 70% goal, it's not too high.

And if we don't hit it, but we are further, we are closer to it, we are making progress.

I ask anybody in here, If we lower the goal, which of the families are you gonna tell that it's okay that their black boys are not meeting the standard?

Because that's what we would be doing.

We would be saying, okay, 40% of you families, we're just gonna throw you to the wind.

If we don't aim high, So there's a saying, it's not my own quote, it's better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit.

Black boys cannot afford us to aim low because we've been aiming low.

And we haven't even been hitting that target.

And so when we think about the 70%, in my mind, the 30%, it's still not acceptable.

But you have to have a way in the midst of trying to do a massive systems change.

Actually, we're cracking up the concrete and trying to lay new concrete.

Excuse me?

In the cracks.

Right, right.

When we're doing that, it can seem impossible, but if next year or at the end of this year, I don't remember when the tests are administered, but if it's 36%, 37%, even if it's just a small Increase, we're making progress.

And I think it's important for the community to understand that this is massive systems change.

This district, like many other districts, have ignored outcomes for black and brown children, historically, forever.

And so what we're trying to do is change that.

And so this idea that we would change a goal, because we're not gonna hit it, as an elected official, Y'all, I'm not worried about whether they hit the 70%.

What I'm worried about is, are we making progress?

Because every percent is a child.

And if we set low expectations, we're telling our children, it's okay for some of you not to succeed.

That's what we're telling them.

And so I applaud you all for the work you're doing.

This is hard work.

I am still wrapping my head around this.

Brother AJ, if I'm saying anything that's out of pocket or not right, you know you have my email, you can send me an email.

But this is progress.

The fact that we're even having this conversation and the fact that people are committed to doing this work in an environment It nationally that is actually trying to counteract this very kind of work because the nation as a whole doesn't want to see black boys progress.

Check me, check my facts on that.

It's all over the place and Seattle is nothing special.

So I applaud you all.

I look forward to your partnership.

I know this is hard work.

You will be getting a lot of questions from me because I'm still trying to wrap my head around when I look at the data, what does it all mean?

How do I make sense of it on an individual level?

And so I just applaud the work that you all are doing.

Thank you.

You said every percent is a child.

I wrote that down.

It's inspirational.

Thank you.

Um my question kind of goes back to what Director Hersey was asking about you know how will we know and and how do we know if this and that and what I was thinking about is you know we should be able to see if what you're proposing is effective because outcomes for students will improve that's That's why we're monitoring these things.

And so if the things that you all think are going to work do work, we will see it.

If they don't work, we will see it.

And so I just, I guess I, I have a lot of curiosity around some of the different things in the classroom, but I also, as a board director, I don't need to know, I don't think, exactly which thing is implemented, how and when, whatever, but I need you to know that, and I need you to be able to report to us Hey, of these things we were trying, we discovered that this thing really wasn't being implemented, or this thing did not work the way we anticipated it working, and then I need you to be able to tell us, and here's why, and to say, well, we surveyed teachers, and they didn't feel we supported them enough, and so we're going to now do this.

Or, you know, it was purchased for, you know, I'll use SIPs as an example.

Now all K-5, K-8 schools have SIPs, which is awesome.

For three, four years ago in SSC&I, we talked about that a lot, about needing everybody to have access to it.

So that would be, you know, did this strategy not work district-wide because it wasn't available, you know, whatever.

So that's kind of like what I am looking for from these is Did our employee, did our one employee, the superintendent, direct his staff in a way that's aligned with our policy, and is he showing us that the work that they have done have yielded improved outcomes for students?

And if they haven't, can you tell us what you think went amiss?

And I think right now, what we're looking at in this report, we're seeing kind of stagnant growth And if I'm understanding correctly what you said, that's being attributed to a lot of these strategies are very new, they're being implemented throughout the whole district, and this stagnant growth from 2019 to now is pre-pandemic and pre a lot of these strategies.

Is that accurate?

Yes.

Okay.

So what I am looking for then, when you come to us with these and say, here's what worked and here's what didn't work, What I want to know as a board member is advise us on here's where some policy is missing the mark and not supporting us in the direction that we need to go.

