Thank you, everyone.
The February 24th, 2023 regularly scheduled meeting of the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights, and Culture Committee will come to order.
It's 9.30 a.m.
I'm Tammy Morales, chair of the committee.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Council Member Lewis?
Present.
Council Member Nelson?
Present.
Council Member Strauss?
Present.
Vice Chair Sawant?
Chair Morales?
here or present.
And Council Member Sawant did indicate to me earlier this week that she would not be able to be here, so she's excused.
Okay, thank you very much.
If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.
We have a few things on the calendar today before we get to public comment.
We have nine appointments to different commissions, which we will do on our consent agenda.
And then we will have a presentation from the Department of Education and Early Learning regarding the mental health resources that we included in last year's budget process.
But before we do that, we will open the public comment period.
Thank you, Devin.
I see we have one person signed up online, but that person is not present.
Is that correct?
Okay.
Okay, then we will go with the three folks who are here in chambers.
Before we begin, I'll read through our process here.
At this time, we'll open public comment.
I ask everyone please be patient as we operate this hybrid system.
We're always looking for ways to improve our public comment process and participation in Council.
It does remain the strong intent of our Council to have public comment regularly included in our meeting agendas, but we reserve the right to modify these public comment periods at any point if we deem the system as being abused or is unsuitable to allow our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner able to conduct our business.
I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.
The public comment, each person will be given two minutes to speak.
I'll call on each speaker and ask that you approach the mic here.
Once I call your name, you will have two minutes to speak.
You'll hear a chime when there's 10 seconds left.
At that time, we'll ask that you wrap up your comments so we can move to the next speaker.
Okay, the public comment period is open and I will call on Alan Smith, please.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I rode my bicycle from Hillman City all the way here on Rainier Avenue, no bicycles.
But that's what I want to talk about is in Hillman City and in Columbia City at intersections at the South Angeline, Hudson, and Orcas, they put in, I don't know what you would call it, they put in these hard rubber barriers to channel traffic.
And I think that's probably fine for cars and pedestrians, but it could be a disaster for bicycles.
Because if a bicycle hits that, if they're trying to look out for pedestrians and motorists and potholes and whether the light's changing, you can't pay attention to everything very carefully.
And those barriers, if you hit them, if you have your handout for turn signal, you don't have that good of control over your bicycle, but you're signaling to other folks that what you're trying to do.
If you hit one of those barriers, you could go down.
So I think in terms of bicycling, they're a real problem.
And the concern I have is if they've studied these things and where they're gonna put them elsewhere in the city, I have no idea.
I just want the city to be aware that these things could be really dangerous for bicyclists.
And as far as I can tell, They're not put in such a manner that they restrict your ability so that you can't do anything but follow the traffic regulations.
One I just about ran into, I sort of studied and looked at, I couldn't quite figure it out, but as far as I was concerned, where I was trying to turn, I had a perfectly legal right to do that, but that barrier was in the way.
And fortunately, I saw it in time.
And these have been up for, I don't know, maybe a month or something like that.
But that's my main consideration that the city needs to study these things to determine if in fact, they're gonna make things safer.
As a bicyclist, I would say no.
Thank you.
The next speaker is Marguerite Richard followed by Zahani Smith.
And by the way, I do have a picture of it if anyone's interested, haven't seen it.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Marguerite Richard and I'm back again and I brought another face because you don't show my face.
Is this one good enough?
She said, don't bring me down today.
Yeah, you familiar with her?
Yeah, look at this face.
Is this a good enough face since you don't wanna show our faces?
Yeah.
The next thing I wrote down was immigrants.
passed something up in here the other day.
And I'm wondering what you're gonna do with indigenous blacks, okay?
We migrated through the slave trade and still you gonna vote on some caste system.
And Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King talked about it.
