School Board Meeting October 16, 2019 Part 1

In this video, I will show you how to create a new world.

Are you doing on ledge?

I can.

And then we're introducing the bar.

You want me to do that?

Yeah, there's not too much to tell on ledge, other than the bars being introduced to me.

Yeah, do you want to introduce the bar, or do you want me to?

You're there.

It might be easier for you to do it.

I can chime in if you'd like.

I'm prepared.

I can't say how smooth it's going to be, but I'm prepared.

Good afternoon.

It is 4 17. We're two minutes late getting started and we welcome you to the October 16th 2019 Seattle School Board Legislative Meeting.

As we begin we'd like to acknowledge and honor the First Peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on the land of the Coastal Salish tribes.

Also like to welcome Cael Neumann who will be sitting on our left as our student commentator from Middle College High School and Cael will have an opportunity to give comments later in the evening.

Roll call please and I might add that both directors Burke and Mack are out of town.

Director Burke will be signing on as soon as his plane hits the ground and Director Mack is on the phone.

Can you hear me OK.

We can.

Roll call please.

Director DeWolf.

Present.

Director Geary.

Present.

Director Hersey.

Present.

Director Mack.

Here.

Director Pinkham.

Present.

Director Harris Present.

For those that would like to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Students from the Center School will be performing this evening and we'd like to invite directors to the front row so we can watch.

Is it on?

Hello?

Hello!

I'm Gail.

I'm Ramona.

And we are from the Center School.

We're gonna play four songs for you today.

This first one is called Mother Earth We Will Greed.

piano plays softly

We are holding the weight of the world on our shoulders It keeps getting warmer But we can't be bothered to notice the changes Or give them our attention It's not getting better and we are not helping How long can this last?

We will lose what we have if we don't grasp our human condition I see that she is dying under me The single thing that lets us breathe You can't breathe Empty promises you failed to keep See the dying of the trees And the currents start to seize If we don't change our lives, Mother Earth, we will grieve We are wasting our time with our useless debate All the people in power are stuck in their heat Just because they don't see it doesn't mean it's not happening They should open their eyes to the crisis we all see They can drink their oil and can cook their cash They will fall and bring all of us with them I see she is dying under me A single thing that lets us breathe You can't breathe empty Promises you fail to keep See the dying of the trees And the currents start to seize If we don't change our lives Mother Earth we will grieve The second one is called I Miss You It's hard to follow in your footsteps And tiptoe through the minefield Of cinderblock and science It's never really been real And everything is revealed It's sad I whisper to the windows And yell to all the flowers The simple saying is ruined With every step I sour And it is overpowered And I see it in your face You must be proud I've left no trace Of what I feel and what I face I am not graceful Footsteps unstable I detriment so far behind The swaying pressure makes me seasick Dandelions grow inside Another weed I have to pick Similarity in size We're tired and bonafide skeptics Another message I have got Your hologram has made me homesick And everything you left behind Makes me miss you I miss you I try to bring about the changes to mess with our creation But bitter is the vengeance of all the implications How could I risk negation?

You see, it's hard to understand me Without my effervescence This loneliness is crushing How will I ever end this?

Your distance seems so endless And I see it in the stone I like how plants grow next to bone And how you call me on the phone Sweet honey, go home I call you home I detriment so far behind The swaying pressure makes me seasick Dandelions grow inside Another weed I have to pick Similarity in size We're tired and bonafide skeptics Another message I have cried A hologram has made me homesick And everything you left behind Makes me miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you

Okay.

This one's mine now.

Oh, we have written all the songs that we are performing today.

The first two I wrote and the second two Gail has written.

So this one's called Naive.

And yeah.

Yeah.

OK.

One, two, three.

Your intentions are understood by the hidden It never saves You're so naive to me to be with.

Why you so dirty, queen?

You're getting hard to see.

Oh, you fall in tears.

The sea of angels washes over me And I feel so empty Your intentions are understood, got hidden A red light for fiends I give to me You're too upset to believe Why you so dirty, great You're getting hard to see

Okay.

This last one is called Vow's Precipice.

Yeah, I forgot the name.

Sorry.

This one's called Vow's Precipice.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it's an ace tonight.

Valerie is shy again in fear You're insane tonight Do you hear that smite in the words so clear?

Can you go on a smaller boat if I got you?

We'll go in, how about the precipice?

Come sweet dog She's red, she inside We found her in a van Such a blue taste she had Couldn't think about why they started to learn Can you go on the smaller boat if I got you?

I'm thinking about all the best best Come sweet talk I know I'm smarter, but if I got you I'm thinking, how about a Christmas?

