Seattle School Board Special Meeting - Oct. 17, 2023

I am now calling the board's special meeting to order at 4.33 p.m.

Please note that this meeting is being recorded.

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

For the record, I will call the roll.

Director Hampson.

Director Harris President Hersey has had a work obligation and will join us if he is able.

Director Rivera-Smith Director Sarju I understand is not able to join us today and Director Song and this is Vice President Rankin.

Tonight we have a budget work session on the 2024-25 and beyond budget and so I will hand it over to Superintendent Jones to start the session.

All right thank you Vice President Rankin and board members those in the audience today welcome.

We are going to kind of walk through the agenda a little bit and I'll do a little bit of context setting then I'll turn it over to Bev and then to Dr. Bettleman and to Deputy Podesta and we'll try to have a good fruitful session today.

So the agenda, we want to have a community engagement update regarding our system of well-resourced schools.

Bev's gonna tell us a little bit about that.

a review of our budget projections for 24 25 and 20 25 26. The meat of this will be a presentation of potential solutions.

What really constitutes the 105 million dollar deficit and what are some potential solutions.

And then we'll review our timelines for how we go forward in the next steps.

Next slide please.

So setting the context we've concluded the system of well resourced schools sessions.

We've had over a thousand participants.

Bill will tell us a little more about that but that's really going to inform our budget priorities later on our strategic planning priorities for 2024 our levy levy priorities for our upcoming levy.

And so that information that we got from the system of well resourced schools engagement with community has been rich and it was a lot and we're collating that right now as we go forward.

Today's objective is actually number two of ten sessions that we're going to have.

This is going to help us to understand again the contents of our hundred and five million dollar structural deficit.

What are those elements.

What do we look at specifically in terms of what are the big rocks that we have to think about in terms of solutions.

and just to be reminded we went through the session last year of getting to $131 million and so it gets increasingly challenging for us.

We've seen some of the manifestations of that and our staffing challenges that we have in October.

We don't have the margins that we used to have.

We don't have mitigation funds to to be able to address the one and two one two off staffing issues that we traditionally had.

And so our constraints are real and they're growing and every time we go through a budget reduction and adjustments it just constricts us more.

So I want to make sure that we're all mindful of that.

We see this on a daily basis.

We've seen the expressions of frustration from schools and families around how this is manifesting.

this is just going to get more and more complex so it's going to be important that we stay on the same page and that we strive to over communicate and to educate around what is this and how are we addressing this collectively.

And so it's my hope that we'll have forthright and honest dialogue about what we're projecting what we're seeing and how we can do this together to have a positive ultimate positive impact on our students.

So without without belaboring this I want to kick this over to Chief Redmond to talk a little bit about that community engagement that I referenced around well resourced schools.

Thank you everyone and good evening.

It is a pleasure to be before you to talk about one of my favorite subjects within the Public Affairs Division.

Many of you know that community engagement has come now to nest and rest in the Public Affairs Division.

So thinking about a system of well-resourced schools community engagement that process.

want to reinforce what Dr. Jones said that yes this is a process that we went through to help us discuss some upcoming issues but it is to inform a lot of the major initiatives that we have before us.

So it is not a one and done application of information.

So as we're looking at it as you're seeing the slide for however you're viewing tonight what we want to go over is an engagement session and survey recap some general feedback themes and then talk a little bit about next steps.

In August we began this journey and we are still on it through October.

We facilitated a series of internal and external community engagement meetings and an online survey.

It gave us the opportunity to hear directly from our families directly from students directly from staff and community community members about what they value and appreciate about our schools.

And the engagement report that we will ultimately provide in its most thorough concept is really to come down to the challenges opportunities and how we strive to make decisions with this information that we have.

How will we address our challenges and our opportunities.

We had five in-person sessions two of them online and no short effort involved we touched and received responses from nearly 4,000 community members.

School leaders also conducted sessions with their staff members and participants were asked a series of questions, the same questions in the actual survey as well as in person.

Those three questions were to address the school buildings and learning spaces, the academic and extracurricular programs, the support services and resources.

In those three questions, we are now analyzing more than 10,000 comments and responses.

our research team here at SPS is still plowing through that and again we look forward to giving you a full outlay or outlaying of all of that information but tonight want to give you some of those common or general themes that are starting to emerge.

The first question what are your favorite things about your school building some of the most frequently frequently addressed comments from our community members are that they appreciate clean safe and well maintained schools and that feeling connected to their local neighborhood is super important to them.

Many of the respondents named the value of modern design or redesign and the preservation also the preservation of the old and historic elements of our school building so a blend.

Outdoor grounds and natural spaces especially playgrounds gardens and fields.

well designed interior spaces such as high ceilings natural indoor lighting and large windows and common spaces for students and family to gather and build of course community.

The importance of the community a warm and welcoming space and communicative staff extremely important to parents.

What do they enjoy about or what are the favorite things about their school buildings.

Those were some of the general themes.

Pausing to let that sink in a little bit as we bridge to the next question that we asked.

How do we make resources and services at each school stronger?

How do we make resources and services at each school stronger?

The community emphasized the importance of the creative and performing arts programs that we have as well as K-12 sports and athletics.

Again many of the respondents named the importance of before and after school activities.

childcare for working families and student learning enrichment.

Strong academic programs especially in reading and math.

world languages stem including specialization in computer science and robotics among the themes hands on project based and experiential learning also named more trades based and college prep for high school students and culturally representative curriculum and courses such as ethnic studies.

The community also emphasized the importance of caring and skilled staff and educators and the value of involving community based organizations or our partners in school and learning in the learning process.

So those were the first two questions again recapping favorite things about your school building the second was how do we make resources and services at our schools stronger.

Leading into the third question what kinds of programs do you and your students value most and why.

Respondents prioritize the funding of full time key staff at each school including counselors nurses social workers librarians and family support workers.

Many respondents also emphasize strong mental health services at each school and social emotional learning support at each school restorative justice approaches for student discipline and behavior intervention and then strong special education and multilingual learners services.

and beyond that many community members have named their desire for smaller class size and others recommended more equitable distribution of resources.

For example redistributing PTA funds.

Those are all common themes that we've had in most recent conversations that you've heard.

So.

Those were the three questions and those are general themes.

Again, we do anticipate and fully realize that we have to have a complete reporting coming out, but did want to share where we are in progress more than 4,000 individuals responding and 10,000 comments and counting is where we are in terms of next steps where we will turn the finalization of all of the material coming in and being analyzed is the next and then delivering that information and sharing that with the superintendent to be the bedrock of the report out or the plan that will be coming forward in November.

Thank you, sir.

Let's pause and see if the board have any questions to that pretty comprehensive summary as to what we're seeing as themes.

Yes.

Thank you.

It's great to hear how many participants there were.

You started by saying there were over 100,000 participants and then you said there was 4,000 community responses from 4,000 community members and then 10,000 reports, responses, comments.

So I'm going to go back and address that specifically.

Five in-person sessions, two online meetings, that yielded responses from 4,000 community members.

and then taking that and parsing that down, there were 10,000 comments plus.

Yes ma'am.

See most people give more than one comment, so that makes sense.

Anyways, I'm not trying to get too much into the numbers per se, but I'm wondering, do we have a way of, did we collect where they're from?

Like what populations those respondents and involved community members were representing?

In the in-person meetings, we did do a sign-in sheet.

However, more specifically in our survey, we did have some demographic questions so that we can do some disaggregation.

Okay.

I don't remember the sign-in sheet having a question for that because I went to each meeting.

We did a basic sign-in sheet.

Yes, I'm saying.

So the sign-in sheet didn't give people the opportunity to say where they're from exactly.

So that was, I think that was a missed opportunity, but the online survey did have it, you say?

It did, yes.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm gonna kick it over to Deputy Podesta, please.

Bev, can you center this real quick?

Thank you.

a graphic just to detail where the information regarding well-resourced schools how it will be used.

So you could just solely view this as a budget exercise of community engagement.

However our full intention is to begin to use this information as we're discussing major initiatives.

Our budget is one strategic planning is another example and across the levy.

So really to emphasize that this is not just one portion or one piece of community engagement and we're done and we're buttoned.

That information should live.

Community values should be evergreen as we're going through our processes.

Thank you.

Thank you Bev.

Thank you Dr. Jones.

If we could advance the slides.

or I'm sorry go back one more and one more to the schedule.

Thank you.

So during the development of the 2023-24 budget given the significance of the challenges we face I think we all acknowledge the need to to re-engineer our process to perhaps look at our calendar and we made some changes last year in the development of the budget for the current fiscal year and are expanding on those this year.