So that immigrant commission, I don't know if that's something that set in place just to help a certain group.
or population of people, because my understanding was that the mayor, Bruce Harrell, was trying to take all the indigenous black people out of the CD, move them further out south, and then I guess dissolve them all together.
I would like to see that one, because there is a God.
He's everywhere.
He's seeing all of this wickedness and evilness and banefulness that's going on up in here.
And he said, all souls are mine.
That's why I'm talking about immigration commission, because you're making provisions for a certain group of people and discrimination is illegal in this country, whether you say or not.
I'm going on the record with it.
You need to get an indigenous black commission going full force with our reparations and get your foot off our necks.
Thank you.
The next speaker is, forgive me if I'm mispronouncing your name, Azaneh Smith.
Hello, my name's actually Asian a Smith.
You guys tend to get my name wrong repetitively, but it's Asian a Smith and hopefully you guys can remember it and I can get to know you guys as well.
The first thing I want to talk about is, I guess, civil rights, as it is on.
or is a part of your committee.
Like my aunt stated, you guys show your guys's faces.
And when we have these committees, or we have these gatherings together, And you don't show the people's face, but in the eyes of God, we are all equal doesn't matter if you're on a committee doesn't matter what job you hold we are all equal in the eyes of God so.
You need to show that equality because if you're not showing that equality, you're showing your people that you are not civil or right.
So there shouldn't not be a Civil Rights Committee existing if you guys are not implementing that.
Also, culture.
Does our culture matter?
Because your people are still homeless and strung out on drugs, right?
But are we culturally bringing anything together?
And are we culturally together?
No, you guys need to start bringing more things about bringing and gathering people together versus a lot of these listings about immigrants, like my aunt says, but what about the people who are forced to be here?
We didn't have a choice, but we are still discriminated against.
And I feel like that's a problem, but you guys can make a vote or have voting for discrimination.
It shouldn't exist, it's wrong.
Thank you very much.
I believe that concludes our list of speakers.
Still nobody online, is that right, Devin?
Yeah, okay.
Okay, at this point, then I will close public comment and we will move on to our 1st item on the agenda.
Definitely please.
Oh, so we'll start with the committee's consent agenda.
which consists of appointments to boards and commissions.
As a reminder, this consent agenda functions like the city council consent agenda, where colleagues can pull items for discussion if they choose.
Otherwise, we'll have all items voted on as a package.
So, Devin, will you please read the consent agenda items into the record?
Agenda items 1 through 12, appointments 02640 through 02649. 026478 and 026480 appointments to the Seattle Immigrants and Refugees Community, Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority, Seattle Youth Commission, and the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.
Okay, so what I'm going to do is read through the list, the individual and the commission.
And if colleagues, if anybody wants to remove somebody from the consent agenda, please let me know.
So we have the reappointment of Nahid Aftab as a member of the Seattle Immigrant and Refugee Commission for a term through January 31, 2024. Appointment of Hajer Al-Faham as a member of the Seattle Immigrant and Refugee Commission for a term to, I think this is a typo, January 2023, it says.
We will get clarity on that one.
Appointment of Heather Yang Wallach as a member of the Immigrant and Refugee Commission.
Appointment of Gul Siddiqui as a member of the Seattle Immigrant and Refugee Commission.
Appointment of Matthew Courtois as a member of the Pike Place Market Preservation Development Authority Governing Council for a term through June 30, 2024. Appointment of Joelle Vidovati as a member of the Seattle Youth Commission for a term through August 31, 2023. Appointment of Karen True as a member of the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to November 30th, 2026. Appointment of Margaret Norton Arnold to the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term through June 30th, 2026. Reappointment of Nick Setton as a member of the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to June 30th, 2026. Appointment of Jan Hendrickson as a member of the Pike Place Market Preservation Development Authority Governing Council for a term through June 30, 2023. Reappointment of David McComb as a member of the Pike Place Market PDA Governing Council for a term through June 30, 2025. And lastly, a reappointment of JJ McKay as a member of the Pike Market PDA Governing Council for a term to June 30, 2026. Okay, are there any appointments that committee members would like to pull to discuss individually?
