Seattle Schools Board Meeting Nov 30, 2022

All right.

Welcome everybody.

Good afternoon.

We will be calling the board meeting to order in a moment and SPS TV will begin broadcasting.

For those joining by phone please remain muted until we reach the testimony portion and your name is called.

OK.

This is President Hersey.

I am now calling the November 30 2022 regular board meeting to order at 4 16 p.m.

This meeting is being recorded.

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

Ms. Wilson Jones the roll call please.

Vice President Hampson.

I see she is on likely not able to hit a mute at this moment but she is here.

Director Harris Director Rankin Director Sarju Director Sarju I think we may have an audio issue externally is Marcus around.

Is anybody who is joining us remotely able to hear me?

Are we muted?

I think we're muted.

Okay we just had a sound issue so I'll just kind of recap where we're at and that is that President Hersey called us to order at 4 16 p.m.

and we are calling the roll now.

So beginning over Vice President Hampson.

Director Harris was here.

And Director Rankin.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Director Sarju.

Director Song Maritz.

Present.

And President Hersey.

Here.

I will now turn it over to Superintendent Jones for his comments and summative data review for goal three.

Good evening, board members, President Hersey.

I hope you all had a restful and nourishing break.

I certainly did and appreciated it.

I want to start with a brief safety update.

At Ingram, Principal Flow, supported by central office leadership, led a community meeting to bring information and hear concerns from the Ingram community.

It was well attended.

About 225 people were in attendance.

At Ingram, our Coordinated School Health Team is still present and supporting the Ingram students, educators and staff and providing support to those who have been impacted.

I asked for a safety and security risk review and audit, and that will be proceeding in the next several weeks to do an analysis of our processes and procedures and find any gaps that we may be able to mitigate.

And those results ultimately and those action steps will be publicly communicated and ultimately posted on our website.

We're also having ongoing meetings with Seattle Police Department leadership to really inform our coordinated responses and what we can do in the event of other potential critical incidents and improve our overall safety.

Now I'd like to do a recognition of our board officers.

At the next meeting on December 14th, our board will be electing new officers.

And I would like to take this time to express my gratitude to President Hersey, Vice President Hampson, and member at large, Revere Smith.

for their time and dedication this year.

You know, your leadership has pushed the board to greater effectiveness in its governance, which has had a ripple effect in which when the board is more effective, staff and I are better prepared to support the work, which ultimately leads to better and improved student outcomes.

So big thank you to our board officers.

I've enjoyed working with each of you and deeply appreciate your contributions.

Now to focus on student outcomes.

The board has been very clear about its expectations of me.

Improve student outcomes, understand where we are, replicate what's working, and stop doing what's not working.

And more importantly, show us the data.

So tonight we'll continue this work together with a presentation on data from the 21-22 school year.

And we're going to talk about college and career readiness data.

And so Dr. Scarlett is prepared to share what we know about advanced course completion in high schools, graduation rates, and how that breaks down for all students, students of color furthest from educational justice and our African-American young men.

So this is a review of where we are at the end of last year and will set the foundation for our formal progress monitoring of college and career readiness in early spring.

So as with the review of the Smarter Balanced assessment data earlier in the year, this data allows us to observe how well our system is currently working to achieve outcomes.

I'm thankful for your partnership in this work board and I will now pass it over to Dr. Scarlett and looks like she's there with Dr. Perkins as well.

Thank you.

Good evening school board.

It's been a long time so it's good to see you all.

Welcome back.

So I'm here along with Dr. Caleb Perkins our executive director for college and career readiness.

He'll be given the presentation but I was just given a few opening remarks.

Thank you for providing us with this great opportunity.

To update the school board with graduation rate and advanced coursework completion data for the class of 2022. Our hope is to give you the information in order to support your individual and public engagement in your role as board members and build your readiness for future student outcomes focused governance conversations.

This short presentation is intentionally shared at a high level.

I previously shared with you That when presenting state assessment data in September to just consider this an appetizer the scheduled progress monitoring session with Dr. Jones will be the full meal deal.

So please see this as an opportunity to jot down questions to give us sufficient time to respond to your questions.

We look forward to following up with you in the longer sessions in our coming year.

Welcome Dr. Caleb Perkins.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much Dr. Scarlett and Dr. Jones for this opportunity.

Thrilled to be able to get into the details on some of the specifics that I think the board members had a chance to preview and now we can go a little bit more in depth again at that high level that Dr. Scarlett spoke to.

A couple of points of context before we dive in.

This of course is connected to student outcomes focused governance.

Our top line measure as you likely recall for college and career readiness is graduation on time having completed at least one advanced course.

Why?

Because we know that's highly correlated with post-secondary readiness, and it's something that we know that we have had success in the recent months and years to move, and we'll talk about that in a second.

To break that down, you'll see some slides in here around advanced coursework completion generally, the top-line measure itself, and then advanced coursework completion broken down by ELA and math, particularly for students of color further from educational justice, African American male students, and other groups of students that are of critical interest.

The second point I want to make is that we're always kind of looking at the effect of the pandemic.

There were great challenges, obviously, with the pandemic and great opportunities.

The grading for equity work, which I'll talk a little bit more in depth, gave us an opportunity to improve some of the supports for students.

And we have to keep an eye on things like what role did waivers play in all the different access to these different pieces.

One more piece is that we have to stress, especially given all the recent events at our high schools, that this is a portfolio of college and career readiness measures.

We care a lot about lots of different ways of thinking about students.

This is just one aspect.

Of course, there's things like post-secondary enrollment, as was featured in Seattle Times today, as you probably saw, and in addition to the social and emotional learning that we need to care deeply about across all of our high schools and all of our schools.

So I just want to put that in context.

The final thing I'll say in context is that Dr. Scarlett and I had the great pleasure of being able to go directly to Cleveland, Franklin, and Rainier Beach recently, and the work that you're going to see, the progress you're going to see in these slides is exemplified by the great leaders and educators that have been working through very challenging times, and they deserve to be featured as we think about these data points and what progress we have made, again, during this difficult time.

With that, we're going to move to our first data slide if we could.

All right.

A little hard to see on that picture, but this is the graduation rate slide for a number of groups that we've been tracking over the years.

African-American male students, students of color furthest from educational justice, multilingual learners, and students with IEPs.

The positive piece that we are happy to share is that we continue to maintain the progress we've made on graduation rates, which as you know, we've been making over the last decade.

The great news is that we've been able to maintain that progress, even improve upon it a bit.

And that's due to a number of steps that we're taking to really ensure that students get the supports that they need.

I think that's partly an effort on the central office to be more coordinated.

We've created new reports to really help school leaders track more closely whether students are on track to graduate.

And then the grading for equity work as I referenced is also a key piece of this puzzle that we believe that in addition to changing the grading scale, even as we changed it back last year to the traditional scale, the fact that we were asking our educators to provide more supports seems to have stuck and those additional supports were provided even last year with that traditional grading scale.

The other piece I would like to highlight is that There are lots of things going on at individual schools and then I want to just feature the great work across the three schools I just mentioned and individual educators working on supporting students.

In addition given that additional that context slide is the role of the pandemic.

We also know this was affected by waivers.

There were waivers that were provided for a class of 2022 that will not be available at least that's the current I think guidance we're getting from the State Board of Education, although there's already discussions in Olympia, as you probably know better than I do about some of those pieces.

But we are going to have to keep an eye on this data more closely as we transition fully back to pre-pandemic approaches to certain things at the state level.

So that's the graduation rate.

Again, generally speaking, we're excited to see the progress.

We know we have work to do, and we thank the number of questions that came from board members, particularly Director Rankin, as always around students with IEPs and what we're doing around those supports and really understanding what it means for all of our groups of students.

So that's the graduation rate.

If we can go to the next slide.

So that's one component of our top line measure.

The other component of our top line measure is advanced coursework.

And again, we're excited to see that, in fact, even during these challenging times, we increased access to advanced coursework across subject areas, particularly in math, as you'll see in a later slide, and for all groups, particularly for our African-American male students.

So in particular, we see an increase from 2.9% from the prior year to the class of 2022. And that actually, as one director pointed out, we have actually exceeded our initial target of 62% by reaching 67.7% of our African-American male students graduating, having completed at least one course.

And I think Director Vera Smith very aptly asked, Where do we go from here then?

What does that mean?

And I do think it provides us an opportunity to go more precise and more in-depth on which aspect of this measure we would like to take the next steps on.

For example, might we consider not just one advanced course, but courses in particular content areas?

Often a gatekeeper in terms of credit-bearing classes is advanced coursework in math, and so that's one thing that we're exploring and working with our research evaluation team to learn more about.

So that's the advanced coursework piece.

Putting those two pieces together, if you go to the next slide, that's our top line KPI.

And that gets back to the point that was just shared around Director Rivera-Smith's very good question.

We are currently, again, above the target that we had set of 62% at 67.7%.

Obviously, we want to get to 100%.

And I just want to call out that this is about, yes, some steps that we're taking at the central office.

There's been a collaboration across our IB schools that we've been helping to coordinate.

But it's also an amazing effort across individual school leaders.

And I'll get into more of that depth as we get into the next slide as we break down ELA and math.

So if we go one more slide and we look at ELA and math, the story's a little bit more complex.

So there we see a small dip in ELA coursework completion.

And you'll see that we're actually using the C plus or passing score for this data because that's what counts for graduation pathway.

The assumption is the state board is not going to allow for waivers of that pathway this year.

So we do have to keep an eye on that particular grade point.

On the ELA side, we see it mainly as flat.

We do see some drops in enrollment in some of our college and high school classes, and that's some of the issue there that we're looking to learn more from.

And then on the right-hand side, you can see a pretty dramatic expansion in advanced coursework in math.

Now, frankly, we were quite low, so the expansion was needed, and we have a lot to learn from this.

One thing that I think a number of board members asked in their questions was, well, where did that come from?

What's this from?

So one very key piece was that we did expand a class called Business Math with a college in the high school class, which does allow students to earn dual credit, and that's one of the reasons why we see that dramatic push.

Again, sorry to keep referencing you, Director Rivera-Smith, but the question is, is that an And I think there's arguments to be made that we can go higher than that.

We can even ensure more readiness as we think about the credit bearing experiences.

And that's where one piece I'd just like to conclude with is the idea that there are a lot of partnerships, a lot of folks working on this.

I'm proud to share.

That we are working closely with Deal and the FEP levy is really focusing on this very same goal not only around advanced coursework completion but how it translates into Seattle Promise and the work that we're doing with Seattle Colleges and Deal around ensuring our students start in credit bearing classes when they start college.

That's one of the key indicators about whether they complete and they go on to the next level.

So we have a lot to learn.

We are really excited to share more in depth about those pieces and the five strategies that we're implementing in college and career readiness all the way from excellent teaching and joyful learning to opportunity pathways.

And we look forward to coming back with that depth.

And I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to share this overview.

I don't think that's typical.

Celebrate.

That's amazing.

Dr. Perkins, please don't go anywhere.

You mentioned three high schools in particular that are doing some fabulous work.

Can you just do a couple commercials for what our educators are doing for what just give us some examples?

I know I'm putting you on the spot.

I'd love to.

I'd love to.

Thank you.

The people that should definitely be here with me just to name a few you know Principal Brooks at Rainier Beach High School and the IB coordinator there Stephen Miller and then Principal Ray Morales at Chief Self and Allison Hayes the IB coordinator there.

They have taken dramatic steps to increase access for not only students of color, further from educational justice, but specifically multilingual learners, specifically students with IEPs.

We have a lot to learn from them in terms of what steps they've taken.

It's still a journey, but one of the reasons why we're seeing some of the increases is because of their dramatic efforts.

I don't want to so that's the IB schools and there's a lot to say that's good about those pieces but I don't want to leave out that there are many there's a success story in each of our high schools.

So Cleveland continues to show and this came up actually in The Seattle Times today if you saw the article the amount of FAFSA completion financial aid and getting access to that has been dramatic at Cleveland and other places through collaborations like with CCER and other groups out there that help support that.

So those are a couple examples.

That's fantastic.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are we going to have an opportunity for questions for this presentation.

They'll be directed to you and then if we need additional information we'll go to our experts.

OK.

Fantastic.

All right.

Directors do you have any questions at this time on the previous presentation.

Yeah and a lot of my questions were answered already so thank you so much for this presentation.

I would be interested to know and maybe this is coming in the later presentation especially Dr. Caleb since he mentioned students with IEPs and multilingual learners in some of our IEP schools I would love to be able to see how that's yielding in outcomes.

And if we're what those outcomes what those different outcomes look like between the schools and then I mean I would be really interested in knowing what factors we think are different that are that are doing that.

I you know in in the WASDA assembly that we were all just or not assembly conference fall conference We were talking a lot about mindset and we've been talking about that a lot in SPS also and in terms of beliefs and expectations and what I see in this data, there's a lot of great things but it's also really clear to me that multilingual learners and students with IEPs are, are at the bottom of each chart.

And I wonder how much of that is supports and services and how much of it may just be this kind of collective mindset and not to, you know, I'm talking collective systemic, not on any individual people, but just how we can as a system check ourselves and make sure that We're promoting a system that believes that all students can learn regardless of what services they receive.

And I know that related to the first question that I had asked about modified diplomas, I'm wondering, and this might be too in the weeds, but whether or not IEP goals are aligned to grade level standards, which they should be, and if we can see a reflection in the level of a goal, And if that correlates to the outcome.

