Select Committee on the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy 6/10/2026

Do this chair.

Let's do this.

Sorry.

I have to get a pen.

All right.

Good morning, everyone.

The June 10th, 2026 meeting of the select committee on the families, education, preschool and promise levy six year implementation and evaluation plan will come to order.

It's 9 32 AM.

I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Juarez.

Here.

Council member Kettle.

Council member Lynn.

Here.

Council member Rink.

Here.

Council member Saka.

Morning, here.

Council member Strauss.

Here.

Council member Foster.

Here.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Chair Rivera.

Present.

And Council Members Kettle and Hollingsworth are excused until they get here today.

Thank you Clerk.

Today we'll be hearing an overview of the Mayor's proposed FEP Levy Implementation and Evaluation Plan from the Mayor's Office and the Department of Early Education.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on this agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have two in-person speakers and two remote speakers.

Thank you, clerk.

Given that each speaker will have two minutes.

Clerk, will you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered.

We will start with in-person speakers first then remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

All right, Janet Boyette, followed by Remen Basha, and then we'll go to online.

Welcome.

Good morning.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Janet Boyette and I'm a school nurse.

All right, Janet, give us one minute.

I think there's a timer off.

We don't see it up there.

One moment.

Apologies.

There we go.

Okay.

Go ahead, Janet.

Thank you.

My name's Janet Boyette, and I'm a school nurse serving here in Seattle.

For more than a decade, I've screened thousands of children for vision problems, and I see every day how untreated vision is impacting learning.

Students struggle to read, focus, and fully participate in the classroom.

It's not a small issue.

It's significant and a persistent barrier to student access.

In our Title I schools, a recent survey revealed that 50% of students did not receive care when they were referred.

And those that are not reading by the fourth grade are 25% less likely to graduate.

Although state-funded vision coverage has improved access, major problems and gaps remain.

Many providers no longer accept state insurance due to the low reimbursement rates, and those who do often have long wait times.

Students identified in the fall may not be seen until months later.

And even when they are seen, the care is limited, and the glasses provided break because they are not designed to withstand children's playing.

And when they are lost, they are not easily replaced.

Each year, school nurses screen tens of thousands of students in our district in just a few months, creating a bottleneck for follow-up care.

As a result, many children grow untreated.

Some families have barriers to access, misunderstanding vision needs, and fear of engaging in systems.

These delays lead to serious consequences, including permanent vision loss, and they result in lost instructional time and inequitable outcomes.

There's a proven solution to school-based vision services.

Like Cities for Baltimore, they've demonstrated that bringing care...

Janet, if you have additional comments, just feel...

Welcome.

Hi.

Good morning, everybody.

My name is Raman Basha.

I work with an organization called FEAST.

FEAST helps promote mental health campaigns as well as food justice campaigns within high schools around Seattle Public Schools as well as the Highline School District.

And we help students advocate and fight for the things that the changes that they want to see inside of their schools.

In 2019, the FEP levy first passed, I'm sure as you all know.

And similarly, in 2019, FEAST was fighting to organize students to help serve culturally relevant foods in schools like pho and curry, ensuring that students had healthy snacks throughout the day, especially fruits.

Attending meetings, oh sorry, Students were able to attend meetings like this one, talking to decision makers, advocating for the things that they wanted and the things that they needed.

Something that FEAST was still fighting for and unable to see was free lunches.

And for the past seven years, FEAST has continued to fight for free lunch.

And today, coming and listening to the FEP Levy and understanding that free lunch is something that will be passed is extremely monumental for us.

With this version of the FEP levy, free school lunch will become a reality for all students, and this is important regardless of age, regardless of financial status.

Making school lunch free for all students removes stigma around what it means to be a free lunch kid, right?

We understand that eating breakfast and lunch at school is for many kids the only time that they might have access to a meal.

When students don't have access to food, it affects everything in their lives, their mental, their physical health, performance in schools, and their attendance.

All of these issues can then ultimately snowball and lead to greater issues.

This is why we see such a large school to prison pipeline, right?

And something like school lunch being the solution to that is so awesome.

By removing the barrier of cost, we ease the access to students to help them thrive.

However, we cannot stop here.

Free school lunch is a pixel of the issue.

When school lunches are continued to be undesirable, which we have heard time and time by students, just because it's free doesn't mean they'll take it, right?

If it's bad, the quality is not good.

Thank you, thank you, Remen.

Remen, am I saying your name right?

I'm so sorry.

Yeah, you are.

It's like lemon, but with an R, Remen.

Great, Remen, I got it.

Thank you, thank you, Remen.

All right, we'll go to our online speakers.

We have Lisa Bonin and Waylon Robert.

Please press star six, Lisa, and you may begin.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Lisa Bonine and I work with United Way of King County.

My work addresses childhood hunger here in Seattle and across Washington State.

I'm here today to share my strong support for the inclusion of universal free school meals in the FEP Levy implementation plan and to thank the City of Seattle for making this investment.

This is a big deal.

We know that students learn better when they are fed.

Universal school meals are an effective way of addressing childhood hunger, reducing stigma, and relieving pressure on household grocery budgets.

This is also an equity investment.

Many families in Seattle fall just outside of the traditional eligibility guidelines for free school meals or face barriers completing meal applications.

We are grateful to the Mayor, City Council, the Department of Education and Early Learning, and Seattle Public Schools for recognizing that school meals are a critical part of what students need to be healthy, successful, and ready to learn.

Thank you so much for your leadership.

Thank you, Lisa.

Waylon Robert, please press star six and you may begin.

Good morning.

My name is Waylon Roberts.

I'm a merchant seaman and political director for the Seattle branch of the Sailors Union of the Pacific.

We've been on the Seattle waterfront since 1885. Many of you know there's a national shortage of mariners.

A few years, a study came out from United States Transcom that we have an 1800 mariner deficit nationally.

A few years ago, it would take a day for my boss, Brendan Bohannon, our branch agent, to fill the crew of a ship.

Now it may take a week.

This puts our regional trade and our national security in jeopardy.

We are having the same issue on the Washington state ferries, on local tugs and barges.

On average, it costs somebody about $2,500 to enter the industry, whether it's working on a sound or in the deep sea.

I think that we believe that our next generation of Mariners should come from here in Seattle.

These are living wage jobs.

On average, $80,000 to $120,000 is what Mariners make.

So we are extremely appreciative of the mayor, including this program of $200,000 to train the next generation of Mariners.

This is modeling a program that we received $200,000 from the state of Washington.

So I hope that we can continue on the success and get 40 new Mariners out of this program to work on our waterfront and around the world.

Maritime is 20% of our city's tax base and I hope that you will further this opportunity for people.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Whalen.

All right.

Clerk, are there any other speakers?

Chair, that was the last registered speaker.

All right.

There are no additional registered speakers.

The public comment period is now closed.

We'll proceed to our item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one and to the record.

Agenda item one, families, education, preschool and promise levy implementation and evaluation plan executive presentation for briefing and discussion.

Thank you clerk and let the record reflect the council member Kettle has joined us in chambers Colleagues, this is the first select committee meeting on the Families Education Preschool Promise Implementation and Evaluation Plan, also known as FEP-INE, for short.

I want to ensure that we all have an equal opportunity to hear and give input on the FEP-INE plan, which is why I requested, and I want to thank Council President for her support to create this select committee, rather than work the I&E plan through my regular Libraries Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

This was really important to me that we were all working on this at the same time.

Thank you all for making the time to join this select committee and engaging in this process.

and I know that we collectively care so much about this.

All of the investments are in our FEP levy.

As you know, the FEP I&E is required by the FEP levy.

That is, it was specifically called out in the levy ordinance language and it is the plan by which the levy work will be done.

The levy outlined for voters what the city would spend the levy funds on and how outcomes and performance will be measured for all six years.

As the levy language indicated, quote, the plan shall set forth the following.

Priority criteria, including type of educational support, methodology and process by which these levy-funded strategies will be selected, and the procedure for regularly monitoring and evaluating overall impacts and outcomes of each of the individual investments." The Mayor's Office and the Department of Education and Early Learning are here today to present and give details on the Mayor's proposed I&E Plan. Colleagues, I know that you had the opportunity to meet with the department and our central staff to hear about your priorities as Deal was working on this proposal, most of which I believe are reflected in the plan. Of course, the department built the plan according to the specifications of the levy language to ensure we're doing what we told voters we were going to do. My goal as part of this process is to provide the level of accountability and transparency that voters expected when they voted to tax themselves to provide these important and needed investments, which is why the evaluation is a big part of this plan. I am so proud of the city's levy investments to date, and I am so proud that I've been able to be here working with Director Chappelle and Deal since the last levy was passed. And I look forward to the continuation of the services provided to our kids from early childhood through college or trade programs. We will have in total four select committees today's meeting to present the mayor's proposed I&E plan. On June 30th, we're gonna hear from our central staffers, Jasmine Marwaha and Tracy Ratcliffe, who will be presenting on policy considerations and potential amendments. On July 8th, we will have a briefing discussion and possible vote on proposed amendments, and perhaps if we're ready, and it is my hope we will be, a vote on the I&E plan as amended, but if we should need additional time, we have reserved July 22nd for final select committee vote if we should need it. With that said, I wanna invite Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt to the table and Director Chappelle and Marissa, So we can get started on today's meeting and hearing from them on the mayor's proposal and colleagues. We're gonna let them complete their presentation and then I'll take questions. We'll reserve questions for the end. So thank you for your patience on that. Please state your name for the record and then you can start your presentation. Thank you for being here today.

Good morning, Chair and Council Members.

Brian Surratt, Deputy Mayor.

Good morning, Chair and all Councilmembers.

I'm Dwayne Chappelle, Director and Proud Director of Department of Education Early Learning.

Good morning, Council.

Marissa Roussel, Director of Impact and External Affairs for DEAL.

Great.

Let's go.

Let's let us go.

Let us go.

Good morning again.

I'm Brian Surratt, Deputy Mayor, and I'm going to offer some brief remarks on a few of the opening slides and then I'll turn it over to Director Chappelle and Marissa to go the balance of other presentation.

But I want to just share that today, as you noted, Chair, that we are outlining the executive's vision for implementation and what good stewardship means for this levy.