I'm a sweetie-tongue Ooh, big guy Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh Thank you!

Thanks ever so much.

I needed that rough day.

Much appreciated.

Can you tell us what grade you're in where you're going after high school if you know and who are your musical heroes.

OK.

My name is Gail Gail Johnson.

I'm not completely planned out the future but I know I want to go to college and I know it I want it to have something to do with art and what was the last one musical heroes.

I don't know I really like Kurt Cobain.

I don't know he's just so wise even though yeah but yeah that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

My name is Ramona Blackbird.

I don't I also don't know where I'm going after after high school but I know that I want to go to college and my musical heroes are I guess the people around me in my community who have like helped me develop my skills.

like that one and and and my teachers and my like orchestra conductors who have helped me develop like a sense of music.

So yeah.

And the best thing you like about Center School.

Center has such a wonderful community it's always open and welcoming and I'm really proud to be a part of it.

Yeah I like well it is kind of a smaller like high school but I kind of really like that because all the teachers like actually know who you are and actually really care about you and like want to help even though it might be hard they actually care and then and all the students are so close and it's just I don't know it's just so it's so nice I don't know.

Again thank you ever so much.

Unfortunately we were just advised that Sian from Middle College High School is unable to attend this evening.

She gets a return ticket on the A-List however because some of us know Middle College has a very special and big place in my heart and we want to hear from our students.

Madam Superintendent the floor is yours.

Thank you.

I'm just going to start first by talking I know there's a lot of people going to be here for ethnic studies just to talk about what's up with ethnic studies.

So everybody kind of knows.

So with the anticipated approval by the board tonight hopefully of the revision to policy 2015 we will be in the position to officially begin to move ethnic studies to the curriculum review process.

This process will involve many individuals and groups including the instructional materials committee or the IMC the adoption committee educators community members central office staff the board's curriculum and instruction committee as well as the entire board.

We expect final board approval of ethnic studies by late spring of next year.

and professional development to begin in the summer and ethnic studies to be available to be integrated into course content in the 2020-21 school year.

So that's sort of the process coming up.

I've received many inquiries I know that we all have around ethnic studies and I'll address some of those concerns here beginning with the question about why ethnic studies is not yet in our schools.

Policy 2015 as is currently written only allows for curriculum that is available via vendors for example publishing companies.

we had no approved method for moving ethnic studies into our schools.

But with tonight's agenda item to approve that revised policy and assuming the item receives the necessary votes we'll be able to move forward again with the process for that.

Second I've received questions regarding budget and staffing.

As you know the manager Tracy Castro Gill was hired last year to begin development of curriculum with the anticipation that once policy 2015 was revised and approved we'd be ready to take whatever had been developed through that curriculum review process.

We now have draft frameworks for that curriculum because of the hard work that Ms. Gill has Ms. Castro Gill has put in and so I really do thank her publicly for the work and the efforts that have been made doing that work.

It's not easy.

And so I just want to really thank her for everything she's done to promote this work and to get it together and get get it ready.

Once the ethnic studies curriculum is approved and ready for widespread use in Seattle Public Schools budget for additional ethnic studies staffing will be included in the 2020-21 school year budget.

In the meantime I have approved the hiring of a temporary position to assist with the adoption process once this policy passes and professional development throughout the remainder of the school year.

This position will be funded through August 31 31st 2020. For 2019-20 ethnic studies is budgeted $300,000.

This money is designated for the adoption process continued curriculum development reimbursement to represented staff to assist in professional development and any institute such as the very very successful summer institute that Ms. Castorgale and partners put on.

The money was not designated for additional staffing so again those conversations will happen once the process is in place and we have the frameworks and everything ready to go.

Third I want to address the issue that arose a few weeks ago around the math frameworks that gain state and national and local attention.

The framework that is circulating was shared with OSPI as part of their data collection for their statewide ethnic studies advisory committee.

The frameworks are meant to for educators to understand how they might adjust their existing curriculum to include themes of ethnic studies into their teaching practice.

This framework on its own is not a lesson plan.

It's not a piece of curriculum but rather a guide for educators to understand how to shift their teaching practice to better support students who have historically not been supported in the respective content area.

So I'm hoping that clears up some of the issues that we've all been hearing about and just know that we are very much looking forward to and we are very very committed to doing this work of ethnic studies and so.

again the process I think through Ms. Castro Gill's leadership has is we're in a good spot to really start the adoption process once tonight's vote is taken.

I also want to give a shout out Ramona from Center School is on my student advisory board so it was just very nice to see her and her talents that are unknown but now they will be known.