Or with budget, as Director Harris was saying, if we're going to re-up investments in certain areas, I want to know that that's That's where the money needs to go.

Not to disagree with President Hersey, because I think what you were asking about how do we know these things is important, but my feeling is I don't need to know that as much as I need to know that you know that.

Yeah, I don't think we said anything different.

I think we're 100% on the same page.

Can I respond to that?

Yeah, please.

So we'll get our feedback.

In just a minute.

In just a minute.

And hear about this for sure.

But Michelle reminded me of a follow-up to one of my questions that I had with respect to the data that when I asked really specifically, you know, she was like, well, this represents, you know, one student.

It represents more than one student.

But it's actually...

These are living, breathing children for whom we are responsible for their outcomes.

And so one of the questions that I'd asked was about How many students do we need to really impact?

And I don't wanna get into the end being too small, but I do think it's important, it is our job to understand this material and to understand, for a lot of us, this is very new.

It's not for President Hersey as a educator, but for those of us that are not educators, It is new and yet it's imperative that we understand what does this actually need to look like.

So when I'm asking for that data of how many, in order to get from here to there, what number of students do we actually need to impact, I actually want those numbers.

I want that info.

And that's not because, it is the same, I don't think any of us are disagreeing.

We just need to have you confirm That that is the work that you're doing and that therefore you're confident in your strategies and help us feel confident that then that's how we should be you know funding that because there are going to be some really tough sacrifices to be made.

So merging Director Sarju and Director Hampson you're thinking on this for example there's 400 there's 400 third graders to get to 70 percent that's 280 third graders that are reading that are proficient if we got to the 70%.

Is that the type of specificity you're talking?

Okay.

I don't think we should be afraid to speak in those terms, I think.

And that sort of was my initial push in response was, How many, by when, and using what metrics are you expecting that we will achieve, even if we miss our mark because of all these other factors that will achieve the level of growth that we think is appropriate for where we are in time.

to be making that kind of progress towards outcomes.

So I appreciate that, sort of unpacking that, Director Hampson.

And we can build different models to kind of think that through.

We tried to kind of give a better view into that in this memo.

And you can see in Figure 7 that the end sizes are there of each one of the subgroups of kids.

And then when you look at the different figures, you can see the student counts along the Far right side, and you can see then the different proficiency bands, right?

So level one, level two, level three, level four.

You kind of have to speak a little inside baseball.

I'm understanding that when you ask that question, because you need to know that level three and four are at or above grade level, whereas that level two is just there on the edge of being at grade level.

So we could think about how to make some different data representations of what that would look like.

But if that helps, it's there.

Yeah, I mean, I could have done the math, but I want to know

I want you to tell me.

I want to know specifically.

That makes sense to me.

Because, yeah, I mean, I realized I could have gotten out my calculator, but I...

All right.

Do you have more?

No.

I mean, I think we covered the landscape.

You know, one thing I didn't mention in terms of strategy is we still have engaging families as a major strategy.

I think that's important.

I also want to emphasize our efforts to make Tier 1 instruction really strong as our baseline.

And then we, I mean, I think that cuts across EL, Special education, students of color furthest in educational justice, and African-American boys.

I mean, so that's one of our core kind of foundational strategies to make tier one really strong.

And the other piece I just I'm glad that we broke down staying the course.

I think it was really important to bring that clarity to all of us around what we really mean by that.

And so I think we're done in terms of presentation and if you all have other questions, please.

Director Harris will be the last one and then we have feedback from AJ.

One of the things that really stood out to me in reading all of this and pondering it and rereading it and pondering it several years ago MTSS was revolutionary and all kinds of promises were made and now we're not talking about MTSS so much anymore and I'm wondering have we left it on the beach?

Well if we haven't left it on the beach can we Incorporate it into our memos so that those questions from somebody who's been actually paying attention aren't being asked.

No, Director Harris, you're right on.

Our PLCs have MTSS as the baseline.

And when we start talking about Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, that's foundational to MTSS.