Spokane is doing a bunch of really great stuff around inclusionary practices and one thing that they specifically talked about in a presentation was Shifting that mindset that they realized that a lot of their IEPs had goals that were not connected to grade level.

The assumption was that they needed to build, well, if you're reading at a fifth grade level, let's try to get you to sixth grade level even though you're a ninth grader.

And what they found was having ninth grade level goals yielded ninth grade level achievement.

And so I would love to see be able to see where how that ties in and what we're seeing in terms of the differences of outcomes for students especially with IEPs in those different programs and how we might build that across the system.

So I just want to respond.

Director Rankin, I think you said a couple of key things that are really important for us, mindset, beliefs and really around our expectations.

We've been and I think Dr. Perkins or Dr. Scarlett may be able to address this, but we've been really intentional about not only You know the technical pieces but really having a welcoming environment and having a spirit of each one of our students need to meet the need to meet the standard.

So in terms of IEP goals aligned to grade level standards Dr. Perkins or Dr. Scarlett will you all address that or maybe even Dr. Torres around how we've been intentional about doing that.

Well, as Dr. Torres has regularly reminded me that our conclusion work is a gen ed initiative and is for all of us, so I want to follow that lead.

I think what you're describing, Director Renke, is a reality that sometimes IEPs are modified in ways that are not appropriate.

They're not supposed to lower the bar for graduation requirements.

They're supposed to provide the UDL approaches, the universal design, so that there's different ways of accessing it.

But that's something absolutely we have to keep an eye on.

One thing that just a quick plug is that we are taking one more step in hiring a position to have a counselor specifically for our students who are in NPA's just to make sure that we're providing more post-transition support.

So it's a small step but we know that we need to do more.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Given that we are at 439 in the interest of those who have spent time preparing for public testimony we are going to skip directly to that and then come back to the student board and then board comment section.

So thank you for your patience.

All right.

We have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda but it is sorry wrong part.

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

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

I will summarize some important parts of this procedure.

First testimony will be taken today from those individuals called from our public testimony list and if applicable the waiting list which are included in today's agenda posting on the school board website.

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

And only one person should speak at a time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ms. Wilson-Jones will read off the testimony speakers.

ELLIE WILSON- Good afternoon.

Our first speaker is Yonatan Albaciu.

YONATAN ALBACiu Hello.

Good afternoon.

My name is Yonatan Albaciu.

I'm from Ethiopia and I'm here to talk about my school, Seattle Water School.

So our school is located in Capitol Hill and we have a lot of benefits that we are here.

So the clinics are they are very supportable.

So and my friend Frank Will.

Hello, my name is Frank Sandoval.

I'm from Mexico and I've been in Seattle Water School since two years and a half.

And we're going to talk about our school.

Seattle World School is a small school located in Capitol Hill.

There's a lot of diversity.

There's a student from more than 18 different countries and there's more than 34 languages spoken in the school.

So our teachers, they are very supportable When we speak English and something like, as you guys know, English is our second language, so they are very supportable.

And that's very helpful for me.

So I've been here for six months, so they teach me a lot of things.

Well, for the two years and a half I've been here, I've been learning English.

The teachers have been very patient with me.

And I'm going to tell you, our school is good.

But some students have been asked for more things.

For example, a soccer team for our school, they've been asking to change, for example, the food in the cafeteria.

Yeah, our soccer teams like to play with other high schools, like Garfield and Franklin.

And our transportation is not, because there's only one school in this area, it's for immigrants.

How's transportation?

Yeah, everybody comes from a different place, so transportation is a little difficult to get.

So we would like to get more support with transportation and also about security.

We were talking about getting a new security system of cameras here at school, inside and outside.

So yeah, that's our school.

It's very special because of the diversity we have here.

So by my side, I'm finished.

Thank you for giving me this chance.

I really appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

The next speaker is Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins box 84063 Seattle 98124. On the site specific educational specifications for Montlake John Rogers and Alki and the value engineering report on Montlake.

Nine points.

Number one please pull these items from the consent agenda.

Number two each project is too big for its site.

Please vote no on these items until they specify a school size that better fits their neighborhoods.

Number three the items are listed for both introduction and action at the same meeting.

If more time is needed please delay the vote.

Number four there are problems from each site not getting a normal size school.

Number five at Montlake the problems include more than doubling the enrollment losing half the playground removing the majority of trees adding three story buildings providing zero parking not even for ADA.

Number six at Alki the problems include 75 percent increase in enrollment removing 81 percent of trees adding three story buildings providing zero parking again not even for ADA use.

Number seven at John Rogers the problems include more than doubling the enrollment losing a third of the playground giant removal of trees including exceptional groves adding three story buildings and reducing parking.

Number eight each project also includes a distracting electronic changing image sign.

Number nine two environmental appeals are pending at Montlake.

The superintendent needs to make sure that the testimony can be given in person.

On the Madison Field Lighting Project the project involves impacts that are too big for its site.

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Donald Brubeck.

Donald Brubeck.

And please press star six to unmute on the conference line.

Actually, you are already unmuted, so go ahead.

Thank you for taking my testimony, board members.

I appreciate your service and appreciate Seattle Public Schools.

I'm an immediate neighbor of Alki Elementary School and grandfather of a four-year-old who may go to that school soon.

However, my family and neighbors will be severely impacted if you give approval to force fit a 540 student ed spec school onto the smallest of any Seattle school sites.

This is a 1.4 acre site.

The environmental impacts will also be severe.

Taking the decision to approve This size of an ed spec on this small of a school and school population is forcing the design team to ask for zoning exceptions to put in a 57-foot high building onto a site with steep slopes and other environmental issues in a residential neighborhood.

That's equal to a five-story apartment building next to two-story houses.

The service area for Alki is not changing.

The current student count is about 309 students.

The demographics show a long-term trend to smaller households and fewer children in the Alki service area.

So building for such a grossly oversized capacity is really a waste of the BEX capital funding and will lead to ongoing higher Operating costs, higher personnel costs.

So I would really like to urge you to consider two other options and withdraw this from the consent agenda.

The first option is to right size the ed specs for a school that fits the population of the catchment area, perhaps 300 to 350 students on this site.

Move Alki Elementary Schools program to the vacant Smith's Park School which is equally accessible to the Alki School catchment area and has a much larger site.

And that could be done if Alki if Alki's rebuilding program became the last in line for West Seattle schools.

Smith's Park's being used for swing space.

You could avoid a whole double move if Smith's Park just became the Alki school program.

So thank you for your consideration and appreciate again your consideration of these comments.

Bye.

The next speaker is Victoria Habas.

Hi tough last name Victoria Habes.

Thanks for hearing my testimony today about Mountain Lake Elementary School.

I was saved by the previous speaker.

I have many of the same comments about the site size versus this forecast student body.

I've done the same research into the demographics of the area and the attendance boundary which are not forecast to change.

Nor any kind of outlandish population growth that would drive the need for a 500 student building excuse me.

That would be 167 percent forecast increase to that school and it's just seemingly implausible at this time.

In fact the SDAT approach is in their own words every school is different and it's important for the design team to understand that each school has its own community and culture.

I ask that you consider Montlake tiny little Montlake Whether it needs that size of a school.

I'll move on to the size of the building itself.

The square footage is again one of the largest.

This SPS building is going to be one of the largest schools on one of the smallest sites only beat by Alki I'll acknowledge.

But the second smallest site and the largest school.

So lest we be accused and we have been of building what was called a bespoke solution for an affluent neighborhood I would ask you to consider why more square footage per student is being given to this neighborhood rather than to underserved communities or lower income neighborhoods.

It's basically 10 pounds of school in a five pound bag and to do that in order to do that we're cannibalizing things like safety Parking plans, bus areas, the building heights and setbacks, all things that are impacting the neighborhood and community.

I think that's out of line with the intention behind the improvements to the school.

Finally, parking.

Near and dear to my heart, even if parking does not out-prioritize educational spaces, which I acknowledge and agree with, it ought to at least out-prioritize unfunded programs like the garden space.

It ought to out-prioritize or be included with priority for accessibility, including ADA parking.

And it ought to be a priority for safety as we plan for school bus routes and safe routes to school.

Thanks so much.

The next speaker is Mimi Deberle.

Mimi Deberle.

Mimi if you're on the phone please press star six to unmute.

Yes.

Go ahead.

We can hear you.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I'm also a close neighbor of Montlake School.

And some of my issues have to do with safety, which people seem to disagree.

So I'm also a close neighbor of Montlake School.

And some of my issues have to do with safety, which people seem to disagree.

Right.

And so one of...

Mimi, if you have the audio going from the meeting in the background, it's causing a little bit of an echo in this.

Oh, okay.

That's probably the problem.

I've got the TV on.

I'll turn off the TV.

Sorry about that.

One of the things that I had a question about was when there's fire drills right now, I believe the students go to the play field.

Well, there really won't be any play field for them to go to.

So that means basically they would have to go out on the city streets.

Now if the school is actually going to be increased by almost three times, I wonder if there'd even be enough room on the sidewalks for all the students if there were a fire drill.

I don't know if there's any state requirements about fire drills, but that's something that I think should be looked at.

The other thing that concerns me is the fact that with that many more students, since there aren't that many young children in Montlake, I'm assuming they're going to be coming from other areas where they would have to be bussed.

At this point, there's bussing on one side of the street, and that gets very dicey, even at best with the narrow city streets that we have.

And people can't see cars coming.

And if there are that many students, there would probably be buses almost all around the school.

So that's another real safety issue that nobody seems to address when they're looking at these problems.

And so that's basically my concerns.

And thank you for listening to me.

The next speaker is Darlene Christopher.

Hi my name is Darlene Christopher and I wanted to talk about the scourge of the gun violence that is so rampant these days that it's now our new norm and politicians just avert it.

They deny they feign ignorance perhaps because they're in bed with pharma I don't know or the NRA.

But my concern is the future and it doesn't take a psychic to figure out that people will not want to be educators if they have to worry about the security and With all due respect Dr. Jones security audits a great idea but it doesn't and for one school.

But I suggest having a secure system in place with airport type security metal defectors or metal costs between two and ten thousand dollars the metal detectors or the handheld ones that are 100 to 400. I don't know why we're not doing this.

I don't understand why we haven't had this in place before.

Who's going to want to sign up to become an educator if they have to worry about their death at that date.

And every day I drop off my kids and I pray that nothing bad happens to them.

This year alone we've had 46 shootings and one out of every 10 kids die 19 and under.

Due to firearm due to guns.

And I just have had it.

Nobody does anything about it.

Nobody.

Why do we not have the budget for this?

And if we don't have the budget why can't we go to the NRA and ask them if they want to have our guns.

And I'm not arguing the Second Amendment.

I'm just asking for some protection some safety so our kids don't have to get to antidepressants.

OK.

Because that's what's happening now.

Everybody's got this.

Crazy nervousness that their kid's going to die that day.

You know and I've just had it.

Nobody's doing anything.

Security has to be in place not just audits or mental health insurance.

What's going to happen if we do have another shootout and right here in this district I'm sure that plenty of money is going to be paid out to those families versus the money that you could save by having and the safety that we could have the certainty that we would have that nobody would get shot up.

If they're walking through a metal detector that would deter the violence.

Why aren't we doing this?

Politicians aren't going to do anything.

You guys have to be the forerunner for the world because nobody else is doing it.

You guys have to step up and face the politicians and tell them to get out of bed with pharma because that's what's happening with the antidepressants.

The stock surges going up high.

Get out of bed with pharma.

You guys we need you.

The next speaker is Janice White.

Janice White if you're oh I believe you unmuted.

I did thank you.

Good afternoon.

I've had a hard time concentrating since I read the Seattle Times article about the special education schools called non-public agencies or NPAs.

More than once in my autistic son's journey through Seattle Public Schools, staff suggested that we send him to one of these schools, removing him from learning with his neurotypical peers.

I remember calling Northwest Soil and talking to someone on the phone.

They were moving to a new location so I couldn't visit.

Instead, I asked around and I heard horror stories, just like what you all read in the Seattle Times article.

So imagine how I felt as a parent reading the Seattle Times article when I realized the district staff had suggested I send my child to that school after staff had visited the school and recommended that Seattle Public Schools immediately pull out all of our students from Northwest soil.

As president of the Seattle Special Education PTSA, Sherrilyn Crowther has testified several times this year And said that the system is not broken.

It is functioning as intended.

The system of non-public schools in Washington like Northwest Soil exists as a place for school districts to send the students with disabilities they have given up on.

You should all be ashamed that our district participates.

For several years I testified to the school board asking that the board not approve the Northwest Soil contract.

Or at the very least require enough oversight in the contract to ensure that our children were not being sent away to be abused and harmed.

No one on staff or the school board ever responded.

I know that you can't undo this overnight.

But you need to listen to the community and direct staff to act.

This is not a situation where as the school board you get to sit back and say that this is an issue for staff to handle.

It would be left up to the same staff who have continued to send children to Northwest soil despite our district knowing the harm since 2015. The lives of children who matter are at stake.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

Alex Zimmerman.

Please press star six if you are on the phone to unmute.

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

Moving to the next speaker David Baker.

David Baker.

We can hear you David.

All right.

Well, good evening.

My name is David Baker, and I am a project manager with Homestead Community Land Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to permanently affordable home ownership opportunities for families in King County.

I am excited to announce that we are developing two projects that will bring newly constructed family-sized condominium units to the Finney Ridge area.