The FEP levy, as you know, is an incredible investment for our city, our young people, Director Chappelle will speak to the investment details and Marissa will support any in response to any questions that you may have at the conclusion of our formal presentation.

As you all know, this effort began in 2025 and many of you play key roles in bringing this ballot measure to the public.

Chair Rivera, President Hollingsworth, Councilmembers Juarez, Kettle, Rink, Saka and Strauss, your leadership last year and into this year have been critical and is felt and deeply appreciated.

Councilmembers Foster and Lynn, it's been great to learn of your priorities as you step into office and we look forward to continue working with all of you in making sure that this levy is implemented and we can proudly all stand up together and say that we are investing in our people in Seattle.

The vision for Every Child is Ready is Plain.

All Seattle children and youth, especially those who have been historically underserved, will attain the skills and the credentials that we need to make a living wage and thrive in this city.

The FEP levy investments are designed to benefit those furthest from opportunity and close raise-based opportunity gaps.

You'll see data in this presentation indicating the current citywide trends in child readiness for kindergarten, college, career, and what it takes to earn a college degree or certificate.

You'll see the opportunity gap data, which is what we're trying to address.

We seek to improve on both these measures by 2031 and demonstrate that with focused investment, in partnership with qualified partners, we can set our youth up for success in the future.

The presentation is going to be organized in three domains of investment.

Ready to start, ready to learn, and ready to launch.

Ready to start in blue focuses on laying out a strong foundation for child learning and development through signature investments like child co-payer support and universal preschool.

Ready to Learn Green supports our K through 12 youth and ensures that they are safe, healthy, nourished, and ready to learn both in the classroom, after school, and in their communities.

And Ready to Launch in Orange will accelerate career opportunities for young people by reducing economic barriers to higher education and continue learning.

This new levy presents an important opportunity to align youth serving departments around common grant making, reporting, and service quality standards.

This alignment and this quality implementation of services is an expectation of the mayor's office, and I know an expectation of each and every one of you.

Our goal is to reduce inefficiencies, improve outcomes for children and youth, and ultimately maximize this important investment to the benefit of all Seattle residents.

There are six tenets of good governance that will be leveraged as part of this levy.

I would like to highlight just a few of those, and Dr. Chappelle will go into the rest in the presentation.

But the two I wanted to highlight Competitive funding.

This process gives organizations an opportunity to compete for limited resources and promotes award and grants to the most qualified and highest impact providers.

It's important, though, as we do our competitive process, to create opportunities for emerging and new organizations who are unable to apply previously.

We will be, though, offering limited direct awards that are permissible and will be used to ensure that a continuity of services, sole source expertise, and time critical gaps.

The other highlight I want to note is the oversight committee.

This will play an important function in monitoring and advising the FEP awards.

In partnership with this chair of the committee here, this body will consult on investment design, performance monitoring, evaluation findings, and possible modifications to the levy funded services over time.

Mayoral appointees have been identified and we look forward to engaging each and every one of you during the council appointment process.

On my final note, before I turn it over to Director Chappell, I want to thank Chair Rivera for raising the bar and including quarterly reporting as a requirement of this levy.

When everyone knows that they'll be reporting publicly every 90 days, quality and commitment to delivering services will be signaled as a priority.

This is not just a compliance requirement.

It is how we build a culture of continuous quality improvement across all departments.

And with that, I'd like to pass it on to my friends and the proud director of DEAL, Dr. Duane Chappelle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Surratt.

Before I walk you through our investments council, I just want to acknowledge that this plan was built with community and partners along the way.

and this was even before April of 2025. So as we prepare to conclude the FEP 2018 implementation this summer, I just wanted to take a brief moment to thank all of our partners that have been serving our children and youth alongside us.

And we will continue to celebrate what worked, and just be honest about what didn't.

Our evaluations showed us where programs were thriving, where families or students were still not achieving.

We listened, we adjusted, and that learning is what shaped every investment decision you'll see today.

So in April of 2025, the Every Child Ready initiative was announced and built on that foundation.

Two months later, this Council unanimously placed the FEB levy on the ballot, and in November of 2025, Seattle voters, what did they do?

They responded with 80% approval, the highest education levy vote in our city's history.

from November through March, we kept listening.

Over 1,500 people with input gathered across multiple languages, and they shaped what you'll see in the plan today.

So that brings us here to the transmittal and to the legislative process.

So your review, your attention, and approval of the details will ensure that we get this right for what Seattle voters asked us to do.

And looking ahead from now through 2031, once approved by the Council, this levy will enter six years of implementation.

with rigorous monitoring and accountability to ensure we're achieving the goals our community entrusted us to deliver with transparency and accountability.

So I wanna also take a moment to reflect on what this vote represents.

80% approval.

$1.3 billion over six years.

The seventh consecutive levy since 1990. More than 100,000 children and youth served annually.

The implementation and evaluation plan is how we honor that trust by translating voter intent into clear spending priorities, measurable outcomes, and public accountability through 2031. So, at its core, the FEP levy exists to invest in children and families from cradle to career, with an intentional focus on advancing racial equity, closing opportunity gaps, and fostering student success.

Every decision in this plan flows from that purpose.

The engagement process that shaped this plan, like I said, it didn't begin last year.

It actually builds on a deep foundation of learning.

Since the start of the 2018 levy, we have conducted 26 formal evaluations 53 survey projects with more than 10,000 responses.

We've had 88 focus groups and interviews, and over 2,000 site visits.

Some of you may have participated as well.

That body of knowledge has been essential in understanding what is working, what needs to change, and where we can do more.

Beginning in January of 2024, we conducted a thorough landscape analysis of local needs, emerging trends, and national best practices, ensuring that this renewal is grounded in evidence and informed by what communities like ours are learning and our learnings across the country.

In July of 24, we formally began engagement with education and community partners, bringing in the people who deliver services and support families every day.

In April of 2025, we broadened that engagement even further to prioritize community voice, because the people most impacted by this levy deserve to be at the center of the decisions being made on their behalf.

And the result you can see is a plan that's shaped by Seattle's communities and their aspirations for our children.

So as we listened to community, six clear themes emerged that are now woven through this plan.

Families called for expanded childcare access, telling us that without affordable options outside of school hours, many simply go without or children be at home on screens.

Yes, on screens.

They asked us...

they asked for stronger school and community partnerships, recognizing that no single institution can meet every need.

They were clear that geographic equity, language access, and culturally responsive services are essential to making this levy work for every Seattle family.

We also heard divergent views on student safety, which this plan takes seriously through continued dialogue and evidence-based approaches.

The community was united in the need for holistic student and family supports.

as one participant said, mental health and food security are not separate from the academic success.

They are the foundation for it.

and we heard genuine concern about workforce recruitment and retention in childcare, in education, and mental health, because we cannot deliver for our children without investing in the people who serve them.

One community member said it best, at the end of the day, we're all here for the same reason, to make sure our kids thrive.

if we work together, we can build something truly transformational.

And that is exactly the spirit driving this plan forward.

So the implementation and evaluation plan is the governing document that defines how this levy will be carried out, how it will be measured and reported on.

It is required by ordinance and it establishes the spending priorities, the grant schedule, the contracting methodology and outcomes that we will be held accountable to.

Importantly, it was informed by what we learned from prior implementation and shaped directly by the community feedback that we just described.

It is also worth being clear about what this plan is not.

It cannot reopen the ballot measure that Council and voters have already approved.

The core commitments of this levy are set.

and it is not a list of pre-selected contractors.

As Deputy Mayor Surratt just mentioned earlier, awards will be made through a competitive process with only the limit exceptions required by the levy itself.

So council members, you also approved a statement of legislation intent in the fall that outlined priorities that you wanted to see addressed in this plan.

And I'll be making reference to where we meet those requests throughout this presentation this morning.

So in short, this plan is our roadmap.

It's transparent, it's accountable, and it's grounded in both the will of voters and the voices of our community.

So now we'll turn to the first of our three pillars, and the first is ready to start.

This section of the levy is about giving every Seattle child the strongest possible foundation before they ever walk through the doors of a kindergarten classroom.

Because we know that what happens in those earliest years shapes everything that comes after.

Our universal goal is clear.

Every Seattle child will enter kindergarten ready for school.

This is a goal that we will measure for all Seattle children as a benchmark for the city's success.

To measure progress towards this goal, we are focused on two core outcomes.

First, that parents have the financial resources, knowledge, and skills to support their child's development, because a child's readiness begins at home.

The second is that children themselves develop the academic and social-emotional skills they need to thrive from day one in the classroom.

This work will reach 6,040 children and families annually, making a direct and measurable difference across our city.

Our data tells us both where we are and where we need to go.

So currently, 68% of children entering Seattle Public Schools are kindergarten ready.

As measured by WA kids, that is our baseline from school year 24 to school years 24 to 25. But the equity measure brings the real challenge into focus.

There is a 43%, there is a 43 percentage point gap between our highest and lowest performing demographic group.

That gap is not acceptable and closing it is at the heart of everything we are working toward in this pillar.

So, Council, what you see here are the funded strategies within the ready-to-start domain.

This table on this screen presents their six-year budget baseline service level, planned expansion if relevant, and the peak annual levy service target.

All service targets will be met in the first year of implementation unless specified.

The baseline service level represents the number of individuals served before 2026 or the 26-27 school year.

You'll also note that preschool and childcare are the largest investments in this domain, representing 70%...

excuse me, 75% of all funding.

and that the Seattle Preschool Program expansion of 600 seats will be achieved by 2031. So how are we investing in this pillar?

Our approach is organized around three strategic actions, sustaining what's working, expanding what we know makes a difference, and innovating where we see the opportunity to do more.

we will sustain a strong portfolio of proven programs, including the Nurse-Family Partnership, Parent-Child Plus, Developmental Bridge, the Child Care Health Program, SPR Child Care Scholarship, that's Seattle Parks and Rec, the Homeless Child Care Program, Child Care Workforce Payments, and Family Child Care Mentorship.

programs that have demonstrated real results for our Seattle families.

We will also expand two high-impact investments, the Child Care Assistance Program and the Seattle Preschool Program, because we know the demand is there and the outcomes are clear.

And we will innovate in three meaningful ways by increasing the CCAP copayment, co-pay support for children's age birth to five to better align with the county and state levels, piloting an SPP extended day and full year model, and launching SPP waitlist vouchers program to reach more families sooner.