Council Member Nelson.
I'm not pulling to discuss.
I just wanted to make a comment about one of the re-employments, which I normally don't do.
But I just want to say that I want to note that JJ McKay's service so far on the Pike Place Board has been invaluable.
And he is really a true leader, not just on that board, but his previous work on boards and service to the city is noted.
And I just wanted to say that he's also a board member of Mary's Place and an advisory board member of the Daily Beast, Seattle Opera, I mean, Seattle Center 50th anniversary celebration.
So I just wanted to thank him for continuing to serve.
Terrific.
Thank you very much.
Any other comments, colleagues?
Okay, so I'm going to move that the committee recommend approval of these appointments.
Is there a second?
Second.
Thank you.
It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval of these appointments and reappointments.
Devin, will you please call the roll?
Council Member Lewis?
Yes.
Council Member Nelson?
Aye.
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Chair Morales?
Yes.
All in favor?
Thank you.
The motion carries, and the committee recommendation that council approve these appointments will be sent to the March 7th, 2023 City Council meeting.
Okay.
Clerk, will you please read item 13 into the record?
Agenda item 13, Department of Education and Early Learning deal, in parentheses, student mental health presentation for briefing and discussions.
Great, thank you very much.
We do have some folks here from DEEL, and I will pass it to you in just a moment.
But before I do that, I do want to start with just a little bit of context here.
In the last budget cycle, we added several council budget actions that addressed funding, particularly for student mental health.
And so the presentation we're going to hear today is a response to one of the budget actions that requested a list of possible sources for additional funding for student mental health.
So that's what we'll be discussing today.
There were two other council budget actions that provided funding.
We had the deal budget action that added a million dollars in jumpstart funding in 2023. and a million dollars in jumpstart funding 2024. That's one-time funding.
And that was to expand mental health services available in school-based health centers.
And then we had an additional CBA that added $500,000 in FEPP levy dollars in 2023 and $500,000 in FEPP levy dollars for 2024. So together, these increased funding for school-based health centers to $9.4 million in 2023 and $9.6 million in 2024. And then $2 million in each year is specifically allocated for expanding mental health services in schools.
So I just wanted to make sure that we set that context for this discussion.
I will have a few questions for the panel after your presentation.
But for now, I want to pass it to Director of DEEL, Duane Chappell, if you could introduce your team here and we'll get started.
Yes, thank you.
Good morning, Councilman Morales and the other council members present.
Good to see you all today.
It is, as always, an honor to be here with my amazing colleagues that you'll hear from in a moment.
Our K-12 and Division Director, Chris Alejandro and Amelia Moore, she's our Strategy and Engagement Manager here, that'll be talking to us and walking us through everything that you just mentioned.
Just before we dive in, just a quick reminder, Just as you all know, the Department of Education and Early Learning, what we want for all of our youth and children and families here in Seattle, we want them all to have access to quality, affordable child care.
We want all of our Seattle children ready for kindergarten.
We want all of our Seattle students to graduate high school ready for college.
And we want all of them, or should I say Seattle youth to obtain some type of degree or credential.
Just wanted to just also share that with everyone.
But with that said, as you mentioned, Council Member Morales, we're gonna provide an overview and I'm going to pass this over to Chris that will get us started.
Good morning, everyone.
appreciate the opportunity Councilmember Morales and other members of the committee.
My name is Chris Alejano.
I serve as the K-12 post-secondary division director at DEEL.
And just by way of general background and overview, this slide really provides a summary of the slide requests, which really Um, ask deal to provide a report on all current and potential sources of funds for student mental health supports at SPS, uh, including looking at, uh, these funding sources, uh, as well from federal state County city.
And the district itself as well as philanthropy.