So as Dr. Jones mentioned we'll have 10 work sessions leading up to adopting a budget or in the second of those.

The first last month we got together to really talk about the process and the assumptions we're making about the challenges we face.

What we're hoping to accomplish today is let you know the strategies that staff are evaluating in terms of getting a proposal.

and then the major change we made for the 23 24 budget that we're going to employ again but in a different manner is to ask the board for resolutions so you can give specific guidance as the superintendent and staff write the budget write the proposed budget of what they should emphasize what the community's priorities are as articulated by the board.

Last year we did that in May that that resolution giving guidance to the superintendent was adopted on May 10th in advance of a budget that was adopted on July 6th.

So that's not much of a window.

So you know to be frank the budget was fairly baked by the time you gave us that guidance.

So that's why we're starting earlier which we all committed to do so we can get that guidance this fall and winter and give us more time to write that budget and we shouldn't confuse that resolution with the budget.

The resolution is instructions about how to prepare the budget which we'll do over the course of the winter.

We'll validate the assumptions that we're making as we bring these options for you.

We'll digest whatever happens in the upcoming legislative session to see how that affects and then still adopt the budget per our usual schedule.

And so this gives you multiple opportunities to touch this process influence this process for back and forth.

So we think it can lead to better interaction between staff and the board more transparent decision making for all our constituents.

and then on after the budget is adopted proposing you know an after action session that so we can and that wouldn't be just for this cycle we think that's an ongoing thing so how's this process working just like we made changes last year that are informing how we're developing the budget this year.

We would like to do that in every cycle and also since it's right before the start of school that gives us an opportunity to let the board know what budget changes how we can expect that to manifest things in the coming school year.

So I think that's a pretty integral part of the process the 11th session.

where we would, again, review the process, what worked, what didn't work, what we would like to see different in the coming fall because, as you can see, it's nearly a year-round process.

The session would be in August and in September we'd start all over again or however we decide to change it and also give some heads up about, well, the decisions we made, that's what they're going to look like in the coming school year.

so we appreciate your advice and counsel along the way about how this process works what the timing works and how each of these opportunities to influence this process and give us guidance can be improved.

Unless there's questions about process questions I think I'll turn it back to Dr. Jones.

Director Harris go ahead and then I have a quick question as well.

Thank you I do have process questions.

Surprise.

We don't have on this and I again I love the graphics.

The graphics are I think hugely helpful as a communication tool.

What I don't see on here is closure consolidation list.

I see action on a resolution on the budget and I understand wanting to front load that process as you just discussed.

But that would be is that the first meeting of the new board?

Asking them the new board.

The vote on the resolution yes.

OK.

I have significant concerns on that and significant pity to my successors because that's a big issue.

It's an issue without work sessions, it's a issue without learning up, favorite phrase.

And I'm wondering if we could add February open enrollment date on here as well as boundary changes on here.

And maybe the biggest question I have here is you talked about after the resolution on the budget validating assumptions.

Help me understand what that means please.

So in last year's developing the fiscal year 2023 24 budget we had a lot of discussions about transportation and the potential for balancing routes to perhaps reduce the number of yellow school buses we needed.

you can't quite do that without doing a lot of homework on so is that actually going to pan out?

Is it going to be reducing 35 buses or reducing 60 buses daily?

So it's those kinds of things.

Once we made the decision that yes we'd like the strategy and again the timing is different now.

Since we're talking about these strategies earlier, they'll be not quite as fully quantified.

And so that's the time for people to go back.

So you thought that there'd be a potential savings, a potential revenue enhancement by doing this.

It allows people time to do the staff work to say, so did that really pan out the way we thought it would when we write the actual budget?

that be a formal part on the budget work session agendas then assumption validation with A B C and D.

When we bring that budget proposal we will map back to so this is what we said we were going to do and this is how this looks the discussions we had again for last for the current fiscal year early on we had assumptions about what might happen in Olympia that had to be calibrated in real time and those are the kinds of things that are going to need to be done.

I think the other we really don't want to at this stage and this this graphic has changed it'll change every time you see it as things happen so we really want to honor this process with regard to potential school consolidations.

That's what this is process about.

We need guidance from the board.

Is that a strategy or not?

So and we'll have other strategies so putting milestones at this point saying well this is when we do this when we haven't gotten the guidance that yes we want you to pursue that strategy would be premature.

But your point is well taken that as we make those decisions so how does that fit into this timeline will need to be part of these discussions so those are the that's how this will evolve over time.

Thank you.

Director Song.

I have a question about the process around writing the resolution on the budget.

So who will be writing this resolution and is the resolution itself going to reflect the superintendent's recommended strategies or is the process that the superintendent will be presenting recommended strategies and then we will produce a resolution that contains our preferred strategies.

Last year we leaned on the board to write the resolution again it was we were evolving real time I think this time we're recommending that staff and the superintendent bring a resolution forward saying this is our proposal for assembling these strategies and then that'll be feedback and discussion from the board about does it need to be amended?

What do we like?

What don't we like?

I mean the resolution and again based on the structure that we had last year is the addendum is is the proposal you know the resolution is saying superintendent as you prepare the budget you know please make a proposal that to the extent possible conforms to this plan and that that'll be discussion is how does that plan changed with during deliberation by the board.

So I well appreciate that we are moving this to the beginning part of our budget presentation.

I think that this year's election adds a little bit of a wrinkle because it will be this board that is getting the presentation on the resolution the resolution will be introduced to this board and we'll be discussing potential changes to it but then it's the new board that actually votes on it and I'm wondering when those new board members would have opportunity to give input since they're voting on it.

Certainly during the as action is taken and as all the onboarding goes for new directors you know budget is usually the lion's share of those discussions.

So is it directly connected?

Okay go ahead.

A lot of the requirements for onboarding new directors are the responsibility of the board.

and setting meetings and agendas to make that happen.

So not that we don't need staff support to do that we do.

That's one of the many policies that's needed updating for a very long time.

I think our onboarding has been really limited for a very long time and completely dependent on interviews with individual staff when in fact it's a work that we are supposed to be doing together.

So.

it's sort of like there's never a good time to have kids.

There's never a good time to bring more members on.

So we just got to try to set some level of new standard for getting them supported.

I know it's come up around a bunch of different areas.

That was one of the reasons we pushed the meeting for the quarterly internal audit rather than give them a quarterly meeting the minute that they walk in the door.

to invite them make sure they come to that meeting and then they'll have a full quarter in a month to get up to speed before they have to meet.

But this is more significant and I think we need to plan for it as a board.

Director Hampson thank you for saying that.

I would say that when I joined the board that my colleagues were very instrumental in onboarding me so I feel confidence in our ability to do that.

But I agree that we just need to explicitly plan so that they feel like they have the information to make the right decision.

Can I just add one thing when we put this together we were with full awareness of that election question so appreciate bringing that up and the gravity of it.

We decided and again as Fred said this is all subject to change as required but we decided if there were going to be things that impacted families and kids we wanted to give as much room for that.

Director Harris you mentioned open enrollment and those types of things transportation changes or potential things here and so the more heads up and room we could give for community engagement some feedback families to make choices about how this might impact them was what we defaulted to in terms of the priority here so.

fully understand the challenge that we're all facing.

I also I can't let the opportunity go without saying again that our state has some of the lowest requirements for incoming school board directors in the country.

meaning the state required resources for onboarding is really limited and we have taken it upon ourselves to avail ourselves of some training and getting learned up as Director Harris likes to say and that's something that's important for us as a board to think about in preparation for future board directors but it's also something that's really missing across the state and it does have an impact on kids.

So back to this timeline I would like to ask that we consider adding anything from building budget timelines.

So the questions that Director Harris was asking about consolidation and boundary changes like what people are maybe not used to seeing is we're actually doing this in real time.

So there's not a timeline or a date by which that will happen because it hasn't yet been determined in public with the board by the board that any of those things will happen.

So it can't be on the timeline because it's not a it's not a thing yet.

But what can be on the timeline is our limitations around building budgets.

I would like to see when when buildings set their staffing projections and when they lock lock them.

I know there's a May 15th date of some kind just to understand what just where the where the context is of is they are connected as that is a part of a budget timeline.

It's not the big bucket budget but it's certainly what has a lot of impact on on people and is a potential limitation just in terms of dates that exist whereby decisions need to be made.

Regarding the resolution when we brought that forward last year my recollection was that yeah we we acknowledge that April or May was late but it was sort of a discovery of something that could be really helpful and we made the decision to do that and to state just as a reminder that that that was that we would be planning to do that and direct that to happen in the event that there was a budget deficit that needed to be addressed that we would have a board resolution on how to address the budget deficit.