So let me walk you through these innovations in a bit more detail.

So one of the most impactful innovations in this plan is our expansion of CCAP subsidies and increased co-pay support for children ages birth to five.

This change will take effect immediately upon adoption in the implementation and evaluation plan.

The need is clear.

childcare costs remain out of reach for many Seattle families, especially for infants and toddlers.

Comparable subsidies through Best Starts for Kids and Working Connections childcare are approximately 40% higher than what CCAP currently provides.

As of this presentation right now, CCAP has helped 741 children from 564 families since January of 2026. That is a program record.

And we are on pace to meet our 2026 target of 1,300.

Last month alone, We serve 390 children ages birth to five.

That's 390 kids whose parents are going to receive an email shortly after this plan is adopted to inform them what?

They are getting more support from the city.

the average expected benefit to families is an additional $370 in support each month, bringing our average subsidy for kids ages birth to five to $1,300 monthly.

I also want to affirm that this plan sustains eligibility for CCAP up to 110% of state median income, which approximates the area median income.

This investment makes childcare more affordable, it makes it more accessible, and more equitable for Seattle families not served by state or county programs.

the SPP-extended day.

Full-year expansion converts roughly 16% of the Seattle Preschool Program seats annually to a 10-hour day and 12-month model.

This approach aligns with ECAP, Early Childhood Education Assistance Program, the state-funded preschool program, which already offers a 10-hour, 12-month model.

income-eligible families enrolled in a classroom participating in the model will now receive 10 hours of care for free, y'all.

10 hours of care for free.

With roughly 70% of SPP families receiving free tuition, This new model is expected to provide 294 children with a four hours additional of free care savings, saving families roughly $1,000 a month.

Planned evaluations will assess if child development and academic outcomes differ across the three SPP models.

So now I'll move over to the SPP Voucher Pilot.

The SPP Voucher Pilot is in response to known waitlists occurring within the SPP model, and which we know has also been a policy priority.

I also wanna note that CD1 had the most providers, when we looked into this with a waitlist, at 12 providers.

In the current school year, citywide, there were 82 children on a waitlist who did not receive a placement offer at a participating SPP provider.

There are also children on multiple waitlists.

These families may be enrolled with one SPP classroom while they wait to move off the waitlist at their preferred classroom.

Within SPP, Seattle Public Schools classrooms have the most children on waitlists, followed by centers who offer 10 hours a day.

For our pilot year, we have budgeted to support 100 families a year with up to $10,000 per child if they are on a SPP waitlist.

The voucher can be used only at participating CCAP providers for insurance and payment reasons.

And we plan for this to start this fall.

Okay, so for funding opportunities.

Now, I wanna speak to competitive funding processes in the START domain.

So we have two planned for this year, selecting the administrator of our childcare worker payments for years two through six of implementation, as well as our annual SPP expansion process to identify providers, sites, and classrooms for expansion.

This expansion also includes program models and expansions and in dual language expansion as well.

And I just want to be clear that these funding processes are for two years.

All planned investments for year one are on schedule.

Again, all of the planned investments for year one, they are on schedule and will be implemented as intended, including the childcare worker payments.

We are administering those payments in partnership with BrightSparks, who were formerly known as the Child Care Resources, who has done so for the last five cycles of payments.

And we anticipate that application to open in September and workers to receive payments in the October to November-ish of this year.

So super excited about that.

So our evaluation schedule.

So as we said at the start, performance monitoring and evaluation is a high priority for the stewardship of this levy.

We have nine planned evaluations in the START domain.

I'll say it again, nine.

In the last levy, the vast majority of the overall evaluation focus was really on the Seattle Preschool Program.

In this levy, you will note that we have allocated resources to adequately evaluate all investments.

There are three types of evaluations planned for this levy.

We have a formative evaluation plan, we have a process, and an outcome evaluation.

So the formative evaluation, what that does, it helps assess how we can improve ongoing investments.

It includes landscape analysis, need assessments, and generates timely action learning that can strengthen investments in progress.

The process evaluation examines the quality and fidelity of implementation.

So this really tells us, how well are we implementing these services?

And the third outcome evaluation tells of if anyone is better off, and you all know that's what we care about.

In other words, did the levy-funded activities contribute in immeasurable improvements to a child and youth outcomes?

So taking these three types of evaluations and applying it to Ready to Start, I just want to call a particular attending the universal childcare and preschool feasibility formative evaluation will actually begin this year.

This work is necessary to plan for Seattle's future and be clear on the funding needed to achieve a vision of universal, affordable childcare.

This study will include a focus on childcare workforce and business sustainability as well.

We know that childcare workers who are predominantly women of color make historically low wages.

a vision of universal childcare needs to address worker wages at the systemic level, as well as if there are a licensed seat for every child.

So I'm excited about that.

Lastly, I just wanna note that there are no planned investments evaluations in year five.

This is so that we can focus on concluding prior evaluations and planning for...

that's right, I'm already thinking about it...

the next levy renewal.

So year six formative research will support the design of any new or expanding investments.

Okay, so now let's move on.

Now let's move on to ready to learn, or should I say kindergarten through 12th grade, where I'll share how we are investing in the learning and growth of K-12 students and youth.

So for the learning domain, our universal goal is that all Seattle youth graduate high school ready, excuse me, graduate high school ready for college and career.

Our outcome measures to track progress on this goal focuses on evidence-based inputs for how youth achieve college and career readiness.

They must develop social, emotional, and workplace skills.

They must be healthy and well-nourished.

They must feel safe and be safe at school.

And they must meet academic targets throughout their learning journey.

All contracts funded by this domain will be assessed for how they contribute to one or more of those outcome measures.

This work will reach more than 30,000 children and youth across a variety of interventions.

The data is clear that we have improvements to be made in this area too.

Across all student groups, only 58% of 3rd, 6th and 9th grade students were meeting a standard of academic progress.

When we dig deeper to look at the opportunity gaps by race, We see percentage point margins ranging from 37% to 54% for our key indicators of college and career readiness, the widest gap appearing on our academic indicators.

These persistent gaps are why we are narrowing our investment focus with planned competitive funding processes and introducing new investment models with this plan.

For the LEARN budget, you'll know our largest investments are in health and expanded learning, representing 80% of the funding.

This level of investment is in direct response to community priorities and needs.

I do want to note that due to the amount of new investment and competitive grants planned for this investment domain, we are currently estimating a reduction in number of youth serves by our investments.

This is our current estimate, and we will be revisiting this projection as part of our RFP design.

This levy will also sustain many existing investments, including Seattle Parks and Recreation environmental learning programs, investments in Seattle Public Schools, middle schools' sports coaching stipends, health, restorative practices, housing stabilization funds, out-of-school time transportation, and the HSD Summer Food Program.

We will expand the school-based health centers as well as access to expanded learning opportunities, such as academic supports, enrichment like STEM, arts, youth leadership, and mentoring through planned RFPs.

We are also introducing three new investments to the levy, the National Best Practice Community Schools Model, opportunity-based mentoring, and free school meals.

Let's learn more.

So, the community schools and supports.

This investment applies the evidence-based community schools model with important refinements from what we've learned in the prior levy.

So let me start by introducing the concept of community schools.

A community school is a place-based partnership between a school, a community-based organization, and community members with integrated focus on four pillars.

The first is expanded learning opportunities to increase access to academic supports, as well as out-of-school time enrichment.

The second is integrated supports such as healthcare or social services.

The third family and community engagement, and the fourth is collaborative leadership.

So DIL, our staff, interviewed 10 cities implementing this model and did an extensive review of national research.

We found that schools and cities implementing this model have shown consistent, improved student attendance, academic outcomes, family and school trust, and youth social-emotional skills development when implemented with fidelity.

We did this deep analysis work because our FEB 2018 investment approach garnered mixed results across funded schools.

Our evaluations found that not all students were receiving the same quality or types of services needed to achieve academic outcomes.

We also saw low alignment between schools and their CBO partners, which really undermined the impact.

Our proposed investment in the community schools model, in addition of increased curriculum standards and frequency of interventions across school and community-based grants, seeks to bring Seattle into a better alignment with national evidence.

We are requiring a dedicated coordinator position at each school a formal CBO partnership and an out-of-school time component.

Those are now non-negotiable elements, not optional.

Again, those are non-negotiable elements, they're not optional.

We're also refining which academic interventions are allowable so dollars are focused on what works.

Full implementation launches in school year 27-28, following a competitive RFP, giving us time to get the right partners in place and continue working with Superintendent Ben and Seattle Public Schools to introduce this new model seamlessly.

Now to our youth safety investments.

When young people are disconnected from school and opportunity, the consequences are real.

This investment focuses on getting upstream of that before the crisis hits.

This proposal builds upon existing community safety investments managed by HSD.

For deal-led investments, we're expanding restorative practices and, importantly, allowing those services to be delivered in community-based settings, not just schools.

That's a meaningful shift that meets young people where they are, particularly those students that are hardest to reach.

We're also introducing opportunity-based mentoring, where youth are economically incentivized for positive engagement in school and in career.

These students need opportunities to see a different path and a trusted mentor to help them walk it.

the evidence base is strong.

Relationship-driven interventions measurably reduce chronic absenteeism, they reduce disciplinary disparities, and justice system involvement for youth who are engaged as well.

These approaches are also aligned with the field and the experts are telling us Just, you know, just this past Monday, Councilmember Rivera hosted the Seattle Violence Prevention Symposium with the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College, just a couple days ago.

And that evidence-based framework presented us, presented there, street outreach, restorative practices, cognitive behavioral therapy, and life coaching.

and those align directly with this proposed youth safety investment.

So we're not operating in isolation, we're building towards the same evidence base that the national experts are pointing to.

These investments add more intentional, integrated approach to youth safety, one grounded in relationships, not just programming, So full implementation follows a competitive RFP, and we'll begin in school year 27-28.

school meals.

This slide highlights the proposed investment in school meals, which is a key part of ensuring every student is truly ready to learn.

With this two-year investment, we can offer free breakfast and lunch to students at up to 53 schools, y'all.

Projected to close the food access gap for up to 6,800 Seattle Public Schools students.

Yes, 6,800 Seattle Public Schools students.

This investment will layer on top of existing federal and state funding and bridge the gap until long-term state funding becomes available for universal school meals.

