Libraries, Education, and Neighborhoods Committee 9/9/2026

All right.

Good morning, everyone.

The September 9th, 2026 meeting of the Library's Education Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It's 9.35 a.m.

I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Lin?

Here.

Councilmember Rink?

Present.

Councilmember Foster?

Here.

Chair Rivera?

Present.

Four councilmembers are present.

Thank you.

Please note for the record that Council President Hollingsworth is excused from today's meeting.

Good morning again everyone and colleagues and those of you watching on the Seattle channel and our staff and chambers and our visitors and chambers this morning.

Today we will be hearing from three of the departments in this committee's portfolio, the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, the Seattle Public Library, and the Department of Education and Early Learning.

I know the departments have been hard at work and I appreciate your staffs for all they do every day on behalf of our constituents.

I look forward to your updates as we head into the budget process.

This is our last meeting before committee meetings are put on hold so that council and our staffs can work on budget.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

We have none online.

And none in person.

Thank you, clerk.

Given that, we will close public comment now and we'll proceed to our items of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Agenda item one, Office of Immigrant and Refugees Affair Update on 2025 Investments for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, clerk.

This item has been read into the record.

The first of our three presentations today will be from the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Interim Director Oksana Billibrand will be giving us an overview and update on how the $4 million investment is being implemented to help communities.

Interim Director, will you please state your name for the record?

And Shawnees, you can state your name for the record and you can begin your presentation.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Committee Chair Rivera and Committee Members Foster, Lynn, and Mercedes Ring.

For the record, my name is Oksana Bilobran, and I am the new Interim Director of the Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

And I'm joined today by my colleague, Shanice Wilson, who is OIRS Special Projects Specialist.

We are here today to give you some important updates about the work of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs Office of Seattle.

And the two main updates that I want to relate to you today is that we are facing a significant increase in immigration enforcement in our area and that our city is well prepared to meet the moment with the investment and new programs that we've developed over the last year.

I will now go into the next slide.

And as you might have heard from the news or reports from our constituents, there is a significant uptick in ICE enforcement activities in our region and also across the country.

after a very aggressive and tragic and politically unpopular operation metro surge in Minnesota, eyes temporarily shifted in winter of this year towards a quieter and less visible enforcement, which resulted initially in dipped number of immigration enforcement from December to February this year.

Though backed by substantial congressional funding in 2025 and 2026, ICE has been able to achieve and maintain high and record numbers of arrests across the country.

Recent data by the Deportation Data Project and also University of Washington Center for Human Rights show that there is a record number of ICE arrests in our region and Seattle alone, just this year from January to July of this year, has seen 477 arrests of our immigrant neighbors.

This amounts to about two to three arrests per day within the city of Seattle only.

and this has a huge impact on our community as these 477 people are not only our neighbors, they are business owners, their children go to our schools, they are workers, they work for Seattle employers and so this has a huge impact not only on those people but everybody around them and the city overall.

Next slide, please.

Increase in these numbers is achieved through so-called street-level arrests, which means these arrests are happening everywhere in the community.

We see them on highways and city streets, in parking lots and local businesses.

We see ICE activity increasing and being reported in regional transit hubs and airports such as SeaTac Airport.

There's been a substantial portion of apprehensions that involve individuals without criminal convictions or without criminal records whatsoever.

While King County, Yakima and Clark counties have showed the highest volume of arrests, advocacy groups emphasize that enforcement activity is occurring statewide and also similarly all across the country.

We are in constant communications with our counterparts in other states, in other cities, and they're reporting similar uptick in immigration arrests.

Now I would like to switch to the second part of my update, is to showcase how our office and the City of Seattle utilize the recent investment in the form of $4 million that was added to OIRA's budget last year to prepare and respond to the federal administration targeting of immigrant and refugee communities.

As you recall, earlier this year, OIRA in consultation with public, with council, and the mayor's office developed an investment plan that is reflected in this chart.

We have presented this chart to you earlier this year, and so I'm here to offer some updates about the progress we have made carrying out these investments.

As you remember, our investment strategy was focused on several key areas.

First of all, it's what we call removal defense.

These are legal services for people who are facing removal.

Everything from immigration consultations to know your rights to full legal representation of people who have immigration cases, either in Seattle or Tacoma Immigration Court.