While I was writing that as the prime sponsor I did a lot of research into other districts and the timeline that I found most often was February.

Not just just I'm just we don't have to decide that right right now but I'm just throwing out there that February might be helpful in terms of the timing with new board members but more importantly the context of the whole the whole everything that will be maybe have an idea of what impact legislative session may or may not have.

It's not a budget year.

It's not going to be a huge impact.

But we have more information in February than we will in November.

And honestly November 15th doesn't feel very far from now.

And so I question is I question if we will have been able to get like this is our only meeting before that on the budget.

So we'll I mean maybe we'll come out of the end of this evening with a really clear idea of what what decisions we want to see made but I kind of feel like probably not.

So I just wanted to sort of throw out there that in the cadence of what we discussed we brought that forward in April we had talked about that February would be a better target date.

So and just you know President Hersey's not here so that's something I'm sure that you and he can discuss but I just wanted to.

to put that out there.

So for the current fiscal year's budget development, you know, there was a big centerpiece decision about liquidating our fiscal stabilization account that is like, well, we need to know if everybody's up for that.

And so I think getting our recommendations to the board as early as possible and yes it's it feels very close to us too so maybe there's a little slack in there.

but the deliberate again it's not the budget this is you know this is and so I think we we do have if flexibility you know we want to reconsider this about you know when that's adopted but I think the sooner you hear from us is hey this is having looked at some of the options that we're going to discuss in the rest of this work session that this is what we would recommend is in terms of way of packaging them I think then gets to Dr. Buddleman's point about again the budget's not doesn't get adopted till July but it allows us to be transparent with the public of what we're thinking you know.

And also I'll just add from a board governance standpoint it you know governance by resolution is not a good replacement for policy but what it allows us to do as a board is have the discussion in public and vote on something that is again not set in stone but it's there's a little bit more about okay yes we we support this plan and this is our direction to you as you finish developing the budget rather than the superintendent and staff having to rely on what seven different people have said in a public meeting and make their best guess it does give that sort of like at this moment in time yes this is our this is our agreement so that I just saying that's why it doesn't supersede any other budget development stuff it's just sort of it's an additional point of information for the board to formally accept and give direction to the superintendent during the process.

Allows us all to be very explicit Dr. Jones has to make an explicit recommendation and get explicit feedback and at least I think it creates a lot of transparency for our constituents.

And just to add to that last year's budget resolution process that we went through gave us so much clarity about what's in and what's out that allowed us to do planning.

I know it was on a rapid cycle but it allowed us to really get to what are we going to do faster and it was an opportunity for us to have some deep insight into you all's desires as a board.

The other piece I want to mention is there are sub timelines to all this.

This is kind of the big timeline.

And so when we even consider something like consolidation, boundary assignments, we have to have hearings and all those type of things that there's a lot of moving pieces.

And so this resolution can really give us a sense of where do we need to sharpen our pencil get the details around the entire comprehensive plan because each one of these items that you'll see as part of the constitution of the deficit and the solutions that we have will have sub plans and timelines that will need to adhere to.

So doing this early gives us some sense of what you all's tolerance is if you will and then we can plan accordingly.

So and I do believe our team is flexible on these on these dates but my desire would be to get at least a sense of where you all want to go sooner than later.

Where in this timeline would be the opportunities for, well let me back up a little sorry.

So we always hear from community about things that they value and want us to prioritize and protect.

Where in this timeline would that come into play say that we want to give you direction that we protect funding for XYZ?

Is that in the resolution?

Because it sounds like that's going to be a staff written resolution based on your proposal not necessarily our desires directly at least.

So where would that where would that be the opportunity in here for us?

Well part of the well resourced schools dialogue is certainly informing where we're going to go.

And so if that's in conflict if you will with the board's vision I think there's a time to reconcile that between when we introduce the resolution and when there's adoption.

but I think we have a good capture at least from that dialogue as to where we are hearing the community need to go.

But if there is additional feedback that you all have between now and November 15th we stay open to that.

And then after November 15th there's an opportunity to make some make some adjustments as well.

Okay, because I know anything we say is informal unless it's a board action.

So I know I can tell you, hey, I'm hearing this, but that doesn't really go anywhere short of being a board action.

That's what actually gives you your direction.

So that's what I'm trying to figure out.

When you say feedback can be taken between now and such and such time, that's true.

I know you'll listen to me and hear me out, but I'm looking for when that board action will take place.

And so you're saying it would take place with the resolution.

Is that what I'm hearing?

today and between now and the 15th as we construct the resolution after the 15th that we still stay open to that.

So if there's if there's feedback that the board wants to provide like you mentioned we stay open to that.

If there's a way to formalize that where you all feel like you have more opportunity to give feedback you know let me represent we remain open if we need to create a forum for that just let us know.

But we think there's opportunity here today.

We think there's opportunity between today and the 15th and on the 15th there's another opportunity.

Thank you.

And I would just add I mean continually each of these dates is also a public opportunity that the budget development for school districts are our legal requirement is the adoption annually of a balanced budget.

None of these are legally required but we're being planned out to provide that level of public discussion and opportunity for board input iteratively throughout the process as we as we go.

Well I don't know we're still on the second page so hesitant to.

OK.

So budget development goals as it says up here we are trying to stabilize our financial future and our goal is to have a multi-year plan so that we can make sure that we can secure funding for our highest priorities.

Let us be reminded and we said this last year we're resolving long term structural deficit spending.

This isn't a brand new thing but we are the cohort that is tasked with attacking this and we are.

and we're going to do it in a way that again is we're going to leave some reserve in order to fund our highest priorities.

We want to display fiscal stewardship and responsibility as you see collectively we're maturing we're coming to the board earlier trying to be as transparent as possible so that there's some assurance by not only the board but by the community that we're paying attention to the most to the highest priorities.

Next slide please.

Similar to last year and this year we are prioritizing quality instruction and learning.

That is our intent.

We are assuming good faith efforts.

We as in the board and superintendent staff we share the same values around.

our goals and our vision teamwork board and superintendent are one team.

We were approaching that in that context.

I think if there's deviance I think we'll that'll show that'll be problematic.

And we want to be clear and transparent on the challenges and opportunities.

As I mentioned from the outset of my remarks we have tighter constraints than we've ever had.

We don't have the margins that we once had.

These are challenges that we are seeing in front of us.

Somebody smarter than me said never waste a good crisis.

We're not.

We're going to try to be opportunists to establish what do we think is almost sacred in terms of importance and we're going to hold that as close to us as possible.

but we are seeing these not only as deficits that we have in front of us but there's also opportunities for us to pursue.

It may not look like it from right now but it's making us sharper.

It's making us more astute making us again better stewards.

And so with that said I want to click it on over to the next slide and have Dr. Buddleman talk about the the bar chart as he refers to as the Legos.

Thank you.

I want to acknowledge that it's spirit week here at the central office so go Whittier Wildcats shout out to the Whittier Wildcats and we're proudly wearing their sweatshirt today.

So this chart is we talked about last time and the analogy of Legos and the fact that the red Legos are one time solutions that the school district has enacted to balance its budget last year and in previous years Mr. Podesta talked about the fiscal stabilization fund being one of those the $42 million.

So the point of today's meeting primarily is to talk about the other options we have to fill the gaps that you see for 24 and 25. and I think the fact that we're short on those red Legos is manifesting in many different ways.

In the short time I've been here in three or four months I've been a part of the system.

Many of the issues that come before you with lots of concern are based in large part in the fact that those one time resources have dwindled and there isn't been a structural deficit correction at this point.

So just want to center us on the fact that we're we're working to fill that gap with some ongoing solutions so that we can serve the community going forward and have have more stability for students and families in our system.

We can go to the next slide.

One of the things I've learned again in my tenure here is we have a we and this one as well have a tendency to start in the middle in terms of some of this information that you all know really well and you've been living and breathing the last period of time that you've been a part of the board or part of the district and we don't do as good a job at communicating to the community about the why some of these things are happening.

And so today is not the day to dwell on that but acknowledging that that is something that we haven't done well and want to do better going forward especially during this coming year where there will be some difficult conversations happening.

So we've started some frequently asked question pages Director Sebring Executive Director Sebring has stood that up.

It's been available we'll start to populate that more talking about some more community engagement activities around how the what the deficit situation is how the state funding model works for those interested in that.

Just more opportunity for the community to find out sort of more in depth how we've got to where this point is and what the solutions mean for them and their families going forward.