We are anticipating that these two projects will complete construction in fall 2024. 5819 Phinney will have 25 units, and 6109 Phinney will have 29 units.

Currently, we are still in the permitting process.

However, we are eager to complete construction on these two wonderful projects.

For anyone interested in additional information, please visit Homestead Community Land Trust's website, which is homesteadclt.org, Once again, that's homesteadclt, as in communitylandtrust.org.

I appreciate you listening to our project today.

Thank you so much for your time.

The next speaker is Kathy Kelly.

Kathy Kelly.

We can hear you.

This is Kathy Kelly.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I live on the eastern edge of the Rogers Elementary School schoolyard.

I've been here 26 years and I'm generally a supporter of the project.

I'm actually excited about many good aspects of the project relating to learning and environmental protection.

My concerns are generally in two arenas.

One is about water, and one is about student health and safety.

Regarding water, I live along where the play yard is, and you may know it's a very soggy play yard.

But I know that's part of the plan to fix that in the new design.

But the stormwater runoff that comes in off of the edge into all the neighbors along the eastern side experience flooding.

We were able to put the project people at the school in touch with the Seattle Public Utilities people who are going to install a natural drainage system on our street, and they were going to do it this winter.

And the school people didn't know about the utility people.

So they're working.

I guess they know about each other now.

But that only just happened because we informed the project people.

I know y'all have a lot to do.

I'm not trying to be critical on that.

But Thornton Creek is on the other side.

And so I think it's really important that the design of the renovations should include thought about water management runoff and the integrated kind of neighborhood because water doesn't just stop at the edge because it's on the map.

The other part is similar in a way because the thought about the design of the school includes a paved loop for cars to come in and drop off their students, and it's without thought to what happens on 105th, which would be the only car entry onto the property for dropping off students and picking them up.

And they're thinking of paving it to cover precious natural green space, which it is now, without thought to how do we manage the 105th traffic.

And the reason I mention that is that maybe that space could be better used, which would result in protection of the environment and perhaps a budget savings.

So both of those projects would benefit from delays and a more holistic systems view.

for the benefit of the students.

And toward that, I would recommend that you pull Rogers from the consent agenda and delay the vote to allow careful consideration of concerns like these.

And I remain constructive in wanting to solve problems, and I have loads of ideas, which probably won't make your folks too happy, but that just indicates the idea of trying to move forward in a constructive way for the best outcome.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Cynthia Palmer.

Cynthia Palmer please press star six to unmute on the conference line.

We can hear you Cynthia.

Oh you have muted again.

Can you try star six one more time.

Calling one more time for Cynthia Palmer if you could press star six to unmute on the conference line.

We were able to hear you briefly.

Are you unmuted now?

We can hear you Cynthia.

Cynthia we're able to hear you.

Can you hear us?

Cynthia, we were able to hear you briefly.

I'm going to move to the next speaker, but I'll come back around if you want to try again later.

So the next speaker is Melissa Westbrook.

Melissa Westbrook.

Hi there.

We can hear you, Melissa.

Go ahead.

Good evening.

I see a number of Becky items on the consent agenda, which reminded me of last meeting When facilities managers explained there was money left over from a previous PTA levy so that a new fleet of cars could be purchased.

Right after Uvalde, the superintendent pledged a complete look at safety issues.

But not a week later, Sandpoint Elementary was invaded by a mentally ill man who chased kids on the playground to their portable where the kids could not lock the door.

And the man entered the classroom until some teachers came to help.

And now a student at Ingram has lost his life.

And again, the superintendent says, there'll be a safety audit.

Is that just a platitude?

Because if there is extra facilities, levy money, it should all be going to make buildings more secure.

I find it shameful that new cars are more important at headquarters than secure locks on school buildings.

I also want to point out a couple of things to get on the public's radar.

Because of the newly passed student outcome-focused governance program that the board is using, the board has cut nearly all committees out of their workload.

With this action, the board has said it's less important for them to track the work of the superintendent and his staff.

They raised the amount of money for board approval going from $250,000 up to a million dollars.

In this meeting, the board will cut the number of board meetings this school year.

That means there will be fewer opportunities to come before the board to ask them to list the community issues.

As well, the board is today codifying that they don't have to appear in person at school board meetings for any reason.

Being on Zoom or calling in is not the same thing as being there with other board members in the auditorium.

I can only shake my head at this board but the good news is that a year from now I am fairly certain that some who are sitting on the board will have been voted out.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Wendy Holman.

Wendy Holman.

This is Wendy Holman.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Thank you.

Hi.

Thank you for letting me speak.

My name is Wendy, and I am a neighbor to the John Rogers Elementary School.

And we've had a son here who graduated from there many years ago, and we're proud to have that school in our neighborhood.

And we are supportive of a project to do a rebuild.

And but although we are supportive of a rebuild, there are a number of us that are very concerned about the size of the building since it is expecting to double the enrollment and then actually even later expand larger than that.

And most of my issues of saying at this brief time are similar to what was said by prior speakers about the various issues that happen when the school doubles in size.

But in particular, I'm really concerned about the safety issues of the entrance to the school that's on the design plan off of 105th.

Last night there was a Zoom meeting with the community and The team, project team showed us the design of the school and though it's huge and way too huge for the site, it's a beautiful design.

And everything they talk about in the design of the building is lovely.

But what's not addressed at all in their plan at this point is really what an increase of this size, that means it will double the number of cars and students coming in and the Entrance down on 105th that they're planning to use of that long loop is just not adequate.

And it was clear that they have not really planned, done design work with the Seattle Department of Transportation yet.

And I would really like to ask you to either vote no on this item 8 or to delay it, take it off the consent and delay it.

And I would encourage you to encourage the project team to do further communication with the local community, the Seattle Department of Transportation to work out these issues.

It doesn't make sense to go ahead with a design of a large school without truly working about the issues that are related to transportation and the lower part of the field.

So again, I just ask you to vote no or to take item 8 off the consent.

And thank you for your time.

This is the first time I've spoken in this situation, and I'm glad to be able to do it.

The next speaker is David Ressler.

David Ressler.

Hi thanks for thanks for letting me talk.

I don't have a lot no time to prepare.

I'm from Alki.

I just you can throw a rock and I can hit the play field.

Lived there for 22 years.

My partners lived there for 45 years.

We live in a house that was built in 1900. I don't think you're going to find an older house.

It's got whiskey barrels, cement, we're sitting on posts.

So anyway there's a lot of things I'm concerned about but I don't want a tall building.

In my opinion and understanding it violates Schmitz Park's agreement to donate that beautiful park to our community.

So everywhere around it it's all just two story and that's what you're going to see and that's the way I thought it was always going to be.

You know I don't have the stats that I've listened to the second gentleman I believe in.

I mean he's just reaffirming everything I really know and that is that we don't need a school for 575 or however many students.

You know the school is meeting the needs of our community.

I'd love you to fix up a school if the kids need a nicer school.

I actually haven't been inside the school.

You know you don't need to build anything bigger.

You know you don't need to destroy and just ruin our parking situation.

You know in Alki you know you're you're removing parking for teachers no ADA.

You're not going to do anything.

For you know the bus in the school loading unloading issue that's there.

You ought to just come down there sometime when school is getting out or school is going and you try and move through our community.

You can't.

Sometimes it's just gridlocked.

You know because you know cars people are parking illegally just over left and right and all this kind of stuff.

I just it drove me crazy when I read that you had some study about parking done during the pandemic.

Of course nobody's out there.

Nobody's coming to Alki.

Nobody's doing anything.

You know that study was it was like somebody pulled this out of some file somewhere just to make their stance.

So the gist of it is is Don't need a big building.

We don't need to double in our things.

We don't need to just terrify our parking situation there now.

We already have a horrible situation because it's such a desired place to come down there because of the beach.

I don't know.

I'm upset about it.

That's what got me down here in person.

And I can tell you I can go to neighbor to neighbor to neighbor to neighbor to neighbor.

I don't think you're going to, and you can do this yourselves, I don't think you're going to anybody that's going to say they don't love kids, they don't want great learning experiences for them, they don't want good building, but we don't need it there.

And like the other gentlemen said, there's other facilities nearby that can be utilized also without, you know, just going up to the sky.

I see families, young parents that have children, believe it or not, they leave out, they move.

You know, because it's just too crazy.

It's too crazy.

And you want to throw a whole bunch more kids into it.

You know just drive I'm taking up too much time but you can you just drive along the street that runs right alongside the school goes up the Admiral.

You don't even have a street like that intersection.

It is mind-boggling what you have to do on a you know 25 mile near a street where everybody drives 40 to 45 blind curve and you I just know we're going to read about it and you're going to read about it someday if they don't do something about it.

You know, some mom with a bunch of kids in the car is going to enter out in that thing and she's going to get nailed.

He's going to get nailed because it happens to me all the time.

You know, you have to creep way out there, block the lane, then look, done.

And it's because they don't enforce parking and they don't enforce speaking limits.

And you're not going to do anything to address any of those kind of issues.

Thanks.

Sorry if I sound absurd.

Going back to two people on our testimony list we did not hear from earlier I don't see the number on the line but calling Alex Zimmerman if you're on the line please press star six to unmute.

Not seeing on the line moving to our final speaker then Cynthia Palmer if you want to try one more time pressing star six to unmute and we'll see if we can hear from you.

We can hear you Cynthia.

Hello.

We can hear you, Cynthia.

You can go ahead.

Oh, good.

It was saying I was no longer muted, so here I go.

I'm Cindy Palmer, a retired special education assistant.

I worked for Seattle Public Schools for 30 years and worked at 15 different schools during my career.

And most of those years were spent working with students with physical challenges.

My testimony today is concerning the educational specification and modernization of Alki and Montlake elementary schools.

These improvements need to include ADA designed and dedicated van accessible parking places.

By van accessible, I mean that the space should be larger to accommodate a van and include an access aisle.

That's the space next to a van that has the white stripes.

So that there is room for students to load and unload safely.

There should be signs that indicate that it is van accessible.

The parking spaces need to be situated in proximity to the school building entrance that is accessible.

For an example you wouldn't want a student to be forced to travel all the way around the school building maybe in the rain from the parking place to the entrance that has the ramp.

Thank you for hearing my testimony and I look forward to seeing all the needed improvements.

Thank you.

President Hersey that was our final speaker tonight.

Thank you very much Ms. Wilson-Jones.

We're now going to take a step back and thank you to the speakers that shared some time with us.

We greatly appreciate it.

OK.

We've now come to the board comments section of today's agenda.

This new placement on the agenda and revised structure for these comments were a part of the governance recommendations accepted by the board last month.

In addition to shifting comments earlier in the agenda the ad hoc governance committee Say again.

Oh OK.

Cool.

Thank you.

Sorry.

I'm going to finish the statement and then we are going to go to our student board member really quickly.

Actually let's just go ahead and go to Nasira Director Nasira.

Are you with us?

Yeah.

OK.

Do you have comments prepared?

Again apologies for skipping over that section in the agenda.

No worries.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm student board member Nasira Hassan.

I'd like to start off my comments with congratulating the students with an SPS on our victory.

After demanding the aid from more school mental health counselors, we achieved our goal.

The unity that was shown between students was outstanding.

It showed that students do care and that we do want better for ourselves and are willing to fight for it.

It shows that we are the change and that our voices are powerful.

And as Seattle Student Union says, when we fight, we win.

The success of this wouldn't have been possible if we didn't come together and use our voices as we did during our rally.

I want to give a quick recognition and thanks to the students within Seattle Student Union for working extremely hard to put not only the rally together but also doing so much more in implementing student voices and organizing so much and the importance of student safety.

We hope and expect to see many improvements and benefits come out of this.

Moving on, I'd like to talk about my WSSDA experience.

As many may know, me and the other student board members and a couple of the board members attended the WSSDA conference in Spokane a couple weeks ago.

It was a great experience to learn and engage with new people.

Seeing the other board members from across our state really showed me the importance of SPS having student voice include on the board.

Speaking with these other districts who have had students reps for longer was very inspiring to me.

And although it is only the first year in SPS of having students on the board it is a work in progress but the step in the right direction.

It was very impactful to see the many students outside of SPS and across Washington just like me making change in their community and district.

It really shows us students are very powerful and together we are the change.

That concludes my student comments.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Hassan.

All right.

Doubling, doubling back.

We have now come to the board comment section of the agenda.

This new placement on the agenda and revised structure for these comments were a part of the governance recommendations accepted by the board last month.

In addition to shifting comments earlier in the agenda the out-house governance committee recommended that comments be focused on updates and meeting reminders for committees and liaison updates.

As we move into a more deliberate approach to board engagement I also envision this time as an opportunity for directors to speak to upcoming engagement and to report back on what they're hearing through our engagement.

Moving in today's board comments I will speak first to the implementation of the recommendations of the ad hoc committee on governance and then will call for additional reports.

Last month Dr. Jones and I met for the first round of agenda setting for tonight's meeting and our December 14th meeting per the new process outlined by the ad hoc governance committee and approved by the board through policy adjustments.

On January 3rd we will meet to set agendas for January 18th and February 8th regular board meetings.

We're working to continue A deliberate cadence of items that are for intro or intro in action and one meeting followed by action on previously introduced items at the second meeting.

I know that was super confusing so if you have questions just let me know.

This will allow time in our regular board meetings for progress monitoring.

Any agenda requests for the January 18 or February 8 meetings should be submitted to the board office for my review by December the 27th at the latest with final materials for the January 18th meeting being due January 4th and sooner for reviews and formatting.