So these are again I just like to start out with our priorities kind of reflecting back and bringing us back and centering us on what our strategic plan is calling us on to do and to ground our conversations in this work.

And again these are our initiatives with our intentionality and focus for third grade reading welcoming environments and culturally responsive practice.

and focusing as you know these initiatives with a targeted universalism of students of color furthest from educational justice and intentional focus on African-American males in our system.

As I shared in the Friday memo the school leader the school leader core that we have our school leaders our principals our assistant principals is the most diverse employee group as compared to all staff teachers central administrators and teacher leaders.

So I really want to thank Dr. Starosky and his team of director of schools for their relentless commitment to hiring a diverse workforce to lead our schools.

I do want to invite if we can pull the podium or the lectern up Dr. Codd to the microphone to share some of the data and the work around culturally responsive workforce initiative that's been ongoing.

in all categories we are more diverse than last year which is great news for us and should be celebrated.

And I just want to thank you Dr. Codd for your leadership on this priority and making sure we're doing the right work.

But I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Codd for a moment.

Okay is it on.

All right.

So as you're aware cultural responsive workforce is a priority in our strategic plan and we have a commitment to diversify our workforce so that it more closely represents the students that we educate here.

As we work towards setting targets for the new strategic plan we want to see an aggressive trend in hiring more employees of color.

Specifically teachers school leaders and central office staff because our our represented classified staff tend to be very diverse whereas the three that I just mentioned are not.

However point of celebration.

37 percent of our school leadership corps identify as a person of color.

And in this last recruiting class for 19 20 57 percent of the principals and assistant principals that were hired identify as a person of color and the majority of which were African-American male.

So we're really proud and as Superintendent Juneau stated Dr. Swarovski and his team worked really really hard and it definitely shows.

So our teacher hires over the last five years have also become more diverse.

So in 2015 16 only 18.2 percent of our teachers that were hired identified as a person of color.

Today in this last recruiting class for 19 20 27.1 percent identify as a person of color.

So we have a lot more work to do in this area.

but we are going in the right direction.

So we have a strategic plan work group for the culturally responsive workforce priority.

There are two goals in that priority.

One is to elevate professional practice with the current teachers that we do have and educators that we do have.

And the other is to actually recruit but also retain people of color into our leadership positions teacher positions central office positions and make sure that once we get them here we also have strategies to keep them and to make sure that they feel welcome that they feel included and that they don't have to give up their identity at the schoolhouse doors.

So our strategic plan workgroup is focused on these two goals.

We will be coming up with a work plan it's in draft for the diversity of our staff.

This year we were focusing on culture responsive practices and the professional development of the current staff that we have.

But going into the 2021 school year we will have a work plan totally dedicated to the aggressive work of really trying to go out and find the best and the brightest and those who are connected to our students connected to our communities already have ties within our communities and within our schools and making sure that we're bringing them into a workplace that they're excited about and they want to stay.

Thank you.

Thank you Dr. Codd.

Appreciate your leadership on that.

I visited Thurgood Marshall and Bailey Gatzer Elementary School since our last meeting and conversation.

I love learning about the awesome work that our teachers are doing in support of serving African-American boys and students furthest from educational justice.

At Thurgood Marshall I observed a first grade a 2-3 split and a third grade classroom.

The alignment and common vocabulary the teachers were using was evident in every space I was in.

In the lessons students were building their academic vocabulary using prompts and turn in talks.

The young man in the bottom right corner is using the new vocabulary word in context in our visit after he told me to move out of his chair.

In each classroom students were 100 percent engaged and collaborative in their work.

The tweet of the week as you can see in that upper right hand corner says I love to read.

I just want to thank Principal May and Thurgood Marshall staff for hosting me during that visit.

and during my visit to Bailey Gatzert I saw science classes and a writing class building their academic vocabulary.

The young boy in the photo in the bottom picture was recording his thinking in the journal in his journal.

At the top right students were gathered in to see if there was starch in some of the foods that they were testing.

And they were so and they were so enthusiastic to see the results they were all huddled head to head by the end of the lesson.

And the other picture students were exploring how food moves through the digestive system.

and in each of these classrooms students were using academic vocabulary which will continue to build their reading comprehension skills.

The classes at Third Good Marshall spent the first month of school building strong collaborative safe and welcoming environments.

This empathetic hug that you see was a really good reminder for me about how our work in central office impacts our students.

Enrollment is up at Third Good Marshall which is great news.

And as a result we added an additional classroom teacher and this class had just learned that some of their classmates were leaving to go to the new classroom.

so there was some drama and some tears and some really very genuinely sad kids.