So just three quick bullet points at a very high level around what's causing this 105 million dollar problem.

first one is the state funds this school district and all school districts on the prototypical model as it's called and that applies generally to districts as large as Seattle which is the largest to Staheekin which is the smallest and there's some concessions for large and small districts but generally the same model is used for districts from our size to really small.

and it's deficient in many places.

Special education is one that gets a lot of discussion in this room.

Seattle School District has chosen to invest in special education in different ways over the years that are not funded explicitly by the model.

Substitute hourly pay it's my understanding hasn't changed for decades from the model that funds the substitute teachers in the classrooms.

So right there just the number of substitutes and the variance in that pay is a deficit out of the gate.

Transportation impact of transportation here in Seattle is different than many other parts of the state.

And then wages here in Seattle are Seattle's a high cost of living area and it hasn't quite caught up with what it costs to really have a living wage in Seattle.

primary the first of these three bullets is the state funding deficiencies.

Second one Seattle Public Schools enrollment has declined nearly 5000 students over the last period of time.

That equates to tens of millions of dollars but that also comes with costs.

So if you have more students there's more teachers.

So it's not a one for one that if we build that gap that we'd solve our deficit problem because there are costs of educating all those students to come along with that.

And then the third one is district decisions so this reliance on those that red Lego the ESSER funds were very helpful for helpful for school districts and other educational agencies and I believe Seattle Public Schools is not alone in becoming somewhat reliant on some of that one time funding that has disappeared and that was $145 million in the last three or four years.

system inefficiencies coming out of the pandemic none of us knew what that was going to look like and some mechanisms were probably put in place that in retrospect we shouldn't have or some things that were done with full information probably would have done differently and not just specific to the pandemic but just generally not knowing what the future holds there's been some inefficiencies that have perpetuated over the years.

and then staffing growth hasn't kept pace with the decline in students here at the central office at the school buildings on some level.

And so I believe last year there was an alligator chart that sort of exemplified this where staffing was going up as some of the enrollment was declining and so.

Just want to note those and again not today dwell on this but just acknowledge that there's a dearth of information for many people who are new to the district or new to being engaged in this conversation.

Next slide.

Here are three questions that have come up frequently since I've been here.

Sort of answered that first one about the state fully funding the K-12 system for those who have been engaged in paying attention longer the McCleary Act or McCleary decision was to fully fund the state of Washington's K-12 system and it did some harm in the process of increasing funding in many different ways.

One of which is the second bullet there which it limited the amount school districts can raise locally based on their local communities.

And then the third one I touched on briefly the cost of doing business in Seattle the choices that have been made around values for special education and other things have caused expenses to grow in the Seattle Public Schools relative to other school districts in our area.

One thing I wanted to reflect back on is the discussion of the timeline There's a group of people in my role that meet with some regularity and compare stories about what we're doing and challenges and opportunities and I believe we're among the very few districts currently engaging in next year's budget conversation.

So we're trying to get a real head start on this so that those 10 meetings are helpful in helping this group and the community be more informed about the situation that we're facing right now.

Director Harris was commenting on the lack of spreadsheets at the last meeting so I've got a master spreadsheet here and you'll see a lot of it's unfilled and so today is to talk about what the opportunities or the different options are to fill in some of those TBD mentions on this spreadsheet and so.

as Fred has said multiple times we're not balancing the budget this month or next that'll come later in the year and in the process.

But one of the outcomes of that will be this spreadsheet filled in with the variety of numbers that do result in a balanced budget for that July discussion on approval.

Oh never mind.

I was going to say can we pause for questions but we are.

We're in sync.

Can we go back.

Do you all want to go back.

So I don't see it on the FAQ and I just want to say so the the structural deficit comes in so many multiple ways not only by the amount per student or per staff but the number.

So the one of the largest deficits that we have in Seattle Public Schools is in special education.

The other one is in transportation.

Those both have funding formulas by the state that don't generate sufficient revenue for the cost.

So special education there's two factors there's the what's called the multiplier which is the number the amount of dollars per student with an IEP that the state gives that is based not on the student's disability not on the needs of that student but just on whether or not a student has an IEP.

and that amount of money is not sufficient to meet the needs of the expense of what's actually needed to provide services and providing services for students who receive special education services is a civil rights issue.

It's a matter of federal law.

and morality honestly.

And so we make up for that in Seattle a lot by local levy dollars which are supposed to be enrichment and not supposed to be used for basic education money.

But the choice is to not use that enrichment money for basic education or to violate the civil rights of students with disabilities.

So the multiplier is not sufficient and the state puts in our state not all states our state puts an artificial cap on the number of students who they think should have IEPs.

If you have a disability or if you have a student with a disability it's not something that's some of the days or that you can opt out of.

If you qualify for services you qualify for services.

It's not an easy process to go through.

There are 13 very specific categories that the state qualifies says students will qualify for services.

Our state says that if we have over it used to be 13.5 we got to increase to 15 percent this last session.

our number of students with IEPs is hovering somewhere around 16 or 17 percent of all of our students I believe.

If it's not now it will be by the end of the school year because more students are identified as the school year goes on.

So even if we were under that 15 percent districts who are under that 15 percent threshold still the multiplier is not sufficient.

So in a district like Seattle it's a double whammy.

The multiplier is not sufficient to actually pay for the costs of providing the education.

And when we hit 15 percent they say that's all the IEP funding that we will provide from the state.

We still need to meet the needs of those students.

So that's one way that's that we're twice structurally deficited.

The other is in just the basic prototypical funding model.

the state makes certain assumptions about this many students generates this many classroom teachers principals nurses etc etc.

We in Seattle hire more than their correct number that they budget for.

We also pay higher than the state allocates.

So that's again twice structurally deficit in the amount and the number.

So just to like so we're behind from the beginning based on and that's by design.

And I wanted to really quickly also in terms of class size I know a lot of people are saying they want smaller class sizes.

The state's prototypical funding formula has an assumption of what the right size class sizes were among the highest in the country.

In 2014 there was a voter approved ballot initiative that was passed to reduce class sizes in Washington state approved by voters never enacted funded moved on by the state legislature.

So.

except for some in K3 and some that we advocated for last year in the psychology nursing etc. etc.

But still by design we receive from the state's prototypical funding model of what we should have nine nurses.

so what yeah up from seven and so we hire somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 nurses which is still not as many schools as we have and that comes from levy dollars.

We're very fortunate to be able to have access to those levy dollars but I'm just trying to put get like from the beginning we're behind and that makes us have to make really difficult choices.

Director Hampson.

So I think the this is what do you call it a whip around just makes my neck hurt that word.

So I have some notes.

I think I think by and large adding the big basket of things that Director Rankin just covered on top of it in terms of specificity the big piece that I don't see mentioned here that I want to make sure we talk about not necessarily today but you know we're talking about a minimum of four years of long range planning in the proposed financial policy guardrail and so the for us to really own why we are where we are we need to be accountable for the lack of long range planning.

And so that's the part that I think is really critical in terms of when we make decisions now.

they or when we fail to make decisions now they're going to have impacts down the line.

We are actually now at a place of having failed to do that for many years.

And it's not about this board or prior boards.

It is about making hard decisions at the right time and having a open enough dialogue which I see that you're trying to create by starting it earlier having it over a more extended period of time.

And again some of the other things that we've talked about in that perspective guardrail are diving down deeper into some of the information so that we have more confidence that the priorities that are being set are in fact going to have better outcomes for kids.

And in order for them to have better outcomes for kids we have to do long range planning because I'm looking at this and thinking yes yes all these things and yet we have we're responsible for making sure that you all deliver growth and outcomes for our children and prioritizing in buildings in October in May in July when you know it's all signed sealed and delivered.

What shifts are going to give our kids the best possible opportunity for success.

so I think that's kind of my in terms of that's just a little bit of a gap I see in the values that are represented here.

The only other thing I would say that's missing and that I think we need to talk about within that same vein is as Director Rankin just described school funding, school finance is a massive roller coaster.

Whiplash doesn't even or whip around doesn't even begin to describe it.

And our job is to demand a view that you present to us something that doesn't completely that there's still going to be ups and downs and there's going to be impact and it's going to be a rough ride and we need some padding.

And we were.

almost teed up pre pandemic to have some of the best padding we'd ever had.

And thank God we had it.

We don't have it anymore because that was that provided some padding for some really major impacts that a lot of districts throughout the country didn't didn't have.

And now we have to start building that back up and making sure that we are still not violating our values, our guardrails in the process as we do long range planning.

And that everything that we do, every decision we make should be based on long range planning.