Um, so, uh, we're also, we're asked to report, uh, and include any opportunities that the city might have to leverage funds from other resources or other sources to.
support our mental health needs in schools.
So just to be clear and up front, you know, our interpretation of the slide was really to look at our current 2022-23 school year supports as well as the fund sources that are outlined here.
And yeah, up front, we know that many across our system has responsibility to addressing the mental health needs of students.
For SPS, Washington State and the district really are the primary funders of mental health supports for K-12 students within schools.
And so this report that we submitted and the overview we're providing to you today Um, really reflects the supports that are funded for this current 2022 23 school year.
Um, and therefore, uh, the, the summary table that was included in the report, uh, does not necessarily include the $4 million, uh, over the biennium, uh, in the 2023 adopted in 2024 endorsed city budget for mental health support.
Works for K-12 students from the jumpstart payroll X expense tax, uh, the levy and the general fund revenues.
All that to say, again, mental health supports for K-12 students come primarily from the state.
OSPI then issues the money to districts based on minimum staffing levels.
I will note that in 2022, the legislature increased the number of school counselors and nurses considered to be part of basic education, but as we all know, still not enough to really address the need that we see in schools by and large.
As most of us know, schools can issue levies to fill funding gaps, but of course the amount that they can ask for is capped by law.
So in terms of the SPS operating fund budget that can also be used to fill funding gaps through a mix of state and local taxes, federal funding and grants.
And then the district also has a mental health services department, which supports the promotion and access of mental health and wellness.
You can see on the right side of this slide, the other fund sources that also play a sort of a mix of funding to fill in gaps for the district and schools.
And then I'm gonna pass it over to Amelia.
Thank you, Chris.
Good morning, everyone.
I'm Amelia Moore, the Strategy and Engagement Manager with Department of Education and Early Learning.
And as Chris said, we appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today.
So the range of funding sources that Chris just described is used by SPS to offer students a wide variety of mental health supports.
And that goes across a continuum of care.
And that ranges from direct clinical care.
So an example of direct clinical care would be licensed mental health clinicians who are offering care within school based health centers, all the way to social emotional learning offered in schools through dedicated time within the school day.
So an example of that would be leading students through a restorative circle practice.
So DEEL's been working with partners at Public Health Seattle-King County and Seattle Public Schools, as well as our partners at community-based organizations and engaging with students and mental health activists to identify some of the mental health issues that our students are currently facing.
And what we have learned and what we want to be sure to emphasize is that there has been identified a critical gap for providing effective, feeling-centered, trauma-informed services for our Black, Indigenous, and people of color students with services that are culturally specific and responsive.
So for our BIPOC students, they may be hesitant or face additional barriers in seeking out direct clinical support services.
to address some of the mental health issues that they are facing.
There's a variety of root causes to these barriers, the primary one being a lack of certified mental health clinicians who share BIPOC students identities and who have similar lived experiences.
So As you see on the slide, Deal and our partners want to really call out that the urgency of the mental health crisis that our youth are facing, it truly requires a broad, multifaceted strategy that will deliver supports for students in a variety of ways across this continuum that will be inclusive of both clinical and non-clinical approaches that are culturally responsive, localized to communities, and most importantly, directly informed by youth and family needs.
So the Seattle Public School Current and Potential Mental Health Summary Tables that are included in this Statement of Legislative Intent, those are inclusive of these multifaceted supports across the continuum that I just described.
The two tables in the Statement of Legislative Intent include current and potential sources of funds across this continuum that have a direct and intentional impact on student mental health.
So this slide in front of you summarizes the findings of the first table and that's the current use of funds table.
We also want to note that the table is not comprehensive, so funding sources that are used to support programming which may include mental health components are not included here.
Additionally, funding for student mental health supports or other social emotional learning that's available outside of Seattle Public Schools and off-site.
So services provided by our community-based organizations or community-based health care clinics that are serving SPS students but that are offered off-site are not included here.
