School Board Work Session September 22, 2020

3 p.m.

on Tuesday September 22nd.

This is our this is another of our reopening update work sessions in a series and so thank you for following along and thank you to staff.

So for the record I will call a roll here starting with Director Hampson.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Here.

And Director DeWolf you're a little choppy for me.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Here.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Here.

Director Rankin Here.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Here.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Here.

Director Rivera-Smith Present.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Here.

This is Director DeWolf.

The superintendent is also present as well as staff who will be presenting to the agenda today.

This meeting is being held remotely and through SPH to facilitate this remote meeting I will ask all participants to ensure you are muted when you're not speaking.

There is not a public comment opportunity today.

Staff will be working to administer the meeting and may be meeting participants to address feedback and ensure we can hear from directors and staff.

Today's reopening update is focused on special education and family engagement.

I have asked Director Rankin and Director Hampson to support facilitation today so I'll hand it over to Director Rankin to chair the first portion on special education and then Director Hampson will lead on a second portion in family engagement.

And with that Director Rankin I'll turn it over to you and thank you all for being here.

Hi.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

For this first portion Chief of Student Support Services Dr. Conzi Pedrosa will be presenting today along with the Executive Director of Special Education Trish Campbell.

We also have the Director of Special Education Tara Mitchell and Director of Special Education Devin Gurley.

I we have we got a lot of emails and we have a lot of questions from community.

And so I just want to acknowledge that before we start that knowing we are tight on time and we cannot cover everything that we decided that it was best as much as possible to focus today on current current for fall what's what's happening what families should expect.

And Dr. Pedrosa and I will keep working on collecting data and getting that out in a publicly available format knowing that we won't be able to cover all of it today.

So I just wanted to set that out there.

So with that I will hand it over to Dr. Pedrosa to begin the special education presentation and then we'll have a brief opportunity for directors questions and comments before we move on to family engagement.

Dr. Pedrosa take it away.

ELLIE WILSON- Thank you.

And I want to thank all of you for your time.

And I just want to start by saying that we acknowledge that remote learning has significantly altered the teaching and learning process and the student-teacher-parent relationship.

And we also know that it has created a major disruption in the delivery of all education including special education supports and services.

And the pandemic has highlighted the disparities for families including those with disabilities and students further from educational justice.

And while we acknowledge that all SPS students are not receiving the same level of educational experiences before COVID closures our planning from spring required us to take a different approach for students with IEPs.

Our number one goal is for our students with IEPs is to make progress and support their social emotional needs that are exacerbated by this pandemic while balancing the needs of the individual student and the safety requirements based on science.

So I'm going to move to the next slide.

I'm going to try to go through these.

And focus on the ones that are the ones that I know that there will be questions around.

This is the agenda.

I just want to share this agenda with all of you really quickly and it's we'll be going through talking about fall planning professional development just briefly in-person services recovery services family engagement and next steps.

I want to share I'm going to reintroduce a little bit but there was a reorg that happened in the spring.

This was based on some digging into the work that was happening and also the the need to support students as we are now doing learning support teams for all schools.

So we reshifted the entire department to be organized around the learning support teams at schools and to be strategically focused on elementary and secondary.

We did and we also reshifted all the special education supervisors as well as the program specialists in service to that based on their expertise and knowledge to support schools.

And we feel like this is an approach that we wanted to take to make sure that schools have that learning support team that actually has that expertise in the area that they're serving students.

And I have here Trish Campbell Executive Director Tara Mitchell Director and Devin Gurley Director overseeing secondary.

So and I shared this already at the last work session we had regarding community partnerships and I just wanted to reiterate that this is the plan still moving forward that the individual education programs will be the driver.

for remote and in-person learning.

And I want to share that the reason why we're emphasizing this is because last spring when OSPI had made some shifts in terms of delivery the focus instead was on continuous learning plans which basically took some of the elements of the IEP but we had to focus in a different way and that is no longer the case.

And so we are going back to IEP supporting the student for all fall services remote or in-person moving forward.

ELLIE WILSON- I'm sorry to interrupt but I think that we're still on the special education.

There's the plan one.

Thank you.

The slide hadn't progressed.

Thank you.

ELLIE WILSON- Oh sorry.

It's it's changed on mine but maybe it's a little delayed for you.

So IEP guidance training was delivered to school leaders and staff.

IEPs will be reviewed within 30 school days of the start of school.

And if students are not making meaningful growth on their IEP goals IEP teams can convene to determine if additional supports or trainings are needed.

In addition IEP team meetings will be conducted with families students if appropriate and school staff to ensure an amended IEP and learning plans are in place to support students.

That is a very important component.

Families and students are critical members of the IEP team.

And if in-person services are determined by the IEP team after review of data the IEP team will coordinate with the special ed department and utilize a decision-making protocol in alignments with OSP OSPI guidance.

And I'm going to pass this on.

I'm going to move the slide making sure is that moving with for everybody.

You have the new slide just making sure.

ELLIE WILSON- Yes we do.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Great.

Okay.

Great.

Trish I'm going to pass this over to Executive Director Trish Campbell.

TRISH CAMPBELL.

Hi there this is Trish Campbell.

So what does this mean.

This means that all services in the that are documented in the existing IEP are implemented at the start of the school year.

That means that all of our IEPs will be up and running including the goals and the minutes and all of that.

If the IEP that is currently written can be implemented including related services and it meets the students needs an IEP meeting does not need to take place.

Staff has been asked to contact connect with every family and to review services for fall.

And then and IEP teams will review to ensure that IEPs are amended and current in the spring.

We had some IEPs that some families were wanting to wait until we were in person or Or and so many of our IEPs were what we what we call out of compliance.

So we are making sure that they are current and in compliance.

We have OSPI has given us 30 days from the start of the school year to make sure that that takes place.

For SPS the first day of school is September 4th for grades 1 through 12 and it was 8 the 8th for kindergarten.

So if the IEP though is currently that is currently in place does not align with the students needs during remote learning an IEP meeting will need to occur.

And and it and that IEP team will include the family members who are vital members of the team and support the decision making as teams determine how services need to be relayed in the IEP.

So we'll go to the next slide.

Thank you.

Okay and I'm going to pass on to Director Devin Gurley who worked this summer and is still continuing to work on some professional development for our educators.

DEVIN GURLEY- Good afternoon.

So this summer we provided multiple professional development opportunities for staff including Special Education Induction SLI and Remote Learning Institute.

We took feedback from staff and we worked with educators over the summer to plan and lead the professional development.

Which we provided especially specifically for the Remote Learning Institute we had a session for all staff that focused on inclusive practices successful inclusive practices and this is one of the slides that we we shared that was critical that all staff got to see.

So we had over 3,000 people engaging in this professional development which the graphic on the slide comes from a Seattle Times article about outcomes for students with IEPs.

So that kind of really helped ground us in the why inclusion is important as well as discussions about successful inclusive practices in in schoolwide classrooms and schoolwide.

And so in the Remote Learning Institute we had the in addition to the training for all staff we also had specific trainings for special education staff that included scheduling practices IA roles and responsibilities Progress monitoring and goals and family communication and engagement strategies and all of these were components that we listened and learned from educators and families that worked and were successful for the summer learning opportunities that students with IEPs engaged in.

Additionally we talked about general education supports and we created these series of trainings that were both job-alike specific and for all staff with for special education.

And then moving forward we are currently planning continued support and training for both general education and special education staff as well as families to help students authentically engage and make meaningful progress in their education.

ELLIE WILSON- Thank you.

I think I am next on the next slide here.

Yeah I was gonna I'm gonna take you through a scenario to kind of give you an idea of what this will look like.

Director Mitchell is going to talk about in-person services next.

So to give you an idea of what this will look like and the process that will take place for example A case manager or special education reviews the IEP and is able to implement the IEP as written that case manager then would contact the family discuss how services will be implemented in the remote setting answer questions and plan for services.

If the IEP cannot be implemented as written or the IEP requires to be different or adjusted due to remote learning the team including the parent who's a critical member of the team will meet to discuss and at the meeting they'll consider what worked what did not work in the spring What is currently working or not working.

The team will review the current IEP and they will look to determine what the student needs to make progress on their IEP goals.

They'll consider supports that may be needed for the family for the student.

Do they need tech support.

Do they need an adjusted schedule.

Do we need to look at different goals.

Are there other accommodations that we need to consider because we are now in remote learning.

And if the student hasn't made progress on on those IEP goals the team may consider in-person services.

If this is the case the team will review the student data consider additional adjustments that may need to be made and at this time a member of the health team will be included in the meeting and support the process of determining what health and safety protocols are required.

And this will include determining what training will need to take place for the for the family student and staff.

They'll discuss which services will be supported in person and which may continue to be served remotely.

And there's a lot of coordination here with nutrition services transportation.

The work is all individual everything from entry and exit in and out of the building attestation processes the PPE that needs to be utilized in the training and will be in place before the student enters the building for service.

So Director Mitchell is going to talk a little bit about the in-person service work that's been done.

DIRECTOR MACKEN- Thank you.

This is Tara Mitchell speaking.

So as Director Campbell mentioned we coordinated all of the different departments to create a plan of action for our in-person services.

We had an internal work group coordinating the school operations including PPE as outlined by Public Health and Coordinated Health Team including attestation for staffing and student assurances.

We coordinated safety trainings through coordinated health and human resources teams.

Taking into account accommodations for ADA and other considerations with human resources teams.

Coordinated with transportation and nutrition with the operations team.

And made sure to include the COVID site coordinators oversight in with the school leaders team.

Next slide please.

In planning for our in-person services health services department gathers the following information.

Determines if a student has health concerns or complex needs that need to be factored in.

Determines the student's health behavioral or sensory needs.

Also takes into account how will services be delivered.

The number of individuals in this space.

Type of materials that need to be used.