And I want to make that challenge to us as directors because what I tend to hear from us get caught up in is this whirlwind of reactivity and to the extent that we fail to provide a clear, relatively focused path forward that is consistent with vision and values, we're just sort of not giving our kids that stability that they crave and need in order to be successful because we're modeling oh we want to be responsive to this because you know this is disruptive or this is upsetting and all of those things are very real and somehow we still have to focus on a really critical four year plan to rebuild that cushion.

So I think that was the you know what is what does it mean to absorb some of those shocks effectively.

How do we talk about that.

How do we make sure as you know is that represented in what we've stated because it's up to us to set those expectations.

So have we been clear about those expectations for how things are historically I would say no we have not.

We have said well we don't want to cut that.

We don't want to cut that.

Ouch that hurts.

Ouch that hurts.

and haven't made the hard decisions.

And for we don't have it but if anybody really wants to get deep in this go try out Tacoma school Tacoma District's budget balancing tool which I keep forgetting what it's called.

The balancing act I think is a tool and it's pretty amazing because you can't decide to cut something without having to let go of something else.

And that's the business that we're in right now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll answer this too but I want to go back a little bit to one of the things you mentioned regarding district decisions and you said there are system inefficiencies.

I'm wondering if you can be specific about what some of those were.

I don't know about other people, but I get asked a lot of where I believe we can cut, we are overspending or where we could be saving money.

And I maintain that we are overspending on garbage because we're throwing away our paper towels in our bathrooms every day.

And if we composted those, we would not be paying that tons of garbage every year.

I gotta say that again, I'm sorry, but it's true.

And anyhow, I'm just curious where these system inefficiencies you identified here are.

One of the exercises that we'll get to one of the rocks I guess Superintendent Jones is calling them is the central office.

So just to use one example that we're currently undergoing an exercise across the leadership team and the staff at the central office to identify places where we could be more efficient together working on these things.

So we've started to get some feedback on that.

how can we do payroll more efficiently by using a time clock for example is one of the things so these sort of things that we might think are basic ideas so exploring what the feasibility of some of those things might be to be more efficient with some of the back end processes that are going on I think there's similar things for all the operational the paper towels as you mentioned is probably a place that there could be some more efficiencies.

So there's an exercise going on right now to try and capture more of that and prioritize some of that to find out where the big savings might be from operations the central office duplicative programming that's going on and things of that nature.

I don't know I've been here three or four months I don't know if Dr. Jones or Deputy Podesta.

Yeah so we do have a guardrail guardrail to around organizational efficiency and I know that when we're talking about uptime with our computer system we're talking about a couple well this is your area Fred if you can expand on that but there's there's we're being really intentional about it so once you tee up a couple of examples if you have any readily available please.

It's probably single biggest dollar figure thing that we've talked about multiple years is how many buses we put on the road and that we run it unlike all our surrounding districts run a two tier bell schedule and and so and I raise that point not to rub salt in the wound but to that when we say inefficiency we make choices we always need to balance effectiveness and efficiency and so you know there's a spectrum there but that it's 50 percent more school buses that we put on the road than we need to and that's a choice that we made.

And so those are the kinds of things I think Kurt is talking about and there can be really good decisions but it it I think that connotation and last year was a great example of by balancing routes in the same kind of arena we were able to keep the level service not have the disruption of bell time changes and still make not as big a change but a change.

And so those those are the kinds of things.

did want to offer a quick comment on what are the thoughts of lessons learned on previous year's budget process decisions.

Every year obviously every year we're struggling to maximize the dollars allocated because we're not fully funded and we can talk about that forever.

But I'm wondering if one thing I'm finding is we have plenty of parents who would love to to storm the capitol and advocate for us for full funding.

So I would really push our district to be better educators to families about what that is, give them, arm them with the information and dollars they need, the dollar figures they need so that when they do get a legislator's attention or go to Olympia, they have the information to best, most strongly advocate on our behalf.

Director Song.

Something that Mr. Prodesta said in our last budget sessions was that this is still a $1.2 billion enterprise, so I would really like for us to just remind that, you know, we're trying to find where we can cut, but at the end of the day, this is a $1.2 billion enterprise.

and something that I was kind of hoping that we would gain out of the well resource schools conversation is kind of a baseline of what we can actually guarantee to our students and families when it comes to their education.

So I would like to kind of collectively think about like what are the things that we absolutely want to guarantee and just kind of on this page where we're talking about what's causing the deficit.

We have the things that we want to guarantee and protect and then we need to make some choices because we do need to present a balanced budget.

and what it would be helpful is even the things that are state funded deficiencies, those are still some choices that we are actually making to Mr. Podesta's point around transportation.

We have made a conscious choice to maintain a two-tier bell time system.

But it would be helpful to know what is the size of these deficits that are on this slide.

how many kids they are impacting and also what kids.

So that when we're kind of looking at all the choices we've made, we are able to understand what is the impact and then kind of prioritize with that.

I'd like for us to start, what is the baseline guarantee?

And then beyond that, what are the things that we're going to have to prioritize?

Because I think Dr. Jones has said it before, we can do many, many things, but we really just can't do all the things.

And so it would be helpful to have numbers around the choices that we need to make.

I do have a very specific question around the spreadsheet.

Thank you Director Harris for making that request.

So in the 23-24 budget I'm surprised to see like the transportation changes because that was my understanding that we did do some rebalancing there that there's no number assigned to that.

The transportation safety net funding under one time I thought that the state had included in its budget maybe $13.4 million around transportation and we maybe would be qualified for around $3 million of that.

So I just see some things in here that are kind of zeroed out that I thought were reflected in the 23-24 budget.

I can address that.

I think when I was trying to update this with the new rocks for this presentation things like the transportation changes when this was originally produced were in that 31 million dollar number at the central office because it was an operational and so that's just a poor formatting on my part to try and add the new categories in a more discreet way.

But I can fix that going forward so it's more clear.

Director Harris.

And thank you Brent for keeping former deputy superintendent Stephen Nielsen line alive.

We can do many many things but we cannot do everything.

And I hope that one lives in infamy in this building.

To follow up on on your comment what can we offer as a baseline.

We you know we've talked a lot about systems of schools and school systems and the pendulum swinging both ways.

We've never really agreed on baselines and I appreciate the work that's being done with respect to well resourced schools.

But towards that end.

Can we hold portions of our budget harmless.

can we say you don't get to take any more money out of librarians.

And we had a fairly robust and maybe even testy conversation on Monday on our two by two.

And I think that's a good thing because we got lots of different perspectives and we certainly all represent lots of different folks.

And I look at this spreadsheet such as it is and I understand why we have blank boxes.

and we just went through hell on over 50 schools rebalancing in mid-October and I believe that was to capture 3.6 million dollars and 3.6 million dollars doesn't even make it onto this spreadsheet.

The 50 schools were hugely impacted.

So in terms of return on investment and what are those costs for all of that disruption and trust.

Brother Blanford former Seattle School Board Director used to talk an awful lot about opportunity costs and those are difficult to measure and I'm not quite sure how you do that but given your goals and guardrails I guess you get to in the future but where is it that we say we are not touching X or that we already had an incredibly painful discussion about bell times last year.

And I'm sorry because you got caught in the crossfire there Fred and I have a little bus for you at home.

But but you heard us and you changed your strategies or actually maybe your tactics at that point.

what do we consider so sacrosanct that we won't mess with it anymore.

It's as low as it's going to go and we have to make those cuts someplace else.

So when we talk about community vision and values and and I love that talk you know I do.

But what does it actually mean in plain simple sentence language.

and how do we incorporate it on this fast tracking piece.

The other piece here is and I'm going to I'm going to go back there again at the risk of irritating you even more Dr. Jones but it's my job to do so.

Are we for closures and consolidations you asked me and I responded beats the heck out of me because I got no details.

and there's no way I can make any of those decisions or even recommendations and I invite you to my community meeting next Saturday lasagna and you can see just how yummy it feels when you say I got nothing.

Is one of those values that we keep sacrosanct small schools for particular populations.

is one of those values that we keep a K-8 model is one of those values that we continue to offer STEM focused schools is one of those values that says you know if it's within three miles and it's less than 300 then you're on the list.

Where's the guiding principles for that and getting a list of things I fear for you if what you give us is a list it's up or down without the input of our community.

And I'll stop there.

Thank you.

That's our job.

Our job is we're here to represent our community and give direction.

And I think in terms of thoughts around lessons learned from previous year's processes and our decisions, I would say I think we've been in the place that's reactionary that says, oh, no, you can't touch that.

No, you can't touch that either.

No, also not that.

Not that.

And not that.

we're like how do we go from there.

But Director Rankin have we ever put it in the positive as opposed.

Let me get there.