The other picture is from the hallway at Bailey Gatzert and there are expectations to ensure that everybody stays safe in the hallways.

and I just want to end by acknowledging that black excellence that surrounds us and is present in our schools.

This is a fourth grade teacher they call him Mr. Shaco and he's at Bailey Gatzer Elementary.

He was calm as can be as the students giggled about the final stages of digestion.

You know what that means the final stage.

Principal Bell and this young scholar shared a moment as the student told him about his learning.

and the young scholar at the bottom is from Thurgood Marshall.

That smile could not have been bigger when he learned that his conversations with our nutrition services director Mr. Smith yielded sushi on the lunch menu.

He was literally dancing with his friends moments before we took this picture.

So I see black excellence all around me as I travel around Seattle schools.

And finally I just want to show I don't know if you were able to see it yet but this great video of the responsive responsiveness of our new director Aaron Smith when it comes to meeting students needs.

Can you guys push that.

They were just telling me about what they eat at home, what they would like to see on the menu, and I said, I have a great idea.

What if we have a mini vegetarian food show tasting for the students?

We were just talking at lunch and then we realized that the food wasn't there, so we just decided to go to Mr. Stilwell, our principal, and he told us, hey, write a persuasive essay and I'll pass it on to the director of nutrition.

I received a letter from a student about how they want to have more vegetarian options.

He said, it's him, a group of his friends, and they really want more vegetarian options on the menu.

So I looked at last year's menu, I looked at this year's menu, and all I see is veggie burger and cheese.

I was like, yeah, that's pretty bad.

So I called the principal, and I said, hey, it's okay if I come out there and meet with these students so I can get some feedback from them.

And I'm giving them an opportunity to select new items to put on the menu that will address not just the needs of them, but also the entire district.

Because even though this one fourth grader is now helping us plan a new vegetarian menu for the rest of the students.

So, I mean, for me that's fun.

That's what this job's about, is getting input from your customer and then actually implementing information.

I'm really happy that we got to have this magical moment where as a vegetarian I could express myself and I want to thank everybody who is included in this.

They are some of my most faithful friends and I could not have done this without them and honestly It was a team effort.

We're just some kids who wanted to do something to make this school a better place.

It's kind of crazy because, like, I was just a kid in a school with my friends, and now there's this whole vegan and vegetarian thing.

Students seem to be surprised when I show up the next day after I receive a letter, so...

But they're the customers.

So they're the customers, and we need to take their feedback serious.

and the best way to show them that the voice is heard and that we care about what they think is to show some type of action.

things from a lot of different people and there are always going to be things that we mess up on and that things that we need to correct and things we need to learn from.

But in the day to day there is really good work going on in Seattle Public Schools across this district and so I just don't want us to lose sight of that either.

So thanks Madam President.

I agree more and.

There's a young person in there that probably should be sitting on this dais or in the White House in a few years.

I'm impressed.

Oh am I impressed.

Okay we're at board committee reports.

Who would like to go first.

Director Pinkham chair of A&F.

Thank you sir.

The audit and finance committee last met on October 7th and we have three of our bars that we discussed there should be intro'd today.

So I'll save that conversation when we do the introduction of those bar items.

We also had several special attention items that were discussed and I announced this at the previous meeting.

about giving the list of the items that we did discuss.

One thing I think that is looking at the memorandum of understanding policy as we make these agreements or sometimes maybe even infer agreements with different organizations that we do need to hopefully have a firm policy that our policy procedures and operations that take into consideration the special needs and nuances of all the CBO's and other partners we have working with the city of the city of Seattle the Seattle Public Schools.

We did get the fiber credits finalized with the cooperation of the Seattle's City of Seattle and what they did and find out that yes those fiber credits will go back to the budget that they originally came from because it wasn't for maintenance was actually for the installation of the fiber optic land so we'll go back to the appropriate budget now.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- How much money approximately are we talking about there sir.

If I can get a confirmation from JoLynn it last I heard was like around 200K but I know some of that was used for other things.

I don't know if JoLynn's here right now.

She no.

Yeah.

So the credits had got up to be pretty high and that's why I kind of called our attention to it that it need to be addressed.

operations levy certification that will actually move in that to our next meeting which will be kind of segue into that November 4th from 4 30 to 6 30 here in our school board office.

Encourage people to come out there and haven't seen the agenda yet that so I don't have anything to share.

And the next quarterly audit and finance meeting will be December 3rd 2019 which I still need to get some clarification who will actually be chairing that.

since my last official day will be like no end of November as new people will be sworn on the day before.

And that is my update and we will have an update from Andrew Medina I believe at the next board meeting in November his annual report.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Madam Geary Chair of Curriculum and Instruction.