Mayor Wilson added this investment to the levy in response to Community Voice.

No plan services were impacted with this addition and as funding was carved out from the risk reserve.

If state funding does not become available, we will consult with the FEPP Levy Oversight Committee and come back here, return to council as part of the annual budget process.

And just know that the rationale behind this investment is straightforward but powerful.

First, by supplementing existing federal and state meal programs, we can finally make free school meals district-wide, not just in select schools.

Second, this will eliminate the stigma around school meals, which is a major benefit.

When meals are free for everyone, participation becomes normalized.

Third, this is fundamentally about food security.

Students spend at least seven hours at school each day.

When students have reliable access to nutritious meals, they're better able to concentrate, regulate their emotions, and most importantly, engage academically.

And the fourth, there is clear...

there is a clear economic benefit for families as well.

Free meals reduces daily household costs.

By investing in school meals, we promote equity, remove barriers, support student well-being, and strengthen families, all while setting students up to be ready to learn every day.

Here we go.

Okay, so now that we've covered some funding opportunities, so now that what...

we've covered that what we're investing in.

So let me just speak briefly to how and when we're getting dollars out of the door, because we all know the reality is timing matters, right?

So most funds will be awarded by quarter one of 2027 for years two through six implementation, but several investments launched this year.

Environmental learning, mental health, therapeutic services and the Summer Food Program competitive funding processes all started in quarter two of 2026. We're not waiting to make an impact.

So the sequencing is intentional.

Expanded learning and health investments come first, followed by safety-focused work like restorative practices and opportunity-based mentoring with deeper behavioral health and violence prevention investments phasing in through 2029. It's a layered upstream approach that builds on itself.

The HSD-led grants are continuing contracts with planned rebids from 27 to 2029...

excuse me, 2027 to 2029. I hope you know what I meant by 27. Giving partners the stability to do this work well.

This timing also ensures that new grants will align with and complement awards made by deal to avoid duplication of services and create a robust ecosystem of student supports.

So we have a clear roadmap and I just want you all to know that we are already moving.

A little bit about the evaluation schedule.

So there are 10 planned evaluations in the ready-to-learn domain.

External evaluations will be leveraged to assess utilization and impact for services delivered by community-based partners, funded by levy grants, as well as Seattle Parks and Rec, teen programming, specifically the teen centers and late night.

These evaluations occurring in years one and two, such as for expanded learning, mental health, and safety, just give us more information to make course corrections and adjust investments for later years of the levy to better achieve desired youth outcomes.

So I'm excited about that.

Similar to other domains, there are no planned evaluations in year five for us to prepare for the levy renewal.

Yes, we're already thinking about it.

I said it earlier.

Okay.

We have arrived at the goalpost, which is the ready to launch.

So for the launch domain, our universal goal is that all Seattle youth have access to and utilize post-secondary opportunities that promote attainment of a certificate or credential or a degree.

Our outcome measures to track progress, and this goal focuses on enrollment in a college or career pathway.

continued development of social, emotional, and workplace skills, academic milestone achievement, and ultimately, young adults attaining living wage careers.

This work is expected to benefit nearly 2,000 youth and young adults annually.

For the high school graduating class of 2016 in Seattle, 56% of graduates completed their degree or certificate or apprenticeship by age 26. The opportunity gap on this measure was 47%.

So again, we see both a charge to increase the degree attainment and program completion for all students, as well as a persistent opportunity gap which requires us to be unapologetic about focusing investments on students in most need of support.

In the ready-to-launch bucket, we've included investment-level details on this slide here for you today.

At this domain, has a lot of new investments that were council priorities.

This domain budget is $113 million over six years, with 60% of funding allocated to Seattle Promise and 27% to youth development grants that are led by HSD.

New investments will expand access to college and career pathways with an emphasis on trades, technology, fire, and police careers.

I'll share more about those next.

So again, we continue to sustain...

we continue our sustain, expand, and innovate framework.

We are keeping existing investments...

we are keeping existing investments proven to meet service targets and benefit youth, including the Seattle Promise, the Path to UW Transfer Support Program, the Seattle Youth Employment Program, internships for Promise Scholars, and HSD Youth Development Grants.

I'll share more in a moment about the trades and tech and public service investments next.

So after six years of promise implementation, we know that trade careers are often not pursued despite this being a high-demand field with living wage job opportunities.

Council named this investment as a priority in the early stages of the FEP planning, and our stakeholder engagement affirmed the workforce need as well as the need to increase trade careers awareness and exposure among youth.

at our press conference with Mayor Wilson in late April, we had the pleasure of hearing from Devon Woods, a Cleveland High School graduate and Seaman Masons and Plasters Union, Plasters Local 528 member, who is finishing his journeyman training at South Seattle College.

and I remember he credits his trades career with providing stable wages, benefits, and retirement security for his family and wishes Path to Trades had existed when he graduated so he could have gotten an early start.

Devon's story is what Path to Trades is designed to create for this next generation of our Seattle kids.

This $14 million six-year investment will do exactly that.

Implemented by the Seattle Colleges, leaders in trades education, as well as state accredited partners, this investment is expected to do three things.

Engage students and raise awareness about trades and careers.

Remove barriers to starting and completing training programs, such as upfront costs associated with required tools or supplies.

and to increase the number of students pursuing a trades career.

Our proposed path to tech investment will enhance instruction for Promise Scholars in partnership with Seattle Colleges and the University of Washington.

In our engagement with youth, we heard that young people are interested in these career pathways and they want specialized training opportunities.

We will establish new short-term IT training opportunities led by industry experts and professors and provide students a $500 stipend for participation.

And we expect to serve 65 scholars annually.

the public service careers.

We also know there is Council interest in developing pathways to public service careers.

In consultation with Seattle Fire Department and Seattle Police Department, we recommended investing in existing cadet prep and explorers program by adding a stipend in additional life and workplace skills training.

They share that these programs currently have low participation among youth of color, primarily due to time commitment and a lack of a stipend.

So this enhancement will address those financial barriers to participation, add training skills and training and skills necessary for workplace success, and stands to benefit 90 young adults annually.

Super excited about this one as well.

Thank you.

Okay.

So for the funding opportunities, there are limited funding opportunities in the ready to launch domain.

This year, we will identify accredited partners to support the path to trades expansion.

And in 2027, HSD will have their competitive process for youth development grants.

As always, our evaluation schedule.

There are seven planned evaluations in this domain.

Of particular note is year one formative landscape on college and career pathways.

This evaluation will explore culturally responsive pathways to college and provide insights on additional strategies to promote college access and success for youth of color.

Additional evaluation in this domain will prioritize review of the new trades investments in year three to assess students' experience and understand what hinders or supports student successes or student success.

Okay, so again, I just wanna just thank you all for this opportunity, for us to be here with you all.

And before we open up for questions, I would love to thank all Council Members for your commitment over these past few years.

Really starting with Council Member Rivera, you know, who I've known for quite some time.

We started with the Seattle Promise, and now we get to continue to build with more opportunity with students in the trades and careers.

Councilmember Hollinsworth, you know, dirty hands, clean money.

You know, honestly, that should have been probably the official tagline for our investments.

Councilmember Saka of Path to Tech, the SPP Voucher Pilot, the universal preschool feasibility, so super excited about that.

Council Member Rink, you've been clear and consistent with restorative practices, and that clarity really has shaped what we've designed this investment.

Council Member Strauss, I think is here, I saw somewhere, I believe, always been the loudest voice in the room for, or should I say our foster youth aren't always the loudest voice in the room, but Council Member Strauss has been pretty clear.

On that, Councilmember Kettle, thank you for your support, expanding access to fire and police careers.

Councilmember Foster, our conversations around mental health, late night programming.

Councilmember Lynn, your insistence that students who need more actually get more.

not just in the policy language, but in the service design.

So again, thank you all for what you've done and we appreciate it.

And I'm looking forward to our continued partnership.

and Councilmember Juarez, I thought she was here as well.

Oh yes, who have always had bold ideas to support our Black and Brown and Native students and who has also been a champion since the 2018 FEB Levy.

So again, super excited about the partnership and looking forward to our continued partnership as we move things forward.

Thank you, Director Chappell and Deputy Mayor Surratt for being here and Marissa from Deal.

I just want to say again, I have had such the great fortune and honor to work with Director Chappell for the last eight or nine years.

And we did, we implemented the original Seattle Promise, which is why I feel so proud to be here today talking about the expansion of Promise.

It is a program that very much has the outcomes beyond actually, I'll be honest, what we intended Director Chappelle and it's just a real source of pride.

So anyway, just wanted to say that and really acknowledge colleagues also the work that the department has done in not just implementing the last levy, but all the work that went into this plan.

I'm gonna make some other comments later, but I'm gonna turn it to you all for your questions.

Council Member Kettle, you are recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

First, I want to thank Deputy Mayor for being here and starting this off.

Really important.

Obviously, Dr. Director, Director, Doctor.

Your leadership here is key, and leadership is infectious, too, and it's ready to learn.

And so it's fantastic.

Ms. Roussel, thank you for being here as well.

We've had a lot of conversations, so I just wanted to add just a couple of things.

For me, ready to start and ready to launch are the two main areas, partly because the state has a lot of responsibilities and they're ready to learn.

But I do support those pieces.

But the ready to start is so key because that's what the foundation is.

And so I really appreciate those pieces.

that are there, and as I mentioned quickly to Council Member Rink, it's fascinating to go through this process as someone, you know, my daughter's about to end fifth grade, and that zero to five, I was a stay-at-home dad.

I was a stay-at-home dad until she was eight and a half, until I came up here.

And, you know, just to walk through and see the challenges that different people have, even in a more quote-unquote affluent neighborhoods like Queen Anne and so forth and District Seven, the challenges that are faced, and then conversely, you know, how important it is to be ready to launch.

And what I like, and I think it was your slide, Deputy Mayor, is that interdepartmental piece because we really need to highlight that.

And again, from my experience, I know every park on Queen Anne because I used to take my daughter to every park on Queen Anne and some other areas too.

And that is where you also learn, you know, with the other kids, the social, emotional and everything else, but you have to have those facilities.

So that partnership, so this is not just, I guess the point I'm making is that this is not just a deal thing.

I want to footstomp the interdepartmental piece.