Let me get there.

So we've been in the don't touch that or that or that or that.

We haven't been in the this is what we expect for our kids.

This is what we expect as part of basic education at any neighborhood school.

And then here are the things that we know you can't violate on the way to that.

staff tell us what our options are within those things.

We've gotten so used to operating in the only we can't that it's no wonder everything is reactionary because we don't say here's what we expect.

Here's what we want.

That doesn't mean I want this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing.

That means zooming out and saying what do we expect as a community for our students from our public education system and then what will it take to provide that to all of our students.

And that's why I am the consolidation thing.

There's not a list because we haven't been if we could say you can't close any schools and we could find a way to afford no we could do that it would be irresponsible to say that that's not a possibility because we could pay to keep all those schools open but as people have experienced when you're at a school where you're where the difference of four kids means a teacher or not that's a hard place to be in.

I would say nobody wants their school to close and I don't want anybody's schools to close but we're not talking about small schools designed to serve a population.

We're talking about schools intended to have four or five hundred kids that have under two hundred kids.

We could keep that open and afford it and they would all have split classes not have a librarian not have a counselor not have an art teacher and I do not think that's what anybody wants for their students.

This is just about making choices.

and as Director Song said, we are still a $1.2 billion organization.

This is the real conversation.

What do we want?

And what choices are we willing to make to ensure that we get there?

I don't know how to...

and I know that folks are uncomfortable well I haven't seen a list I don't know this I don't do that.

We're literally giving the instruction on how to develop that list right now.

We're also making very clear we have top line goals about what we expect.

Our expectations of the superintendent are that he manage a district that makes progress on third grade reading seventh grade math and college and career readiness.

graduation based on access to advanced learning that's actually a ton of information about what we prioritize and what is non-negotiable but if we just say well we can't touch this we have no idea what that might be limiting that's why we rely on you all to tell us okay here and I think what I hope we're hearing in the pages coming up is we have real limitations we also have real goals and we have to stop pretending that we can't meet our goals just because we're underfunded.

I refuse to allow that we have to wait to be fully funded to actually serve our students equitably.

I will not accept that.

And what I want to know from you is you know what's important to us by what we have directed in policy.

what solutions do you have for us that we can accept and how can you be clear about what the choices are that we have.

The two tier busing that by design costs us much more than the state allocation formula provides and actually in state law it specifically says that districts need to adjust their bell times for efficiency.

we've decided not to do that and that's fine.

That might be the most important thing to the school community.

We could continue to do that but that means that we can't do something else that's also really important.

So that's what we have to do is lay it all on the table and make choices but make them not in terms of adult finger pointing and blame but thinking about how can we work within the constraints that we have because it's the reality.

We don't get to say I wish it wasn't like this.

It's very easy to say that.

I wish it wasn't like this.

Legislators are tired from hearing from me, although I've had much more progress and a better relationship because I'm realistic and honest with them instead of just stamping my foot and demanding.

That did lead us to a significant increase in special education.

It's still not what we need.

But we have to be honest about what it is we're trying to do, what we want for our kids, and we need you all to be honest about what options we have.

And that's what the community can all see.

Where are our values?

Where are the choices we're going to make?

Because we can't do everything but we can do so many things.

We just have to be willing to actually talk about it and be honest with ourselves and each other that there are limitations.

But that doesn't mean that grueling rocks for everyone.

We have amazing teachers.

We have awesome families and kids.

Beautiful facilities and some buildings that need a lot of work that maybe kids shouldn't be in right now because they deserve better.

I absolutely do not want an answer to this right now but one thing I believe would be helpful to know as we start this process knowing with all the transitions coming regardless of sitting in these chairs we're responsible for representing the vision and values of community right.

there are some really major characteristics of this district that I'm not convinced represent the vision and values.

And I've never heard of or seen an analysis done and I think in many cases we hesitate to ask some of the bigger questions about what should be considered because of fear of backlash like when I suggested we not fund transportation to option schools.

So I'm going to do that again.

Not that particular item suggesting that it's actually going to be worse.

I'm going to push the envelope.

But my question is really as I'm going to use this as an example and ask the question about the scale given the actual cost of change.

There's always a cost to some.

It's not net neutral.

We talked about this in two by twos.

The whole thing with Charging for athletics as an example.

It's not free to charge.

You have to actually go get the money and there's cost associated with that.

We like to pretend it's all just there's no other impacts and in fact there's tremendous impacts and I know that we don't know what they are because we haven't done that analysis.

but I would love some expert fiscal analysis from our staff and any other folks that that you convene with about whether or not we consider really large scale decisions cost saving cost saving measures like let's just say for example that if we got rid of school choice this district would save a ton of money.

and I would like to know is that something that we should be considering because when you look at all the variables associated with cost what costs the our ability to change the cost of special education to become more efficient right like you're looking at systems efficiencies.

School choice was something that and all the many many histories that I have read in Seattle Public Schools about Seattle Public Schools and why we have school choice was about white flight.

This used to be a district of you know 90,000 students 100,000 students were the same size that we were in 1930 something.

So.

And again in 1980 when I was a student.

Yeah I think I would like to know because that could be a stupid thing to consider because it may not actually have the cost of the change itself might be so massive that it doesn't make any sense right but we're so used to narrowing in on these these teeny little changes because we don't want to disrupt and yet the biggest most or least disruptive change might actually have the biggest impact and I don't know that we've considered all of those things.

That just occurred to me as we were talking like school because we don't have any there's no data.

Our option schools in general do not provide an appreciably better education experience.

They certainly don't have better outcomes for students.

and there may be some exceptions for some grades and some but as a whole they absolutely do not provide better outcomes for kids and one of the things that I wanted to make sure that we go back to that we don't lose sight of We didn't do the progress monitoring session, unfortunately.

But one of the pieces of that progress monitoring session that worried me is that we have some better outcomes for black male students in our 13 schools of promise, but we don't know which of the five strategies are the key levers.

That's really hard to invest in.

and yet in case anybody's wondering we're still failing to serve our students further some educational justice to grow outcomes at the rate that we would have hoped like no we're not doing as we have some really some positive signs.

We don't have a whole like a district wide like we're there.

We just started looking at data.

We just started evaluation evaluating our superintendent on outcomes for students a year and a half ago.

So but that's still where we have to get to.

when the black community came and demanded smart goals it's because they wanted us to hold our superintendent accountable to outcomes for their children.

And we are obligated to do that for black children for native children for Pacific Islander children for Latino children students receiving special education services.

We have to still get better so when that is our charge and we're nipping around the edges.

I just wonder is what.

not because I'm looking for a silver bullet I'm just wondering what are the other systemic pieces that are really really expensive and not necessary.

They're not.

People want to maintain what they have as far as option schools but if you look at why they came into existence they are completely inconsistent with the values espoused by this city over and over and over again.

again I don't know if that's a thing but I would I want the larger scale and what else there's something else like that I'm sure right.

So when we talk about holding sacrosanct I think we hold sacrosanct what not the how.

And if we can organizationally be mature enough to interrogate the how I think collectively we have enough intellectual horsepower to figure that out.

Where we will struggle is just the agreement on the what.

And so if we are truly wedded to creating student outcomes for students of color furthest from educational justice as something that we have put and codified in policy and in language and a charge then we.

we draw a circle around that and say that's sacrosanct and then anything that's not additive to that outcome is eligible for us to interrogate and opportunity cost is real cost of change is real and we have to stay mindful of that.

But I'm interested in us getting to a place where we say and the board has gotten started to get really clear on our goals which we've said are the value represent the values and visions of the community and our guardrails are which the constraints which we operate.

but what is it about those that how are those sacrosanct at this point or do we need a revisitation of that is the 2024 strategic planning process when we go ahead and look at the what once again.

But again I believe the how is eligible for a dialogue and if the board says this is where you need to go Jones and team we will respond.

But for example and let me just crack let me just crack it open since we only at six o'clock and we only have a few more minutes.

I'm not going to put a list of consolidated schools in front of you if I don't believe with wholeheartedly it's going to change outcomes for students.

I'll put it there tomorrow if it changes outcomes for students.

We are not at that point yet where we can collectively say that.

And so there's an opportunity here to just get really clear on what what are lessons learned from the past and what do we hold absolutely untouchable.

And if it's student outcomes for students Elementary middle high school certain sections certain populations.

Let's call it that.

And then I think we can collectively work backwards but I don't think we've named it and protected it in a way that we all in one accord would say that's the thing that's sacrosanct.

Maybe we have but so I'll tee it back up to the board.

I know we only have we have a couple more things to talk about.

This is where we need to be in terms of our dialogue.