The number of those items will be on tonight's agenda in introduction.

I think the most important not that it came up for introduction but what we're seeing tonight out of the curriculum instruction is 2015 and so that's very exciting and we talked about that last time.

Tonight we're looking at I think the probably adoption the introduction of a 6 through 12 Spanish instructional materials adoption will be of great interest to many people.

we're looking at an electronic resources and use of the internet policy and our evaluation plan are some of the big things and if you take a look at the evaluation so as you know accountability is something that's very important to this board and we rely on our research and evaluation group to do that work for us but with limited resources there's only so many things at any time that we can do the deeper dive so that we can provide reliable information back to our families and district staff.

And so you can take a look at that agenda to see what is going to be where the deeper dives are going to be.

I think the comment in CNI is that it is very ambitious but we've been assured that the work can be done.

the one item that did not pass through then was the policy changes to the highly capable cohort program.

There was a lot of discussion we've gotten a lot of emails about that and I think the one thing that most people agree upon is that we need to make changes and in order for it to be possible for the district to make changes we need the policy to change to give us the flexibility to serve kids where they are and how they want to be served throughout our district.

So hopefully there will continue to be education or conversation education and the task force will continue to work cooperatively with us to get that work done.

but it is not dead and we will continue our discussions to look at that.

Next CNI meeting will be on November 12th.

that we will be looking at the anti-racism policy it is moving along in our process under the direction of Dr. Keisha Scarlett and then our standing agenda items are since time immemorial the science adoption and then reporting back on our strategic plan goals.

and with that tonight we're also introducing going on to the ledge committee.

We're introducing our legislative agenda.

So that is part of introduction tonight.

So I'll talk more about that when the bar comes up but at this point I would invite Director Mack to give us any updates about WASDA that she might have.

Director Mack.

Yes.

Hello.

Can you hear me OK.

Sure.

Excellent.

Good evening, everyone.

Yes, I'm very much looking forward to having the legislative agenda introduced tonight.

Speak directly into your phone.

I'm sorry, can you hear me okay?

Much better.

Okay.

Looking forward to having the introduction of our legislative agenda later on the agenda tonight.

And as I had mentioned at last meeting, was the school directors association held their legislative assembly where they passed through all of the proposals and issues and priorities.

And this past weekend, the ledge committee, myself included, met to help pull the priority list together for the one pager, which is similar to the that we put forward as a district.

All of the various alphabet soup organizations are in the process of, you know, producing their documents that kind of highlight their ledge agenda.

And so that document will be coming out soon.

I'll be sharing that with you all when it's finalized.

It should be next few weeks or so.

But those priorities align really closely with the one that's being presented for our adoption tonight.

And I think that's all for legislative committee.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Director Mack you still have the floor for Operations Committee report back please.

DIRECTOR MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK MACK M The meeting did end up running long.

We had some of the bars that are in intro tonight.

We'll be discussing them more fully, so I won't go into those now, but those were robustly discussed.

Welcome Director Kersey to Operations Committee and with Director DeWolf out of town, Director Burke sat in.

And with many of the items already on agenda, we'll be talking about them as they come up later in the evening.

One of the things that isn't on the agenda but we continue to work on is policy age 13, our capacity management policy and potential revisions and process procedure work on that.

And so we reviewed a number of other board policies to see which ones intersect that we need to be aware of and which ones don't.

Those include 4260 the use of school facilities, 4262 the community use of Memorial Stadium, 4265 which is the school and community partnership and then 6882 which is the rental lease and sale of real property.

These all have issues that kind of intersect with the policy H13 and we discovered that we didn't think that we really need to touch on or we didn't expect that there would be any revisions to any of them except for 4265, the school and community partnerships.

There may be some places that would be helpful to revise that policy, but that will need to be done in partnership with district staff and community as well.

So it was a really robust, great discussion around that.

And we also looked at the start of school process timeline which I think is helpful to our conversation around capacity management and so forth.

The advisory committee that we have already approved is still in process of getting the announcement out and hopefully that'll be coming out soon and we're still working on the application making sure that that's been reviewed and it's hopefully coming out in the next couple weeks and then we'll be getting that advisory committee put together which will help support the work of policy as well.

Our next meeting will be on November 7th and looking forward to the further conversation later in the agenda on the items that are up for introduction and or action.

Are there any questions about anything directors.

DIRECTOR HARRISON I'm not seeing any.

Thank you Director Mack very much.

DIRECTOR HARRISON All right.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HARRISON Okay exec committee.

Met October 10 from 8 to 10 actually we went to about 10 20 this time.