It has to be an interdepartmental piece, and that example, parks, particularly for the ready to start piece, is so crucial.

So thank you for having those pieces.

And in moving in that same mindset with ready to learn, with the sports piece, middle school sports, something that I'm learning already, my daughter's in select, is sad to me. comparing where we are today to where we were yesterday.

Now granted, life in 1977 was very different from 2026, but those middle school sports have just been dropped on the floor.

And what's been replaced is the select system, which is very expensive.

even in the more affluent areas, you know, people.

It is just, so it basically takes away those opportunities unless something specifically happens for that one individual.

But for kids across the board, it is something that's lost.

I will part, to go to the Department of the Parks and Rec League, are a way to kind of square the circle, but kind of, it's not fully, in terms of what we had yesteryear with middle school sports.

So I appreciate those pieces.

And of course, by highlighting middle school sports, and I didn't mention this before, I'm thinking about middle school music and how important music is in terms of developing the brain, again, those pieces and development, particularly for mathematics, girls' mathematics.

Those are such an important pieces and the music really help in that area.

On Ready to Learn, also thank you for the youth safety investments.

I've had a couple conversations with Superintendent Scholdinner working with his team and speaking to his team as my team has done as well.

That partnership, it's so refreshing to see the difference between the relationship between the school district and the city.

I used to joke years ago that we had to exchange ambassadors in order to be able to communicate with the school district somehow.

But on the school safety pieces, but also like Memorial Stadium.

There's so many things and all the work that's going on now with this program.

is such a different relationship between the city and the school district, which is fantastic.

And then the last piece, ready to launch.

This is like maybe my one question.

Seattle Promise, I'm a little bit concerned.

I want to know, it's like the health of the colleges, the three colleges we have to ensure.

It's great to have a Seattle Promise program and we should be, you know, underlying and supporting, you know, our two-year schools.

But if those schools, because there's different reporting on this front, you know, we have to be engaged and understand where we are.

How do you see the Seattle Promise program and that front in terms of what we may need to do or are we in good place right now?

Yeah, we are in a great place with Seattle Colleges.

We have a great partnership with Chancellor Rosie.

We meet frequently, and we have an opportunity.

We, as I mentioned earlier, around looking...

we do continuous quality improvement within our department.

and that's where we take an opportunity to look to see are there areas that we need to lean in more and from our conversations that we typically have, we're in a good place with the Seattle Colleges and there's a lot of excitement now about the trades piece because at the end of the day, The vision is clear.

When students graduate from Seattle Public Schools and they come to the colleges, we wanna make sure not only that they're gonna be there, but they leave with some type of degree, credential, or they persist and transfer, right?

And then those that are interested in the trades, we wanna make sure that they have opportunity to give living wage jobs.

So the partnership has been pretty solid, and the commitment is there, and I see a lot of alignment and synergy amongst the city and the colleges as well.

Thank you for that, and I'd like to foot stomp your path to trades.

That is so important, and I 110% support that.

I've had discussions with members in that community, building and trades and so forth.

And we really need to promote that in terms of having that stability across the whole of our city.

And I know, Chair, has been working on this quite, you know, because of our shared links in this area in terms of our childhood.

So we have to develop that in terms of diversity.

But it's also important because I like to add path to maritime.

The last caller was speaking to that.

And the maritime trades, you know, there's nine, all eight are basically building in trades.

There's one that's really specific to maritime.

I just did a trip with the Port of Seattle, it was a Port of Seattle, City of Seattle trip to DC last week, you know, talking about maritime and we're talking about the trades.

And by the way, we were talking about the region.

We were advocating for the region because there's a lot of things going on with federal government and a lot of money is being declared and so forth.

So there could be, and the Pacific Northwest is so key on the maritime space.

But key to that discussion itself was the trades.

And so this program is something that we can point to.

and show that we are committed to this.

We're committed to the trades generally, you know, the carpenters, electricians, they also work into the, you know, the maritime pieces as well.

And we, this resonates.

Like when you do a trip like that and they see what we're doing, and then you combine it with the tech pieces, like the announcements in the maritime recently in the cut, you know, in terms of Lake Union, development of different smaller vessels, leveraging what we have, the combination of like Boeing and UW, you know, composites, the aerospace piece, bringing that combined into maritime.

and of course you got space in the Kent Valley and so forth.

That combination is so important and that's something that we need to move forward.

Dr. Director, I just wanted to also, one last thanks is for the path to public service because that's so important.

We talk about developing reform and moving forward like with our police department.

Well, if we can recruit from the communities in which they serve, that's powerful.

When the police officers look like, and they came from that neighborhood, that really bodes well for our future in terms of community policing and the like.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

And I will just add to what Director Chappelle said, Dr. Chappelle, Dr. Director Duane Chappelle.

We have such a great relationship with the colleges spanning back from when we started Seattle Promise in partnership with the colleges because of course the colleges had the 13th year and then we partnered them and expanded the 13th year into a full program, the Seattle Promise.

But that's how far back we go and that's how far their commitment goes.

We partnered with them and they had the 13th year.

So I really want to acknowledge that and then I want to also say South Seattle College has an amazing array of it's a full trades program at South Seattle College and Chancellor Rosie was the president at South Seattle College so the trades are near and dear to her heart the way it is to ours.

and now she's moved on to be chancellor and we have President Monica Brown who is just amazing and I went to visit.

So if you want to see the amazing trades program that the colleges have, colleagues, honestly, I encourage you to reach out to Chancellor Rosie and President Brown and get a tour.

because there are so many trades programs down there and there's so many trades partners that they're working with.

It really was amazing to see.

And of course they had a welding program so near and dear to my heart because of my dad.

It was really, it is great.

And council member Kettle, what you will love about this path to trades piece in this focused way that we're doing in this iteration of the levy is that these investments will now give the opportunity for the colleges to go into the middle schools because they already go into the high schools, but they'll be able to go into the middle schools and start talking to kids at the middle school level.

about trades opportunities and that's, they haven't been able to do that, but with now these investments and partnering with DEAL, they will be able to.

So this was all part of the conversation when we were working on this trades piece and I am just so excited about it.

So really wanted to give some more details on that.

Council member Saka, you've been waiting very patiently.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

And first off, I want to thank Deputy Mayor Surratt, Director Dr. Chappelle.

I always like to leave with Director because you are here in your capacity as a department head.

Absolutely, you are an esteemed, distinguished PhD, but I prefer to call you Director, Dr. Chappelle.

And so I want to thank you all and your amazing team for being here at the department, DOE, many of which, or a few of which are represented here in Council Chambers.

And I appreciate so many things about what I just heard over the last hour plus.

We'll talk a little bit about that in just a moment.

But starting first, can't emphasize enough how profoundly helpful and important it is of your explicit acknowledgement of the Council Sly and your attempts to comply with that as part of this proposal.

Now we have a package, we have a proposal that we're considering here today.

Your acknowledgement of that at the outset I have some more questions about that in a moment, but it indicates a certain sense of being very wise, savvy and prudent, very prudent approach because slides are, you don't really have to technically co-equal branches of government.

but when you do acknowledge it and try your best to harmonize executive priorities with council priorities, that's always a good practice, best practice.

So I really appreciate your acknowledgement of that and your efforts, more importantly, your efforts to undertake that very difficult and delicate at times work.

So the specific slide that you reference is the 2026 slide, DEAL-001S-A.

in there, there is a non-exhaustive list of council priorities that we set forth that we would like you guys to consider for the proposed I&E plan.

Humbling for me personally to take a look at this non-exhaustive list because my office work closely with community to essentially be the prime architect of many of these things, some of which you called out, the feasibility study to explore universal citywide preschool, the pilot program for working family subsidies for families and neighborhoods without access to the Seattle preschool program, the food assistance, support for foster youth, or former foster youth transitioning to adulthood, the IT digital skilling initiative, so much.

I worked hard with community and my council colleagues to get that done, and I want to thank the sponsors of this legislation, of the of the budget sly, Council Members Rink, Strauss, and former Council Member Solomon, who built upon that work and made it even better and up-leveled it to make sure it remained important and remained prominent and remained top of mind for you all when you were thinking about putting together this package.

So, how did the executive and the department specifically comply with this lie and incorporate the feedback into the proposed I&E plan for this levy.

Thank you for the question.

So in the executive's plan, there is a summary in the appendix that references a non-exhaustive list and points counsel directly to the sections of the plan where those priorities are addressed.

So some quick highlights.

Quarterly reporting, which was a priority of the committee chair, is stated up front in the introduction that was mentioned by the deputy mayor earlier in the presentation.

We have already moved to establish a framework to address that request.

We will be publishing quarterly dashboards for each domain, bringing together access and output data for investments managed by multiple city departments.

So that will be a new practice for the city.

A companion memo to that dashboard will be sent quarterly to the Levy Oversight Committee and the Council as part of that commitment to reporting.

The Priority of Universal Preschool Feasibility Study, Director Chappelle spoke to that one.

We're initiating that this year so that we can have better estimates on costs, scaling, and worker and business needs in order to achieve that vision.

I think we're all paying attention to what New York City has announced and eager to develop a work plan for Seattle.

The preschool voucher pilot program we spoke to, we have allocated resources to that annually to pilot.

We plan to evaluate the impact of that, not only on access to preschool, affordability for family, but also child outcomes.

And the other major theme you'll note is that those evaluations occurring early in the levy will allow us to make decisions about later in the levy.

So do we change policies about how we start that pilot program?

Do we expand it later in the levy?

Those are questions that we'll be able to answer, both based on starting early in year one with these new investments and also a dedicated study and focus on what it's achieving.

Let me know if this is the level of detail you're looking for, but we hit restorative practices, which was council member So there's an emphasis on preventative approaches, strategies that are not perpetuating a school to prison pipeline.

So that was a key priority for the department in our design.

It's what we found worked when we did our data analysis.

The overall theme in terms of tech career access, public sector career access, we spoke to industry leaders.

our stakeholders, our partners that all informed the design and additionally attached to the fiscal note is an extensive stakeholder engagement report.

We also included three racial equity toolkits with two additional on the way and all of those that body of work details our approach, the conversations we've had and the literature reviews that our team conducted to inform the design of these proposals.

Thank you for that.

Can you help me better understand, so those are the specific council priorities that you were able to accommodate and make sure are reflected in the current I&E plan.