And then the determining in determining the mitigating measures for staff and students it includes the proper PPE for the staff and for the students.

Determines and provides the necessary trainings for staffs student and families.

Clearly communicates about distance requirements and coordinates the cleaning and disinfecting procedures as well as any other considerations that need to be put into place.

And now I'll turn it back to Dr. Pedrosa.

DIRECTOR PEDROZA- Thank you.

And then just to go over there is a lot of questions about recovery or compensatory education and recovery services describe the need to recover any educational gaps in learning or loss of skill caused by unexpected school facility closures.

And and for this case we are in that place for many of our students and families looking at considering what does recovery services look like.

Compensatory education services may be ordered as part of a complaint investigation or due process hearing when a student was denied FAPE free appropriate public education.

And districts can offer comp ed if aware of a student being denied FAPE.

So and if people are wondering if they have a comp-ed case that they want to actually pursue they can notify the student's case manager or teacher moving forward.

And I'm going to go to the next page.

So this is our page describing family engagement.

We started in spring to meet with families and so I've listed the dates of all the engagement that we've done Either with a special education PTSA board or the general meetings.

We we went off and especially around the springtime because one of the things that we always talk about in terms of our work we talk about rebuilding systems and we cannot rebuild systems if we don't know how they're impacting students and families.

And so that's one of the goals that we had to go into spaces and our special education directors are actually continuing that work to go into those spaces and do listening sessions.

When we look at the survey results that have come back the various survey results that have come back through various means whether it was Seattle Public Schools or through other ways we've noticed that families of color tend to be less respondent to our families of surveys.

And we can talk about the why and all the reasons why.

But we know that many of our families require alternative approaches to engaging with them.

And so we decided to do listening sessions right before school started to understand the impacts on families.

So I wanted to share the timelines of all of these engagement sessions.

We always had special education staff at any one of these events.

But I wanted to share that that was the work.

And we actually did a lot of learning and listening about the impacts on families What was successful.

What was challenging.

What do they want to see continued working.

And actually I will share what we've learned from these sessions moving forward.

And the last thing I want to share is many departments also participated with us in these family sessions and especially the bilingual special education families of color listening sessions.

We had all of we had representation from almost many of the departments also in those sessions to listen and we are currently working with the community engagement team to process the feedback and the notes and working currently with the facilitators to design next steps.

But this is what we learned basically from a lot of families.

This is not everything.

This is just a snippet of some of the things that families shared with us through various ways.

And this is what we shared actually with all of Seattle Public School teachers.

When we had the opportunity to be in front of every Seattle Public School teacher we wanted teachers to know what families are sharing with us about special education.

And so one was families understand that this situation is stressful for everyone.

Families need teachers to communicate consistently and regularly.

Families should not have to reach out.

School staff should connect with them early and often I'm going to add.

Families need strategies in how to best support their children with remote instruction.

Families want regular connections with all school staff not just special education staff.

So this includes the general education teacher.

All their teachers they want their teachers to be meeting with them and connecting with them.

Teachers should share data and progress with them regularly.

Families need staff to proactively schedule small groups and individual sessions rather than expecting students with IEPs and 504s to sign up for office hours on their own.

And families understand and know how difficult it is to engage but schools still need to try.

Oops I skipped one.

And then I just wanted to share as we continued some of our listening sessions specifically for our families of color I just wanted to add some additional learning that our department has had.

Families of Color specifically feedback was for more parent coaching parent training and supports.

That came out in many of the sessions that they asked for specific assistance and some especially around technology.

A lot of the assistive technology pieces that information.

Barriers for bilingual families.

It needs to be removed in every at every level at the school level department level and we need to continue working on that.

Some concerns need to be shared with other departments and we need to continue to work together to cross-departmentally support families.

School staff need skills and support to communicate directly with our Black Indigenous POC bilingual and special education families.

Families and I think in all sessions all of our meetings when we listened with special education PTSA and our families of color they they were very vulnerable.

They really shared stories.

They shared challenges hopes.

Some successes that were that were useful to them but families were very vulnerable in sharing with us and told us a lot of information and we are holding that very close to us to make sure that we're doing right by that.

Families of color already have racial of trauma racialized trauma.

We understand that with the rhetoric happening right now with the racial trauma and especially with the violence on our Black and our Black and Brown community members and the pandemic has added to the racial trauma in their lives.

And they actually would really like schools to understand that.

Families are in different places and staff need to start there with check-ins.

And families want to continue to meet and center their voice.

And so families kept saying no we want to keep doing this.

We want to keep having these sessions.

And some one family member said this has actually been a little healing for me.

So we're not I'm just speaking for one person that's what one person shared.

But I just want to make sure that that for some families it was helpful to be in that affinity space with people who mostly look like them to help really share some of their concerns.

Next slide.

Our continued next steps.

I think this is really important for our department.

Finalize and communicate internal workgroup procedures especially to implement for the safety and PPE and operations.

This is important.

Oh I'm so sorry.

I'm going to go back and re-share my slide.

I don't know what I did but I'm going to get it back up.

Do you see it.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Yep.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Great.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

I got a little techy with that mistake but anyway so our continued next steps finalize and communicate internal workgroup procedures to ensure implementation of safety and PPE.

Continue professional development.

And especially coaching to ensuring that staff and supports are in place for IEP team processes and student learning.

Develop family engagement supports and coaching systemically with special attention to bilingual families.

That's actually something work I'm really excited that we're going to start building on.

Progress monitor compliance for IEP reviews updates and amendments.

Support IEP teams through school learning teams for continued wrap around MTSS guidance.

Continue coordination with central office departments to ensure planning for students with disabilities.

And then we do monthly updates at the C&I policy committee and we will continue to do that and we will update.

In fact some of the updates also are in the Friday memos as well.

And then just in closing I just want to add I know I'm short on time but I do want to thank our families special education staff and department for their time and effort over the summer.

Every time we listen.

It drives us to do more to improve our systems and structures.

I also want to thank our union partners who went into the summer planning and bargaining while also balancing work and children.

We came we all came out with an MOU agreement for with special education services including in-person services for our students.

It was a challenging summer for everyone and as we collaborated and planned for remote and in-person services which is based on IDA as IDA intended to be decisions based on individual student need growth and progress.

I thank you so much for your time and we are now going to move to questions.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you so much Dr. Pedrosa and team.

I'm going to go through alphabetically but just I want to reiterate again that we are fully aware that we cannot possibly get to everything in the amount of time that we have.

And so just to remind directors that I do have a list of questions that Dr. Bedros and I will go over and figure out how to get a report on especially the particular data that people asked for to make sure that that will get shared out so that because we just don't have time to do it today.

I will just go alphabetically if there are any questions that haven't been given in some way already.

Director DeWolf.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Thank you Eliza.

I'll be quick to and then just to want to share my gratitude to President of the Special Ed PTSA Janice White.

She connected with Director Rankin and I this week with some questions so I'll make sure that those are passed on and hopefully we can get those answered in the Friday Memo.

One that I wanted to highlight was can you just clarify again how we're going to be identifying How how are students who need evaluations going to be identified during remote learning.

How are we going to identify students with disabilities in this remote learning.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Hi.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Yeah I'm going to have Trish answer that.

So the process will still be the same.

Sorry can you hear me.

The mic being heard.

I'll keep talking.

Okay.

Thank you.

So sorry.

Yeah so the process will be the same.

In the spring we did not have a mechanism to do in-person evaluation so we weren't able to conduct the full evaluation.

At this point though nearly all of the evaluation things that need to take place to support a student through the evaluation process can take place.

We we've already started our in-person evaluation components of the in-person evaluations have taken place.

I'm not sure I said that clearly.

We are in process.

We are moving through with evaluations as if we were in school.

They will look a little bit different but we have the processes and the procedures in place to make sure that student evaluations can be conducted.

We do have a little bit of a backlog from the evaluations that did were not conducted in the spring.

So we're those are getting prioritized and we're moving through them.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Thank you.

That's it for me.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON Yeah the question that I had is about in the identification of whether or not the student's needs can be met cannot be met on sorry what I'm trying to say is I have a concern about a student's needs that are determined can be met online.

And in other words don't need in-person requirements but that it puts it basically results in additional online time for that student which may not be effectively meeting the needs of that student.

I don't know if that's clear but do you understand the nature of my question.

I'm worried about overloading a student who's already you know possibly struggling with remote learning because of Conditions that are captured in the IEP than having to do additional online time.

I think I'm going to this is Trish again I'm going to try to answer your question and I'm I think I understand what you're saying.

I'm going to just answer it and then let's see if I captured what you're saying.

So that would be part of that IEP meeting that a team would have to discuss because the conditions have changed.

We are now in remote learning.

So we don't want students to be Where we're doing that synchronous and asynchronous learning time so we're going to want to utilize synchronous and asynchronous time to support that student in the learning that they need to take that needs to take place balancing that gen-ed period so they're getting that core content and then supporting with their special education time.

So the IEP team would meet and if a student is being is able to make progress on their IEP but is being burdened by excess time Or then then a team would need to sit down and discuss and make adjustments on that IEP so that we can support that student in the best way possible for that individual kid.

Did I get your question.

I'm not sure.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Yeah I think you understood what I was saying.

It's just yeah a matter of of not just because something can be delivered online doesn't mean that it should in the overall scope of the IEP and that that is in fact part of the discussion.

ELLIE WILSON- Right it should absolutely be part of the discussion.

If a student's making progress on their IEP goals we want to balance making sure they're getting that core content.

They're making progress on goals.

And at the same time we're not burdening that student with work that is unnecessary for them to make progress on their goals and maintain their academic success at school.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Okay.

Thank you so much.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Hello.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Thank you Director Harris.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Thank you.

I just have a couple of quick questions if I might.

I know that Chief Pedrosa and I spoke about assisting the Seattle Special Ed PTSA with race and equity and cultural bias training and I wonder where we are there.