This was where we left off on the financial policy last last Wednesday.

These are the these are the constraints that we need to really start to talk about.

And I have confidence super confident in my school leaders and the educators of this district that they'll rise to the occasion.

I think we just have to be able to say, that's it.

We're gonna draw a moat around this thing and not let anybody in.

This is what we found to be.

Absolutely, we have to protect with all of our resources and strength.

So I'll stop and I'll kick it back to you, Chair Rankin, to see how much more we, how far we wanna go.

It's six o'clock and I can't speak for my team, but I'm willing to stay for a little while longer.

Okay I just to add to that you know there's there's big and small thou shalt not because we know that every year there's going to likely be a difference between our projected enrollment and our actual enrollment but we can insist that you know changes are made if when changes are required they're made in a different way we could also say it's more important to us to mitigate for staffing changes in October than it is for this other thing whatever that might be but we just have to have that conversation and give you that direction and build everything around knowing that things that have softened like that mitigation fund there's always been adjustments in October there have been ways No listen there have been ways that those have been accounted for and mitigated because there's been funding available to cushion that or do that.

So it's a new reality.

I do not want whoever if it's me or somebody else sitting in the seat to have the same conversation next October.

and that's clearly something that's important.

So whatever direction we need to give you, I don't think it's good governance for us to say don't move staff around because based on the constraints that we have, we know that might be necessary.

But we can certainly say when this occurs, it must be done in a way that is least disruptive and impactful for kits.

So there's always room big and small.

Anyway I so we were scheduled to end at six.

I am happy to stay personally as long as it takes to get through the rest of this conversation today.

But that's not how everyone else may be feeling.

So do we want to try 15 more minutes.

Do we want to call it.

What are people able to do.

OK.

I can stay.

OK.

Well we've still got a quorum and this is being recorded.

Yeah.

Yeah.

OK.

So we've got four.

Staff is that with your permission we will.

Yeah so let's go to slide 13 and Dr. Buddleman will you just frame it and then blast to the next couple.

They can be really succinct and brief here on these first things so this slide is just the buckets of big rocks so there's three categories no longer an option things that have already been used and are no longer available one time solutions and then ongoing and ongoing I think is where we should spend the remaining time we have so if we can advance to the next slide.

So these were the mentioned earlier the economic stabilization fund is depleted.

Next year's budget anticipates a $6.6 million first repayment of that.

And then the state had a capital funds maintenance transfer provision that's no longer available so don't want to dwell on things that we can't do.

Next slide please.

some one time things so this is our red on the bar chart.

We will have why don't we just go through these one by one so we can go to the next slide that's just a summary of the next slides.

So for the end of this year which is closing in the next couple weeks there will be some fund balance remaining that's unrestricted.

Hesitant to put a number to that we don't have the final numbers on that yet but that is one one time solution that will be a part of the discussion going forward in balancing the budget.

The rest of this slide is sort of part of that information session that we want to provide going forward to the community and to new and existing board members around what this really means what the fund balance and what the unrestricted portion of that is.

Next slide.

For another year there's a transportation safety net funding provision that Seattle has taken advantage of the last year or two.

Last year we got $3.4 million out of the $13 million that was set aside for that.

Assume that will continue and Seattle would receive similar amount of money going forward.

There's no guarantee that will continue so I've categorized it as one time for this presentation.

Next slide.

This year the non-represented staff at the John Stanford Center are taking two furlough days and we've limited or eliminated the opportunity to cash out excess vacation.

Something that could be considered next year is another one time solution.

We're estimating that to save 1.5 million dollars.

Next slide.

The central office and the schools have self-help funds which is another thing that I think would be great for us to further explain going forward.

But there's schools and the central office have funds that are available to them for more flexibility in different things they might want to do as the opportunities arise.

We have not been using these for staff but at the balances of that are between could spend up to six million dollars one time and that by depleting those funds.

Next slide.

We can keep going to the ongoing options.

Next slide please.

So Vice President Rankin touched on this in her last remarks around the depletion of the contingency reserves or padding were part of the issues that have resulted in terms of some of the staffing changes where there wasn't any enough mitigation to buffer some of that.

And so one ongoing solution could be to provide further reductions in those contingency reserves may cause the need if it's cut too far to make some mid-year adjustments in the coming year if it doesn't work out as intended and we need to hold on to lapsed salaries to mitigate some of that going forward.

So there's some risk associated with all of these in the ongoing.

Can you just explain what you mean by lapsed salaries.

So and people leave accumulating that in a reserve of sorts to mitigate some of these fluctuations in staffing at the schools or other things that may come up throughout the year.

You mean because it's already been budgeted for.

Right.

OK.

Next slide.

This we talked about a little bit earlier potential for charging fees.

There's lots of impact that would result from something like that.

Here this contemplates fees for athletics.

ballpark estimate that could generate between 1 and 1.5 million dollars charging families that were not in low income.

And then when families use school pay there's a cost that the merchant charges us to process that transaction.

If we were to pass that along to the families using that our bill this year is in the neighborhood of $150,000 to $200,000 in merchant fees.

Next slide.

Eluded to this earlier last year the district office and the operations portion that serves the schools reduced by about 32 million dollars.

The leadership in this building is going through an exercise right now to see what the viability of another 18 million dollars might be.

and you can see the potential impact of some of that.

So services from the central office would be different for the schools for the community for the employees for families.

We've exhausted the flexibility of funding so transferring some of the maintenance costs to capital all the opportunities there were exhausted in the last few budget approvals and then the district office folks are doing all they can to focus on minimizing any impact on schools and their proposals there and we'll be consolidating that and having robust discussions here about how to approach that and that $18 million came from last year's budget process as a placeholder for this year's budget process and so they're that's where the starting point was so honoring that.

Actually I'd like to offer a little bit of a friendly amendment.

That $18 million target was identified last year in last year's process and was a bit baked into what central office staff were doing for the 23, 24 that understanding that what we need to know for the current fiscal year is what you can do now and what will take more time and so while it seemed very compressed last year as we were identifying savings goals for central office leaders we also said and start working on next year's list now and this is really about changing our budget calendar and implicit in the instructions this year is since we're doing multi-year planning now and we're thinking about the interplay between year-end balances in the future, if you can find something that saves money right now, you get credit for that in the coming fiscal year because that will to give us more flexibility in that year-end balance.

And that's why these discussions are also really helpful.

Dr. Jones and I talked a lot about May 11th last year, because you all adopted the resolution that gave us guidance on May 10th and on May 11th that was we told staff so now the 24 25 budget process begins.

And so this thinking about this more fluidly and not well the central office every year expects to get budget instructions and we used to kind of get them in January.

We need to finish the process in January.

And so if you don't think about it again for another 12 months instead of thinking about it now and what can you do now that will affect this year's year end balance and what kind of ideas do you have that you can't get done in just one year because they take longer that all counts that all helps and that's why if we're thinking multiple years at a time we can get things on the table that we wouldn't think of when we're only thinking about the next five minutes.

And so this rethinking how we do this rethinking this calendar sounds like just a process thing but it is actually a sea change in how we think about managing our finances.

So sorry to I know we're trying to make up time but I think that's a really an important point or so.

Because a budget is a best guess look into the future.

It's always up for change.

It's just best guess based on what we know now.

Just quickly it occurs to me that one of our The importance of, so backing up, one of the major components of having really strong enterprise risk management and internal audit function is to prioritize where you mitigate risk.

And when you talk about $18 million, well, the cuts that we just had and that you're about to go through and the cuts associated with, prospectively, in this year of $18 million, I lost my page, but here it is.

I hope that when we hear from about enterprise risk management at the internal audit committee meeting later this month that we'll hear some more about this relative to the budget unless you think this is the more appropriate place to talk about it.

But as you mentioned a little bit with some of the staffing things there may be areas of compliance for example that we are missing entirely because of reductions and then creating greater risk for ourselves and there may be other areas where because of cuts we are or that where we as folks are considering cuts we may be able to have higher levels of risk tolerance for things and I just don't know if that framing exists and again that's a falls into that category of internal audit and enterprise risk management.

There's a compliance audit coming up and I'm nervous about it because this is we're talking about a period of significant cuts and changes in staffing and management and anytime that happens you have before things settle down you have compliance issues.

So hopefully that'll be a helpful audit that then folks can clean things up.

But I just want to make sure I think it's I appreciate that you brought that up.

because I don't want to lose that concept of making having priorities in terms of what risks we actively mitigate and what compliance we adhere to or spend money to adhere to versus those that are maybe lower risk.

And then again always couched within that what's going to ultimately impact students.