And you can see here in the table, you can see the source of current funding, so city, county, state, federal, and philanthropy, and also the number of investments in each continuum category.
So, from clinical to non-clinical, social, emotional, and culturally specific responsive supports.
The hybrid category indicates supports that combine continuum categories.
And then you can also see the total amount of funding within the 2022-2023 school year.
I also want to point to the third footnote.
So the city funding total does not include the $8.9 million invested indirect school-based health center funding.
That's because public health cannot provide specific dollars and FTE amounts for mental health providers due to complex graded funding and programming models.
So Chris is going to provide some additional information on the status of the $500,000 that DEEL received in 2022 to expand student mental health supports in SPS and the subsequent student mental health supports pilot that just recently launched in January 2023.
So yeah, as Council Member Morales mentioned earlier on, there were some additional funds that DEEL were provided to help support the mental health needs of students in the district.
And on this slide, you'll see actually in 2022, DEEL was provided 500K to support mental health needs for the 2022-23 school year so that blue continuum or timeline that you see sort of provides you an overview of what we're currently implementing as far as those dollars.
You know, essentially, we asked schools to submit proposals for how they would utilize those funding at those funds.
And then in terms of implementation, we are going to be convening learning communities that involve the pilot schools that are involved in this initial tranche of funds so that we can learn over time about what is or isn't working, engage students, school leaders, our partners in public health and at the district office to really hone in on areas of programming and services that are working for students And so that pilot will then wrap up later in the year around quarter three.
How this phase of the work sort of connects back to our efforts around implementing the 2023 resources.
Our hope is, well, one, we're in the process of finalizing the approach to implement those funds.
But furthermore, we're hoping that that pilot work that is happening in the learning community, knowledge that is built will help to inform the implementation and the rolling out of the 2023 resources.
And then the hope there then is to implement those funding, those funds in the fall for the 2023-24 school year.
I will note that again, as Council Member Morales had shared earlier, that there was a separate car about specifically for Ingram that came in at around $500,000, which is 250K for each year, 2023 and then 2024. So we've been working similarly in partnership with leadership and staff at Ingram, as well as students to help inform the approach for implementation.
So all that to say, that concludes sort of our remarks for the formal presentation, but open up to any questions that the committee might have.
Thank you, everyone.
I do have several questions, and I welcome questions from colleagues as well.
So I want to go to, I just have some clarifying questions to start.
On the range of funding sources, Chris, I think you said that OSPI allocates the funds based on the mental health funds based on school staffing, is that?
Did I hear you right there?
Yeah, there's a formula essentially that the state uses to allocate staffing based on sort of staffing ratios and number of students that are enrolled.
Is that referring to mental health staffing?
That's what I'm trying to understand.
how are the SPS resources allocated and what role does the OSPI play in allocating those?
Yeah, as far as my understanding of it, again, once the state provides sort of the allocation or runs the formula, then the OSPI then issues those funds to the district based on the staffing levels that the funding provides for.
And I might be jumping around here, but can you, do you have information on the total amount specifically for mental health that the district allocates to schools?
I'm not sure, Amelia, was there a specific number that was captured that we can reference or is that something that we might have to come back to Council Member Morales for details?
Yeah, I think in terms of details on SPS is operating budget will have to go back to the district and then and then come back to you.
Yeah, that would be helpful because I think we know that there are lots of challenges right now with the district finances, but it would certainly be helpful to understand what they're allocating here.
Can you talk a little bit, Amelia, on the slide that you covered with the supports continuum, I'm interested to hear a little bit more detail about the kinds of services that can be funded here, and I ask because I've been meeting with students at Rainier Beach High School who have their own ideas about what kind of support they think is valuable.
So I want to see if there's a connection here.
Sure, and I can offer some specific examples.
So for the current pilot that we're launching, again, we encourage schools to implement interventions and supports across this continuum.