We discussed the collective bargaining agreement which we move forward for approval on an intro action basis and the rest of the board has been briefed on that extensively in closed sessions as well.

We discussed the request by staff for compensation raises for non-representative staff and that will be part of tonight's agenda as well.

Discuss the legislative agenda.

We had I thought an extraordinarily robust and thoughtful conversation with our SEA partners.

and Markita Przing who is a director for the SEA Center for Race and Equity came and they have a new executive director who has decades of experience in different labor unions throughout the country.

including educational labor unions but but a number of others as well.

So making space in our executive committee to have to and fro and conversations without talking about the CBA's is is I think a healthy trend and I hope that that continues in the future.

It's a way to float ideas and and keep the communication because communication by definition is two way thoughtful and moving forward.

That took a long time but I think it was well worth our time standing items that we were addressing our committee policy process.

The 2019 board evaluation we'll be looking at that before this board leaves the dais and we did not get a whole lot farther down on our work plan.

because those conversations we have to I hate the term because it's become a cliche lean in when opportunity presents ourself.

Director DeWolf you were in attendance.

Did you have anything to add please sir.

I just to reiterate the gratitude particularly for our partners at SCA because I think often those are places where they are specifically and directly speaking to us as leaders here and people on the board.

And so I'm always really grateful that they show up and are very courageous in what they're saying and they're there to be very frank their members are very well represented by them because they speak very passionately about teaching and education and so I'm always really grateful to see SCA there.

So that's pretty much all I have to say.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Okay.

Seeing no further committee reports let's move on to Roman six business action items.

A consent agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda please.

I move for the approve oh shoot where is it at.

Sorry this is my first day here.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

Do directors have any items they wish removed from the consent agenda.

I'm looking once twice.

Those in favor of.

Approving the consent agenda signify please by saying aye.

Director Mack did we hear you.

There you go.

OK.

We now are now are at I can speak honest.

Roman 8 board comments.

We have approximately 20 minutes.

It is your turn to tell the public what you are thinking about what you are concerned about and to advise your colleagues of same.

Director DeWolf.

Director DeWolf Thank you President Harris.

Just as a first as a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Nation of Rockable Montana I want I am grateful to live serve and work here in the city in a city that is the ancestral homeland of the Duwamish people the Muckleshoot Nation and the Suquamish Nation.

We acknowledge them as custodians of this land since time immemorial.

And as guests and frankly for many folks that settlers on this land we extend our deepest gratitude and respect to our elders past present and future.

I just wanted to extend a bit of gratitude to the staff and our community for continued work on bringing student and community workforce agreements to Seattle Public Schools.

We finalized the member the members of the task force this last week.

I'm really grateful to have some community members there some staff a couple of board directors and I think that was it.

And so those meetings will be be upcoming and I know they will be very fruitful so I'll keep you posted here at these meetings about our progress and hopefully we'll have some recommendations and a report in the coming months.

I hadn't been at the last legislative board meeting which was after the student climate walkout and I just wanted to reiterate the pride I do have in our students and while I recognize that that's not really what our students want is pride or us being happy and grateful that they're they're sticking up for our planet.

I was at the youth climate strike in Athens and just to see that the mobilization and this movement has certainly reached across the globe is really humbling.

and so I kind of tied to that I want to express my gratitude to our students from Center School Ramona and Gail for sharing their musical gifts with us and for folks that weren't here they sang four songs and they all wrote their songs and their first song was actually about protecting the environment and I was really touched and moved particularly by a few of the lines which are you know at a certain point you can't drink your oil and at a certain point you can't eat your cash.

So just this idea that all these things are deeply important particularly for this generation we have a lot of work to do for them.

I was really grateful for my visit last week with Nova High School Principal Mark Perry just to get an update on things that are going on there and we'll continue to go back and do a longer visit to kind of talk about some WSS weighted staffing standards concerns and also really grateful had a meeting this week with our Native American Ed Manager Gail Morris and so has some good ideas stewing there and we'll have some hopefully some news soon.

This last weekend I was grateful to for our joint community meeting with Director Burke at the Greenwood Library.

It was definitely well attended.

We had about 30 folks there.

We heard a lot about advanced learning, as you might imagine, highly capable, the dual language immersion, Southeast boundaries, ethnic studies, and our relationship with Technology Access Foundation.

Yeah.

I wanted to elevate, you know, on October 29th, I'm working with our, I'm not sure his title anymore, Ronald Boy.

assistant assistant counsel here at Seattle Public Schools.

We're hosting a Know Your Rights event with folks from the attorney general's office NERP and El Centro de la Raza.