And so multi-tiered.

Not system, systems, but multi-tier system of supports.

So it's one system.

It's not a bunch of systems.

And so that's kind of our container for how we can differentiate service instruction for students.

Requirement for our schools, our school leaders, and when they're talking about, when you talk about what's different for the child at the ground level, that should really be, when a parent is having those conferences, really understanding the data and the different levels of supports around the school.

It's a school-based And as a district policy, we are required to have an MTSS system.

So while it didn't call it out, but PLCs, that's part of that work within that as well.

Professional learning communities.

Thank you for doing that.

I would just add one small thing in the context of this goal.

We probably wouldn't see growth unless we had the foundation of the multi-tiered system of support to then put the core instruction.

And then that system also relies on data.

And so we're building that together, right?

So we've implemented DIBELS and MAP to go inside of that multi-tiered systems of support infrastructure because that system doesn't make, it's missing a component if you don't have those data features.

So we've been able to add that.

And then it's that improvement cycle of pedagogy that you get the PLC, the professional learning community, to be able to have those cycles of inquiry at the classroom level.

Hey, are you ready to transition to some feedback?

Absolutely and excited to do so.

We had this conversation last month and it was a tough conversation as I was evaluating the questions you were asking based on the rubric that we use for identifying effective monitoring conversations.

It wasn't a great result.

I shared that spreadsheet with you.

You all have seen it.

I've actually edited that same spreadsheet and added in all of the questions from Knight.

As I heard them, I feel like I must have missed some.

But the question I heard, I've got in the spreadsheet and have tallied in there.

And the effective goal monitoring score for this month's questions is literally more than double the score from last month.

I want to talk a little bit about why that is and why that's important.

Your questions last month were a lot more tactical as opposed to strategic.

So you were pressing your superintendent around, are you doing this?

Are you doing this?

Are you doing this?

And there was a lot more kind of almost advocacy around particular tactics.

That's not how you all showed up.

This time, last time your questions weren't as much about the data.

This time you all were all over the data.

So I've heard several of you mention that you really appreciate the quality of the conversation tonight.

And that's because how you all showed up is pushing your administration in exactly the type of ways that reveal What's strong and what's weak and what are we going to do about it?

Administration, I think you heard two overwhelming questions repeated over and over and over by your board members.

To summarize, I'd say one of those questions is when are we going to have data that tells us whether or not our strategies are working or not working so we can know if pivoting needs to happen?

And the other question I heard repeatedly was How does this actually look different for the teacher experience or for the student experience?

What are we doing to make sure that they are experiencing something, that this isn't just talk in a boardroom, but that they're actually experiencing supports in a different way And the resources they need, they're experiencing that in a different way.

So those are the two overarching questions I heard your board members repeat.

Staff, I think you would be wise to just notice that those are the questions that they're hungry for.

Board members, those are exactly the type of strategic questions that you should be pushing your administration on.

And so you've got a lot of bad news tonight, board members, but you'd rather have the bad news than to simply not know what's happening.

It is better to hear that some of the things aren't yet fully laid out than to not know whether or not they are.

And so I just encourage you all to keep pushing, keep pushing.

So overall, again, just a All of you who reached out to me between last month and this month and had conversations or who texted me or called me or we got on a Zoom to talk through some of the questions that you asked and just support the work that you all have done to just continue to literally double the effectiveness of your conversation last month to this month for all the work that you put in.

Thank you.

One other note to the staff.

One of the board members in their question said that I have links to the evidence you provided but it's a lot and I need more direction regarding what I'm looking at and they referenced like 150 pages of this and 78 pages of that.

Thank you for having evidence.

Definitely thank you for having evidence.

Keep that.

Always have evidence for the things that you're saying so you can actually back them up.

But I just want to co-sign on that board members Concern is that you do want to make sure that when you do hand people a stack of information, a review, to give them some way, maybe a summary or something of it, so that it's not only easy for them to digest, but if any staff or any community members or family want to digest it, that they can as well.

So that's the feedback I have for you.