So some examples include at Rainier Beach itself, an example of a social emotional learning support.
They're implementing monthly grade level, social emotional learning advisory lessons.
And that's, those are offered through the combination of Rainier Beach's social worker, their MTSS team.
and social work interns and working with students to create 10 grade level social emotional learning advisory lessons that will be delivered monthly.
That aligns with some of the student advocacy that we've heard from student advocates who want dedicated time within the school day specific to social emotional learning.
Within that intervention as well, the MTSS team plan on making home visits, and they're also going to be holding after-hour meetings with students who are continuously absent and their families to create more wraparound supports.
On the clinical side of things, we can look at Denny.
They're partnering with a community-based partner, Southwest Youth and Family Services, to provide family counseling, so on-site at the school, and students and their families may receive up to six hours of therapy on site with local private practitioner and therapist from Southwest Youth and Family Services.
Additionally, if we look at Chief Sealth, also partnering with the community partner for culturally specific responsive approach, they're partnering with Choose 180. They're targeting support specifically to black students.
and they're bringing in professional community members to the campus to work directly with students on restorative practices.
So those are just some examples of the continuum supports that are currently being provided.
Hey Amelia, is it also fair to say that you just mentioned the restorative practices?
I feel like when I had a chance to look at what the Rainier Beach students are asking for, restorative practices is something that they're asking for.
And I believe, Amelia, you need to correct me if I'm wrong, manage my expectations.
I do believe that is what Rainier Beach is actually using some of these dollars for is restorative practices.
Am I right about that?
Yes, you are right about that.
Yeah.
So there's many, uh, there's, uh, uh, many interventions that the rest of this funding for, and, um, they are partnering to have kind of a tiered different system of restorative practices and restorative practices implemented.
So, so council member, I wanted to call that out because that's, uh, what I think you are asking also, excuse me, not asking I, you were there when you and I both heard Rainier Beach students mentioned about, um, them wanting restorative practices in their school.
and I happen to see that prior to this presentation that that is something Rainier Beach High School is using for these resources.
So I wanted to put that out there.
I also wanted to share with you, Council Member, along that continuum that Chris shared at the end of the slide deck, there's going to be another opportunity for us to make sure that we're engaging our young scholars in this, that we're calling them learning community.
So I just wanted you to know that as well.
Thank you, Dr. Chappelle.
And I'll also add within those restorative practices, Rainier Beach is offering it across three different tiers, one of which includes training student peer mentors, so really allowing youth to lead in that space.
And they'll also be holding a series of circles with trained MTSS team and holding conflict circles as an alternative to discipline.
So that is a part of the interventions as well.
Thank you.
Council Member Nelson, you have a question?
Thank you very much.
So I heard that the $500 million is separate from a $250 million that is allocated specifically for Ingram and Stevens, right?
I have a series of questions I'm just trying to understand because just cluing into the details.
So is that correct?
So there's a $4 million allocation over two years.
Of that $4,500,000 is allocated to Ingram.
OK, so that's the sum that we're talking about here.
So there is not additional funding.
I thought that one of you said earlier that there was $250,000.
So that is inclusive of this $500,000.
Sorry, the 500k is the two year allocation.
So broken into two parts, 250k for the first year, 250k for the second year for that 500k total allocation to Ingram.
And that, okay.
I can get, I'll figure out the details later.
But so is this the first time that DEEL has gotten into thinking about funding mental health services
Um, yes and no.
So, uh, it's conflict some somewhat complicated question.
Council member Nelson, uh, uh, our primary sort of investment and resource that we use to support mental health comes from the levy via, um, our school based health centers.
Um, and Amelia had made reference to that, uh, a little bit in her portion of the presentation.
Um, and then more recently, uh, through an investment that we received, um, uh, to support, uh, black girls and LGBTQ youth.
Um, we had done a landscape study of, um, of youth that, uh, match that, uh, those characteristics and attributes.