I also wonder whether we couldn't invite the Special Ed PTSA to incorporate their shout out into the Friday memo because not everybody I mean we get our information different ways and I think that would be of assistance.

Thank you.

So just to answer the first question I am in talks with the DREA Department to sort of think through supports.

I like I mentioned before Director Harris the resources are very limited and we have to think and I understand the need for parent education on those topics and so just kind of think through what is the best way to do that and how to do that.

Because the resources we have are specifically dedicated to staff learning.

We have 4,000 educators to support.

But it's not off the table.

We've I know they're talking too and I know they also have been meeting with other people as well but I'd like them to speak for themselves.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about in terms of the second question.

A shout out.

So can maybe you and I can talk offline more about what you mean if that's okay.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Well I'd just like for us to invite the Special Ed PTSA to send reports in for the Friday Memo and for that matter the Seattle PTSA as well.

So we can all share information in one place.

I mean we need more communication screens.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Okay.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you.

Director Hersey.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Hey can you all hear me okay.

Okay great.

So when I was looking at I only have three questions by the way.

So first taking a look at the timeline it says 30 days but really in all actuality that that to me looks like 30 school days which I think is the the right the right timeline.

So realistically we should be communicating out to families that if they have a child with an IEP that they should be contacted by mid-October.

Is that correct.

If the IEP is not current and not able to be implemented as is written then we need to have that IEP meeting and then have that IEP current by it's around mid-October is when that would need to take place.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Okay.

So then a follow-up question to that is are we not contacting all families with IEPs.

We've asked all of our educators to connect with all of all families to discuss how services will be implemented during remote learning.

And I however an IEP meeting may not to take place may not need to take place.

Okay.

So that makes sense to me.

So when we say contact what what does that entail right.

Because what I know from being in the classroom is that contact varies from educator to educator.

Is there like.

Not necessarily a checklist but a protocol that we need to follow in terms of what that contact looks like and just trying to figure out because and which kind of leads into my next question is if we can't get a hold of our parents especially by that date what does that look like in terms of moving forward with the meeting.

Because again I just know that for a lot of kids in our building in the past when we were in in-person learning If we couldn't get ahold of a parent the meeting still occurred and we still tried to contact the parent which isn't necessarily best practice in my view.

And so I'm just trying to see given that our engagement is what it is at this point it would be really nice to know okay what percentage of families with IEPs have we been able to get in contact with and then a little bit more clarity on what is the communication protocol that we're expecting our educators and building staff to follow.

Right.

I appreciate that question a lot and I'm in alignment with you on wanting to really double down on our efforts to make sure that families have a voice at the table and are able to participate in that IEP process.

So typically in IEP land or in the world of special education educators can make like three three attempts to connect with the family and then proceed.

However We value family participation and really want to make every effort possible to bring the family into that process and we'll continue to move forward.

We we err on the side of allowing the IEP to be late versus conducting it and then later trying to get the family to participate.

Does that make sense.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- No that makes perfect sense.

Thank you.

That's what I would hope.

ELLIE WILSON- Yeah.

We really family participation is first our first and foremost goal.

And at the same time that that does rub me.

It's hard for me to say that a little because compliance is also super important.

We need both.

We need really both to happen.

So we need good communication between our case managers who are our special education teachers and our families so that we can really have a good flow of information back and forth have a compliant IEP that works for the student and the educator is able to implement.

That's awesome.

So my last follow-up request would be sometime maybe as a special attention item at CNI it would be great to get a progress in how many of our students with IEPs and their families have been contacted and are being served like a percentage-wise.

It could also be in the Friday Memo but I'd really like to figure out a way to track this to make sure that we're actually reaching our families with some efficacy.

Thank you.

Right.

Can I add one little bit piece though that just if an IEP is not current that does not mean that the IEP is not being served.

We continue to serve the IEP whether it's current or not current.

So we don't halt services because it's not in compliance.

We continue that IEP.

So I think that's something that are that we that's really important to know.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Yeah.

And that would be great.

And in addition just thinking about that as well when we get that update on how many we've served In all I would also see you'd like to see it broken out by specifically Black males and our other students for this from Educational Justice to see what what are we doing to reach those children specifically.

So that would be really appreciated.

Thank you so much.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Appreciate the question.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you Director Hersey.

We just have a couple minutes left in our time for this topic.

Let us now go to Director Mack.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Yeah.

Hi.

I will try to be brief but I do have two.

One thing I want to highlight and then one thing I want to ask a question about.

One is that I had spoken with Director Rankin about this data request and I think that it's been put forward to staff.

But I think it would be really helpful for us to see the IEP minutes assigned per building and the staffing that's presently allocated for that.

Just as a baseline of what IP minutes are in services are being requested in the current state whether or not they're updated or current or or whatever that data of number of minutes that are in IPs and whether or not we're staffed appropriately and on a building by building basis.

Just in the current state I know there's a lot of messiness with those numbers but I look forward to seeing that data.

And with regards to the question of the reviews and determining if services can be provided I have a little bit of concern about if they can be provided or whether or not the question is what's the most appropriate support these students will need in this remote setting because I do think that kind of going back to Director Hampson's question that the remote Learning environment may not be the way that they can actually access appropriately and maybe the supports provided via IAs are not the exact you know hand-holding direct one-to-one in that same way but it's you know changing the method to phone calls additional you know strategies for pacing and And other you know other strategies that are you know different than maybe what they would have been doing in the classroom but that that in the review of the IEPs I think my question really is are staff directed to determine what is the most appropriate shifts in services to serve the students goals and not whether or not what's in their IEP can be provided at this point.

I think that's a slightly different question and I'm not I'm a little concerned and worried that maybe we're not asking the right question in the review.

And I want to ask whether or not there might be some focus on ensuring that we're asking the question of what's the right services to ensure that students can access education in this environment and not whether or not their current IP is just able to be done remotely.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Right Director Mack I think that you're asking the question about when when the teams are sitting down and discussing the services and if services can be implemented then that's great golden.

But if if services aren't able to be implemented or they need to be adjusted then you're asking is the team thinking about other ways and other avenues of supporting that student.

to engage in learning.

Is that what you're asking.

ELLIE WILSON- Yes I'm thinking about the shifting of what services are provided and in particular and just as an example students with executive functioning issues the scheduling and the calendaring and all of this is adding stress.

So additional supports in that regard are needed for those students now.

And so I'm I'm that's where I'm wondering if if You know if the focus is just on whether or not their current thing can be implemented that's that's not the right question.

It's like what services do they need now in this remote setting to ensure they can access.

Which means there's probably a list of different services maybe not more time but maybe different accommodations and services.

And I I'm asking to what level are we asking staff to be proactive on those fronts.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Right.

Yeah I appreciate that.

So one of the things that we did learn through summer through our ESY Extended School Year teachers they were finding a lot of different avenues different ways to support families.

One thing they found was really good communication with the families was critical to success and student making progress.

And they developed different types of visuals and things that they could support families with through the remote learning process.

And we utilized those And that's just a few I can't I could probably list a few more but they're not coming to me right this second that were utilized then in trainings with the teachers so that they could support families and the student as they're looking to make progress on their IEP goals.

So I get your question and there's some other things that are happening with our educators as they're learning more and more about how to support students in this setting that we're using to support kiddos students.

We have one more director and then unfortunately we need to we need to we need to finish.

So Director Rivera-Smith.

DIRECTOR RIVERA- Thank you.

Yeah I realize we're already behind time I think so I was just I'm wondering are we tracking I know we're not only in a third week of school but are we tracking attendance for our special education students and how is that looking.

DIRECTOR RIVERA- That's in the data report that we're going to be asking for that we'll get later.

I understand yeah a lot of my questions I submitted ahead of time were for data so I understand that that is forthcoming.

And but I want to just clarify too I heard you say that in the determination for in-person services that part of that will be looking you are looking at the data from the spring on the students correct.

ELLIE WILSON- We're looking to talk with the for the IEP team to discuss what was working in the spring and what maybe wasn't working in the spring so that we can build on strengths And that we can adjust if there's things that we need to adjust or like Doctor or like Director Mack was talking about finding different avenues to different ways that we need to support the student and family as they're accessing remote learning so they can make progress.

ELLIE WILSON- I understand.

I think what's what's really hard for a lot of families to understand right now and for myself too is how it can be such a process to determine something that seems so obvious to a lot of parents who have struggled already through the spring and summer with their children and Know that they do not respond online.

They cannot do it.

And it's just it's you know it's frustrating for them to not to have gone this long potentially three or four more weeks without getting supports adequate supports for their student in in-person services.

I mean I don't and that's just that's I'm sharing that frustration with you.

I'm sure you've heard it.

I know you've heard it.

And I'm wondering Is there a requirement to have this further assessments done.

Is this something we are choosing to do.

Is this state mandated that we do follow more assessment steps first or could we you know just have those strong check-ins with families determined that you know yes we know your student is not able to do online and get those children in sooner.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Right.

So I'm going to I'm going to try to answer but I know we're running low on time and this is a this is a really good question.

So we are Seattle Public Schools is in a remote learning setting and we are special education students are also under the we have IDEA requirements to support students with a free and appropriate education.

And we're in that balance between making sure that we're supporting supporting students as they're making progress to make progress on their IEP goals and maintain the health and safety protocols.

And that's that like that's that That's that balance and that tension that we're working within.

So we want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to support students remotely and then we are looking to move into that in-person space and follow all the health and safety guidelines to move them into that school building.

So we're in that process.

It's it's beginning to happen right now and I'm certain we will have we will be moving forward with in-person services per individual IEP teams decisions.

Currently we are not doing any in-person at this like this right now.

We do have some in-person services happening right now.

We have some evaluations happening and we have some other students receiving services.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Right.

Thank you very much.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thanks everybody.