We will work to share with you a streamlined process for making agenda requests and to track upcoming agendas in our work plan for the year.

For tonight's meeting we debuted earlier postings and the new Q&A process recommended by the Ad Hoc Governance Committee.

Thank you to directors for your advanced review of the meeting materials and for submitting questions ahead of time so that staff could respond and prepare for their presentations.

Looking at tonight's agenda you will notice that several format changes reflecting the ad hoc governance committee's recommendations.

First the agenda now includes additional items on the consent agenda.

The first section are for items that are required approvals coming to us for introduction and action.

These include the same types of items that we had been receiving there like minutes and other warrant reports and things like that as well as new categories of routine approvals such as contracts grants and deformed capital project approvals.

Our consent agenda tonight also includes revisions to our board calendar to support the earlier posting times called for by the Ad Hoc Governance Committee and to make additional technical corrections to address conflicts with holidays and non-workdays.

Other items for board approval will continue to be brought forward to us for introduction followed by action at a subsequent meeting when timelines allow.

And you'll see that we have two introduction items tonight.

A plan approval and policy revisions.

The final item on tonight's agenda is our monthly budget status report a written item for our review as we narrowed the focus of the audit committee to audit functions.

Looking ahead to the December 14th board meeting we will have an opportunity to finalize action on the intro items from tonight's agenda.

We'll be voting on the board officers for the 2023 session and we'll have additional working time devoted to progress monitoring and a work session.

Directors can expect that agenda to be posted on December 5th and your questions to be due the morning of December 8th.

We will now move into our other reports for tonight.

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

By all means take it away Director Verisman.

Hello.

It's actually not much of a report, more to say that Director Sommaritz and I who sit on that one both missed the last meeting because we were in Spokane for the WASDA conference for the Washington State School Directors Association conference.

We missed it unfortunately but the next one is December 9th.

I will be there.

I think we'll both be there and we'll have a better report for next time.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

That seems like a really good reason to miss a meeting.

Do we have a report in advance of the December 13th audit quarterly committee meeting?

Director Hampson.

I do not have things in advance of that.

Just hope folks will attend.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Do we have a report from our legislative liaison?

Take it away Director Rankin.

Yes.

Let's see.

So probably the biggest thing to pay attention to right now is that Julia Worth from the board office sent everybody an email today which you may not have had a chance to read before this meeting and that's OK.

But I just wanted to draw your attention to it.

It has some kind of reiteration of Board roles and behavior around legislative session as we're going into that.

So read it when you can and if you have questions reach out to either her or me please and we will get that answered for you.

But basically we have given direction to the district via our adopted Priorities on their advocacy.

And then I will be serving as the liaison to update all of you on the progress of that.

Let's see.

So within that, as we prepare, so we've given our priorities.

We will be meeting with President Hersey and I, Superintendent Jones, Director Worth and other legislative staff will be meeting with the Seattle delegation before winter break as we do every year just to go over.

We're unique in the state in that when I talk to other legislative liaisons, they have to reach out to three people.

We have a lot more than that because of the amount of legislative districts that are included in Seattle.

So we hold one meeting with all of them that can attend and just go over the priorities for SPS.

So we will be doing that and I would be happy to provide a written update sooner than the next board meeting if that would be Wanted because it'll be right before break.

But that is coming up in the week right before the break starts.

And let's see in February there's the WASDA legislative conference which is WASDA WASA and WASBO which is WASDA is the Washington State School Directors Association and I serve as our liaison there as well in addition to state and federal legislative issues.

WAASA is the Washington Association of School Administrators.

So principals and other leadership.

And then WASBO is Washington Association of School Business Officers.

I was going to say.

And so those three state organizations have a legislative conference together annually where we talk about common strategies, common priorities, and then there's also meetings with legislators.

Last year, if you'll remember, the Day on the Hill as part of this conference was virtual, and so I attended I think I had one conflict but I attended all of these Seattle delegation representatives meetings during that and invited my fellow directors to attend with me for the ones for the areas in which you live.

This year it is going to be back in person again in Olympia.

So I'm not sure we're still figuring out how that's going to work.

But in any way as appropriate as to Bring other directors into that who are interested.

I will let you know as we kind of develop how that's all going to play out.

But generally once so right now we are going to start to see the first bills drop in the next couple of weeks.

It's called the pre-filing.

So session doesn't start until January.

But legislators do have the opportunity to submit and publish bills.

So we may see Some things that will give us more information about what's possible this session, what's going to be a big topic, which will be great before we talk to the Seattle delegation.

Once session begins, they are still so newly elected haven't been sworn in yet.

So there's some committee assignments and various things that we don't fully know yet.

And once we know that, that will give us a lot more information too about what the strategy may be.

Once session starts, things are going to move very quickly.

And because the last couple years were virtual, legislators were asked to really only bring things to be a little bit restrained in what they're bringing forward because they were navigating hybrid and virtual and all of these things.

I have a feeling that we may have a lot of bills because people have held them back and now they want to bring those things forward and there's also a lot of new newly elected folks.

So once session starts things are going to move very very fast which is why we have a liaison so that Julia or Cliff or whoever can get in touch with me immediately to say, this just happened.

Here's an update or what do you want to do?

Generally, I feel like our platform is really clear and I have a good idea on how to best represent Us in that.

But if there's ever a question, I, of course, will come to the board and provide updates in between meetings as much as possible.

Although, like I said, things are going to happen really fast and there's just going to be a lot.

So I'm actually kind of excited because my ADHD and anxiety kicks in as a superpower.

And in an emergency, that's I feel the most comfortable.

But it is going to be very, very quick.

So I don't know.

I guess I would ask my colleagues, feel free to let me know any time if I'm giving too much information, not enough information.

If you have a specific question about a specific issue, I want to be that kind of two-way valve of information for all of us.

And let's see.

Is there anything else?

I guess I would just say that in attending the WASDA conference I went to as many of the breakout sessions as I could that specifically dealt with legislative issues.

And special education is just huge and it's huge for so many districts as I've talked about before and which is exciting.

I think there's a lot of possibility.

And then also it's an opportunity for For Seattle to take I think a real supportive role and use our kind of volume and power to uplift and support and amplify the needs that other districts around the state have in collaboration rather than pushing for Seattle out in front.

That's what I learned last year.

Was that we don't necessarily have the best reputation.

People are not super excited when Seattle shows up necessarily.

But the comments that I got last year about our approach were really positive and especially about several legislators commented on the positive relationship between the board and the superintendent and how that is more Yes, refreshing.

Thank you.

And positive.

So I'm aiming to kind of keep that going as I engage in any of these issues on our behalf.

The other thing I wanted to note from the WASDA conference that was really great is hearing how many districts are further along in a journey of effective board practices.

A lot of districts in Washington state are Have adopted policy governance, which student outcomes focused governance is based on.

Student outcomes focused governance as a framework is just sort of specifically tailored towards school boards and schools.

But policy governance, coherent governance, there's a bunch of different other kind of frameworks for best practices of boards that are out there.

And it was really Encouraging and exciting to hear from other districts about how things are working and the bottom line too is that it improves outcomes for students.

University Place is a district that has it's much smaller than ours but has really similar demographics and their focus on effective governance policy governance has changed the way their system serves students.

And so anyway I just thought I would share that.

More to come as things develop.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Any other additional liaison reports at this time.

Go for it.

Thank you.

I have a city liaison update for the board.

Last night the City Council approved its biannual 2023 2024 budget and there are two items that I wanted to share with you in terms of its impact to Seattle Public Schools.

The first one I am very grateful for the leadership of Mayor Harrell and Councilmember Mosqueda and Identifying four million dollars over two years for mental health services for our students.

This is in direct response to the tragic events at Ingram High School.

And I also like to thank all the city council members who were in attendance as well as Director Duane Chappelle who is the director of the Department of Education Early Learning at the city for coming to the student rally and really listening to the student ask.

And this is a direct reflection of their engagement with their students.

Some of you may be wondering why the students asked City Council for this money and not the school district.

And the reason being is that mental health services are really not part of educational services.

We are not funded this way.

But there are resources available from the city to support these needs of our students thanks to the generosity of Seattle's taxpayers with the Family Education Preschool and Promise Levy.

Councilmember Juarez made a provision for $250,000 of the $4 million to go directly to Ingram High School and she has requested a report on the current potential sources of funds for student mental health services.

So I'm excited to work with our council members and the Department of Early Learning and Education to work on that report.

The second item I'd like to share with you is an update on Memorial Stadium.

This is a project that is a very exciting opportunity for our school district and for our whole Seattle community and the region and I think it's an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of what this partnership can be.

City Council has approved one million dollars in 2023 for the start of this project and a commitment to raise 40 million dollars With 20 million dollars in debt financing.

So this is what they were hoping for and so I'm very pleased for the mayor's office and excited to work on this project.

Thank you.

A huge thank you to our partners over at the city.

We have been working very hard to continue to lift up that relationship and that's largely a testament to the very cultural relationship between Dr. Jones and Mayor Harrell.

I think that it is an example for school board members and City Council folks too.

So thank you for representing us so well in that capacity and thank you to Director Rankin for representing us from the legislative capacity.

I know that in my time here we have heard repeatedly that we need closer relationships and sincerely see that happening.

So and I know that other electives and community members can see that as well.

So continue to keep up the great work.

I really appreciate all of you for all that you do.

OK so we have come finally to any additional board engagements right.

So if you're announcing lasagna or any other committee meetings or things like that now would be the time to do that.

There will not be like a soapbox open mic portion at the end of the meeting.

So we're going to try to just keep these concise.

So if you have engagements that are coming up or reminders that you want the community to know now would be the time to share those things.

So anybody have those types of things.

Go for it.

I have a point of clarification.

Are you saying that this board cannot speak directly to the public.

Nope.

Not saying that at all.

Please advise.

Thank you.

Learn me up.

Yeah so what I'm saying is you have the authority to speak to the public whenever you as a board director want.

What I'm saying is that for this particular agenda as we are moving through it there are going to be instances in this portion where we share relevant information.

If you want to speak to the public you are more than welcome to have a community meeting.

You are more than welcome to like submit a statement.

You are more than welcome to use a number of avenues to speak to the public.

But for the sake of legislative and like business oriented meetings we're just trying to keep it concise.

So if you have suggestions or if anybody has an issue with this particular recommendation there's not really anything in any policy or law that requires us to have like board comment time if I'm not mistaken.

So I highly encourage for if this is something that's important to you let's have a conversation and we can figure out a more opportune time to do that.

But.

So if I'm going to be making some announcements momentarily are you going to be shutting me down kind sir.

No go ahead and make your announcements that's what this time is for specifically around engagement and I have never shut you down.

So let's try to like keep the language appropriate.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Go for it.

Appreciate that.

I have good news to share.

In fact it's not just good news it's freaking outstanding news.

The Seattle Schools Scholarship Committee met yesterday and in the past has awarded scholarships two scholarships to every comprehensive high school and one to non-comprehensive or so called alternative schools.

Well now we are offering scholarships on parity for non-comprehensive high schools or so-called alternative schools.

It gets better.

We will be offering three scholarships for every high school in the Seattle School District of $5,000 piece.

Moreover let me finish please.

This is a committee that's been going on for 50 years.

The retired teacher association of the Seattle Public Schools has always been extraordinarily generous.

And if any of you all have been lucky enough to attend the scholarship award ceremony which is held in May.

It will both lift you up and break your heart because these are going to students that have been chosen by counselors that have exceeded the barriers and impediments in their way.

It's a great group of folks.

I have had the honor of serving for the last seven years with this group and they can't get rid of me because they're that absolutely phenomenally group.

Additionally under the leadership of former Seattle School Board President Michael DeBell we have doubled our donations in the last four years and beyond doubled I don't know how to quantify it but our outreach.

So stay tuned because of course we will ask for your assistance.

It's great stuff and it's nice to have happy news to share.

I'd also like to publicly thank Special Assistant to the Mayor Tim Burgess.

For his guidance and his assistance on the memorial stadium project which we've been working on for five years and obviously to the city council and the good mayor himself as well.

Last I will renew my request the last budget work session for us to reach out to our labor partners.

To have them at our budget work sessions in partnership and to invite Superintendent Reichdahl to attend a budget work session as soon as he can.

Thank you so much.

No lasagna in December.

Sorry.

All good.

No worries.

I just want to address really quickly like When we are making these changes like I would just appreciate if we come to it from a place of like curiosity like OK why are we doing this.

Director Harris I've never shut you down.

I'm not going to block you.

Like you are an elected official.

I'm going to lift you up and support you in that way.

I think utilizing the language like are you trying to silence the board or are you going to shut me down when I have Never done that.

Puts us into a positionality that doesn't necessarily reflect the like love in our relationship that we have with everybody up here.

So I just want to just challenge us to like approach this from and it's just language use right.

Like I know that you're curious around when are you going to be able to address the public in the way that you are used to which is what I heard from your comments.

And so I just want to like Take a moment of vulnerability like when you said like oh are you trying to silence me?

My cortisol level went up and that's also not what I'm trying to do and never what I've tried to do.

So just want to ask that for the cordiality of it and the positionality of how we interact with each other from the dais.

I think it'll be important to just you know take a beat and think about what are we trying to say and does it have the potential to unnecessarily like You know, put us into a position to where we might be adversarial when you and I both know that that's not where we're coming from.

So that's just my ask.

Thank you for listening.

Okay.

Please.