And out of that landscape study, um, what was shared with us was a need for additional mental health support and services.
So.
That's, again, a fairly new investment that we're overseeing that has a component that addresses the mental health needs specific to Black girls, young women, and LGBTQ youth that we're doing some additional learning that helps to complement, to be honest, the work and the funding and resources that we're receiving specific to these funds that we're talking about today.
Okay.
So is it possible that this, this is probably, I understand that this is funding that was allocated for this biennium, but it's, it's very possible that this could be, you know, there, there will probably be demand that this be, uh, continued.
So is it ever contemplated that this could be wrapped up into the, um, into the levy expenses?
Because right now it's coming out of the general fund.
I think that's part of the calculation we're trying to make here as far as, um, the bigger picture.
Um, right.
What is the lane that the city of Seattle slash deal out of play in the space and addressing these particular needs.
And again, we're going to make the most of what we have available to us.
Um, again, engage our partners and students in the learning of that.
See if we can hone in our focus, create a framework.
for mental health that helps to guide us and our investments in this space.
But then make the most of the limited available resources because we certainly know that the levy is not going to be able to address all the systemic needs.
So we're going to have to really be diligent on making the most of what resources we may have, as well as work with our federal, state, county partners to address the holistic need.
Okay, the last thing is that what I hear a lot is the demand for more counselors across the district.
So is as you're thinking about how to deploy this funding going forward, could any of this be for actual employees in a school to help students on site?
So, yes.
But being said, it's all within this context of sort of Stop funding budgets at SPS declining because of enrollment, etc.
So for schools to make the decision, this money could pay for it.
That's what I'm thinking.
Sure.
But I suppose schools need to be really sure, you know, certain that, you know, once they invest in an FTE, that they'll have the resources to keep that up, because I think the Worst case scenario is you use these resources or any other available resources that you have for a counselor, for example, at Denny, only then to find out the next year with budget woes that you no longer have those resources.
And then you'll ultimately then have to let that person go.
So there's a certain sort of prioritization that schools and the districts need to run through a process to figure out.
of all their staff that they have available to them sort of stay or go or get cut or otherwise.
So it's a tricky balance.
Council Member Nelson.
It's our money, though.
So, I mean, I'm not talking about the school district's money, you know.
I think there's a bigger context right here.
Right now is that the district itself is unsure what schools are going to be open.
There's conversation happening about consolidation, school closure, and so the bigger context is the district itself is facing a $140 million deficit projected.
So, we don't know where might be the appropriate place to allocate city dollars when the district itself is unsure.
Which is what's being resolved, but yeah.
Sorry, I interrupted you, Dr. Spill.
No, I was just going to just share Council Member Nelson, which is why our approach is very intentional and strategic because one size doesn't fit all, right?
What we heard from Rainier Beach High School students, is not the same thing that we heard from Ingram High School students as we're listening to these scholars.
And we want to make sure that we're very intentional and that we can meet the needs of each community.
And just to even be more specific, a counselor might not be what's needed for one community.
As you heard Amelia just mentioned that Chief Sealth and Rainier Beach are using restorative practices.
So all of that to say that we're very intentional Council Member Nelson to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the communities that we're going to be serving and allowing them to have a lot of feedback into this.
One of my last thing, Council Member Nelson, I'm happy to take some time and do a deeper dive with you one-on-one whenever we need to.
Thanks.
I did have one additional, very related question.
So we know that some of this funding was particularly, as we've mentioned, carved out for Ingram High School.
I've been talking with students in the south end schools who, you know, are very concerned about their too frequent exposure to gun violence and who are very, to make sure that their needs and priorities and preferences for how this money gets used are included in the conversation here.
I did email, I know that you're working with Public Health Seattle King County, you're working with the school district.
I had sent an email asking in what ways students could be included in these decision making processes.
They aren't interested in just providing feedback.