I hate to rush through that but thank you so much for the presentation and the great questions and We will we know that this is just an overview and we're going to keep going and working together to figure out how to make sure families have all the information.

So thank you everybody.

I will pass it now to Director Hampson.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Yes.

Thank you Director Rankin.

The next topic is family engagement.

We will begin with a staff presentation from Chief of Equity Partnerships and Engagement Dr. Keisha Scarlett.

Director of Stakeholder Engagement Kirk Mead and Family Partnerships Manager Anita Coyier-Mwamba.

We will then have a chance for directors' questions and comments before we move into a panel discussion with invited community and labor partners.

I will now hand it over to Dr. Scarlett to begin the presentation.

ANITA COYER- All right.

Good afternoon everyone.

We're really delighted to have this opportunity to be able to share So just before I hand it over to our team to Kirk Mead and to Nina Quirmaramba I just want to give a little bit of policy context for this.

That we have a number of policy drivers for family engagement in our district encompassed in policy 0030 under the tenant partnerships encompassed in 4110 in our family and community.

Advisory and oversight committees which are drivers for diverse representation of family and community voice.

Policy 4129 which we'll dig into a little bit.

And also Policy 4130. And then also when you think about the Seattle Excellence Strategic Plan as policy and even our foundational beliefs these are all policy drivers for family engagement.

So I'd like to introduce Kirk Mead who will follow up and move forward with this part here.

Thank you.

KIRK MEAD- Good afternoon everyone.

I'm excited to be here and speak with you.

I would be remiss if I didn't sort of dive in and first make some acknowledgments here.

One acknowledging that we're doing all of this work on unceded Indigenous territories.

That's a critical component of how we frame all the work that we do.

Balancing sovereignty and civil rights is a massive part of The discourse we need to engage and evolve as we grow as a district and I want to also introduce that language into our conversation today.

I'd also like to offer some acknowledgement to our parents who have done an exceptional job under absolutely impossible circumstances.

I don't know if it's possible to overstate how challenging I know it's been.

I'm a father of a nine-year-old who was a special education student a child on the on the spectrum.

I can tell you that I appreciate understand and definitely can viscerally Feel the frustrations and the aggravations of our parents as they sit there trying to do their work and support children as well.

And I just want to offer acknowledgement because you've done an exceptional job under impossible circumstances.

So thank you for your energy for your time for your sacrifice.

I also want to thank our educators who are parents and do both.

They juggle all of those things and those priorities for those educators that don't have parents who don't have children and who also have children.

They have juggled an enormous amount of load and it has been difficult.

It has been adverse.

And they've they've been pressed in ways they weren't prepared to be pressed for.

In ways that they didn't feel fully supported in.

And I want to offer that look we see you we hear you.

We're working through these challenges so I want you to at least hold fast to the knowledge that there are people in this in this district top to bottom who are here to support here to work alongside you in collaboration and partnership.

I'd also like to thank my team Anita Korywa-Mwamba Sosa Saliliyei As well as Tracy Barnett our former practicum student and last but not least our two our two new employees Nichelle Page and of course Karama Blackhorn.

And I think it's really critical that we talk about and acknowledge our family engagement team on a regular basis.

Anita Cory Mwamba who leads this team in an exceptional way.

I want to dive also into our policy component here as we move through this.

This is what informs so much of the work that we do.

We've had partners meetings in the last few days with Seattle Council PTSA.

We sat alongside in partnership with our fantastic folk over in the special ed department across multiple focus groups.

We have sat in listening sessions with our East African communities and with our Latinx communities.

We've talked and engaged and acknowledged a lot of our communities throughout our family engagement work.

And this policy is what has undergirded all that policy 4129. And it dives into really about the two-way communication meaningful communication as it were between parents And schools and personnel and this outreach to diverse families.

And I want to offer too that as we talk about families we use all of the euphemistic terms family through educational justice underserved under resourced.

And what's really important to understand is the way that we get better at serving families is finding ways that the communities identify and describe their lived experiences and then speak That way about our communities and with our communities.

Use the language of community to describe community.

Take the lead from community in terms of how we shape and design and co-conspire to better support our families and our communities.

The guiding policy again just another place to reiterate there was 4129 SP and there's 41 29 and really talking about the what's conducive to meaningful engagement for our families.

So one of the things I have to acknowledge as well is we have a history of sort of going out into community engaging our families asking them to share with us their trauma and their trials and tribulations and then not coming back in an effective way at an appropriate cadence with The sufficient information as thorough sort of knowledge of what it is that they've asked and their concerns.

We ask questions that sometimes might evoke trauma and we don't in fact have the right sort of disposition or the partnerships in place to address the trauma that has been surfaced just simply through the inquiry around how we might better serve students.

So I want to offer that we are in a process of getting better.

Stakeholder work EPE work and ultimately family engagement work is really about that process of becoming better.

The guiding question here especially in this moment the strategic planning moment is where we were setting again that euphemism of families for investigational justice but really black and brown families indigenous families undocumented refugee families etc.

All those people all those individuals roll up in that.

What we're leading here though is with African-American boys and the experience of their families in our district.

So powerful focus and emphasis here.

It should inform all of our conversations in the district.

And that's part of what EPE does.

It's part of what stakeholder engagement does and ultimately what family engagement does.

Here are some of our core beliefs here.

The essential core beliefs about all parents have dreams for their families and want for their children and want the best for them.

All parents have the capacity to support their children's learning.

Parents and school staff members are equal partners in this work.

The responsibility for building partnerships between school and home is primarily with school staff and we'll talk a little bit about what our partnerships and our capacities look like.

But I want to also maybe surface a point that's really important to understand.

Often people come and they talk with us about family engagement what it means and who's responsible and what's what's happening and and ultimately how do we drive accountability.

And I think an important thing to know is that while it's natural to look to family engagement in terms of answering those questions and we offer deep partnership around in consultative coaching collaborative and capacity building It's also important to understand that while we have that accountability component of it the the the real sort of meat and potatoes of that work the where it happens is in the divisions.

Divisions who hold the work plans who think about how they articulate family engaging priorities through their specific set of strategies and tactics.

Where family engagement has so much to say about it in terms of how we support that work.

It's our divisions that articulate the clear plan that's on the ground that is experienced by our families our students and our educators.

And I offer this too that it's really critical to remember that just because we conspire inside of an institution doesn't mean the lived experiences of our students shift as a function of that conspiracy.

So thinking through again I may talk really full-throatedly about this work but if the lived experiences of our students and our families and our communities does not shift we have not succeeded in the things that we've designed to do.

What does Family Engagement do offering again here that we research we develop and disseminate all of our best practices our frameworks and our theories.

We're the holder of the information.

We're the partners and thought leaders around this work and we offer consultation and coaching.

You see where we're we're working across at least right now over 15 schools five central office departments to support their work directly.

We're partnering with SHA.

Partnering with schools to develop the CSIP goals.

Again an area that was elevated through direct influence of family engagement.

I also offer that we are offering tiered support across 13 liaison schools those priority 13 third liaisons across 13 priority schools.

Offering here that with our priority schools those are our schools for those of you who don't know the highest concentration of African-American boys.

Again reiterating that it is critical we remain focused and keep our eyes on the prize around how we support our African-American boys and their lived experience in education as well.

The APTT program again another program run really really effectively piloted South Shore but also the Rising Star and Thurgood led by Anita Coyier-Mwamba as well.

And then what we've done so far and apologies for pressing through this I know we're short on time I want to make certain I get enough time for questions here.

So you'll see some of the data points around what has happened offering to that this is within the night within the 2019 2020 school year and of course in the midst of that 2020 2019 2020 school year that pandemic hit that slowed down a little bit of our process and sort of sent us to the Four Corners to support other critical initiatives of standing up supports for our families and our educators.

But here's where we left off For that year and there's a lot of encouraging direction and and growth that happened there.

And thinking about moving forward what it means to build on this work to scale this work and grow this work.

We operate from at least four components here in terms of how we frame our work.

Capabilities being one of them confidence being the other.

Connection and cognition.

These are core components of how we support schools.

Right.

The ways in which schools see themselves and ways which we see them.

I will skip back to that slide I accidentally advanced our capabilities.

Building skills knowledge tools and resources.

Confidence.

Building self-efficacy.

And again This is really a there's a programmatic component here that didn't make its way to the slide but our Family Connector University and ASOSA who has done an exceptional job in terms of building that out and as we scale that work in building and getting onboarding a Family Connectors University lead and those 13 liaisons that actually will be working in our schools Building efficacy to support our families as they get into the into the educational system.

You know a great win and a fantastic story is Anita Koyo-Mamba who came from our communities who came through our schools and ended up being an incredible asset and resource for our work here in family engagement.

Connection and also cognition of shifting mindsets and beliefs and thinking about how our educators see our families and vice versa.

Some of our tools and frameworks theories of action change.

Some of the components you'll see here are really really important.

To the bottom here the dual capacity building framework is one of the most critical components that we use to move and shift educators and administrators school leaders thoughts hearts and minds around this work and they've onboarded it in really meaningful ways.

We've seen that through our survey work and through our engagement work with our school educators and leaders.

Our primary education engagement initiatives I'm going to run through this here as well.

Academic parent teacher teams again Anita Coyor-Momba our manager has done a really fantastic job in leading that and shaping that and building that.

And then of course another component of this the hourly opportunity so around third grade literacy and supporting that as well.

And it's assigned across our 13 priority schools.

So again elevating a strategic initiative around literacy and then prioritizing the schools with the highest concentration of African-American boys in it.

And then of course having a central office-based coordinator to be hired to support all of our liaisons.

And I mentioned that before as well.

Moving on to the next one Family Connectors University North Seattle Community College Partnership and led again by Asocia Saeed Ali.

A fantastic partnership again shaping how our parents are able to engage increasing their competency their capacity around supporting the work of family engagement at schools on the ground.

You'll see there the KPI 300 parents trained.