Just keep on the trajectory you're on.

This is exactly what it looks like.

I realize it's an uncomfortable conversation, but it's not intended for your comfort.

It's intended for the greatness of your students.

And so this is what it looks like to have a much, much, much more effective monitoring conversation.

Keep pushing in that direction.

Mr. Chair, back to you.

Thank you, AJ.

No grades just outcomes.

Okay so we will now.

Yes I did say thank you AJ.

Thank you AJ.

Okay we will now move into our first time use evaluation.

Thank you Director Rivera-Smith for tracking our time as we move through tonight's agenda.

I will turn it over to you for a brief overview of how we used our time.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So the way I did this, you guys gave me something, they gave me that form that I completely ignored because I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that really, but you can see my chicken scratch all over the agenda here.

Every time we change topics, I get a time mark to show, and I'm going to go back later and look at this because I'm not coding.

I don't think we should code as we go because I need to focus on being part of the conversation.

You could give us some high level.

Yeah, but it seems like we definitely spent good blocks of time on obviously our progress monitoring right now.

I unfortunately don't have the ending timestamp because Teams somehow reloaded on me and it's back at five hours or five minutes.

Anyways, I got to go back to the video now to find the end timestamp.

So I can't tell you even how long we were on this approximately because I have a glitch here.

But we also talked about, and I'm trying to decide, like, what is student outcomes-focused governance?

Because when we talked about, like, in the beginning when we gave the board comments, a lot of that was on work plan.

And work plan is all about SOFG, you know, and our implementation of that.

So that's why I have questions about coding I need to kind of dig into to find out if that counts towards Our time usage like how I would categorize that as opposed to just like we used to give general what we did for the week kind of updates which isn't student focused and isn't necessarily what we're aiming for.

But yeah I think that you know I think this is just even from my own insight as going through this meeting doing this was it was really insightful about how much time we spent on different things.

And I will put together a summary and fill out that sheet they gave me so it makes more sense in the way you want it to look.

And I'll have it to you.

I guess I'll just email it out shortly.

Yeah, you can email it.

What I think would also be useful is like once you finish that, when we are going in to next week, once we get like a cadence of this going, it would be nice to be able to compare like, okay, so starting off whatever conversation, this was our time use code and like coming with it to the next meeting is actually probably fine in my opinion.

Okay.

And then as we get like a backlog of these, being able to say, okay, last week we were able to do X, this week we did Y, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So yeah, next meeting, perfectly fine.

I think the overview that you provided was 100% substantial.

For those, whoever are going to go next, I will just draw names out of a hat or random number generator or something.

All right.

Thank you for volunteering.

Who should I talk to for questions about coding?

You can code that as public testimony.

Okay, it doesn't matter what they were saying.

Y'all can have that conversation.

Nope, it's just, that's just categorized as public testimony.

Okay, great.

Easy cheesy.

Awesome.

And then Chandra just volunteered in a public meeting to make a spreadsheet, so hold her accountable for that.

All right.

Thank you, Director Rivera-Smith.

We have two written updates attached to tonight's agenda, the monthly budget status report and the compilation of questions submitted in advance of today's meeting by board directors and staff responses received.

I will say that this being the first week of legislative session, a lot of folks are super busy.

We did not have as many questions submitted beforehand as we did previously, or at least from the amount of directors.

So please try your best.

I know that, you know, Time use is not to use that.

Hold on.

Go ahead, Liza.

Say what you need to say.

Sorry, I'm asking a clarifying question about the questions submitted ahead of time.

I didn't submit progress monitoring questions ahead of time because I had...

I don't know.

I was talking to Chandra about this today.

I was thinking like, oh, that's a session.

We're doing that live in the meeting.

That was a mistake.

Yes, we should do everything ahead of time.

You should 100% be submitting all of your questions ahead of time.

All good.

No worries.

Great question.

So that being said, I know stuff gets busy.

Try your best to get questions in.

I am also guilty of this.

There being no further business to come before the board, the regular board meeting now stands adjourned at 7.28pm.

Have a wonderful evening and we will see you soon.