Yeah, take it away.

What Director Harris shared there was actually a liaison update and that's about the Student Scholarship Committee.

And I'm actually the liaison to the Head Start Committee and I didn't give it a bit because there is not one to give right now.

But there are all those things are liaison updates and it sounds like that is what we should be doing this time for so you were spot on.

But anyways just wanted to clarify that that's how I heard it.

Absolutely and that's a fantastic point which is I think highlights the necessity to come at a place from curiosity.

It's just like, OK, how does this fit in?

Because there will be lots of questions because admittedly we are doing things very differently.

And so I want to make sure that we are holding all of those things at the same time.

So thank you for that clarification.

Thank you for your liaison update, Director Harris.

And we will continue on with our agenda.

All right.

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

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

All right.

Approval of the agenda has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Rankin.

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

I saw Director Harris's hand first and then we will go to Director Rivera-Smith.

Take it away Director Harris.

Could we please remove numbers seven and nine.

Thank you.

You said seven and nine.

All right.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you and I think this is why I get to give information regarding this part of it.

So I want to just say that I've long stated my concern with putting introduction action items on the consent agenda.

I think that my partners on the exec committee can attest to that.

And my reasoning for that has been that it removes the kind of built in opportunity for board discussion on each items.

And I say built in because I acknowledge that directors can always pull the items like we're doing right now for any consent agenda items they wish to.

I also acknowledge that this new practice of placing contracts, grants and capital project final acceptances directly onto consent As introduction action items is a practice that we have accepted as part of our acceptance of the ad hoc committee's recommendations.

It was specifically in there that this was a move we were making.

So I want to acknowledge that.

We did that at the October 26th regular board meeting.

So that all being said, I want to honor this new practice while still honoring our need to have public board discussions when such conversations and discussions would benefit the public.

So that all being said, I will be very selective about which introduction action items I choose to pull from the consent agenda at each meeting, focusing on those of which I've received community concerns or questions on, and again, which would benefit from us having a full board discussion.

So that being said, I would like to pull 7, 8, and 9. I think some that I won't repeat, but she's going to those are the ones I want to pull.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

I'd like to pull items four and five, please.

Fantastic.

Okay.

Yes.

So this is exactly how that was supposed to work.

So thank you for engaging with the new system.

So we have pulled items just for clarity four, five, seven, eight and nine.

May I have a motion for the revised consent or a revised motion for the consent agenda as amended.

I move approval of the consent agenda as amended.

Second.

All right this is moved and properly seconded.

All those in favor please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Fantastic.

Aye.

Thank you Director Hampson.

Okay this passes unanimously so we will now turn to action item or rather consent agenda item number four.

Can I have a motion for number four please.

I move the board of directors to authorize the superintendent to execute a three-year contract with Dell Computer Corp to provide Microsoft enrollment for Education Solutions from January 1, 2023 to December 31st, 2025 for a total not to exceed amount of $4,441,904.

Plus Washington state sales tax with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent to take any necessary actions to implement the purchase orders.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

All right.

This has been moved and properly seconded and I see that we have Mr. DeValle at the podium so please take it away.

Good evening directors superintendent Carlos de Valle executive director of technology services.

Wait sorry I'm sorry I want a clarification on when an item is pulled from consent.

Yeah sure go for it.

My understanding would be that there would be like are we just pulling pulling it to hear a presentation for reasons or is there a specific concern that needs to be discussed.

So my understanding is it would be when there's a specific concern or question that wasn't answered in us doing our due diligence ahead of this meeting.

So if we're just asking for a presentation, I'm wondering what the benefit is of that.

I understand your question.

I appreciate it.

As we were figuring this out, we are in a position to where a director can pull a consent agenda item for whatever reason they want.

If there are greater concerns around how we do that, we are more than welcome to have that conversation.

Now is not the time for that.

I mean, I guess I would like to know now, the items that were pulled from the director that pulled it, what they pulled it for.

That is out of how we've done it in the past, and we can implement that going forward.

It would just be an unfair expectation.

I thought that's how we did it before, but okay.

OK so correct me if I'm wrong.

Let me finish speaking.

Thank you.

So I do not recall an instance where a director had to provide rationale for why they are pulling an item from the consent agenda.

I could be wrong and I could be looking at it differently but I don't think that we have done that consistently.

So please somebody correct me if I am wrong.

Go ahead Ms. Wilson-Jones.

Good evening, directors.

Ellie Wilson-Jones, director of policy and board relations.

I think it's a little bit of both.

So for tonight's meeting, I have suggested to staff that they prepare for multiple scenarios as the board works to provide us greater information about how you would like to see these changes implemented.

In the past after an item was pulled from the consent agenda to Director Rankin's sort of notes sometimes we did move just kind of directly to whoever pulled it for them to say what their lingering questions were.

That was a scenario that's a little different from tonight because those were often items that had already been before the board for our presentation.

So I think As you move through this new format, we would invite feedback and direction from the board on what you are then looking for from staff if an item does get pulled, whether that is for us to proactively provide a presentation or for you to ask questions and have staff available for those.

But staff are prepared for both scenarios tonight.

Thank you for the clarification.

Is that good for right now?

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Another question?

Go for it.

Just take a point of order for the two items that I have pulled my expectation for staff is simply that I would like to they don't need to do a full presentation but I would like to ask the questions I had submitted and have them answer the questions so that they are on public record.

That is my expectation for why I pulled them from the consent agenda.

I just don't know if we need to continue the conversation.

And so in that case you don't have to give a full presentation but if you want to just make a few introductory comments and then I will just ask the questions that I've already submitted and you can answer them.

As I stated, this is a three-year contract for the Enterprise License Agreement with Microsoft.

We renew this every three years.

We've been paying for this for over the past 20 years.

This basically covers the licenses for all of Windows, Office 365. We have server licenses.

We have a lot of software that is included within this package.

Mike, to address your questions, It's in reference to the licenses.

How do we build these things?

Microsoft Enterprise, you asked me why we're not broken down by student seats.

Microsoft Enterprise license agreement is built by the staff seat bases.

Another question that you asked as well was the How come the contract didn't go up and down with enrollment?

And it's basically because of that.

Enrollment does not affect the number of licenses.

Microsoft license agreement is invoiced by staff accounts.

Now, within those staff accounts, which we have allocated 12,300, there's a ratio of about 40 to one student licenses that are included within that package.

Now, mind this.

12,300 licenses include other, not just the student licenses, included server licenses, software that we use internally, database software that we have.

So it's not apples to oranges.

Bottom line, Microsoft bill us by the amount of staff licenses that we require.

Also, you asked about why do we use software resellers and why Dell Software was awarded the contract.

Microsoft has just a handful of resellers that they would go through.

They don't sell licenses directly.

So the purchasing department has what they call an informal bid announcement that goes out to these resellers.

It's called informal because it doesn't go out to the entire industry, just those resellers.

Out of those resellers, Dell was the lower better and so they selected them.

Can I ask one follow up question.

So the on a per staff license basis the current contract is $276 and it's now going to be $361.

What accounts for the increase in the contract?

It wasn't much of an increase.

It was because the last contract, we had a lot of credits on some of the software that we were purchasing, and those are expiring at this time.

So the price has been going up.

Now, we went back and we asked, okay, we have this credit expiring, can you guys help us out?

And they gave us a $300,000 over the three-year period discount.

All right.

Any other questions on this particular item.

OK.

Seeing none Ms. Wilson and looking to the phone too and just a note Director Hampson had to step off to attend a prior engagement so she is no longer with us in the meeting.

Seeing no questions Mr. Wilson Jones roll call please.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Director Sarju.

Director Song Maritz.

Director Harris.

Director Rankin.

Aye.

And President Hersey.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

OK could I have a motion for item number five please.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to renew the contracts with Beeline, MTR Wester, Everdriven, First Student, Hop Skip Drive and Zoom for one additional year covering September 1st, 2022 to August 31st, 2023 at a total annual cost now to exceed 8.45 million.

For alternative student transportation with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent to implement the contracts.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Can I get a second?

Do we need a second?

All good.

Thank you.

Take it away.

Good evening directors Superintendent Jones Fred Podesta assistant superintendent of operations.

We're here to discuss the extension to our alternative transportation contracts.

Alternative transportation represents anything that's not a yellow bus for student district provided student transportation.

We typically have those have needs for that depending on particular student circumstances, students with IEPs, medically fragile, McKinney-Vento students, out of district transportation, transportation to support our skill center.

For many many years historically the district procured these services with purchase orders and mostly relied on taxicabs to provide this service.

In 2019 we tried to improve our practices by releasing a request for proposals and contracted with these firms.

We've had Much better results more predictable results.

More opportunities for drivers to build relationships with students.

So we'd like to renew the contracts at least for a year and then rebid them again based on that experience.

The question the director asked how we arrived at that amount.

That's a contract amount of 8.75 million dollars.

That's really based on our historical average of about 7 million and our experience in recent years which was higher but that was for a variety of reasons during the pandemic.

We had fewer students driving in each vehicle to support physical distancing and we suspended many yellow bus routes as you're all aware last year.

So we had addition to find solutions for students where their yellow bus route had been canceled but school leaders really thought there was a need for particular students.

We arranged more of this alternative transportation and I think that answers the questions you have directors on rights.

I don't know if I'm causing it.

Thank you.

Thank you for the answer to that question.

The second question I asked was about the contract that includes safety records for the last 10 years and my question was are we tracking the safety information and what can we report?

We do.

We would consolidate and report that when we bid the contracts again because there usually is kind of a quality assurance report at the close of each contract to see if we believe all bidders would be responsible bidders.

They typically when there are safety concerns or other operational concerns given the nature and the structure of these companies, what we're really looking for is they replace a driver.

And then if we see you know really high incidence of issues with a particular company then we'll consider do we want to consider them a responsible bidder when we do this next procurement process.

Director Smith.

Hello Fred.

I'm wondering I'm thinking about students in this because this is what you know this is kind of this we want to send our students and I'm wondering are there any student surveys done for satisfaction of this transportation that they're receiving?

Do we check to see if it's working well for them?

I don't think we do structured surveys since these are generally kind of one off relationships.

You know we are get feedback from families again about a particular route particular driver particular solution.

You just mean by they file complaints or do you go to them and ask them hey how is your student.

No I think as because again these are kind of one off type trips our transportation specialists are often talking to the families involved and getting feedback.

It's not it's not as.

Mass produced let's say as a yellow bus route and these you know these have to be arranged on a one on one basis.

So I think it's a fairly high touch relationships but I'm not sure a survey is the best approach but we definitely get and listen to feedback.

Approximately how many students are served via these.

You know it varies from year to year but in the hundreds.

Like two hundreds or eight hundreds.

You know probably around four or five.

OK.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this item before we move along.

All right.

Thank you Mr. Podesta.

Ms. Wilson-Jones roll call please.

Director Sarju.

Aye.

Director Song Moritz.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Rankin.

Aye.

Director Rivera-Smith President Hersey This motion is passed unanimously.

Thank you.

All right.

You're going to be with us for a little bit.

Can I get a motion for item number seven.

You can.

I'm wondering if I think we have a lot of similar questions for seven eight and nine.

Can I call all three so we can discuss them.

Ideally.

That would be a little faster probably.

Would that be an issue for any reason.

Or do we need to go through each individually.

I don't know if Greg's on the line.

I think it might create confusion if we have three motions, but perhaps the motion for the first one could be offered and it could be made clear that you're discussing certain ones together unless Greg steps in and tells me not to do that.

Good evening, Greg Narver, general counsel.

We do need to make sure that we have on the record three distinct motions for these items and three distinct roll call votes.

However you can do that without confusing which ones you're talking about it certainly would expedite things if the same group of questions could be asked but we do need to make clear there's a clear record of separate motions and roll call votes.

Yeah.

So here's my thinking.

What if we took because we don't necessarily have to vote on an item before we move on to the next one do we.

OK so Director Harris is telling the expert Harris is telling me no.

Can you clarify like so here's my here's my thing and let me explain my idea.

Can we take short versions of all three motions ask questions and then take three separate votes when we are concluded and just make sure that we're really clear about which vote we're taking as opposed to motion question vote motion question vote motion question vote.

Is that possible.

Well I think the motions should be read in their entirety.

Sure.

If you want to do those those three and you need seconds of course.

Yeah.

And then all all three can be on the table for questioning and then call for roll calls on each each item separately.

OK.

Yeah let's do that.

All righty.

I move the school board approve the site-specific educational specifications dated August 2022 for the Alki Elementary School Edition and Modernization Project.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

I second.

Item number 8 I move that the school board approve the site specific educational specifications dated June 2022 for the John Rogers Elementary School replacement project.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

Item number 9 I move that the school board approve the site specific educational specifications dated September 2022 for the Montlake Elementary School modernization and addition project.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

That wasn't so bad.

Okay so this has been moved and properly seconded.

We have Mr. Podesta at the podium.

Are we looking for a report or can we dive right into questions or what would be the preference?

Go ahead.

By all means.

I'm happy to advise why I pulled items number seven and nine and explain my thinking and hopefully Assistant Superintendent Podesta or others including our representatives on the BEX oversight might be able to assist me.

One.

The testimony about the lack of ADA parking at Alki and Montlake was extraordinarily concerning to me tonight.

We've heard a great deal about site specs and a great deal of public testimony and I have received great many emails from the community regarding the size of schools.

I am also troubled by the fact that one of our fiduciary duties is to make a record as to why we vote the way we do.