Second area of investment is what we call rapid response and it has several sub areas.

One of them is community small grants.

These are small grants in the amount of up to $10,000 for community-based organizations.

Next is our investment in the key sectors of city life, which are workers, small businesses, service providers, and families that have children in Seattle Public Schools.

And next is resource navigation.

Another key area of our investment is federal funding backfill.

We have heard, you have heard from constituents and our service providers that there has been a significant cut in federal funding to organizations serving immigrants and refugees, and so part of our $4 million portfolio is to backfill those cuts by putting investments into services such as legal orientation program, naturalization services, and also English for speakers of other languages.

We've also committed to invest $300,000 into emergency assistance and basic needs supports and invest $75,000 into language access.

And I will go into more details about each of these investment areas next.

So, as I mentioned, legal defense is one of our largest investment.

It is not new to our office.

We have operated a legal defense program since 2017, but because of the huge need that is being experienced by our community members, we have doubled our investment from $1.3 million to $2.6 million.

and are able to provide full legal representation again for people who are going through deportation.

This starts from getting legal orientation in the Tacoma Detention Center to getting screening and filing for relief when available to full representation and for the immigration judge and also when eligible filing appeals.

This is an incredibly valuable service to our community members, and we're happy to say that we've selected six additional service providers through an RFP earlier this year, and we're now in contract with all of those providers.

Next area is the backfill for federal funding cuts.

So our office has identified, as I mentioned, two significant areas that experience funding cuts such as naturalization since USCIS has stopped investing into supporting people becoming citizens.

We invested $200,000 into contracts with our existing providers.

This area of work has been in our office portfolio for over a decade, and so we've been able to increase the funding through existing contracts.

Also, we have recently completed an RFP or request for proposal for organizations who are providing English classes and adult basic education and career training and identified six nonprofit organizations that will be starting these services later this year.

Next, please.

Now moving on to support for key sectors.

We have identified the need that exists among the business community, small immigrant-owned businesses to learn and prepare for increase in ICE enforcement.

and same goes for workers that work in Seattle.

And we partnered with our partners in the Seattle Office of Economic Development and Office of Labor Standards to offer know your rights and legal supports for both businesses and workers.

We're also pioneering a new project to support families with children in Seattle Public Schools and are in conversations with the Alliance for Education about offering Know Your Rights trainings for families whose children go to Seattle Public Schools, but not only Know Your Rights, but actual tangible support in the form of assistance with basic needs.

When a parent in a family, for example, is arrested or they lose income or their car is towed because of the ICE enforcement, they're able to receive compensation for those expenses if they are impacted by federal immigration enforcement through those funds that we are providing to the Alliance for Education Right Now Need Fund.

Next is we are partnering with the organization called Communities Rising to prepare our service providers that work in the sectors of housing security and food security and social services for immigrants and refugee affairs.

and I want to highlight this program because it shows that we put a lot of thought and work into designing these programs.

So with the community rising, what we will be doing is doing a three-phase project where the cohort of 20 nonprofit organizations will be selected.

They will first receive legal consultation and prepare the individual plans for the organization to prepare for ICE enforcement.

Then they will have an opportunity to train all of their staff on this plan.

And communities rising staff will do so-called mock ice visits to see if their staff is really truly prepared and trained on these plans.

And then last, they will have an opportunity to reflect on how that went and adjust those plans.

Next, please.

We're also very proud to launch earlier this year our small community grants.

We've invested $280,000, the maximum amount of these grants being $10,000, and we've selected already 28 small organizations that span across the city.

I believe they represent all district of Seattle and offer support with Know Your Rights trainings, family safety planning, and also basic need for community members.

Next, as I mentioned, we have a strategy to counter a negative impact of federal administration targeting access to food and other basic needs by immigrants.

We are partnering with the Seattle Foundation to bring together local government and philanthropy to fill the need.

You might know that the Big Beautiful Bill, so-called Big Beautiful Bill that was passed last year, limits access to mean-tested benefits to immigrants.

It's going to go into effect, parts of it are going to go into effect in October this year, and we expect a significantly higher need for basic services such as food and healthcare, and so our partnership with Seattle Foundation will bring together philanthropy and local governments to fill the need and provide larger grants to organizations that are ready and prepared to fill that need.