I appreciate the chart, the sort of arrow chart that you included, but the interpretation that I take away from this and was actually given in response, an email response from public health is that, you know, students will be provided an opportunity to provide feedback.
I think students are asking for much more than that.
They're asking for ownership, some degree of ownership over this process, particularly as I'm sure you can imagine after feeling like, you know, one school got singled out after one very tragic incident and their school regularly experiences this kind of trauma.
So I guess my question back to you and to public health and to the district as we're talking about what implementation of these dollars looks like is how do we make sure that students have an opportunity to provide more than just feedback?
You know, they have some very specific ideas.
I took notes at our last meeting.
They're interested in Mercer Island School District has a natural helper program that is peer to peer training.
They're interested in students being paid or compensated in some way for the work that they're doing.
You know, if it's not compensation, maybe it's.
community service hours credits or something like that.
You know, they want to be part of these meetings about how to use these dollars.
And and I don't know if that's student representation in this election process, you know, if there's going to be an RFP, if it's a separate student advisory committee that approves a funding strategy.
Those are some of the ideas that have come up and I just want to hear from you a little bit about what we might be able to do together to make sure that students are more actively involved in this.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you for that question.
Because we really truly want to be able to co-design this with students and families and not just get a co-sign or get feedback or do a focus group with students and call it a day.
So one specific thing we're doing is inviting student representation to the learning community that Chris talked about.
That's part of the pilot that's currently being launched.
So the learning community will have pilot schools as well as CBO partners And we're also asking for student representation so from the Seattle Student Union as well as students who are on those campuses, and part of the work of the learning community will be to produce a mental student mental health supports framework investment framework that will really guide.
how these funds are being used.
And so we want students to be an active part of creating that framework.
And again, not just to co-sign it.
So they'll be a part of the learning community.
We'll also be doing a landscape analysis, and that will be a mix of qualitative and quantitative data, but we want to have students and families involved.
in that analysis as well.
And then I'll also just point to that the schools in the current pilot are also being very intentional in involving students in the design of different interventions.
So Aki and Denny specifically have funding carved out for their ASB students to help design different interventions.
And so we really are trying to center student voice here.
And even in thinking through the continuum and the different supports that are on that continuum, As Chris mentioned, through some of our current work and investment with Black girls and queer and transgender youth, a lot of those organizations are very focused on youth-led mental health advocacy.
So some of the definitions on that continuum, such as the social-emotional learning, come directly from youth who are serving as community advocates for student mental health supports.
And so some of that language is taken directly actually from our youth advocates.
So really appreciate the intentionality though that you're calling out and it's definitely going to be embedded and an important part of how we move forward.
I appreciate that, Amelia.
I would be interested in following up with you to see how we can share that array of options that you're talking about with the students that we've been meeting with in the South End so that they can understand and can figure out for themselves where are good places to plug in.
Thank you.
Okay, colleagues, any other questions or comments about the presentation?
Okay, great.
I'm not seeing any.
I want to thank all of you for sharing this.
This is a complex issue given the variety of funding sources and given that we are not the school district.
So there are limited ways for us to engage, but this is obviously a really important one.
And I think, you know, our students certainly benefit from what we as a city are able to provide with these FEPP levy dollars.
So I think it's important for us to make sure that they in return understand and are part of the loops of information so they can advocate for themselves with this as well.
Okay.
I want to thank you all for being here.
We've got a couple of things we'll follow up on, but really appreciate your presentation today.
Thanks so much.
Well, thank you again.
We appreciate coming to the committee as always, and we look forward to talking with you all later.
And again, we appreciate all that you all are doing to help not only to support us, but support the city as well.
So have a great day.
Thanks so much.
Bye bye.
All right, colleagues, that concludes today's meeting of the Neighborhood Education, Civil Rights and Culture Committee.
Our next meeting is scheduled for March 10. Thanks for being here, everyone.
It is 1021 and we're adjourned.
Thank you.