And I appreciate things are changing and I appreciate we're still working on the plane as we're flying.

But sending anonymous questions to the staff And getting anonymous answers back from the staff does not seem transparent and accountable to me.

And I'm wondering if one of the things that we could do is just like we're sitting here on the dais Own our questions and staff own the answers and we put those on our website because to me asking those questions is the same if not a substitute for what we do right here in person.

So that's one of my concerns.

I'm also concerned about having intro and action on something that is this big a deal and what are the consequences if we vote to What's the parliamentary procedure?

We vote to delay the vote on seven and nine specifically because of the ADA parking concerns to the next board meeting thus making it an intro issue so that those issues could be more fully fleshed out.

And to those folks that are talking about And this one hurts my heart terribly because I'm a West Seattle girl.

I'm a West Seattle native.

I spend a great deal of time in Alki and in this city.

We're not making land anymore.

And I strongly believe that we will have one heck of a lot more students in the future And we have been lucky enough and I do think it is luck for the generosity of the taxpayers of this city to give us the money to build to the best and the highest specs almost like our darn tax system where we're taxed at the highest and best use because those schools will in fact be full before we know it.

And that's just a fact of life.

That's a fact of demographics.

And to pass up this opportunity would break my heart.

ADA parking.

I get the rest of the parking conversation but the ADA parking I am hugely concerned about and I am again hugely concerned about intro and action on something this important and when number nine comes up those comments go to that as well.

Thank you sir.

Yeah so let me address a couple of things and then we'll go to the more appropriate people to answer the question.

I do not think it is an issue.

I'll talk with board staff about like the best way to go about identifying comments and like how that fits into the framework.

I do not immediately know of anything that would borrow us from doing that.

I think that you know in general also like putting the questions on the website is not an issue and it's actually improves transparency because folks can go back and read them and they are there forever.

So I will make the commitment to chat and we'll figure out a solution.

The second question you had was directed to.

Well that was the first two because the first one was Anonymous comments.

The second one was posting them on the website.

The third one.

What was it?

I'm sorry.

There was a block.

The answers coming back to us that inform our votes.

Yeah.

And who wrote those answers and it could be several different whatevers.

ADA parking.

Got it.

That's a question for Mr. Podesta.

She asked a question.

One second we'll come back to you for your next question.

Yep.

Just did a scan if I missed it my apologies in advance but I just did a scan of both seven and nine and saw nothing about ADA parking in there and if it wasn't in there then I'm absolved of not bringing it up earlier until we heard from the members of the public.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

So I'll do just a bit of a refresher about what educational specifications are and aren't.

The district went through a process to approve educational specifications for each tier of school for elementary schools middle schools and high schools.

And that's what many staff worked with in many departments to try to get to what is the optimal size of a well resourced functional school that has all the resources needed and that's what got to these capacity sizes.

What an ed spec is is just kind of a narrative of the educational program elements that are required for a particular school because we're required as part of the state funding process to get approval from the board for a site specific ed spec which is where we make changes at the margin to the base ed spec that we created years ago.

With a lot of public engagement that is not a board approved document but that is a process that directors at the time participated in because there was a series of public meetings where we explained what our base ed specs were.

So these actions again tailor the ed specification for each project.

They do not.

It is not the design does not.

Discuss things like parking.

It's not the design of the building.

There may be questions about the design of the building that we need to address.

I can't speak to each building's accessibility plan and how access from vehicles to the building site is managed.

Again that's not what this thing does.

These actions do.

They approve the educational specification.

It we have not entertained as we develop levies or a capital program funding construction projects that vary from our base ed specs.

Our thinking is that we are we only touch schools at this scale over a period of decades.

So I agree with you Director Harris that we need to build to scale that we believe is the optimal size of a school.

I don't think it would be fiscally prudent to entertain ed specs for any particular site.

That are smaller than our base ed specs that would be very inefficient per student.

So if we if as we go through these processes you know this would be a major trip back to the drawing board about our ed specs overall and how much we want to spend per seat to construct schools because we can't afford to build or run really small schools.

So that's a reality.

And if we need to have a discussion of our sites not adequate for schools that conform with our ed specs then we have to rethink are we doing these projects at this site or are we closing the school because those kind of end up being the options.

I don't think we can afford to make investments in schools that are smaller than our ed specifications and that that is a road that would be a very tough road to get on.

So hopefully I've addressed your questions about size and parking.

The parking isn't really part of this.

Okay, so then, and thank you for that.

I really appreciate the explanation.

When does this board, if in fact this board addresses things like Americans with Disabilities Access, ADA, because as I believe we can all agree, our ADA compliance in several decades has not been what I believe we all would like it to be.

So what's the next step here if you will about the lack of ADA parking in these two seven and nine in particular please.

We will certainly answer staff any design questions that come out of the SDAT process and will confirm kind of what the accessibility plan is from a vehicle to the building and whether ADA parking or another solution is part of it.

And then each of these projects particularly with state funding the board touches many many times as we award contracts.

You know there are many of these transactions that come through again parking isn't really part of this action and you're able to talk about it right now.

I was not prepared to answer exactly that design question and I don't know if we're at the stage where we have that answer but we will certainly get it to you.

Is it possible to put your answer in a memo?

Absolutely.

On the website sent to the Seattle Public Schools directors senior staff etc. and let us know what the next step is and or whether any upcoming projects have the same concerns that have been voiced by community.

Sure.

Thank you sir.

I. Just allow me some unentangling, please, because I'm getting there was meeting procedure, this item, other things kind of all together there.

So in terms of what was referenced about director comments and questions being made I can't remember if you touched on it in your comments but we're in moving up postings sooner we're also trying to do more of our job in preparations for meetings by submitting questions ahead of time.

There are other districts that do do a process where they will post those online.

I don't know if that's in the planning but it's a thing that happens.

It wouldn't be unprecedented.

But I just in case anyone was like what are they talking about questions submitted because that's something that we haven't done before.

Where in trying to post in advance and get more information in advance directors and the public are being given information further in advance so that we have more opportunity to address concerns and ask questions to inform ourselves before we make a vote and to make sure that the public has a chance to weigh in.

So as we're rolling that out, that's kind of what you're hearing.

This is the first meeting that we've participated in where we submitted our questions and got those responses.

So that's also, for me, I don't have a lot of questions because I already asked and answered.

And I feel comfortable on the items that we're being asked to vote on personally because I had the opportunity to get that information already.

How we may make that available to the public is something that I'm assuming we're going to keep talking about otherwise.

It sounds like there's interest and support for that.

With the items that were pulled specifically, And I may be repeating what you just said, but it's partly for me and partly in case anyone else missed it too.

The ed specs are very specific for the inside learning spaces inside the building.

They don't talk about where a building is located on a site.

They don't talk about the parking plan.

It's not that that's not important, but that's not part of this item.

We as a director, Podesta, Associate Assistant Superintendent Podesta said, we approve and touch on different things for one building multiple times because we approve various expenditures.

We approve a budget which would have planned expenditures.

But then when the actual expenditures are going to happen, when a contract is written, That comes back to the board for approval, so we approve that again.

This item, these items specifically are about there being a standard configuration of number of classrooms, what the cafeteria capacity is, which would impact the number of lunch periods, if there's a gym, other instructional spaces for special education, et cetera, et cetera, there's a standard Package.

And then the ed specs for each building would be any and correct me if I'm wrong because I'm stating what my understanding is and hoping that I have the right understanding and if I don't I really want to be corrected.

Typically the purpose of this again we have a base spec that says we need this many labs this much library space and then as and it really is this typically the starting point of a design the proposed revisions and to accommodate this school should give up some of its cafeteria space to create a maker space or something like that.

That's typically what this step is is how is this project going to deviate from the district's base educational spectrum.

And that's based on the needs and preferences of that school community.

So I know I can't remember which of these three it was now but there's one where like some staff space was reduced to make a family gathering space for example because that's what that community wanted for that school and that's fantastic.

So we are just being asked to review and we have all those materials as part of this item and they're publicly posted.

Review what the engagement was for what the community wants for the educational space inside the building and compare it with the standard and then see where the modifications are being made for that specific school.

So we're just being asked to approve those tonight.

And I've been part of multiple Points in time of different construction projects and I know that parking and like a loop in the front those are typically things that have come further along in the process that community has raised or that as SDOT is brought in as the buildings going different different things change.

Are you able to right now share With folks who have concerns about the parking and whatnot, when might there be opportunity for that specifically in terms of the space and land use outside of the building?

Typically many of those issues are handled as part of our SEPA process.

The State Environmental Protection Act process address kind of parking issues and those kind of again it's still at the pre-design phase.

Our SDAP process involves community and I'm not saying that some of the concerns raised here about And I am just not prepared to speak to again what is the accessibility plan.

And so I'll make that commitment that we answer that for those specific projects.

And I'm not saying that people haven't heard about that.

It just isn't technically related exactly to the ed spec.

We will clarify that issue.

Clearly accessibility is important to us in our design and we want to make sure there are solutions besides just ADA parking but we want to make sure we have a viable plan.

And then again the scale is really kind of the way the district is doing business now for a long time.

So we're really going to rethink that.

That isn't just about these projects.

This is about how we design buildings in Seattle Public Schools.

How we're making intense use of the property that we have and where we want our schools to be.

But, and again, this is only my personal opinion, is that we came to these numbers based on what would be a well-resourced functional building, and so rethinking them is not just rethinking a project, it's rethinking our whole approach to how we deliver services.

And I'll just, thank you, and I'll just add to that too, that when we Have a new building that our capital team is thinking about the next 75 years for that building.

At least.

At least.

And that by all kind of projections, our city is going to continue to grow.

And if we have kids, they've got to have a school building to go to.

And you know John Rogers has had enrollment in the past that approach this size.

It isn't there now but.

I'll say again in the 60s SPS enrollment was a hundred thousand kids.

It really gets to you know we have a lot of work to think about enrollment and what the overall capacity needs are but I guess what I would just counsel against is considering spending millions of capital dollars to build schools we know are not going to be well resourced because of the size of enrollment.

So it's either build to our ed spec or don't touch the school and then that's the beginning of the end of that school.

I think it's the practical outcome of that.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

So I wanted to just touch off that.

So what Director Rankin says explained her understanding regarding what ed specs are regarding the science lab and I believe she's correct but I also want to acknowledge that in each of these bars it is very specifically these ed specs are based off of an assumed 500 capacity school.

So in a way we are approving the idea that this is going to be a 500 capacity school.

I don't know how that it's separated at all but we are approving the 500 kid ed spec.

So that is just to be fair and I'm saying this honestly as a supporter of 500 capacity schools.

Which is when we developed the levy what we told voters we were going to do is build schools that conform to our ed spec and build schools that are going to lead to well resourced functioning buildings not build schools that are too small.

Yeah but I want to ask them to then in that regard then once we approve these aspects that include that 500 assumption is that kind of the end of the line for debating the size of that school or could it still be with some sort of immense amount of community outpouring could that still change or because once we approve it is that is that done deal and that's the end of it for that aspect of this.

Again.

This is what we proposed when we proposed these projects.

I actually think that's when that decision was made.

Are we going to replace the school because I think we've always said we're going to build to our ed specs.

Again if we want to rethink those ed specs we want you know want to think commitments we made to the voters.

I I personally right now don't in our current process don't see a path where we can think about building small schools.

We can rethink the capacity of our.

Yeah, no, and I had the opportunity to meet with some Montlake community members along with Director Hampson about a month ago regarding some of these concerns.

And what I heard there was this idea that, yes, they admit Seattle's gonna grow.

Everybody acknowledges Seattle's gonna grow in population size.

Their argument was that, but not in Montlake, like it's not gonna be dense there.

And I don't know, nobody can say that, right?

Because I think that low income, sorry, low income.

Single family housing is going to go slowly to the wayside even in neighborhoods like Montlake like Alki so we're going to see By all indications, density grow in those neighborhoods and which will then bring students.

So even though, yeah, we're not going to have 500 kids in there next year or maybe not in five years, but down the road by the time we've lost the opportunity to grow the school larger, we'll have not had that opportunity if we don't do it now.

And that's sort of the reasoning and understanding I have.

And when I speak to people, I try to express that, that we need to think, as Director Rickon said, 75 years from down the road when we're doing this.

And it's not lost space.

That space is still utilized.

I know that in schools I have had that link in itself when it opened it wasn't a full school but they still use that empty space for other things.

It's still utilized.

It's not just dead space not being used.

That enough of comments from me.

I want to ask about specifically we had community member ask about the option of using Schmidt's Park.

For capacity.

Can you explain why that's not a viable option or has it been explored as an option?

I don't think I could do that subject now.

Do it justice now.

Again, we made these commitments when we planned the levy.

And so rethinking that, You know how viable that is to change the commitments we made to the voters at a site level.

I think I would require a bit more thought than I should probably do off the top of my head.

OK.

And then there was a transportation study done during the pandemic.

Is that correct or was that.

No I believe that I don't believe I think we use a longer period.

I will confirm that that's part of the SEPA process.

What the availability of parking I believe there was and again that's done when schools are open.

Schools are in full attendance.

Well that's a great question that we can certainly answer.

OK.

And then we had this come up before with Montlake regarding it is You know it's in an area of not a population need where there are other schools where there is more need.

So why was Montlake chosen for.

Because of the building condition.

OK.

You know that schools more buildings more than 100 years old.

It needed attention and this is the opportunity.