We do have a fall session coming up here in October right around the corner.

And last but not least and I think I might have skipped Mohamed when I did the initial interview introductions of our team.

But Mohamed Roble who has been an exceptional bit of a resource and asset for our for our team as well doing immigrant refugee Somali language supports and also supporting enrollment and special education.

And I don't want to I don't want to under overstate or understate rather the importance of language justice in this conversation.

We hear often in our focus groups and from our families the ELL support is a critical component of that.

I know in Family Engagement we partner with a lot of Our departments really think about that and really work to be better at supporting families even as we're doing focus groups the ways in which we shape and design and format focus groups as it relates to language justice and language access are really really critical.

So practicing through our outreach how we need to shape and support our families in the classroom and in the community as well also really important.

So what's next here and I'm I'm going to offer that I think Dr. Schaal is going to jump back in here.

I do have Anita on the call as well.

What's next here for us and around the work we do in family engagement.

Performance management support and I know Dr. Scarlett can talk a little bit about that.

I'll just run through these real quick and then we can back back into this.

Family Engagement Advisory Group our CSIP Tier 1 3-year family engagement plan.

Support for family engagement goals within divisional work plans.

Of course investing and increasing the school-based resources here.

Communication outreach support I've talked a lot about that on this on this presentation around focus groups and how we're supporting other divisions in their work.

Family engagement as well.

Again those divisions holding the meat of that work being deeply accountable and ideally responsive to the needs of our families and our communities as they shape their work plans going into the next academic year.

Again thank you so much for your indulgence and for understanding how quickly I went through that.

Hoping to have plenty of time here to to engage.

I know Dr. Skoll has something to say about our our next steps as well.

And of course Anita Koryawamber is here to answer questions around family engagement too.

So thank you so much.

ANITA KORYA- Yeah thank you so much Kirk.

I appreciate how just the level of urgency at which you went through in prioritizing questions for our board and community questions that they are holding for us.

So just for the point of speaking about performance management for school leaders I just want to highlight two things that the Association of Washington School Principals has a new leadership framework.

It's the 3.0 that was revised for the 2021 school year.

And criteria 7 criterion rather 7 engaging families and communities I think is an area that is particularly significant in this body of work.

And represents opportunities for us to work more closely with our Chief Jesse and our from Continuous Improvement and Chief of Schools in order to really think about what are the ways that we can really align equity racial literacy and evidence of impact within stakeholder engagement and really drive outcomes as far as with our school leaders.

And just to highlight back to when Kirk spoke about Those four different core beliefs.

The final belief about the responsibility of cultivating and sustaining partnerships rests primarily with school staff especially school leaders is the connection into that one.

And then lastly I'll talk about just share that at the level of school or educators thinking about also Criterion 7 that's in our TPAP framework.

Communicating and collaborating with parents and school community.

And we've been doing work in partnership with Human Resources through the foundational beliefs and foundational coursework in order to really drive what it looks like to have these attributes displayed at a proficient and distinguished level in those performance management.

So that continues to be work that we're doing.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Okay.

Oh go ahead.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Oh sorry.

Was that the there says there's one more slide.

I didn't know if there was another slide left.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Yeah.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- That's the end of the deck.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- But if you could move back to that last slide I just one more point about that.

I just wanted to invite Chief Jessee just to speak a bit about for a moment about the CSIP Tier 1. There we worked really closely with across across division effort in the school improvement Plan improvements.

And there are some new requirements that are Tier 1 across all schools.

So Chief Jussie would you mind just sharing a little bit about that.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Yeah sure.

Thank you Chief Scarlett.

Yeah so this that was a collaborative effort between our teams really around how to have family engagement explicitly called out elevated if you allow me in the CSIP.

As we reconstructed the CSIP process over the last couple of years and part of the work session that we had presented to you in the spring really it was around our offer to say hey if this isn't a strategic plan and we're building authentic engagement opportunities we need to have explicitly called out what are schools doing as opposed to kind of like sliding it underneath other goals or other work.

This is really an elevated piece.

Kirk spoke really well to that as part of where we're saying Hey you know what that's not something where we're gonna try to do something everything in central office but it's actually the power comes when we are enabling our staff to take the steps to intentionally practice call call call sorry call the gating connections with our families listening learning co-developing.

And so we know that too often it's just a transactional relationship we're really Turning and focusing on trusting and partnership.

And so this year as we started off that was again some of the readiness and wellness family connection and then building in again that family connection within our our daily work as educators so that we can partner truly with our families.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Okay.

Thank you to you all.

We are going to go to our next presenter and then we're going to take questions for everyone at the end.

So we're going to try really hard to stand.

Thank you so much.

I know that was a lot to get through and I know you've worked really hard to get through it so I really appreciate that.

And there's there's a lot there and I did see all that CSIP information.

If Tina you could pull up.

Carlina are you with us.

CARLINA BANKS- I am.

I'm here.

DIRECTOR HAMPS- Oh great.

Okay.

And so Tina I know you have Carlina Banks-Brown from CCR and the Roadmap Project.

ELLIE WILSON- There we go.

And I will let you take it away.

ELLIE WILSON- Perfect.

I just want to make sure for rules of engagement.

Am I just saying next slide and it's going to somebody's going to click it for me.

ELLIE WILSON- Yeah that works perfectly.

Thank you.

ELLIE WILSON- Awesome.

Thank you.

So thank you everybody for having me here.

My understanding charge is I'm going to give you a little bit of a history of the regional work that CCR the roadmap project has been Embarking on in family engagement and just want to state that Seattle Public Schools has been a very deep partner in this work has participated in all aspects of it.

And so I'm just going to try to give you a really and I know I only have like 10 minutes and I have this slide deck has a lot more information than I'm going to share with you today.

So and then at the end of it also has my contact information if anyone has any questions.

As you all know previously I love talking about family engagement.

It's it gives me much joy to be here with you to talk about this today.

So next slide.

If we a little bit about the roadmap project we are a Collective Impact Initiative Cradle to College.

We are South King County.

So Seattle High Line Auburn Renton Kent Federal Way and Tukwila are the districts that we engage with.

And my lanes are family and community engagement.

We have a vision statement that every child will thrive.

Next slide please.

That every child will thrive within our in our region and that we are hyper-focused on children of color and low-income families.

Next slide.

We have a value statement and you also see that there is about seven to eight value words that we use in all the work that we use.

We try to center all this.

And I want to also state these are slides that we have been using.

We just went through a transformation of a new leadership under Bernadette Miracle.

So we had a white leader under Mary Jean Ryan who was our founding leader.

And so a lot of this work that these things like these value statements and things like that we're actually using words like starting with race and centering community where before we were using terms like equity and inclusion.

So our statements are a little bit stronger now with our leadership.

We have a 2020. Next slide.

We have a 2020 goal which is stated from our previous work that we did in 2010 when we were initially an initial and a baby organization.

We also have a 2030 goal which is the goal that we hyper focus on now which is closing the opportunity gap for kids of color.

And that is by stating that 70 percent of all children will be on track to receive their credentials by the time they graduate.

Next slide.

We have over 100,000 children that we service in our region.

Next slide.

In that space is that 71 percent of our students are students of color and 19 percent of our children of our teachers are teachers of color.

And this is why family engagement this slide right here I left in my presentation to say this is why We we anchor family engagement as one of our strongest strategies within CCR and the roadmap project.

Next slide.

Our family engagement work has been 10 years in the making.

Next slide please.

And this roadmap visual that you have here is just to tell you that we're starting from 2010 to 2020. We have been using family engagement as one of our strategies.

I started with the organization in 2012 but I was a family community leader who was actually part of the initial work in the parent focus group space.

So I've been involved with CCR the roadmap project from the inception on family engagement work.

Next slide.

If you see I took that roadmap and broke it into three parts.

Slide previous slide please.

The very first slide or the very first round from 2010-2013 it was really about us learning.

It was our landscape analysis work.

We did a focus groups on three different areas which was city level or local level.

State level and then national level.

So we have a document that was written for us on that landscape analysis of what family engagement strategies was happening within our region and in our area and then our nation.

We also did a a project with Dr. Annie Shamara and Dr. Jill Lott to create family engagement indicators that we were going to use to measure family engagement.

All of this led to a very large very successful parent forum which had over 800 parents participating with students at Foster High School in Tukwila.

Seattle was one of the one was one of the major recruiters and outreach mechanisms to get parents to participate as well as providing us resources and supports for those for that time.

We had over 30 languages spoken at that parent form so it was very powerful.

But what was really from that parent form it was a huge lift for our small organization at that time.

And so in our review of it into the next phase of our work we actually began to acknowledge that we're not going to be able to carry that forth.

And then Harvard came.

Dr. Karen Mapp created a Family Engagement Institute that was created in Harvard at Harvard University.

And next slide.

And so our next round of family engagement learning was all about capacity building from the district or school building level.

This is where the dual capacity framework was introduced and we began to double down on the family engagement on this dual capacity framework to inform our work.

So in 2014 we took a cohort of folks to Harvard I think was about 40 some 40 people strong from our region and I think Seattle Public Schools at that time had about five to eight people in our cohort and then there was actually an additional group that we met there of principals who were participating at the institute.

So we're actually be able to have a really good showing from the Pacific Northwest Washington area at the first inaugural Family Engagement Institute which is deep dive learning from researchers And people like Dr. Karen Mapp.

We then took a second group to Harvard in 2015 and we had over 60-plus folks going to Harvard.

And our learning there was that Harvard's expensive.

We could not continue to carry that to continue to build the choir.

So this this frame or this time right now is we're building the choir.

And so it was decided at that point in our next steps of planning which we spent in 2015 was we would create our own local Family Engagement Institute almost a mock-up of what was happening in Harvard.

So somewhere where we're learning about our local access and assets and experts here as well as bringing national experts to the region.

And at that institute we had over 200-plus people to attend in that institute.