Lastly, we're also partnering with an organization called WISEN, Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, to offer community resource navigation to people who are impacted by immigration enforcement.

And now after all this amazing work that we have done in the last seven months or so, we are ready to launch our information campaign to let our community members and everybody know about these resources and access them.

So we encourage you to visit Stand Together website and OIRA website when your constituents call and inquire about resources.

All of our information there is being regularly updated.

So we wanna make sure not only that these resources are developed and we have contracts in place, but also that the community members are aware of them and utilizing them as much as they need.

With that, I am ready for your questions.

Thank you Interim Director Bill O'Brien for this presentation.

It is very sobering to know what is happening at the federal level.

I don't think anyone is under a delusion.

It's in the news almost every day what's happening.

It is unfortunate to say the least, but I am encouraged that your department is doing everything they can to support our immigrant communities here in Seattle.

And we should feel fortunate that we are committed in Seattle to really helping community.

And I know your staff is very committed as well.

So I wanna thank your staff as well for all the work that they're doing.

Really appreciate this update.

Colleagues, do you have any questions?

Oh, Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much Chair and thank you for presenting and for all the work that OIRA is doing for immigrant communities in general and in particular on this really challenging issue.

I wanted to turn to your comments around the partnership with the Alliance for Education and the response work.

I think you mentioned the different kinds of examples of ways that those funds could be deployed including like helping with towing expenses or other things that like you know that family costs that families incur as a result of these unjust actions and I just was seeking clarification for in particular on that towing piece is that only through the alliance partnership and you know for directed towards families or is that something we're supporting more broadly?

Thank you for your question, Council Member Foster.

So our approach to funding is to meet people where they are.

And we are offering assistance with towing expenses through a number of ways, one of them through Alliance of Education, but also, as I mentioned, we have a small community grants and a number of these organizations, 28 in total, that are receiving.

offering help with towing expenses.

We have recently been able to identify our organization that stepped in when an immigration enforcement was happening here in the city over a weekend in the CID district and connect them with these resources.

We're also in a conversation about having a separate towing contract that we're pursuing with the mayor's office.

We've connected with the SPD about their contracts for towing and further exploring an option to provide the most streamlined assistance to people who are experiencing that issue.

So already several resources are in place and potentially more to come.

Thank you so much for that clarification and I really appreciate the work that you're doing and the approach that the department is taking through partnerships to make sure that you are, as you said, meeting people where you're at.

My only other question is I'm just curious if there's any places where you've seen, I mean, there are a lot of gaps I know in terms of actually meeting the need and having enough resources, but I'm curious if there are any types of community need that we just haven't been able to cover.

So, for example, I know the towing was a new development and the department pivoted to make that happen this year.

Is there anything else that the department is tracking in terms of ways that we need to be flexible with our dollars to help support communities?

Thank you for that question again.

So most of these investments are fairly new.

As you know, this is the first year of us getting this additional funding and it took us a while to develop models and do RFB.

We are planning to do listening sessions about the effectiveness of this investment at the end of this year to see if we need to pivot or if we need to change our strategy at all in the next year.

So we will be talking to our community partners.

What I will say that there are big areas of needs that the amount of funding our office has is just absolutely inadequate.

And I would say first and foremost, those are basic needs such as housing and healthcare.

As I mentioned, the big, beautiful bill that cuts access to healthcare for immigrants was gonna have tremendous impact on our communities.

But as you might've heard, state government, and the Governor Ferguson recently announced some action in that area.

I know King County is struggling with the same issues.

Housing resources are just difficult to come by, and I know that even our partners at the Seattle Housing Authority are undergoing through rule changes by the federal administration screening for immigration status of the residents.

So yes, we are aware of the needs that we just cannot meet, but we'll be looking into ways to potentially change or shift if there is a need or investment strategy going next year.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

And I wanted to add that the department did a great job working with community when they were allocating and figuring out how to allocate these resources.

They really worked with community to see where best to prioritize the resources since The need is obviously endless.

We're not going to be able to meet the full need, but it is important to hear from community and from the immigrant community what it is that would be most helpful and they went with those investments, which is why at the end of the year, I really appreciate the department going back and saying, you know, is this what we should continue to do or do we need to pivot as interim director Bill O'Brien just said, to meet a different need that is more pressing at the moment.