Again I think if we pass on these opportunities to invest in these buildings and we're by inaction making a decision that eventually the school is going to close.

Can I add to that that it also Montlake was in BEX IV and it got moved for that very reason to BEX V. Gotcha.

Thank you.

I have one last comment.

I'll finish up here.

I hear the engagement you've done.

I was going to ask about the process to get to where we are now and I think you already explained that there was engagement done.

Engagement going forward is going to be really how will community members find out about future opportunities to engage on this?

There will continue to be community meetings and there are opportunities to give feedback to our school design advisory team but we will continue to hold Conduct communication during the design and the final finalization of the design of the project.

Well one thing I would I would just recommend asking maybe when you have these engagement sessions because when I hear a lot of people talk about their concerns with these building sizes especially I want to ask How are students going to be harmed by these school sizes because we're centering students.

I mean we appreciate the neighbors but we're centering the students experience in these schools.

So a question I wonder is asking people who are concerned like tell me how students are going to be harmed from this school if that's what our baseline is because if they can't tell me that then I'm you know that's what we should all be wondering like we're thinking about students first I know parking is important and whether or not a window is looking at your house that's all that in one of the things.

There's a lot of concerns.

We're concerned about students.

So I appreciate that we are thinking that way.

And on behalf of students you've heard a lot from the public about well resourced schools that have a full time librarian that have a counselor and that's really based on enrollment and the size of the school.

And you know that's my job is to talk to you a lot about buildings but the buildings aren't who educate and provide services to our students.

It's it's the staff it's the school community and Those resources are based on enrollment and so that's why small schools are a real challenge for us and that's why we're not proposing to make huge capital investments in small schools.

That's a whole other topic.

No it's a very big topic.

Thank you.

I have more of a comment than a question but I just wanted to address some community members concerns about current enrollment in the capacity of the building at least two of the three projects that we're talking tonight have plans to add preschool classrooms so we're adding actually another group of students and that would naturally increase the number of students in that building.

So I just wanted to share that with the community.

And those are the kinds of things that make our ed specs important.

We have a commitment to early learning and we have very important goals about early learning and that's how we're trying to support that with our building design.

All right.

Any other questions from directors?

Go for it.

Things that I brought up on the top here of this conversation is whether or not There would be huge catastrophic consequences if we moved this to an action item at the next school board meeting so that we might get answers on some of these issues.

What are the consequences unintended or et cetera?

Because this is intro action.

Understood.

I will confess there are there are no catastrophic consequences.

This is an administrative step that we have to do at some point during the life of the project.

Again this is this is not the design.

This is a piece and it's really required because of state funding in this project.

Thank you Mr. Podesta.

We have a motion.

What.

I asked.

I'm sure she would have unmuted.

No you're good.

You're good.

Director Sarge do you have any comments or questions.

I do not.

Thank you.

OK.

Thank you Mr. Podesta.

We have several motions on the table.

What you are suggesting Dr. Harris I don't know the appropriate vehicle for trying to figure that out.

Ms. Wilson-Jones can you please give us some insight.

I'd be happy to address that if you like President Hersey.

Greg Narver general counsel again.

The most we need to be clear of course about which of the items that are currently on the table we're talking about postponing procedurally the correct motion is to move to postpone action on this item to a time certain which would be the next scheduled regular board meeting on December 14th and it's a motion that you could recognize it would need a second it is It is debatable and then you'd take a vote on that if passed that would have the effect of removing one of the three bars that is currently on the table or maybe the motion applies to more than one but that's the that's the correct procedural motion if that's something the board wants to consider.

Okay.

Thank you.

Do you have clarity on which items if you are intending to do so.

I bring it up as an option.

I don't intend to make that motion.

Got it.

OK.

Fantastic.

OK with that being said we have motions on the table so we need to now move to the vote first on item number seven.

Are you ready for me to call that motion or that vote on item 7?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So calling the roll on the previously made motion for approval of the site specific educational specs for specifications for the Alki project.

Just make sure we're all on the same page.

Yeah.

Director Song Moritz.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Rankin.

Oh, she has stepped out.

She's excused herself, yeah.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Aye.

Director Sarju.

Sorry, sorry there's something wrong with my headphones.

Aye.

President Hersey.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

All right.

Now we are moving on to item number eight.

Can we get a tagline for that just for clarity?

This is the approval of the site specific educational specifications for the John Rogers Elementary School replacement project.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

The roll call.

Beginning with Director Rivera-Smith.

Aye.

Director Sarju.

Aye.

Director Song Moritz.

Aye.

Director Harris.

President Hersey.

This motion is passed unanimously.

And moving on to item number nine.

Approval of the state specific educational specifications from the Montlake Elementary School modernization and addition project for this one.

Director Harris.

And Director Rankin I am calling the role for the educational specifications for the Montlake project and I am to you.

Aye.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Aye.

Director Sarju.

Aye.

Director Song Maritz.

Aye.

President Hersey.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Okay.

So thank you very much.

I believe that is all the items that were pulled from the consent agenda if I'm not mistaken.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

We will now move on to our introduction items.

And first up is intro item number one and we will now move to introduction items on today's agenda.

Introduction item number one is approval of the comprehensive school counseling program transition plan.

I see Dr. Perkins approaching the podium.

Feel free to take it away.

Caleb Perkins executive director of college and career readiness.

I'm joined by Tara McFarlane our esteemed program manager for school counseling and I'm here to introduce the board action report asking you to approve our state required comprehensive school counseling program transition plan.

This is a requirement of the new state law 5030 that requires each school board to adopt transition plan as schools fully implement the requirements of Senate bill 5030. More than a state requirement it is something that will help our students.

There's ample research across a number of organizations including the American School Counselor Association on the benefits of a comprehensive school counseling program for students and as it states in the law this law and these plans will enable us to have counselors play the unique role in the lives of students Serving students with disabilities English language learners students living in poverty and according to research will seek out their counselor for academic mental health or post-secondary needs.

Finally, when thinking about our racial equity analysis that we include of course in every board action report, we believe this will benefit our students of color furthest from educational justice by improving course access and course planning through more specific systems to address disparities and improve the data systems that we have to collect to ensure all of our students are receiving the counseling services they need and deserve.

With respect to implementation, I do want to point out this is a transition plan.

We can continue to update it and we will.

We are going to be working on this over the next number of years and we're already fully engaged with our school counselors who I know you've had contact with in past school board meetings.

In fact, in December, Tara and her team will be leading a session on our red job alike day with a number of folks who are working on The school level work of comprehensive school counseling programs.

So thank you very much for the opportunity to introduce that today.

And now we will take your questions.

We have any questions on introduction item number one.

Director Rankin and then we'll cycle around.

Thank you.

I had some questions that were answered ahead of time but my main question is actually a request to refresh my memory because we have talked about this policy change before when it came down from the state and I just need help remembering if that was only in student services curriculum instruction committee or if we also discussed it here

I'll start and Tara who's far better at the details will share additional pieces.

So just when you passed the revision to policy 2140 you might require might recall we went before the committee and then before the full board and we referenced Senate Bill 5030 because that was part of the revision for 2140. Thank you.

That is what I'm remembering.

That's when we had that conversation.

And this is just just very tiny about the implementation of comprehensive counseling program for the district.

So we're not talking about policy.

We're not talking about the actual comprehensive counseling program.

We're just saying this is our transition plan.

It is a work in progress and this we're telling the board we have these stages planned out to do this work.

It's not specifically in the details of what school counselors do.

Thank you.

So we yes that's really helpful.

I was like we have talked about this and I couldn't remember the boundaries of which.

So based on our approval of changes to that policy this is now the plan coming.

The transition plan to become compliant with the changes in the policy.

Thank you.

Quick question Dr. Perkins you mentioned the red days is that correct.

That's a little bit of inside baseball potentially for our constituents, voters, students, families.

Yes, thank you very much for the opportunity to clarify.

So we, as board members know, our Wednesdays have early release so educators can work together and get professional development, engage in professional learning communities, They have a color code to them.

The red are for job alike and enable us as central leaders to connect with people in the same area of the job across all our schools.

So Tara has the opportunity to connect with counselors across all of our schools to talk about specific topics.

That's that's the spirit of the red day and I will be clear in the future.

Any questions on the side of the dice.

I think the results of the beta study in terms of the time use are very interesting but it mentions in the plan that the sites haven't or not the survey wasn't conducted consistently.

Is there still a goal to try to get as many schools to provide data on how our counselors are using their time?

So one of the requirements of the law is that we have a use of time study that is actually part of the comprehensive counseling program that we are working to implement.

So we started it with a small group of counselors to beta test a software tool.

And so we're we're part we're implementing that over the next three to five years.

So that's part of the rollout is that we're creating that using the tool consistently across all schools.

Any other questions on this item?

All right.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

OK.

We will now move on to introduction item number two.

Ms. Wilson-Jones is approaching the podium for question purposes only and I will read off some notes around why we're bringing this forward.

All right introduction item number two is the amendment of the board policy number 1400 meeting conduct order of business and quorum 1410 executive or closed sessions and 1430 audience participation and board procedure 1430 BP audience participation.

I brought this item forward as a sponsor to keep our board policies on holding and noticing for our meetings aligned with the Open Public Meetings Act and to make additional updates for clarity.

Director of Policy and Board Relations Ellie Wilson Jones is also with us to answer questions.

The changes follow the updates to state law made through House Bill 1329 which is attached to the board action report under House Bill 1329. The open public meetings act was updated to maintain flexibility That had been temporarily granted by the governor through a series of proclamations during the COVID state of emergency.

Under the OPMA we now have the ability to hold solely remote meetings during a declared emergency that prevents a meeting from being held in person with reasonable safety.

Think snow days.

Under such circumstances we should or excuse me we also would need to have staff travel to physically post a notice when such travel is barred or advised against.

This could apply to a situation like our initial stages of the COVID pandemic but could also support us in continuing board operations in the event of snow ice and emergency conditions that make travel unsafe.

Without approval of this item our board policies remain in conflict with the new language addressing emergencies in state law.

The board may wish to explore further updates to the structure and engagement aspects of these policies.

But for now this package of updates has been distilled to technical adjustments to best prepare us for the winter months and potentially emergency conditions and minor changes for clarity.

If any directors have questions on this particular item Ms. Wilson-Jones I believe has a clarifying note.

And I do have one addition that I want to note that we would intend to make to policy 1400 for action and directors would see that additional language in the next posting which is scheduled for Monday so promptly.

We have identified that there is one addition needed for That gets at sorry I already said that part House Bill 1630 in addition to the legislation that was referenced by President Hersey also impacts one of these policies that's policy 1400. It did extend some weapons prohibitions to board meetings more explicitly and so while weapons are already prohibited from being possessed here in the John Sanford Center and our other school facilities.

This legislation also provides us a sort of opportunity to create a greater linkage between our policy 4210 and this policy 1400 and WASDA has now updated their model policy with some relevant language.

So unless I hear concern from directors here tonight the intent would be to first Adds a cross reference to existing prohibition on weapons in school facilities and then to state that it's unlawful for any member of the public to knowingly carry into or to possess on any area of the facility being used for official school board meetings a dangerous weapon and then there's listed weapons and a reference to the relevant RCW and that the board will ensure that there is appropriate noticing accordingly.

Thank you, Ms. Wilson-Jones.

Board director, do we have any questions?

Director Rankin, go for it.

I have a question.

There was a comment made in public testimony about remote participation.

And so it's in policy 1400. Any or all board members may attend a board or committee meeting and vote via a communication platform including teleconference that provides at a minimum simultaneous oral Not oral, aural communication between those present.

Can I just clarify that that's actually directly from the changes to state law that that's not something that we just put in here because reasons?

Correct.

That is not a change from our existing policy or practice.

So tonight's meeting could have been held with no directors here in person and it would have been consistent with our policy the way it stands today.

It would be consistent with the way our policy would stand if you approve these changes.

It's also consistent with the OPMA both as it stands now and as it stood a year ago.

It looks if as you review policy 1400 it's going to look a little bit more sweeping in the scope of the changes and that's because WASDA's policy looked different than ours and in this case it made sense to restructure the way they did.

It was a little bit more logical to talk about quorum and voting together.

And so when making these Updates to align with state law.

It also made sense to keep the non-substantive edits that would have us more linked up with WASDA's model which I think was just better in its organization.

So this is not a change in our practice.

It is a reflection of the WASDA model policy which is in alignment with the state law.

That is correct.

Thank you.

There are some changes I can't recall exactly in the OPMA that may have been relevant to this part.

In some ways we had all sorts of practices that were based on an opinion from the attorney's general's office many many years ago and they did some cleanup to actually put things in statute.

But there are not significant practice shifts being contemplated here.

In some places the OPMA now calls for jurisdictions to do voluntarily many of the things that we've been doing that we intend to continue doing.

Thank you.

Hi so I have a lot of questions and suggestions and I sent this to you I think back in like August because this came up in May and executive committee some of these not all of them many of these you brought forward in executive committee I believe in May And then I emailed you a bunch of questions and suggestions.

And then I didn't know when this was coming back but I'm glad it's here now.

So you have this already in your email I'm sure.

And I'll send it again.

I don't know if I want to read all four pages right now because it's a lot.

And actually I had suggestions on 1420 which is not part of this bar so I'm not going to worry about 1420. But would you rather we talk about them now or just we talk about this offline?

I would defer to President Hersey but I think it would be helpful if there are changes that the board would like to see prior to action for you to have a conversation about that today.