I can't I think we're still finalizing location but that's on October 29th from 6 to 8 p.m.

I'll have more information very shortly.

I'm emailing with Ronald Boy right now.

My next community meeting is with Director Harris.

I'll be out at the November 16th meeting.

Hopefully that's the lasagna one but we'll see.

He never brings lasagna.

And then my next community meeting is with Director Mack at Capitol Hill Library on December 7th from 1 to 2.30.

and then lastly as part of my role as the tribal liaison I'm looking forward to attending the 30th Annual Centennial Accord which is basically the annual meeting between the state of Washington slash the governor and the federally recognized tribes to kind of strengthen that relationship.

So I'll hopefully have something to report back after that and that's on November 7th and I'll rush back here for our operations committee meeting.

So that's all I have.

Thanks.

Thanks very much.

Who else would like to report out.

I'll pick you.

Thank you Director Gary.

I will go.

Okay I continue to hold community meetings every Tuesday morning at Soka on Blakely from 8 to 9 30. You're welcome to come but don't come next week because I won't be holding it next week but we'll resume them on October 29th and November 5th which if you don't come because you are busy making sure your ballot is turned in I will forgive you for not showing up.

but do vote that is important.

One of the things that has come up recently in one of my meetings that I thought I would share is a parent came to say that in witnessing her student participate in the health curriculum at high school she thought it was a very very valuable curriculum.

and she came to express her concern that that tends to be one of the classes that we allow students to take online because in order for students to get all of their potential music or language credits it is one that we tend to put to the side and she I think very wisely questions whether in a time when we are expected to have Narcan in our schools when we have really hard conversations around Me Too and issues around gender identity whether or not kids doing health class on a computer alone without the benefit of conversation with their peers directed by an adult is really in the best interest of our students.

So I raise that because I thought that was a very good point and one perhaps that we should all think about in terms of what we're trying to do for credits and what we are how we're setting up our high school so that kids don't have the flexibility to stay on track and yet participate in such a valuable course.

there's been a lot of as we've heard a lot of discussion around ethnic studies and especially we're getting emails around its intersection with math and I guess my one perspective on this is that It's very clear that when you look in math based professions and even in our classrooms and you listen to our students that there are gender and race biases at work.

You see that in ultimately where students end up in terms of math careers and who occupies those careers.

And one of the things I learned in math when you do a problem sometimes the way to check your work is to work back from the answer and work back to see if you've made any mistakes.

And if you work back from that premise that math based occupations are predominantly held by certain races and certain gender that perhaps there is a problem in the system in terms of how we are teaching math.

what the environment is what the culture is for those students whether it is a welcoming culture whether they do feel part of that curriculum.

And so when people say that there isn't time within math to talk about ethnic studies or that it's not valuable or that somehow math is a pure language I would just ask them to look at the results that we see ultimately in our world around that area of study and and question whether or not there isn't a point along the way where conversations should be had around who belongs in the roles centered around math.

I know in high school that I was in some type of honors math and my teacher very blatantly told me that it wasn't necessary for girls to worry about math because that wasn't going to be anything we were going to be using.

and I will say thank you to one of my classmates Tammy Jew who went and to the principal and called out that teacher and it didn't even occur to me to do it I think it was so just part of the culture.

She called him out and he was reprimanded and we all knew it and it was a very powerful moment so powerful that I remember it to this day and I'm very thankful for her doing that.

we need to create opportunities for our students to think about those issues around things like math and science to make sure that all of our students feel welcome in those careers and feel welcome in terms of participating in that curriculum.

So that would be my response to the many people who are saying we don't have time.

I don't think we have time not to do it and that if we're leaving people out of those professions which are very important to our area.

and I think with that I will let it go other than to say I'm happy to see that more and more communities across our nation are celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day at the beginning of this week and I think that that is a great change and another conversation another opportunity for conversation that we should all welcome and I certainly do.

DIRECTOR HARRIS- Thank you Director Hersey please.

Hello.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you all for being here.

Just starting out, we have community meetings coming up.

The first one is going to be on October 20th at the Beacon Hill Library from 3.30 to 4.30.

The second one is going to be on October 31st at the Rainier Beach Library from 6 to 7.30.

We've got several more community meetings in the work.

We're just securing space at this point, so please continue to be on the lookout.

and we are going to start getting some Facebook events up.

So if you would like to RSVP and make sure that I know that you're coming, you can do that here in the next couple of days.

Another thing that I've been doing, especially as we are beginning to talk more and more about Southeast boundary changes is doing walks with families.

We had a really good walk in the Beacon Hill neighborhood.