Can you help me better understand, and we'll learn more about this probably during our next meeting from our central staff experts, but with respect to those specific council priorities that you considered, but for whatever reason declined to incorporate into this.

Can you call out a few of those examples?

I don't think anything was declined.

And if something was missed, please let us know and we'll work with council central staff to address it.

A plus.

Thank you.

And also I'll just share, look, as I mentioned earlier, I really do appreciate this department.

You have engaged closely with me and my office throughout this whole process.

I don't even sit on the main committee.

I have committee envy, and this is one of the committees that is the source of that.

But you know I care deeply about this issue.

You know my office's fingerprints, DNA are all over this thing, and a few examples we called out earlier.

But you thoughtfully and proactively engaged and deeply engaged with my office the whole time.

And it was very clear from my perspective, your engagement with council wasn't just a perfunctory check the box, here's what we're gonna do, thanks.

You were genuinely interested in hearing our priorities, the priorities of my office, and not just telling me what you were gonna do anyway because of the constituents you represent.

We all got constituents, too.

We represent people, too.

Kudos to you.

I think this department just put on a masterclass for all, there were 40 or something executive departments, and I appreciate something, they're all great in different ways, especially the ones in my portfolio, but I think in this regard, you guys just put on a masterclass, and it's in large part directly to your, related to your leadership, Director Dr. Chappelle, for thoughtful council engagement and collaboration, exhibit, ZZ was the closing thing.

You just called out every single council member, what's important to them and their constituents and how you tried your best to, bringing us along, not telling us what you're gonna do anyway, bringing us along.

And I really do appreciate that thoughtful, collaborative approach, A+.

Moving on to slide 28, school meals.

Another important topic and priority of mine and colleagues, you know, I've talked many times about this, helped advocate in Olympia for, you know, state changes to enable this.

Appreciate Mayor Wilson for being able to bring this to life in this vehicle via the FEPP levy, but I can't speak highly enough about the impact of bringing to life universal free school meals for all in terms of addressing food insecurity, empowering communities, reducing, frankly, eliminating the social stigma associated with a differential payment plan and meal structure.

I've had, grew up on free and reduced lunch and I know what it's like to wait till everybody goes to the lunch line and there's no one in the lunch line so I can pay my 75 cents so the people behind me can't see I didn't pay the full 175 rate or whatever it is for the full.

I've missed lunches before.

because I was too late and the line was too long.

So eliminating the social stigma associated with that is a game changer in terms of making sure people are ready to learn and showing up their best and their healthiest.

And now, you know, Tracing the arc of my journey from then to now, you know, I'm very fortunate and privileged, and I practice an attitude of gratitude.

I'm grateful to be at this dais, because now I represent thousands of more similarly situated families and kids.

That's why I'm really proud of this particular investment, and I want to congratulate and say thanks to the mayor for helping to bring this to life here.

I didn't think we could potentially do it, but...

The state also, as you know, I think, as part of the new millionaire's tax, one of those authorized spending expenditures was to create and expand a program statewide for this.

My position is that these kind of things should ideally come from the feds first because of fiscal monetary policy justifications.

They can literally print their own new money if there's sufficient political will.

So it's a lot easier than us here at the local level.

We have to live within a balanced budget, and then the state because deeper pockets, and then the city.

So how is this intended to be implemented against the new sort of state expenditure and spending plan?

Would we even need to spend any money if now the state's coming on top?

Great question.

So the funding commitment in the plan is for two years of local investment to ensure that FEP resources remain supplemental to state and federal funds.

So we are anticipating that state funding to occur and for the commitment to universal school meals at the state level to happen.

In the event that it does not, we would consult the levy oversight committee, we would review the performance of the investment over the prior two years, and then we would return to this council as part of a budget process to determine if local investment beyond the first two years is warranted and a good investment.

Awesome.

Thank you again.

Really appreciate your thoughtful engagement in the update here today.

And again, A-plus.

Thank you.

Kudos.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

And I just want to underscore on the school meals, I see it as this providing the service during this gap time between the state passing the millionaire's tax and the universal meals and it's starting, which is sometime in 29, I believe.

So it really was meant to bridge the gap.

And I appreciate the mayor doing that and then deal being flexible.

And we can do it because we do school meals as part of the levy.

We do those summer meals and some afterschool meals and things of that nature.

So it's not incongruous with what we told voters we would do, though we may not have specifically said lunches, we do pay for meals.

And they knew that when they voted for the levy.

So I think we're okay there.

And then I just wanna underscore, thank you for the acknowledgement council member about the department did work with all the council offices, not just yours.

because they very much cared about all the ads that were made and ensuring that they were partnering as did the mayor's office to make sure that as they were building the plan, all of that was taken into consideration.

And I know our central staff joined those meetings as well.

So everyone was connected Um, at least on the council side, I did not have insight into that as chair.

Um, I was not included in those conversations, but I know that they happened and I know it was because the department and the council members wanted to make sure that they were having a conversation and I support that and I'm glad that that happened.

So thank you for acknowledging that council member Saka and wanted to say it happened with all the council offices.

Um, council member Lynn, you are recognized.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our wonderful presenters.

I also want to thank School Board Member Song for joining us here today.

And so just wondering, from a big picture perspective, obviously we have a new superintendent.

Could you just talk a little bit about the partnership with SPS and or with Seattle colleges and how kind of their decisions and some of the difficulties they face in terms of their own budget struggles and sort of how we align our investments or how we might have to pivot depending upon sort of the the decisions they might make, how do we coordinate our investments with their theories of change?

Could you just speak a little bit, big picture, about how our investments align?

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember Lynn.

So, one, we, as I mentioned earlier, we do have, from our perspective and a collective perspective, a fantastic relationship with the colleges, with Seattle Public Schools.

Recently, Superintendent Ben has invited myself and a couple of members from my team to his cabinet, and what we typically do is we overall look at the investments that's happening within...

from the city to SPS.

And we just engage in conversations about whether we need to make pivots, what we need to lean in more on.

As far as how we've worked with the colleges and SPS on these specific investments, More so, what we typically do, we let data drive the decisions.

We understand that we're all committed to making sure that in SPS, that students, like we're closing this gap that I shared earlier.

With the colleges, we're committed to making sure more students are gonna complete a degree persist or transfer or obtain some type of credential.

And what we've done, as we continue to hold these conversations, is we ground ourselves in not only the data, but the research.

And then, to be honest, there's pretty much almost alignment on almost everything.

And then, if there are things that we have that we feel like we would wanna go a different way on, we just engage and continue the conversation and let the data really determine what's best.

One thing the superintendent has been clear on with us is like, as we're partnering with Seattle Public Schools, he understands that the resources aren't to be supplementary.

He understands that the resources are complementary, and he wanna make sure that we're investing in things that make...

that's gonna make a difference in the schools and the communities, right?

And so, there's clear alignment right there.

And he's also willing to say, hey, let's take a step back to see, like, what are some lessons learned, and if we need to increase more dosage on certain things.

As I mentioned in my...

presentation from the past Levy, we learned that there's a shorter number of interventions that we need to focus on that are clearly measurable in the seeing outcomes for the district.

So we also engage in the same conversations with the colleges, with Chancellor Rosie and her team.

It's been a great partnership.

and it's interesting because there's always shortfalls coming, but one thing that we've done is make sure that outcomes and students and families are gonna be at the center of the decisions, and being clear, making sure we're following the rules within the limits.

And Marissa, I'll ask to see if you wanna speak a little bit more to that.

Yeah, I would just add our intentional implementation timelines are a reflection of how we're coordinating with our partners.

So the competitive funding processes for those K-12 ready to learn investments are happening later this calendar year so that they intentionally sync with the following school district budget year.

This ensures that awards from the city are made before the district starts its budgeting process.

I think council members and community are aware that we made some commitments to continue existing investments in Seattle Public Schools for one additional year so that we did not disrupt that district budgeting process.

We did not disrupt services to students without sufficient planning timeline.

and this gives our new leadership and our new partners time to not only build relationship but intentionally plan to ensure the new levy's investments are going to achieve results and that those improvements to how we're investing funds are done with alignment across all partners.

Thank you.

One other question.

In terms of sort of our theory of change and or our investments.

Just wondering, in your kind of research, how much is concentrated poverty in our community, in our schools, something that we should be looking at?

And part of my sort of question here is we continue to be a deeply segregated city based on both race and class.

and in terms of our planning, should we be thoughtful in sort of our land use planning?

There's calls for us to do kind of school-oriented development.

So as we think about sort of where we're gonna invest in housing and affordable housing, how much should we be sort of aligning some of our planning around where we are investing in and housing or our big city kind of comprehensive planning to align with sort of your theory of change.

And I know that's sort of a big question, so we can take this offline later, but I'm just wondering, wanna make sure that as we talk about sort of collaboration across departments, how can we support your work in other areas that maybe not be sort of a direct investment, but in our sort of planning or thinking around how to support our students and families.

I'll speak a little bit to that, that I'm happy to take it offline or Deputy Mayor lean in.

A couple of things, I'll start from like a Weedzie piece.

One thing the superintendent and I have had a conversation on is that how do we create an opportunity to say, what are all of the things that touch Seattle Public Schools and kids that are happening at the city that we might need support on?

And so we've actually identified...

he's identified Ted Howard, Assistant Superintendent Ted Howard, as the one that's gonna be convening, and then we'll look to see what city issues, air quote, right, that we need to work with SPS on, and it could be.

whether it's land use, it could be something in fire, and figure out, like, how do we address it, and then bring it back to the necessary folks to solve that issue.

But then I'll also bubble up and say, and I'm gonna turn it over to you to Deputy Mayors, that we definitely need to be intentional in alignment with all of our investments here at the city, not just deal.

I'll tell you that when we did...

what I remember when the Innovation and Performance team did a landscape analysis on mental health, one thing we've learned is that we saw there's a need for support around mental health throughout this whole city, right?

When we do these landscape analysis, Dr. Fajardo is always looking at, like, academic data.

He's looking at several metrics, and one thing we've learned is that we have seen there is a need throughout the city, right?

So we definitely...

I'm sharing that to say is that we definitely wanna be grounded in what the data is telling us, and also be intentional on our collaborations to make sure that we're not overlooking areas that are maybe perceived historically where there isn't a need.

and I'll tell you, when we did this engagement for the levy, I know Councilmember Rivera, Councilmember Lynn, you were at some of those engagements.