So I think the department remains nimble to be able to address the needs as they come up because we don't actually know what's gonna happen.

Things continue to change on a regular basis and we're trying to be thoughtful in how we prioritize.

So really appreciate the department for doing that.

Council Member Rank, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair Rivera.

First and foremost, I want to take a moment to thank the voters for their support for the Seattle Shield initiative last year.

Without their support and belief that our city should be taking up actions to protect our residents, this additional investment into the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs would not be possible.

and so I want to thank the voters for their support in these important investments and I want to thank this council for then taking that investment and ensuring that it was an ongoing investment instead of just one time.

So thank you my colleagues for taking that action as well.

and then just to reiterate a point that the chair just made a huge thank you to the entire team at OIRA for your careful and steadfast work working with our community-based organizations that are led by and serving immigrant and refugee communities, mutual aid groups, folks who are doing the work day in and day out to ensure that this investment reflected where the needs truly are.

And so I wanna thank you and your team for your careful work in shaping this spend plan and being able to get it out the door as well.

A couple of questions for today.

Just understanding that dollars are just now going out the door.

I think there's a question too in the future when we'll come to understand the impact of these investments.

Do you have a rough sense of when we can anticipate getting some high level data about the impact of these investments?

Yeah, by the end of the year, we should have a pretty clear picture, especially about program areas that are not new to our department.

As I mentioned, legal defense program, it operates on a funding basis that is tied to a specific caseload per each attorney.

So we can give you even predictions without getting the data because that's contractual obligations.

Same for naturalization.

But by the end of the year, we should have really good data about the impact of our new investments, such as small community grants, and we would be happy to come back and update you on those as well.

Fabulous.

Thank you so much, Director.

And as you mentioned in your presentation, our community has just been hit by a huge surge in immigration activity.

with hundreds of our neighbors being kidnapped from our community and the resulting impact of that has been profound.

To say there's been a chilling effect I think is an understatement.

Naturally, I'm concerned about many of our immigrant neighbors not going to the, they're not going to school, not going to work, but also not going out to get the services that they may need at this time.

And so with that in mind, how are you all thinking right now about any kind of change in immediate strategy or approach in trying to reach folks or anything that OIRA is learning right now or thinking about pivoting on slightly to try and make sure that we're reaching folks?

Yes, thank you for that question.

That is definitely something that our office has noticed.

Just an anecdotal data, we recently supported the legal clinic that was offered in person by one of our service providers, and it was a clinic for people who were impacted.

You might have heard about this huge news story about a law firm that defrauded their clients, and the impact is huge, it's over 50,000 clients.

So we actually, part of this investment went to support the legal clinic to provide consultations.

And we have seen that even when people sign up for a clinic or per screen are given a slot, they tend to sometimes not show up because of the fear of immigration enforcement.

So it's data like this that makes us be flexible and change our tactics and make these services available virtually as well.

That is something we pride ourselves as being responsive to community need and being really flexible and being able to pivot.

So not only we offered in-person clinic option.

We are now offering through the same contract with the same organization consultations options so people can seek the same information and service one-on-one maybe by coming to appointment to an organization or seeking those services virtually.

The community fear and anxiety is something we take very seriously.

Most of our staff are immigrants themselves, so we're able to speak to that and understand and reflect on it and offer more flexible options.

for services.

Thank you so much for unpacking that point and good to hear.

That was a very wild news story and really illuminating to hear that we have had a role in trying to address that in the aftermath and the people who were misserved by those poor legal practices with that particular law firm.

And my last question for today kind of speaks to the matter of with the investment and where we are doing those small community grants and addressing essential needs.

I know when we originally conceptualized and much of how we talked about this work on this body, on this council for some time, has really been focusing investments towards legal defense or trying to backfill some of the core citizenship services that were previously funded through federal grants.

But it was through this process of engaging with many of these organizations that I know the big need that my office heard and I believe you all heard was just support around essential needs because communities are people and we have a real need to be supporting basic needs for all of our community members.

which begs the question, I know we heard a lot of requests for support around housing services and support.