And from that learning what we learned very quickly was that there was an opportunity to do capacity building with district leaders in support to have a way to support school buildings.

So most districts at that time had family engagement district what we call district leaders.

They all had different titles at that time directors managers coordinators and we were convening that group.

Next slide.

So from 2016 we went into now building the capacity of our adopting the family family engagement dual capacity framework from Dr. Karen Mapp.

This visual is the current engagement.

So I left you the link there but one of the things that we doubled down on is the process conditions that we're needing to support district leaders and parents to be able to have partnership within to support for student outcomes.

And we began to double down on creating ways for district leaders to learn about process conditions and how to take their expertise from a district office and support school building leadership.

What we also learned was that district leaders had a hard time building relationships because their access to principals was was almost not there.

So they were more about systems and systems approach within districts but not necessarily holding the reins of family engagement supports to build partnership between teachers and students or building leadership and parents.

So this was a this is we spent about 18 months in that learning with our national leader Michelle Brooks from Institute for Educational Leadership.

Next slide.

And from there in our dual capacity framework we began to acknowledge that all of our work has to have what we call the four C's is that we were needing to make sure that all of our work anything that you do whether it's the CSIPs or your parenting plans or your work plans have to have the four C's which are the capabilities the connections the cognition and the confidence.

And so we began to create spaces where the district leaders were learning Ways to bring those bring those four C's into their work and then be able to articulate that work to to people like yourself school board members district leaders families communities principals and things like that.

So and as you can see from the Seattle Public Schools presentation from their early presentation from Kirk we were very aligned in all of the work that we've been doing.

Next slide.

Next slide please.

In this space in the building capacity and district leadership.

Next slide.

Sorry I had this so I can have control.

Is that all the I want to talk about the accomplishments from the district leaders work of them doing doing in this a regional.

Is that seven districts committed to participating in this professional learning community.

So all seven districts were exposed to this learning.

We had 18 months with national leaders coming out every month and participating in a family engagement assessment.

And from those assessments work plans were created in six of the seven districts.

We also had some technical assistance support in actually building products when it came to training and charters and professional development where we're supporting principal leadership.

And that's where the next two family engagement institutes started.

It was always about supporting district leaders to get to school building based leadership to support their learning.

So they created a climate survey recommendation that was sent to all districts.

I talked about designing the two successful family engagement institutes.

Supported 21 family engagement action plans that were created by school building teams.

And then implemented a pilot right now which was talked about in Kirk's presentation which is academic parent teacher team which Seattle and Highline are our pilot districts to learn on how to implement a best practice and making sure that we understand the ingredients that are needed to implement those best practices and following up on continuous improvement science and implementation science through that.

All of this work has been evaluated.

We have a Gates evaluation that was done by some funding and then we also have our own personal evaluations by Ed Northwest.

So we've been evaluated from the get-go to show all of our outcomes and our indicators were being met during this time.

So if anyone's interested in that work or need some sleep material to help you sleep at night let me know.

ELLIE WILSON- Next slide.

One of the things that we want to make sure that we mention is that in our capacity building framework right now is that we're double downing on using family engagement as not only the districts or the school-based leadership but then also in our parent leadership.

And so we are with the help of the district leaders which currently Kirk and Anita sit on is we have created a process to build parent leadership simultaneously as this is going.

And so this is an area where CCR is using the Roadmap Project region and supporting parent leadership in that space.

Next slide.

So one of the things that happened in that is that there was a design hours of reflection on what is needed for parent relationship or parent leadership.

We attend we attained some funding to support that.

We created a proposal and we awarded a contract a community cafe collaborative.

This was taking paths through so they can create they themselves would create a parent leadership network.

Sorry my dog just hurts one at the door.

Next slide.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- And Carlyne if you can start to wrap it up so we get to our other speakers.

Thank you.

CARLYNE HUNTER- Absolutely.

So parent leadership we have a parent leadership team simultaneously as we have the parent leadership collaborate our learning space.

And so this is where we are practicing our dual capacity framework as we are asking districts to practice their dual capacity framework on supporting both sides of the dual capacity.

So as I said before this slide deck is going to have a lot more information than I can go through with you guys.

So the last slide has my contact information.

I can actually wrap it up here because it's going to go further.

There you go.

ELLIE WILSON- Great.

Thank you so much Carlina.

That's so much important information.

And now we're going to go to Manuela Slai from Seattle Council.

MANUELA SLAI Hello.

Thank you very much for having me here today.

My name is Manuela Slai.

I'm president of Seattle Council PTSA.

Our council is committed to advocating for every single student in Seattle Public Schools.

I want to tell you that when COVID-19 hit our council came together quickly to support SPS in connecting families to resources information food and later technology.

We connected thousands of people via email surveys phone calls Zoom meetings and hosted forums for community to meet with Superintendent Juneau With all seven members of the school board with officials from public health and with SEA leadership.

Many of these meetings have been intentionally centered on families of color or families with language barriers.

We want to recognize and understand that family engagement is very important to all communities but to these communities that are underserved is absolutely vital and we're committed to that work.

This work that we do is robust fast and effective because it is based on trust.

Family teachers principals family support workers everyone that have an influence and a decision on the future of these students trust our advocacy and commitment to family engagement.

But having a strong partnership with those making decisions for our students has been paramount to our work.

I will now let UT Hawkins from SEA to share what families and educators have been working together in this partnership.

ELLIE WILSON- Hi.

Thank you for having me.

Across our school communities our SEA membership has really taken this moment to recognize the interdependency that we have as a school community with With our families as educators we're not only part of but also in service to the community.

And so to rise in this moment we must be rooted in our connections and coalition building.

And what has been a true partnership between our students families and our educators our principals downtown administrators PTSA and other community-based organizations is that we all have this need to reimagine and reconstruct education in this moment.

Jennifer Modder and myself have come into this leadership with a real understanding about our responsibility to do the work of humanizing this experience of COVID and looking across our school communities to fit in endless empathy in this moment.

And now more than ever our school system must come together around family engagement.

At SEA we have been collaborating with the SCPTSA and other community organizations as well as our principals to have an open and honest dialogue about how we can support the community interest.

We did some incredible work this summer creating that trusted space of really being able to listen but then move forward with what was heard from our families what was understood by our educators Move that information forward into our dialogues around this MOU that we were able to bargain.

To really be able to hold the district and ourselves accountable.

So I'm hoping that the difference in our school year and in our community is going to be the level of communication the honesty and the value we find in each other.

The priority must be centered on working collectively and seeing each other as valuable to one another.

Building out the quality of our schooling is heavily dependent on our family engagement relationships.

So in order to survive this and not degrade the integrity of our school system any further we have to hear the community's call to reimagine our education collectively and stand together.

I'll pass it on to Markita and Sabrina.

Marquita Sabrina I think if one of you is talking we cannot hear you.

Hello.

Maybe whichever one of you is available start.

Can anyone can you tell if they're on for me Ellie.

ELLIE WILSON- They are Director Hampson.

ELLIE WILSON- If you're trying to speak by phone you may need to press star 6 to unmute.

ELLIE WILSON- Hello.

ELLIE WILSON- Sabrina go ahead.

Yes.

ELLIE WILSON- Hello.

ELLIE WILSON- We can hear you Sabrina.

Thank you.

I am so sorry about the connection.

I just really want to express my excitement for our partnership with SEA.

PTA stands for Parent Teacher Student Association and the key component for the work that we have to do is to build the capacity of our educators and the capacity of our families.

Right now half of the Seattle Public Schools human family is missing from our table.

And this work will allow us to come together to make sure teachers have the capacity and our PTA leaders have the capacity doing the anti-racist work doing the equity work to make sure that we reach every child That is the DNA of PTA.

And so it is really important for us to put families together with educators to make sure we do the important work that our organization was founded on as we celebrate 50 years of partnership with the National Council of Colored Parents and Teachers.

And I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to Marquita.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you very much.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here.

So Markita at what point we did introduction but my current role is the Seattle Education Association Center for Racial Equity.

So it's kind of like a department of SEA.

Very specifically we focus on supporting our our moves towards racial equity in the roles that educators have in our in our district.

One of the things I wanted to briefly talk about is just the ways that we are connecting with families and how we're valuing that as really the next kind of move right.

So obviously we've always been supportive of our connections and community and our connections with community organizations obviously QTSA.

But now more than ever it's even more important because of that distance that we have with our youth and our and our students.

And so some of the things that we've been talking about Is I'm looking at my notes when I go over to the side.

Is is how we can make sure that family voices are really leading what we're doing in our remote learning.

How do we make sure that we not just hear the family voices but like whatever their networks are right.

So we know that people are relying on a lot of their community networks their partnerships.

But the question is Do we know about those things as well.

Do we know that they're doing that and how do we connect.

One of the some of the bigger issues that have been coming up is that families are feeling their students being disconnected socially.

So there's some challenges sometimes about how to make sure that kids actually have that social connection with their peers.

Right now kind of the only way that happens is like Zoom.

I mean sorry is chat.

And we know that teams chat and that particular project doesn't really work well for that.

And so there's there's some issues like that.

And of course there's questions about content about ethnic studies about how families feel like they're represented and seen in the classroom.

I don't to the best of my limited knowledge I don't think we have yet an issue That we've seen nationally where students are having things like happening in their in their background in their camera whatever and in their family or in the educator responds inappropriately.

I've heard stories about that.

I don't think we've had that in Seattle yet but that's still a big question because basically we're being invited into families homes.

Right.

We're being invited into their living spaces.

And I think some of the questions that I've heard from families at this point is that There isn't a clear understanding of what they have control over of what they can self-advocate about when it comes to what educators are engaging in family homes.

So that's just a few of the things that I am engaged with in conversation in the community and supporting educators in doing this work.

But I look forward to any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you Markita and thank you to all the panelists and staff.

We'll go to questions.