We did hear a need throughout this whole city where families were either needing to like before programming, after school programming, and so forth.

But Deputy Mayor, I'll turn it over to you to share some more.

Yeah, thank you, Director.

And Councilmember Lin, I thought that was actually a great, great question because it speaks to, one, there's a beauty in the FEP levy in the sense that it is continuously to look at a comprehensive approach of how to make sure that every youth has an opportunity to thrive, right?

We talk about everything from pre-K to free lunch to path to trades and new opportunities.

That's a totality, and it recognizes that education just doesn't happen within the four walls of a public school, right?

So that's a fundamental recognition there.

but when you really start taking several steps back to extend that sense of taking care of and providing education for our youth and our community is total community, right?

It's the whole community.

And so your question about How do healthy neighborhoods contribute to the education and the flourishing of our youth?

How do we make sure that every student, every parent has access to good housing, has access to a grocery store that's walkable, has access to transit to get them where they need to be?

It's that total ecosystem.

And what I love about the FEP Levy, it sets that foundation that it is a dynamic, holistic view of community.

And I know we're talking about FEP Levy, but the work that you all are doing at Council, whether it's comprehensive plan visioning, whether it's taking up transit measures, all those things feed into what is healthy and contribute to some really ambitious goals that the FEP levy has identified to accomplish, but the FEP levy cannot do that alone.

We know that and all these things contribute to that.

So I really appreciate your question and for all of us to kind of keep the eyes on that large prize of a healthy city and all the component parts of what that means.

Thank you so much, and I'll just make one last sort of question, comment.

I would really love to sort of hone in on whether concentrated poverty is something that we should be keeping our eyes on, especially as we do our planning around affordable housing.

I know that a significant portion of our Seattle Public Schools' families live in affordable housing, live in SHA housing, and as we think about sort of where to plan for those investments, where SHA plans to do its investments, our social housing provider, are those investments in alignment or are they working against Seattle Public Schools plans around school enrollment?

And are they working against our investments?

So I just want to pin that.

And then just finally, just want to say huge, super excited about the path to trades, all the path to public service programs.

And I just would love for us to be mindful of the significant investment that we will be making.

So for example, yesterday we heard a lot of support for Seattle Center Levy.

And so that's gonna be a significant investment.

How do we make sure that we are thinking ahead and aligning sort of our investments making sure that we are putting a path for our Seattle Public Schools kids to get those jobs.

As we, you know, look at our Seattle City Light investments or Seattle Public Utilities or SDOT investments, those are huge capital programs that I would love to make sure that we are somehow aligning and we have a priority hire program.

I would love to look at whether we can sort of do a priority hire for our kids that are going through these Path to Trades programs, work with our unions, to give a priority for these kids so that they know there's a job at the end of this program.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lynn.

And I do know that the Seattle Colleges, and maybe Director Chappelle, were you gonna say something about that?

Okay.

They work on those partnerships.

So when the kids graduate with their trade certificate, they can go into an apprenticeship program.

and they've built relationships.

So there is a lot there, which is why I'm encouraging you to reach out also to the colleges because I think, I don't expect everybody to know everything and I've had the benefit of being here for almost nine consecutive straight years and working on many of these issues, in particular to the levy.

So I've learned a lot, but certainly, you know, even in the context of this particular levy, I learned a lot about the trades and when I had envisioned the path to trades program, it was because I I had this, I just knew that trades is such an important alternative to a traditional college degree for kids and there's so much at the colleges that are being done that we wanna foster that and grow it.

and so I think we're all aligned that way and also we need to be mindful that this levy's not gonna be all things to all people and solve all the problems.

I'm gonna say this juncture we need to be mindful I think the department has done a great job of working with all the council offices addressing all our ads that were made when we put the levy on the on the ballot and I think you know I want to also acknowledge that the mayor's office wasn't here when we put this levy on the ballot and they've worked so they've they've worked they've partnered is what I'm trying to say with the department and me as chair and all of us as council to make sure that we're being true to what we told voters we would do with this levy and I wanna thank you for that and acknowledge that and wanna make sure that if as we all are thinking about passage of this INE, I'm gonna caution us if you make If you're considering amendments sooner rather than later is great to know.

This is the plan.

I will remind us that any changes you made will have an impact to a change somewhere else.

because the money's not growing.

This is the amount of money.

We have $1.3 billion.

That is a significant amount of money.

And based on data and based on most of your interests, if you were here last year, the department is trying to address all those interests.

So I do want to level set us that if you are intending on making any fiscal changes, it will have an impact on something else.

and that is not, that's something you should really take to heart and be mindful of colleagues.

Okay, Council Member Rink, you are recognized and mindful that it's 1130, but I do wanna get to you, Council Member Rink and Foster as well, obviously, and Council Member Juarez, you don't have your hand up, but if you wanted to say something, obviously it will take time.

Go ahead, Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Chair Rivera, and I want to reflect just some of the points that my colleagues have made in expressing their gratitude to DEAL and your steadfast work in preparing this implementation and evaluation plan before us.

I also really want to lift up the robust community engagement that your office engaged in to help inform this plan.

I know Kenny from my team participated in most, if not all of those sessions and reflected back just how thoughtfully those were put together and so I want to express my appreciation for that work and for your robust presentation today and extend gratitude as well to the mayor's office for being at the table today and for your work in preparing this before us.

I have just a couple of clarifying questions just to kick off the discussion and I'll start from a little bit more granular and then I'll take us a little bit farther out and more holistic.

Starting with just some of the granular piece, under the ready to launch section of the levy through the career pathway strategy, there's an investment in youth development through the Human Services Department.

Now, it's my understanding that supportive services and job preparation programs includes working with organizations like YMCA of Greater Seattle, Seattle Goodwill, Asian Counseling Referral Services, Geeking Out Kids of Color, El Centro, and World Mind Creation Academy and others.

So I'd really love to hear how these programs tie into our city's overarching strategy for achieving the outcome of ensuring our youth get access to living wage careers and develop workplace skills.

So with the addition of these long-standing investments to the levy, one of the things we're doing with adherence to the new reporting requirements is we're ensuring that those contracts are going to have outcome measures that tie into the overall goal of the levy.

So these are not new investments to the city.

They are new to the levy.

And so the early work over the first two years, particularly before these investments are put out for rebid, is to look closely at how the focus on career pathways, particularly opportunity youth and older youth, which HSD has a priority on, can create pathways into the other ready-to-launch investments and help us achieve that universal goal.

Fantastic to hear.

And as a quick follow up on this point, I know this has been primarily done through the Human Services Department and there's just a notable shift in terms of where this is going up to.

But I want to recognize that these programs, at least from our office's understanding, have been very culturally responsive and have resonated with a number of our communities that have been historically under invested in.

Do we have a sense of a level of community interest or if there are wait lists associated with these programs?

That's a great question.

I would have to follow up with HSD to learn more about that.

I do believe that they have historically been meeting their service targets, and we anticipate them to continue to do so.

Fabulous.

Thank you, Marissa.

And changing topics a little bit, just noting that one of our council priorities was restorative practices and non-punitive safety investments, and that is roughly around 11 million over the lifespan of the levy.

Just for the purposes of clarification, is this sustaining the same level of investment in this program, or does this reflect an increase in services to restorative practices?

Thank you.

This is an increase in investment.

So one of the things that's currently happening with investment in restorative practices is it's funded through two mechanisms.

The first is a part of the school-based investments as part of the 2018 levy, as well as a direct award for restorative practices that was started by former Councilmember Morales.

So what we're doing in this new levy is we are creating one pot of funding with a focus on restorative practices.

We are establishing new implementation standards to ensure those services are quality and rooted in the evidence base.

And so that pot has grown because we have also sustained the investment in community schools for those school community place-based grants.

So overall, it's a net add for both of those funding streams.

Fabulous, thank you.

And my last question for today, it actually builds on Councilmember Lynn's question, which I really appreciated, just drawing together those threads around all of our separate city strategies, really trying to service and create more equitable outcomes across our communities.

But I wanted to speak to equity specifically in this levy, because I'm wondering if we can expand on how we are trying to expand and ensure equitable educational outcomes for youth through the work our city is doing with this levy.

So yes, their answer is yes, there is an opportunity for us to lean in and speak and figure out how we can do that.

Marissa, I know we're doing it in certain places.

Would you mind speaking to those?

Sure.

So one of the key areas when we run a competitive process is we're specifically asking applicants which communities they intend to serve.

And so we know our team has done robust data analysis, needs assessment of which schools, for example, have the greatest needs.

What is the income level at these school communities?

What are the academic outcomes for students?

What is the depth of need, right?

Is there a pocket of need among 50 students or is it truly saturated as you were talking about concentrated poverty where we're seeing more than 50% of the school is not achieving academic standard?

We then scale our investment based on that level of need, and we specifically look to our grant applicants to not only understand the data and the communities that they're intending to serve, but to have evidence-based proposals about how they're going to meet that need.

The community schools framework is going to go a bit further than that and actually ensure that all the partners across those four different pillars are at the same table, that they know what each other is doing, that someone running an after-school program knows who the school nurse is, knows who the school-based health center provider is, knows who the HSD grantee providing community safety supports is, and they are truly implementing that ecosystem vision to support students who need the most support.

Thank you so much, Marissa, and thank you, Director Chappelle, Deputy Mayor Sarrant, and Marissa, again, for your work and for being before committee today.

I'm really excited to be working alongside you in this next stage on the INE plan.

Thank you, Chair Rivera.

Thank you, Councilmember Rink.

Councilmember Foster, you're recognized.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you so much, presenters.

It's a pleasure to hear from you today, and thank you for all of the work that you did.

I know it was a lot during the community meetings that we're going through last year and this year.

I want to start off with a question actually about the lunch program and the expansion there, and I'm going to preface my question with a few things.

One is that it was a pleasure to hear from some of our public commenters today from Feast, which is an organization that I've supported in previous roles.

And the second is that I've been a big supporter of progressive taxation, such as the millionaire's tax.

And it is also hard for me as a public servant to look at this and to see, you know, this is a two-year investment that we are making with the belief that the millionaire's tax and the funding from the state will then pick up at the end of that term.