OIRA does incredible work and you all can't do it alone, so I'm wondering if you can speak to your partnerships and work with other departments or offices across the city who work in basic needs and housing support and how we might be linking those strategies together in a shared mission to support our immigrant and refugee community.

Yes, thank you for your question again.

Definitely, we are a very small office.

We can't do it alone, as you mentioned, so I appreciate you acknowledging that.

We have been in communications with offices such as HSD, Human Services Department, who has a much larger investment into both housing navigation and food navigation.

And part of our investment into resource navigation is just that, because we acknowledge that our money isn't enough to offer meaningful access to housing or food.

but these resources exist elsewhere, both through state programs and local city programs, and therefore our resource navigation, such as, for example, the contract with WISEN, allows dedicated staff to work with people to point them to where these resources exist already and connect them to those resources, because it can be overwhelming to navigate through hundreds, if not thousands, of resources and figure out if you're eligible, what you're eligible for.

Therefore, we are investing into navigating what already is out there.

I also want to add that about access to basic need, our strategy in that area is twofold.

First, we're meeting that need through the small community grants, as I mentioned.

Those small community grants money can be utilized for things such as food delivery, towing, hygiene items, anything of that nature.

But these are small grants, as I said, $10,000.

But our partnership with the Seattle Foundation will allow us to supplement that need on a larger scale.

So for example, when the project is launched and the timing of it is going to be tied to, as I said, the big, beautiful bill impacts going into effect in October.

So larger organizations such as food banks would be eligible to access that funding through the Seattle Foundation.

So that's the second approach.

One of them is smaller community, grassroots organizations, and second pillar is having a larger, more mainstream organizations that experience higher need access funding as well.

Thank you, Director Bilbaran, and just really appreciate the approach that OIRA is taking, and everybody needs a roof over their head.

Everybody's got to eat, so hoping that we can make sure that we're building those connections so we can serve our immigrant and refugee neighbors.

Thank you so much, Chair, no further questions.

Thank you, Councilmember Ring.

Councilmember Lin, you are recognized.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation.

Got a few questions, and if we need to follow up on some of these later, happy to do so.

But first question is just on looking at the presentation, it talks about similar enforcement activities happening throughout the county.

Just looking at the numbers, it looks like maybe even more so than in Seattle, if I'm looking at those numbers correctly.

But just wondering, As Councilmember Rank mentioned, very fortunate that we have the resources we do, even though they're not nearly enough, thanks to voters passing the Seattle Shield Initiative.

Wondering what resources, to the extent you're aware, are there at the county level or some of the surrounding jurisdictions?

And just wondering how much there's partnerships or kind of a regional approach to helping our immigrant neighbors.

Thank you for that question, Council Member Lynn.

We are working very closely with King County, and one of the approaches to addressing the situation is to streamline resources and see where we can complement each other.

I know that King County identified $2 million that it recently announced, and we can share that press release with you after the meeting about their investment strategy.

going forward and we are informing each other and talking both on the state level and the county level about working to counter the negative impact of federal policies on access to basic needs.

I know that King County is also considering joining the investment into the Seattle Foundation and the philanthropy dollars that Seattle Foundation was able to bring forward.

But the details of that I'm not able to speak to.

And then just at the state level, and again, I'll just list off a few questions and anything you feel comfortable answering, and then also we're happy to take it offline.

But just you mentioned the governor.

We're talking about these cuts to health care.

What, if anything you know, our state legislature, I mean, later on in the year we'll be talking about our state legislative priorities, but can you just talk about what you're hearing is happening at the state level or any conversations that you're hearing about in terms of either funding for immigration defense, funding for basic needs, healthcare, addressing privacy protections.

We continue to hear that despite our state level protections that the feds are still getting access to licensing data.

And then finally, anything that you might know about in terms of the lack of healthcare that's being provided at the Tacoma Detention Facility?

I know that our federal partners are investigating and looking into that, but just wondering if you're aware of anything at the state level that might be happening in terms of regulating healthcare at the detention facility.

Thank you.

Well, I would say that shortly, I know that our state legislatures have a really tough set of challenges ahead of this legislative session.

It's going to be a budget year, and we are starting to hear that the state office of immigrant and refugee assistance, our counterpart on the state office might be experiencing some funding challenges that would be coming from federal cuts.