I know we're kind of rushing through and I apologize for that.

It's really fantastic to have such a full spectrum of what we're talking about with respect to family engagement.

And so I'm going to go ahead and start with Director DeWolf.

Yes thank you.

I only have one question but also just want to share my gratitude.

This is always the highlight of our work session so thank you for organizing this panel and thank you to the panelists for being here.

I know I'm very inspired by your partnership and collaboration and solidarity so thank you for that.

The one question I have is particularly for our families so for our Seattle Council PTSA representatives how can the district practice showing families respect.

What would that look like if the district respected families.

What are what are things we can do.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF This is Manolo Sly Seattle Council PTSA President.

I don't think we have enough time in this call to go through all the things that you could do but number one I think it's important that families know that we're all on the same page and that the families are listening to.

We have a lot of families that are still not able to connect to to Remote learning but then we're told that mostly everyone.

So we really need to define what mostly is and what those that are missing are as important as anybody else.

So I again there's a lot of things that we could talk about but most importantly is to be able to really recognize our blind spots and work on those instead of thinking or portraying that everything is okay and that everything is covered because it's not.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Okay and then Director Hersey.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

Is given that there are so many blind spots in our system what I would really like to know is what still needs to change at the system level to enable our district to do this work effectively right.

Because you know I have a clear understanding of what the dual capacity framework is but I'm not sure that all of our families in our system do right.

So what I'm really trying to know is where And this can be answered by staff and I would also be interested in hearing the answer from some of our speakers today.

But where are some of those biggest identified blind spots that we need to fix in terms of potentially policy procedure this that and the other in order to get to a better place than where we are right now.

So if we could get some help identifying those from the board's perspective that'd be really helpful.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Great question Brenda.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Do you want to answer to that.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Yes please.

Again this could be from staff.

This could be from our speakers.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- I just want to briefly.

Go ahead Carlina.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- I was going to say quickly I was going to say that I believe one of the things that needs to happen is that Seattle Public schools needs to identify that the resources are needed that you cannot have a very small staff to be able to hold a large school district to support family engagement.

The dual capacity framework was created because it's identifying that that district family or district and building staff has also have to learn some capacity to be able to be in partnership with parents.

And parents also have to learn from capacity and be in partnership with their teachers and their and their district leaders or their principals.

Henceforth why we have Family Engagement 101's or Parent Leadership 101's or Family Connectors or you name them they're out there.

But there's also a side of it but you cannot do it with such a small staff You have to be able to have the support because it's a day it's a long game.

It's not a short game.

This is a long game.

And that means sustainability that means opportunity and that means you have to be able to have a systemic approach to it.

That's my two cents.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- And if I can just add in I don't think Seattle Public Schools and Seattle Council PTA's family engagement strategy has ever been aligned.

We have never utilized the 80 buildings that we're in and a strategic aligned partnership Using the dual dual capacity framework and all of the family engagement best practices despite a lot of talk and a lot of meetings we haven't aligned.

So that's one area right now.

Seattle Council PTSA presidents and vice presidents are meeting monthly right now to make sure we do the work.

Their last assignment was looking at the CSIPs for their building and I think it's very critical because we can't wait to build the capacity Of the new family engagement stakeholder engagement staff because our families can't wait.

And so we have to be strategic.

We have to bring SEA in.

We have to bring in community partners.

But this is all hands on deck and this is about coalition building and this is about building a safety net so that no one falls through and when we find out somebody's not in the net We go out and we find them.

And that's what this work is right about.

We can build the charts.

We can build the strategy.

But right now this is life and death for our families and we need to build the work.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- So I've got Markita Uti and Kirk all have their their hands up.

I'll start with Markita and then go to Kirk and then Uti if if if you feel like it hasn't been covered.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you very much.

Very specifically when we're asking what can we do to respond with to families is we need to prioritize our families of color.

We've done kind of some loose focuses around I don't know like little focus groups or things like that but we really haven't prioritized our families of color.

And I think one specific thing we could do is figure out what their questions are and make sure that we're responding directly to those questions.

A lot of times that we assume what the parents are interested in or assume what families are trying to answer and then give those answers but it doesn't really meet their needs.

I do believe that right now the people in our district who are focused on supporting families are really actually disconnected from families.

So I want to promote the staff And the departments that are most connected and closest to our families to really do this work rather than some of the other positions that are assuming that role but are actually not very connected to our families.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Go ahead Kirk.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Hold on.

I think I was next.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Oh I'm sorry.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- That's okay Chandra and Kirk I will be brief I promise.

I just want to affirm What Carolina and Sabrina have said I appreciate Markita bringing the focus to families of color because what I what I said earlier and I and I genuinely meant it is like how are we doing it differently.

Because I think there is something to be said about ideally what I would love to see what I think educators community what this coalition building is is the priority.

of this work and the investment in this work leading our conversations to actions.

They drive the conversation to actions and it still feels secondary.

And that can't be the case if this is the genuine work of recentering towards family engagement that we want to do.

And that's complicated.

Takes the investment the capacity the system building to do that.

But there's got to be we have to start Really honoring being able to speak openly about what we can and can't do and delivering on the things that we can do openly and honestly across.

We cannot make any more promises of things that we cannot fulfill but we have to work together to really decide how we can fulfill those with all of our assets together.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you.

Go ahead.

And I will also try and be as brief as possible.

One congratulations UTSCA incoming team as well and the ECI Council PTSA met with that group leadership team that's coming in.

Excited to continue to partner with them.

So thank you so much for your service as well under the leadership.

I want to also offer that one we do talk often about what family engagement as a department can do and I want to make certain that we are very clear that Family engagement is a relatively small department.

I think everyone here already knows that.

But the core of this of the thrust of my of my statement is is that much of the family engagement work is situated and embedded with other within other divisions.

So we come in to support other divisions to deliver on family engagement.

And it's not to sidestep a question around accountability but rather to talk about how actual how we actually might scale this work moving forward and really have to think about if we're going to do something different than embedding that in the divisional work plans We need to think very clearly A about what we intend to do right.

Who is going to be responsible for that and what are the human and financial capital investments that the district will make in support of those objectives.

Again what we want to do so are we moving meaningfully away from or towards the existing set and frameworks for family engagement.

And then who who it is that's going to own that work moving forward or if it's the shared accountability responsibility and ultimately what are our investments from a resource and asset standpoint.

So thanks so much.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- And I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and go I know there's a couple other Anita and Keisha have their hands up.

I'm going to go to the next question and then in response to that if others want to illuminate in responding to that then they can add on to that.

So let me go to Director Harris.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thanks everybody for being here today.

I am so impressed with the thoughtfulness and the deep dive and the hard hard work that's being done.

And I guess I would like to suggest a couple of things.

I would like to see our staff post weekly in the Friday memo with at least the one pager of what we're doing with the work plan.

What the goals are what we're hoping to accomplish.

I think a lot of I think people are working really really hard but I don't think we know it.

And I also don't think that we're leveraging the brilliant minds out there with SEA SPTSA Special Ed PTSA etc. and the and the title the 13 schools.

I I implore you I beg of you That we do a much better job of communicating so that board members aren't taken by surprise and are kept fed and learned up.

Engagement is extraordinarily close to my heart.

And when we do not engage then we have a vacuum and it's filled with misimpressions miscommunications And then it's not about the children and our students it's about adults.

And I we need desperately to figure out a better way of communication and we need desperately as your board of directors all seven of us to be kept apprised of the good work and about the challenges.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Okay and then I think I saw Anita's hand go up first.

So I don't think there was a question there Director Harris but if Anita wants to comment maybe this would be a good time for that and then I will move to Director Mack.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Thank you so much for this opportunity.

I'm glad we are all on here.

Just to speak directly to my to the body of work I'm charged with leading I cannot reiterate enough how structurally It is not possible to attend to 55,000 students almost with three staff members.

Secondly we did a serious assessment when we had a landscape analysis done and what emerged was we have to build the capacity of the district to support principals leading family engagement at their school sites.

Because those families engage primarily with their teachers and that's the primary unit of change.

In order to do that people need to be equipped with systems with understanding what drives the work and with knowing how to address that clearly because many families they can come to us but we can give them advice and there are lots of calls that I do get of that nature.

I think it's important that we are careful of the language we use and the expectations we hold.

I think that transparency and stronger communication may be where the issue actually lies because a lot of work is happening and how it finds the light of day matters.

So I want to let you know that my team works very very hard but if we assess where the money is Then if the money speaks to values then I will leave that to the board to think about what that means with our current structure and staffing and whether if that's not adequate then what should we do about that is the question I would pose.

But in terms of the work being delivered Carlina spoke to all the work that's happened regionally what she did not speak to is how much Seattle has been able to get aligned with systems.

And I know I don't have time so I'll just end there and I'm happy to respond to anything else that may be out there.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you.

Director Mack.

DIRECTOR MACK Yeah I really appreciate all of the presentation and conversation and and in particular the questions around what can we do better and the thought going into that and especially because my question that kept popping into my head I think Anita just kind of started going into a little bit was that at the root of engagement is effective communication and communication is not a one-way valve and it can't be a one-way valve.

It needs to be a conversation with our families that engagement has to be that way.

And so I I don't know that anyone can answer this question in two minutes or less but the Question that keeps coming to my mind is what structurally from a systemic level can we do to increase that two-way communication more effectively.

And I heard that there's a lot of work going on supporting principals and teachers and that that's part of what the work of the family engagement team is doing.

And I'm wondering if making that more robust is is something that would be really helpful.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you Director Mack.

And because Dr. Scarlett had her hand up for I don't know if you want to field that question or and use that opportunity to speak further Dr. Scarlett.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- I'll let Anita respond to that question from Director Mack.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you Director Mack.

Absolutely because just like Carlina said in order for me to even get as skilled as I've become in this work it was a process of being part of that community of district and regional leaders.