And I heard a question from one of my colleagues today that sort of said, is, hey, what happens if, for some reason, that funding from the state does not come through as expected?

and I believe the response that I heard was at that point in time, we would be going back to the levy oversight committee and coming back to council.

And while I appreciate that and I appreciate that it's hard to predict the future, I do wanna express concern around this because the future that seems possible, and I don't wanna say it's probable because I believe that the state law will be upheld and I hope that it will be, but there is a possible future where we are coming back and we are being faced with a difficult decision about whether we would stop that funding, which would be experienced as a cut to students who benefit from it over the next two years, or whether we would reduce services from somewhere else, because that's my understanding of when I hear, we'll come back to you with options.

Is that correct, or is there a third option that I'm unaware of?

I'll take a quick stab and Marissa, you could lean in.

So I wouldn't go as far as saying reducing services anywhere else, but as we know, like we do continuous quality improvement and we look at all of our investments.

And when that time comes, we're gonna be, we're at where we will closely monitor this situation.

And then if we start to see that we're gonna need some additional resources, that's what we're saying is that we'll keep the levy oversight committee informed.

and then if there's a need to come back to...

or when there's a need to come back to Council, we'll either report out on how we'll solve the problem or come with some options.

I wouldn't just jump to thinking that we're gonna be reducing services, but I do feel confident that with this Levy Oversight Committee body, if that happens, we'll have a way to figure something out.

Did you wanna add something to us?

I was just gonna state again, your recap of the prior answer was correct.

And I know that Council Central staff is well poised and looking to see if there are cost efficiencies in other areas of the levy to respond to that concern.

Thank you.

And again, please take that for what it is, which is to make sure that this is a sustainable approach, because I understand how meaningful this could be for many of our students.

and I appreciate my colleague, Councilman Bersaka, speaking to his personal experience with that today as well.

So thank you so much for that.

I wanna move on to another question about the SPP voucher pilot.

And I apologize, I don't have a slide number here, I think, but this was early on in the presentation.

And I believe what I heard was an approach that the department is working on to serve additional families, but it sounded like you were thinking about incorporating council districts into the decision-making of how that pilot would be approached.

And I'm wondering if we can hear more around the structure and the prioritization in that pilot.

Sure.

So again, this is brand new to us, so how we operationalize it is in active development by the department.

Our early thinking is that for the first year, we would prioritize based on geographic need.

So for the last school year, there were two council districts that had more than 10 providers operating a wait list.

That was Council District 1 and Council District 5. So that is where we are predicting we will start for this first year.

Enrollment is happening now, so by September we'll have a new batch of data about where there are waitlists in the city and those council districts may change.

The intent behind that is to be able to implement this new program well.

So our concern if we started citywide is that DEAL staff wouldn't have capacity to process vouchers with CCAT providers around the region.

So we're going to continue to look at the data closely.

If the pilot vouchers are not being used in those council districts of highest need, we have the operational authority to expand it immediately without council action, and we would do that to ensure that our service target is met and that families' needs are being met.

That's really helpful, thank you.

And I look forward to hearing more about that, and particularly as I know that the department is working to prioritize geographic equity, income equity and income inequality, as well as racial and other dynamics of inequality.

I'm very curious to hear how those things line up in this planned pilot program.

And then I want to turn to just consideration for investments in homelessness and for homeless youth that we have through the FEP levy.

As we know, we have thousands of children in our school district who are McKinney-Vento students who are unfortunately sleeping outside every night.

It's my understanding, and I'm happy to follow up with you on this, Dr. Director, I won't miss out on the opportunity, Chappelle, but it's my understanding that there are about 90 kids annually intended to be served through this plan, and I wasn't sure if that is consistent or if that represents an increase in our investments.

I recognize that's a very specific question, so I'm happy to do a follow-up.

Okay, you're ready.

I'd love to hear more about that and just more around the emergency stabilization that is provided through these investments.

Certainly, yeah.

So this is a continuing investment from the 2018 levy sponsored by former council member Gonzalez.

So this is a $4.2 million investment over six years.

The current service provider is Neighborhood House.

The service target you mentioned of 90 students is accurate, and this provider has been meeting or exceeding that standard for the duration of their work with this levy.

The design is focused on students who are unstably housed, so the intent is to reach families before they become technically homeless.

So that's why the service target is a little bit lower.

There are other city investments already allocated to support families who are literally experiencing homelessness.

So this design is a referral network, both from neighborhood house to Seattle Public Schools social workers.

It's available to school SPS students citywide.

The social worker refers a family to the service provider.

They provide emergency assistance so that families don't default on rent payments.

so that if they are living with a family member or doubled up with another friend, they have additional resources to be able to protect the housing that their child is experiencing because we know housing displacement impacts school attendance, impacts access to those school meals and can severely disrupt learning.

Thank you so much for that clarification.

I really appreciate that.

And I share the interest of particular in making those investments before folks are experiencing homelessness.

So I really appreciate that clarification.

And I'll just indicate that I'll follow up with a little bit more questions in detail, but I'm really excited to learn more about that particular aspect of the funding program.

And I know that there is so much need and that our public dollars are often very well spent in that prevention area.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

All right.

Then, colleagues, we are at the end of our meeting.

Just broadly speaking, again, I just want to thank the department for their hard work.

There's a lot that they did.

They've taken a data-driven and focused approach to the work, and I really appreciate that because and Director, Director Dr. Chappelle, you spoke about this.

The fact that in the K-12 space, for instance, we weren't meeting goals.

And so really being transparent and honest and then looking at the data and looking at how we could make some tweaks to our investments to make sure that kids are meeting grade level milestones is really important because we know if kids aren't meeting their academic milestones, they're not gonna be successful as they continue in their school career.

And then that impacts school attendance and mental health and many of the things that our young people are experiencing.

You know, one thing I noted, I attended all of the sessions except for one, and my office attended on my behalf, but just to hear from families directly about what they want.

And it was interesting because in our conversations, we were really thinking about the tutoring, the mentoring, and we heard that from parents.

We didn't talk about it.

They raised it with us and I thought that that was great because there was a lot of alignment there and then of course we have a new superintendent who's visited all the schools out of the gate, which I very much appreciate and he wants to be and has been thus far a really great partner.

There's a lot of collaboration, a lot of conversation with Superintendent Schuldner and I really appreciate that.

and he's really focused on serving all of our kids, but kids who are, you know, struggling and not meeting milestones and that's really important.

And so I also appreciate Director Chappelle that you've given focus to, you know, the demographics of the city has changed, have changed, and there are a lot of folks, a lot of kids throughout this city that also have a need.

I know for instance there are a lot of immigrant families in the D5 and those kids a lot are, you know, English as a second language learners and there's a lot of need there as well.

So you're looking at where the kids are that need the most, that have the most need and trying to focus investments to those kids.

so that all our kids are meeting our universal goal of they're all prepared and ready to work and ready to have successful careers, and I really appreciate that.

And one last thing I wanted to say, and I'll wrap us up, colleagues, is Director Chappelle raised the gun violence symposium yesterday.

It was not focused on youth specifically.

it really was focused on this approach coming out of the National Network for Safe Communities out of John Jay College whereby they're doing a focused deterrence approach and it is about in any given city it's a small, small, small percentage of folks involved with guns and gun violence in the city and it is identifying those individuals telling those individuals, what do you need to stop?

We have resources for you, but if you do not stop, then there will be consequences.

And just like we've been transparent and open in our conversation about education today, we also need to be transparent and open about what is not currently working in our city and what we're not doing in our city.

And so I'm very interested in this approach.

I really appreciate Deputy Mayor Surratt being there yesterday.

and so many, or two days ago, so many folks across the city were there.

And we heard from folks in Philly and Baltimore who have seen significant reductions in gun violence.

In Philly, 40% reduction when they instituted this approach.

and they've been doing it for such a long time that now they're starting this juvenile program, working with the kids and doing the restorative justice with the youth in Philly.

And so the restorative practices came up in the context of their expanding now that they have the base and they've been doing this focus deterrence approach for some time and it's working well.

They're expanding to do this juvenile component.

That's not necessarily part of the original approach, but one that they care about as much as we do.

So wanted to give context to that since you raised it, Director Chappelle, and thank you for being there and participating.

And colleagues, I'll talk more about the symposium from Monday at a later time.

All right, thank you.

Oh, Council Member Juarez, you have your hand up.

I apologize.

I ended up after I said I wouldn't speak.

I'm going to be very, very brief.

Two things.

First of all, thank you, Council Member Foster.

You caught what I caught on page 19. And I was just going to follow up with Dr. Chappelle offline on the high demand in Council District.

And I'm hoping we're going to track that from pre-K to ready to launch.

So thank you for that.

So going from ready to launch, ready to learn, or ready to start, ready to learn, ready to launch.

Dr. Chappelle I'm really glad that you have rebranded and used the word domain and I don't recall you using that before when you're talking about these three stages in our children's lives and as a city and as a community and our babies how we want to see them go from pre-k to high school and then launch into the real world because that whole area of domain says that there's some agency and responsibility on this city to make sure our kids from pre-K to high school to college make it there alive, which is kind of a sad state of affairs if that's where we're at and lowering the bar in regards to violence, but also our kids, particularly our African-American and our Native American kids not graduating from high school.

So that whole area of domain, which, you know, bestows upon us and upon them, the control, the knowledge and the agency.

So when they do launch and we get them in college, that they go into the world with not only the knowledge and the agency, but also the dignity and what they deserve, what we all deserve in the pursuit of happiness here.

And I got getting a little philosophical here, but I just want to thank you and also thank Chair Rivera for we've had a couple really good long meetings about going through the FEP plan and the FEP spending and the Mayor's Office because this is so key and it's I know that we're it's a we went from in 2018 from 637,000 to 1.3 billion but these are all good spaces this is exactly where things should be landing so with that I want to thank you thank you Madam Chair

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

All right, colleagues, any other questions or comments?

Seeing no further questions, this concludes the June 10th Select Committee on the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy Six-Year Implementation and Evaluation Plan.

Our next select committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 30th at 9.30 a.m.

If there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

Thank you again to Deal and to Deputy Mayor Surratt for being here.

Hearing no further business, it is 11.50 a.m.

This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Duane.

Thank you.

Dr. Chappelle.