So I think that often families when they are faced with a cut that directly impacts their students it's like well why aren't you just cutting central office and I think something that's important to highlight particularly on this table is that there are costs in here that do directly impact students and namely around operations like transportation the culinary services are all included in that so I think that we just when we're talking about central office adjustments we need to couch in the terms of these will actually impact students.

That said I just did a very quick calculation assuming four hundred million dollars around central office that's roughly eight thousand dollars per student.

and I'm just curious how that benchmarks relative to comparable districts and I would encourage your team as they're thinking about where they see opportunity to make adjustments that they are benchmarking with relative to other districts.

Understandably Seattle is a very expensive place to be running any sort of enterprise but that might help us kind of see bring forward some opportunities.

operations I think is the bulk of that $8,000 per student but I just don't know how to compare us to other districts.

Yeah there are tools we can bring forward for that.

And special ed is one of these that's listed in that 400 as well.

So those are two really big numbers.

Back to the points several directors have made central office sounds to our constituents like headquarters.

all our building maintenance is in I mean the actual school buildings is in this budget.

And so and that's why operations is so large.

So we may want to think about how we articulate.

There's different codes we can look at and parse this differently to get that comparison information you're talking about.

But I mean at first blush Seattle doesn't stand wildly out of place with the other comparable districts in the state of Washington.

Historically we've been right in line with other districts.

Keep going.

Fred did you want to talk about this.

This is just a.

This was just a summary of last year's decisions.

The next one.

So this is one of the larger rocks that is on this presentation and this is reductions in staffing at schools and so.

mitigation funds equity funds operational staff student staff student support staff at schools increases the class sizes.

So those are all levers that are available.

And if those levers were to be used estimated savings depending on what the decisions were between zero and 20 million dollars in ongoing savings.

Next slide.

When it says equity funds what do you mean by that like decreasing it or.

Yeah so there's some monies that go to specific schools to further their programs and that would decrease or eliminate that.

This next slide shows that it was decreased a little bit last year as well.

So these are the summary of what changes were in that sort of realm.

School building staffing changes that were in the last year's budget package.

and you'll see to the well-resourced schools conversation nursing nursing was increased in middle schools counselor social workers were increased at K-8 middle school and high school last year's budget.

We can go to the next slide.

Deputy Podesta talked about transportation changes so exploring different options as potential savings for the coming year.

Again all of this is disruptive and difficult for families and students.

Next slide.

and then the last slide here is school consolidations and so an estimate of between 750 and 2 million or more depending which schools are considered and how that were to play out and those savings would be in administration transportation support staff building maintenance operations.

Teachers are still the same number of students so a similar number of teachers.

But these are where the savings are and just for some scale here.

School budgets in the Seattle district range from 1.2 million dollars for a whole school to 16 million dollars.

And so.

that's in part why there's that wide variety.

Is that across like is that elementary to elementary or is that.

That's no that's just the schools just looking at top to bottom.

There's a number of elementaries that are less than three million if that's your specific question.

And then another piece of context legislature again it's a short session this year.

There were two years where the Seattle district benefited sort of financially significantly the McCleary year 2018 19 and then last year with the special ed changes.

You'll see negatives there for every IPD increase that comes to employees at Seattle schools and most other school districts.

There's a cost associated with that because we have more employees than the funding model allocates and so some of that is coming through there and there's other costs that come through and some of the legislative changes that are made and just for context there's it's unlikely that the legislature is going to come through with 104 million dollars next year.

And also yeah no it's not going to happen also McCleary positively impacted our revenues but the cost of McCleary for the whole state is funded through a King County property tax levy.

So like overall people who live in Seattle did not benefit.

We are paying.

If you look in your if you own property and you look at your property tax history you see a big bump up in 2017 because the state funding to fund McCleary was a property tax levied on King County in addition to our local property taxes.

Other states have this thing called income tax that funds the general fund that funds most of basic education costs that are paid for by the state and then local costs are paid for typically by property tax levies for capital and such.

In our state sales tax and property tax are what mostly fund the general fund.

and then are what we have authority as levy districts to authorize.

So it's it's positive impact on the SPS budget not a net positive impact on families of Seattle.

and we can go to the next slide.

So these are just some other things to consider in this process some shorter term some longer term enrollment fluctuations that may result in what the impact of that is.

Are there external funding opportunities that we need to take more advantage of if we were to sell assets or property what does that look like.

There's constraints around what you can do with those funds and so that's not the easy answer.

And how do we be more planful going forward about future labor agreements and their impact on the budget so that we're not reacting and there's more stability for the system and for employees of the system and for students of the system and then Are there partnerships to explore?

Added your consideration director Hampson school choice is that something that should be on this list.

Things like that is what this list is intended to prompt.

So thank you.

I think that's.

As quick as I could do it.

So yeah we did have a strategy mentioned by Director Hampson.

What other strategies should we consider?

We can table this for later or we can get into that right now.

Love to hear some of your thinking if you have some reactions.

Director Song, you'd mentioned we need to be thinking about revenue, so do you have anything to, can you repeat that, kind of what you were encouraging us to be thoughtful of?

Right, during the budget two by two, my comment was that the conversation is very focused on cost savings, but the reality is our budget includes revenues and expenses, and so I think there is a tremendous opportunity for us to be thinking about what our revenue strategies, how can we grow enrollment.

Yeah, there are, you know, we unfortunately are negatively impacted by housing policy and birth rates in Seattle.

That said there are a lot of students who are going to private school and we could take I hate to be so businessy but market share from them.

But also direct strategies to maintain our enrollment as well.

So you know like a very tactical thing is perhaps we should be moving up our open enrollment process so that decisions are released when private school decisions are released that would be March versus April.

Those are just some ideas.

Director Hampson.

Oh just to clarify and mark on that because of the audit that we're doing around enrollment and disenrollment and I spoke with Chris Raikdahl and confirmed what other data sources have supported which are actually our biggest enrollment losses are homeschooling not private schools and by double.

the amount.

But I think there in to your point there actually is a greater opportunity than there is for private schools.

A lot of private school folks come back because they don't have things like advanced special education services or specific special education services and then also a lot of them are only through eighth grade and so they come back in high school which again that it's a problem statewide and I don't believe we're any different.

Hopefully we'll have better data about that in terms of why people leave.

We probably have a higher it might be different because we have a higher number of private schools possibly per person than other districts but homeschooling is a definitely a huge opportunity for us and that and that's you know post pandemic.

I'll just say something I've said before which is that there's this saying about doing things the same way over and over again and expecting a different result and I think we're like this is a point where we can't as Chandra was saying nibble around the edges we can't just look at line item by line item and see what could we do more of what could we do less of we just have to kind of start almost start over in a way like I think like the WSS is something that we think of as immutable and it was actually just designed as a way to allocate staffing to buildings.

I don't think it meets the needs of our students or of our staff.

special education ratios is another thing that even were they to be fully funded we know that it's the capacity is that our teachers are over capacity even at full staff and students are still not getting services.

So how can we think about instead of more or less in those things we're pretending if we think those are locked in.

those are structures that we made up and we can make up different ones that better meet the needs of our students and and still fit within our constraints and I think that's where we can all be demonstrating for our children what it looks like to have a growth mindset around refusing to accept things that are not working and being brave enough to make the changes that we know will support our students and communities and our staff.

just in line with the idea of suggestions.

I'm going to say it again.

I would love it if you could look at what the savings would be about composting our paper towels as opposed to throwing them away because when I did the math a year or so ago it was a lot and if we're looking at things that possibly just saved $200,000 I'm pretty sure we'd save at least that with it.

So again I'm just and throw it out there again because it is in line with our values in line with a director from this board already about sustainability and our impact on the planet and how that is taught to our children in our schools.

So I see no good reason to not explore it.

And I really hope that we can do that.

Thank you.

It's 6 35.

The last slide was this and we spent enough time on this that I think you all are familiar with it.

November 15th we're coming back to you with a resolution and it should have the essential elements of what it's going to take to get to the 105 million dollars or something close to it for your consideration and then you all take action on that on the 13th of December.

And so without further ado thank you to the board.

Thank you to my team.

This is always complex and I'm proud I'm on this journey with you all.

Thank you so much.

Oh one final thought.

Yeah I have two data requests.

One is the substitute deficit is new to me so if somebody could spend some time learning me up on why that is such a large source of our deficit and then two I really think that having some numbers around staffing and staffing changes over time will help us understand because we have been making active staffing choices but it would be helpful to put some numbers behind that.

Thank you.

All right.

There being no further business on the agenda.

The board special meeting stands adjourned at 6 36 p.m.