Those investments were huge.

I entered this as a parent who was passionate about my children doing this work.

Sabrina Burr actually brought me in as a parent leader when my son was an infant.

And so I understand what it takes to try and surface a body of work that is generally not highly valued is important but not as visibly valued.

So I think investments in building the capacity of the district so that school leaders even when there's transition have sustainable systems that they can enter into when they enter a school in a new capacity.

Making sure we have common language a common understanding of what it is we measure when we're engaging families.

To mitigate the distinction between title schools and non-title schools.

There's certain things that are just core principles and tenets that everybody should have and that every school leader should feel confident in working with and working through.

And our role is to support that process.

So the work we're doing over the 13 priority schools right now will lead to that kind of general outcome to be able to assess where we're being successful and where we are experiencing challenges.

But with a staff of three and Sabrina I did see the issue around partnerships that you raised and I fully agree the issues on this dual capacity building framework we are getting the institution's capacity built.

What does it look like when we partner with our community-based organizations and our families to then drive that body of work.

And so the short answer Director Mack is that yes we need to make greater investments in how we teach teachers and how we teach principals and we need to have alignment and prioritization for those groups of people So that from the executive directors the directors it is something that everybody understands is for the good of our district.

If we're going to transmit learning family engagement is a critical element of that.

And in order to do that we have to be skilled in the task.

I hope that answers your question.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you so much Anita.

I'm going to go now to Director Rankin for a question.

DIRECTOR RANKIN- I don't really have a A question I just thank you so much everybody for being here.

We have such a wealth of knowledge and expertise and I wish we had you know three hours to talk all together.

I guess I would I would just as a comment connected to what Anita was just speaking about.

I think you know especially being remote Our our goal really should be making sure that all of the good work that's happening centrally is reaching our buildings.

And so I appreciate what you said Anita about you know our principals and our teachers and and how you know how do we how do we make sure that we're not as as central leadership you know re-examining and and and readmiring a problem and And you know putting all of our great brainpower towards it.

How do we make sure that we don't just get caught up in that and it doesn't actually reach our families.

And so I just want to I guess second what Anita was just saying about you know when when we talk about family engagement what successful family engagement looks like is that is there a is there do we have an understanding across all buildings.

Do you know principals as a whole have an understanding of what what Seattle Public Schools defines as as successful family engagement so that we're all kind of moving in the same direction and prioritizing the same things and and I guess just making sure that that people aren't left out that it's all you know if we're if family engagement is a priority it's got to be it's got to be a priority throughout because if there's a whole building that it's not for then as far as that building is concerned it's not a priority for Seattle Public Schools.

So I guess yeah just the when we talk about capacity building and expanding the work what does I think we should talk about what what it looks like to be successful and how we show that so that together we can you know learn best practices from each other and and and there's always going to be new families coming in so it's it's always going to be continual.

But yeah I guess especially in the remote situation how do we know if it's really getting out to families is going to be the challenge.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Director Rivera-Smith why don't you go ahead and ask your question then I'll let Dr. Scarlett weigh in.

DIRECTOR RIVERA- Thank you.

We're running way behind so I'll be very brief but I just want to say thank you to everybody who is here tonight to speak and share.

And I feel we are so lucky to have all of you working so hard on such an important mission of engaging our families and building our school district that listens to them and listens to the needs and responds to the needs.

And we we have such a wealth of people here all of us and we are I know we're we're strapped for cash but we are we're Certainly rich in passion and in people and in the desire and determination to see this through from our people who want to fight for our incarcerated students our immigrant students those seeking language justice.

All students of color thank you for all the work you're doing.

I don't have any questions really.

I want to hear from everybody here and I thank you for everything you've shared.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Dr. Scarlett and then I have another question comment from Sabrina.

Yeah I've really enjoyed and appreciated hearing our community partners.

It's great to hear about the partnership between Seattle Council PTSA and SEA.

Just to reiterate what Sabrina Burr had shared before about bringing teachers into PTSAs.

As a building leader there wasn't a whole lot of when I was a former building leader there wasn't a whole lot of teacher participation necessarily in the PTSA.

So I'm glad that that partnership with SEA can help really bridge that.

We have you know done work through our racial equity teams focused on family engagement for a number of years as we've had racial equity teams but that just presents another opportunity.

And then just to highlight and build upon what Markita Prenzing shared before about the disconnect between central office and families.

That is absolutely correct that there is a disconnect we can never have enough capacity in mass to know what teachers and educators and school leaders get a chance to experience every single day.

There there will never be a way the Central Office Department will ever have a collective capacity of more than 5,000 school leader or excuse me educators and then you know 200 school leaders You know so that is an absolute truth.

That's why we need to work in partnership together.

That's why this isn't one part of that.

And then lastly to link what Kirk said about working through divisions the example that we give about the 13 schools that is work that is under Chief DeBacker being led in partnership with Executive Director Cashel Toner.

It is written family engagement is written into their work plan and then they use their resources in order to make a material stake in family engagement and to work with the family engagement team in order to build their capacity to be able to lift up something like using family engage the family connectors as family liaisons.

We've had family connectors for a long time.

But they've never been really activated in these type of ways.

So this is innovative work but it is in partnership with our department and our division and this cross-division.

So as we get smarter and more accountable about moving from sort of general engagement in our work plans to really thinking about what it means to have family engagement and and then allocate our resources in that direction That's when we'll really be able to see the shifts in in the schools and the classrooms.

And so our family engagement department we have a multi-level capacity building plan from district vision and policy to academic strategy and implementation the necessary structures and systems to moving through support and supervision classroom teachers and then success and students.

So a lot of times we have mere goals and no methods.

We do have methods but all of these things will require multi-level partnerships Internal and external partnerships.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you Sabrina.

And then we're going to wrap up with Marquita and I will adjourn after that.

Go ahead Sabrina.

MARQUITA RAMIREZ- Okay.

Thank you so much.

And I just want to remind everybody that the number one indicator of student success is family engagement.

I don't know if you guys realize education as we once knew it has changed.

Many Black families will never come back to your brick and mortar.

Our children have found liberation in their learning.

Don't feel like all of our children are deficit-based because for some children like mine we're doing better they're doing better off.

So this is the opportunity for us to really reimagine to arm our teachers with the tools but to let our children lead us.

To let our children show us how they learn And be creative and innovative.

There's no way no reason why ethnic studies is not experienced by everyone.

There's no reason why we can't do what Auburn's doing and offering some evening programming for some students.

We have to think out of the box.

We have to be creative but we have to look at partners.

We have to be true about partnerships and what it's about.

But we have to build a robust plan in this coalition.

It can't be siloed.

We have to build that braid that Seattle Council talks about with equity anti-racism and family to get engagement together in every area.

If family engagement is everyone's responsibility who's accountable for it.

How are we measuring it and how will we making sure That the experience that every family has is predictable is respectable and in reciprocity where we're learning from family and teaching family because the truth is we have just as much to learn from family as we do to teach.

We have to think about family networks and not just the family because children are part of networks and communities and we have to expand what family really looks like.

Thank you Sabrina.

Marquita.

Marquita Marquita Thank you very much and I very much appreciate Sabrina to speak because that's the next thing that I was going to speak to as well.

Some of the things I want you to kind of remember is that now I have heard from a lot of families who know what school looks like.

There may have been concerns before about what their students were engaged in or what they were learning but now they're literally in the classroom with their students especially if they are learning from home.

And if their kids are learning from home then families are knowing what the content looks like.

They know what the classroom looks like now.

They know what engagement looks like now.

They have opinions about it because they're actually getting to see it right.

And so we have a whole nother opportunity to engage families and what it means to reimagine what learning looks like.

And not just reimagining what it means to be back in the schools.

That's not even what I'm talking about.

It's more like what does it mean for their children to engage in learning now right.

So one of the things I also want to recognize is that I have heard from like oh educators are working more than they ever.

I mean we already had educators working way beyond the contracted hours to make sure that they meet our students needs right.

Way more.

I mean I remember what it was like when I was teaching.

But now I have conversations at like 7 8 9 10 o'clock at night from educators who are just trying to figure out how best to deliver the content that they They're trying you know in reaching students right.

We have educators who are saying this is what we want to do.

Here's the information we want to provide but we can't do it within our system right now.

We're not getting the support we need.

Technical support we need.

The ability to engage with families directly.

Families are contacting them because they can't can't connect with our district you know with whatever whatever the need is.

There's a wide range of need that we have but the parents are contacting the educators.

to figure out how to get that support.

And then the educators are contacting us to say us being SEA to say we don't know how to support.

We don't know what what that access point is.

And so I you know bottom line is when our families are saying this is what we need whatever their question is it doesn't matter if we think we've answered it already.

It's because we're not yet meeting that need.

I know more recently that we've provided some information via communication via Email on the website whatever.

At the end of the day we have to check how we made the excuse me how we made the impact.

Right.

So if our families are still asking for it it means that somewhere along the lines we're not we're not impacting we're not meeting their needs.

So if our families are asking questions we need to figure out how to answer it.

It doesn't matter if we've done it already.

And so there's a lot of that and it's coming through our educators and so our educators are feeling really powerless to be able to meet the needs of our families and the families are feeling sometimes powerless to to get what they need as well.

I think we just need to listen more.

I think we need to when at the end of the day the need isn't met when we're seeing that we're seeing those questions we're seeing those emails there must be something that we're not yet doing.

And it has to do more about the impact than what it is that we're attempting to do.

We can't we can't assess what we're doing just based on our process.

We need to assess it based on whether or not our families particularly of color are feeling like their needs are being met.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you so much.

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all of you for for hanging out.

This is had it been a two hour meeting we would have been right on time.

So almost.

And as there's no further business I'm going to call this meeting adjourned and just again say my thanks to all of you.

Stay happy and healthy and well and and this work is to be continued.

Take care everyone.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Thank you everybody.