We've got another one coming up this weekend.

If you would like for me to come walk with you and your family to see how these changes affect or will affect potentially your kids' walk to school, please do not hesitate to ask.

In the recent weeks, I've had several amazing meetings with community individuals.

I see a few in the audience.

Thank you for being here again.

Around a number of things, whether it had been boundaries or advanced learning.

But one of the most poignant meetings I had last night was with the community over at Africatown.

and there was a mix of both parents, advocates and most importantly students in that room and I left with a very full heart and a very full mind and there was one comment that was quite poignant and I wanted just to share.

This student was a very brave student at Rainer Beach and she brought up a couple of things.

The first thing was that they are looking for more welcoming environments and more teachers that look like them.

And so I just want to uplift the work that Dr. Clover Codd and the HR department are doing to make sure that we are recruiting and retaining more educators of color to reflect those values for our students.

The last piece is accountability.

We all have a sense of accountability, whether we're a teacher, whether we are an educator in the district, rather, whether we are a board director, superintendent, principal, what have you.

We all have a certain level of accountability.

And I've gotten a lot of feedback over the past week about certain comments that were made at the curriculum and instruction committee meeting last week.

And I just wanted to say for the families that heard those comments and felt harm done to them by those comments that I hear you and I see you and we know, or rather I'll speak for myself, I know that every single family in this district cares deeply about their child and their students.

And I wanna issue just my feelings toward how that harm could have been portrayed upon you.

And we appreciate the work and we appreciate your commitment to your students.

And we as a board have to be able to look internally and find accountability in ourselves for when those types of things happen.

that we have to address it.

We have to talk about it.

Because if we just let them slide, then what work are we doing?

Are we really moving toward our strategic plan or is it just a document that we have?

And I really hope that it's the prior.

I hope that we are doing things to move toward our strategic plan and that we can hold ourselves accountable in those conversations on a regular basis.

So again, thank you all for being here.

And I look forward to continuing to connect with the various communities of District 7 and our city.

Director Pinkham Thank you and good evening.

I do want to acknowledge that we just passed Indigenous Peoples Day.

Thank you Director Geary for bringing that up as we're looking to definitely appreciate the people that the original inhabitants of this the first inhabitants of this land that we're now on.

So a happy belated Indigenous Peoples Day and also happy belated Hispanic Heritage Month with I guess officially ended yesterday and there's all kinds of months also National Principals Month to include as well.

I want to definitely thank our singers this evening.

When Gail did start playing I did hear that Nirvana Kurt Cobain kind of influence and congratulations on both of them for the talents that they're showing here today and for what they're getting out of center school.

I want to remind people that Hitches to the PAC board elections are tomorrow night from 5 to 6 30 at Meany Middle School.

So if you are a parent of a 506 form student please turn out and share your voice and vote.

UNA Clear Sky will have a peacekeeping workshop that's kind of wrapping up their series this Sunday.

I believe I have to get clarification it's at the Bitter Lake Community Center just says in the afternoon.

They'll also be mirroring their Licton Springs documentary on Saturday October 26 from 1 to 3 at the Seattle Central Library.

Also want to announce that the Sacagawee Elementary will be having their heritage potluck on Thursday October 24th from 6 to 7 30. If they're watching I will confirm I do plan to attend.

I was tentative before but I will let them know that I do plan to attend their heritage potluck.

I have community meetings coming up this Saturday from 10 to 11 30 at the Lake City branch library.

Please come there because I'm not going to stay after 11 30 because that's also UW versus Oregon football that same day.

So I will be leaving very soon.

Don't keep me there after 11 30. Then I will have another meeting November 16th also from 10 to 11 30 at the Greenwood library.

and just want to acknowledge all the work that people are doing the Advanced Learning Task Force what they did in the discussion that we had our last C&I meeting it was intense and I I feel like we'd still need to do some more work is we do have some equity issues that we need to address.

And for me I want to see more what can we do to identify more students to make sure that we're being sure that we have a nice representation of all our students no matter where they come from what their backgrounds that they all are capable of doing things and to get them identified within the highly capable community.

So.

I do hopefully want to see more work by that and working with Director Geary what we can do to get that new policies in place and presented to the whole board here.

And finally I want to remind people before we have an ex legislative meeting get out there and vote on November 5th.

Thank you.

Okay it's 524 we are going to start public testimony on the button at 530 so we're going to take a bit of a stretch break.

We're not going to cut off anybody's comments.

And the remaining directors and with a reminder from my colleagues if directors that have already spoken wish to speak to public testimony you have that absolute right and privilege just remind me if I forget it.

Stretch break 530.