I recall some suggestions that you had made and they were somewhat geared to some of the more kind of optional let's just think about practice shift type things that were not brought forward as part of this package.

Yeah yeah I see that.

So that's why and so I get I can see how maybe they're not necessary at this time but if we're updating these anyway it might be good to talk about these things.

I would start at the beginning I guess and for policy 1400 let me get back to my laptop here 1400 I think actually one of them you kept I was wondering about the notice for public hearings and it actually stayed so that one's already not a problem.

Suggested edit I had for There's no in this policy there's no requirement or expectation for public notice of public hearings.

The public notice section does not specify public hearings.

So there's we don't talk about how public notices is expected to be had for specifically public hearings.

So I suggested that we suggest to add the board will take Final action resulting from executive sessions.

That's not the right part.

I'm sorry.

I'm confused on my writing here.

But anyways, there was nothing in there.

About when to expect notice of public hearings.

Absolutely I can make totally clear exactly how our policy would to apply to that and just in practice how it looks.

So under state law there's two types of meetings.

There is a regular meeting which you're required to hold monthly and to set a schedule in a little bit more of a structured way and then there's special meetings.

So So anything you do essentially not at that dais is generally a special meeting.

So that's your work sessions your retreats your public hearings are usually held outside of a regular board meeting.

Those are all special meetings.

And then here tonight you're hearing your regular board meetings under state law there's specific requirements that apply to special meetings and specific requirements that apply to regular board meetings.

For both of those there are requirements of 24 hours notice in posting your agenda contacting the media to let them know if they've gotten onto our listserv and posting notices on the doors.

And so that will apply to a hearing as well whether it happens during a regular board meeting or in a board special meeting.

So if we can just clarify when that public notice should be expected for public hearings.

Yes it will be in 24 hours.

They are part of the special meeting section.

So a special meeting talks about those in the same way that it talks about a committee meeting.

So should we put that public hearings are considered special meetings then?

I mean I just want to make sure there's a connection so people know that that's how they're covered.

Every meeting is a special meeting that's not a regular board meeting.

Including public hearings.

Correct.

Including executive session so anything you do that's not a regular board meeting is special.

I just want that to be crystal clear for people reading this.

Also when we talk about individuals who need accommodations to participate it says in here that the bottom of the sentence no later than two days before a regular meeting so that arrangements for the accommodation can be made.

I suggest we take out the word regular because that implies only for as you said regular meetings would we need that two day notice.

If we need them for all sorts of meetings we shouldn't specify regular meetings.

Can you note which policy you're referring to on the page?

I'm still on 1400 and it's under public hearings because it's nice and sectioned in this policy because I want to make sure people know that if they need those accommodations it's not specifically just the regular meetings it's all types of meetings.

Generally the accommodations that are requested are relevant to our regular board meetings.

They are about participation and testimony.

But let me take a better look at that to make sure.

I would say that if somebody reaches out for an accommodation we would not treat it differently other than we wouldn't we would provide interpretation for somebody to be able to hear a meeting for instance but not focus on them being able to provide testimony when there's not a testimony period.

All right questions about committees but that's neither here nor there now that we have suspended those for now.

In 1410 I have we have in let me look at it myself 1410 there we go.

In the second paragraph before convening an executive session the president So executive sessions can be held independent of a regular meeting or we pull from in a regular meeting we adjourn to one correct?

An executive session will take place either in a regular meeting or if it's not part of a regular meeting it would be either a freestanding special meeting combined with other topics.

It's essentially an agenda topic that has to happen in a publicly noticed meeting so it would be either a regular or a special.

Because we say before convening an executive session the president or other presiding officer shall publicly announce the general purpose for excluding the public.

Are we just saying I'm wondering where is that announcement made because we don't really say that.

So is it basically I think the word before is sort of like before like weeks before right before.

I think our practices and sort of training of staff support an implementation of that that's clearly aligned with state law.

Which is that those announcements take place in the public convening space.

So when we're fully remote, that happened in a public meeting in which anybody could join via Teams or phone.

And when we're here in person, it happens here in the auditorium or wherever we list as the public meeting location.

So perhaps instead of before, I could just say at the beginning or at the start of the meeting.

Because before is vague.

Before could be like a week before.

And I understand what you're saying.

We would be in violation of state law if we didn't do it during the meeting.

So it will occur during the meeting.

People don't know that looking at this.

I believe you but.

The presiding officer receives talking points to make sure that they're in alignment with state law.

I get it.

I don't think I understand.

Maybe I'm not being clear.

If people read this and see that before convening executive session the president makes his announcement I don't know that before is clear enough.

Maybe I'm expecting people to not catch on enough but I wonder if it could just if it may be unless we can't say this could we say at the start of the meeting or when convening an executive session instead of before I don't know.

Director Vera Smith can I suggest a clarification maybe to the group here.

So let's think about starting the sentence with the president or other presiding officer shall publicly announce the general purpose for excluding the public before convening.

But just basically flip it.

Move it later.

I'd have to look back.

I'm a slow reader here.

Yeah.

OK.

Like I said I'm just trying to take away any any confusion.

So in 1430 that is audience participation.

It starts off with the statement the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and at the importance of involving members of the public in its meetings.

I would like to get rid of on educational issues because that's unnecessarily limiting of what we value.

I think it's okay to say we recognize the value of public comment and the importance of involving committee members because it's also limiting and conflict within 1430 where we have an other category where they can give comment on.

It doesn't have to be an educational issue.

So I don't know how people feel about that but I would just get rid of on educational issues that we're not unnecessarily limiting what we value and you know what we invite people to talk to us about.

Anybody have any concerns with that?

I mean I think it should be district or I mean I don't know I don't have a problem with it being limiting because you know I don't necessarily think that this is the right place for people to come give public comment about like A Marina issue or something.

How do you define educational issues?

We value public comment, I think.

I'm sorry.

I'm just struggling to hear you.

So could you repeat your last question one more time?

I'm just asking in that first sentence, the board recognizes the value of public comment It says on educational issues and the importance of involving members of the public in its meetings.

I'm just asking if we could agree on taking out on educational issues having it just be the board recognizes the value of public comment and the importance of involving members of the public in meetings.

OK.

How about this.

Will you send that to me in an email and I will discuss it with staff and we will if we need to make a necessary amendment we will and I will be more than happy to bring that forward.

Does that work for right now.

I just don't know if we're going to be able to hash this out through because like we would essentially need to Yeah well I mean it wouldn't even necessarily be an amendment because it's just intro.

So we'll talk about it at our meeting tomorrow.

Does that work?

Fantastic.

And again I just want to limit what we're valuing or what we're inviting people to speak on because it also done again in our Board procedure, it's not necessarily that they have to have a speaker, what they may talk about.

So I don't know.

I just want to open that up.

So let me see what else I have here.

We have board procedure, because board procedure just give options for other topic or comments of general nature.

So I just also want to be consistent.

In the board procedure we have that regular board meeting agendas are posted to the district website three days in advance of the meeting.

That's what it says right now I believe right.

That's what it used to say at least.

Yep it still says that.

Three days in advance of the meeting.

I'm wondering if we want to say no less than three days because it could.

What is my reasoning here?

Because that also makes it I guess consistent with 1430. I'm sorry I'm on the wrong one altogether.

No less than any days.

I'm trying to read this and make sense at the same time.

Adding the words not less than gives flexibility of not having to post the agenda is exactly three days in advance of the meeting because say they're posted three days in advance it has to be exactly three saying not less than gives flexibility there.

I believe that that sort of a history of our practice provides an adequate record that meeting materials can be posted more than three days in advance.

We have not ever posted materials less than I'm not great at counting days but Yeah.

Four or five days in advance in my time with the school district for our regular board meetings.

So we do not intend to post it less than three days in advance and we would continue with the board's willingness for us to have that read post it significantly more than three days in advance with your new board meeting calendar.

Yeah definitely.

And I understand practice.

I'm just trying to actually codify things.

But anyways, you guys can talk about that.

I'll send this all to you.

I had some suggestions on bullets, which is not a big deal.

I think I should just send these to you guys because you're going to have a meeting about this anyway and nothing here is jumping out at me as something that we need a huge discussion on but I have just given you notice that I will send this stuff in so you guys can do that.

If I think of anything before we move on I will let you know.

Can I summarize the changes that I heard and the ones that are a little bit more uncertain where we'll go just make sure that we're all kind of moving in the same direction here.

So on policy 1400 I heard a question potential concern need to look a little bit more closely at the text under public notice to make sure that we are clearly communicating to people about the ability to request an accommodation for any type of board meeting as otherwise allowed under your board policies and required.

Then no other edits to that one seem to be specifically agreed to just now.

Under policy 1410 a restructuring of the text for paragraph two and I do want to look back at the OPMA just to make sure that we're not slightly revising what maybe is a direct quote from the OPMA in which case I think if it is from the OPMA I would suggest we stick with it because There's clear enough meaning about what the law means.

But let me look back at it and basically we all need to make sure that we are shared understanding and clearly communicating to the public that the announcements from the presiding officer about an executive session will happen in the public space not some other time or location.

And then this one not clear direction not hearing that so I would work with the sponsor President Hersey on policy 1430 to determine whether an edit is needed to that first sentence about the sort of scope of the board's priorities for public testimony and the language educational issues.

Did I miss anything besides some other technical pieces that you might be sending?

No but I have two more.

We haven't had speakers may appear in person.

But we don't say that they can appear they can appear remotely.

That's not specified anywhere.

So I think adding to that number I think with number three I have my notes here.

And the changes that were made here are kind of meant to be the sort of highest level pass to align with flexibility granted by the OPMA.

The OPMA does not require remote testimony but we have retained it and I would intend as somebody who supports the board in your operations to keep it unless the board tells me you want to go in a different direction.

That's not something I feel like I could do.

Yes I just think there are some practice things that we can certainly do via policy.

We can do them without policy too.

There could be an instance in which the board wanted to Hold a meeting in a more flexible way or in a different environment and if you start to add specific language in here that creates more technology needs you just want to you're also restricting your ability to move flexibly.

There is not a legal requirement for remote public testimony unless except for certain certain instances now under the OPMA but we go far beyond that.

Yeah that's why it was going to be an or speakers may appear in person or give a testimony remotely via communications platform.

That was the suggestion.

So that's fine.

Do you understand what I'm saying or should I explain it better?

Yeah.

I think what's going to – because here's my thing.

I think having your edits as suggestions to where like we can look at them and then like parse out the language from there will be easier than like trying to wordsmith it in this particular setting.

So why don't you send it over and we will confirm that we receive it.

We'll talk about it.

And then if it's not reflected, if your changes are not reflected, you can always bring an amendment to the – When it comes for action.

Does that work?

Absolutely and I just want to know my understanding from the board is that this body of policies are a place that you would intend to touch a little bit more heavily in 2023 both as part of your work in thinking through how you hold your meetings open to the public and engage with the public and in just your restructuring of your policies.

And so this is meant to be an initial technical cleanup and that so I am I am not in a place where I think that this work would be done and that it's not something you asked me to pick back up for a long time.

I expect that you would.

I would say this one for you guys' benefit.

The last one I mentioned tonight is under the board directors it's one of the bullets about after public testimony is given you know normally we don't speak we don't reply.

So the policy says board directors are not obligated or procedure sorry.

Board directors are not obligated to respond to questions or challenges made during the public comment period and director's silence shall not be deemed to signal agreement or endorsement of the speaker's remarks.

I think we should add agreement, disagreement or endorsement of the speaker's remarks because usually silence looks like disagreement actually and I don't want people to know that our silence does not mean we disagree with them.

So I would add the word disagreement to that.

Anyways.

Yeah, that's fine.

No problem.

Just quickly just to affirm what Ellie just said.

I know at least 1400 was specifically called out in deliverable five or six which are the policies that are part of the first step on the timeline.

So let me get to that one.

You can if you want to work on it.

You'll all see this.

We can bring it.

Yeah we can we can.

Amended again or revisit that.

Any other questions on introduction item number two.

All right.

We have one written update attached to tonight's agenda and that is the monthly budget status report.

This item is now being provided to directors through our regular board meetings.

There being no further business to come before the board the

I just I wanted to ask for a clarification on this since this has changed.

So this will be a standing item monthly at the bottom of the agenda included on the agenda not because it's going to be talked about in the meeting but because that's how we receive it and how it's made available to the public online.

I believe that is correct.

Thank you.

Yeah.

No problem.

Go for it.

This is a curiosity I don't know if there's anybody here who can answer this but it's this monthly budget status report is I believe August 2022. So what September October I guess November might not be ready yet but we're back in August still so we're months behind just wondering if that's going to be the standard or if.

Yo.

I am probably the worst person to talk about fiscal reporting timelines but the piece of it that I impact here I can speak to which is that our regular board meetings now are post our materials are posted significantly in advance so you will see the time periods covered being pretty significantly before the meeting.

I can't speak to the exactly how it landed on that period though.

Indeed and may I suggest that the reason being is that the accounting and finance office is cleaning up all of last year that was brought up by Director Sebring And by former deputy superintendent Gannon at the last budget work session meeting a week ago.

And having watched that happen oh so many years I bow down to those folks.

Thank you.

Likewise.

Any other questions.

Clarifications.

Go on once.

Go on twice.

All right.

There being no further business to come before the board the regular board meeting is now adjourned at 7 14 p.m.

Have a wonderful evening.

It is about to snow and rain and do all the fun winter things so please just be safe.

Amen.