A part of the office activity is funded through the Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, and it is my understanding that that funding might be cut, so I cannot speak to that.

We can get back to you if we hear more information, but this is just starting to be a point of discussion about how those cuts would impact our service providers, especially those who are working in the area of refugee resettlement.

In terms of Sorry, what was the other question about Tacoma Access?

We know that we have really strong partners in the Office of Attorney General that's looking into that and the Governor's Office and the Department of Health.

My understanding is that they are doing all they can in order to facilitate access to the detention facility and provide better services.

So we have our full trust into the inquiries and the steps that they're taking to improve access to healthcare.

But it is clearly not a good setup for anybody to be detained, and the detention center is usually at capacity, and the conditions there are inhumane as any civil detention facility experiences.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lynn.

And obviously I would encourage you also to reach out to our friends at the Office of Intergovernmental Relations because they're interfacing with our state legislators and also the governor and even the county.

So I bet they can help find out some of the information that you were asking today.

Thank you very much.

All right, colleagues, if there are no further questions, then I'm gonna thank Interim Director Bill LeBran and Ms. Wilson for being here.

And we will follow up on some of these items and the end of the year data gathering and hearing more about the Seattle Foundation, how many funds they were able to raise on the philanthropic side, how much is being added to all the great work that you all are doing and then the small community grants those 28 organizations, if you'll share who they are, so we can share that with constituents, that's really helpful as well.

So thank you.

Yes, we can definitely follow up about that already, and I really appreciate the opportunity to present to you today.

Thank you for all your questions, and foremost, thank you for the support you provided in the form of additional funding for the communities.

It is noted, it is felt, it is deeply, deeply appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

All right.

Clerk, will you please read item two into the record?

Agenda item two, Seattle Public Library Levy Update and Seattle Raids 2026 for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, Clerk.

All right, colleagues, we're now joined by Chief Librarian Tom Fay.

and his team to give us an update on the library levy.

The levy passed, as you all know, with vigorous support in August, and now we will get to hear next steps as SPL plans for the investments funded by that levy.

Stesha Barnes is here also to tell us about the book, Chosen for Seattle Reads.

Colleagues, you each have one at your desk, just so people can see it who may be watching.

This is the book, True Biz by Sarah Novick.

Very exciting.

I always love our Seattle Reads pick from our library friends.

All right.

And as you all may know, Seattle Reads is an amazing program that literally gets us all on the same page.

Thank you, Wendy, for the pun.

and it's been used as a model for similar programs across the country.

It really is amazing.

And I look forward every year to the time of year where we get to know what the Seattle Reads book is.

So it's really amazing.

And I love how over the years, the diversity of reads and authors that the library has been very thoughtful and intentional in selecting.

So I really wanna appreciate you all for the Seattle Reads program and for the work that you do there.

All right, Chief, will you please state your name for the record and your team, and then you can get to your presentation.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair Rivera.

My name is Tom Fay.

I'm the Chief Librarian for the Seattle Public Library.

Kirsten Nelson, Government Relations for the Seattle Public Library.

Stesha Brandon, the Literature and Humanities Program Manager at the Seattle Public Library.

Welcome.

Well, thank you so much for that warm welcome.

And I am delighted to be a steward of the Seattle Reads program as part of the book and author programming that I do at the Seattle Public Library.

And for those of you who might be new to the program, it's a citywide book group that builds community through the shared experience of reading the same book.

It was created back in 1998 and is considered one of the original, it is the original One Book, One City program and there are now more than 400 versions of this One City, One Book program across the nation and also globally.

And Seattle Reads is one of the key reasons that Seattle was designated a UNESCO City of Literature back in 2017. and as we heard, this year's selection is True Biz by Sarah Novick.

True Biz is Novick's second novel and it provides a glimpse into a seismic year at the River Valley School for the Deaf.

The story is told by Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before, Austin, the school's golden boy, and February, the headmistress who's fighting to keep her school open.

I'm excited for you all to read the book.

It welcomes readers to learn about deaf culture, and the layout and design of the book does a great job trying to translate a three-dimensional language into words on a page.

Novick also recently authored a memoir, Mother Tongue, which we are also highlighting throughout the program.

The themes this year include bodily autonomy, deaf culture, technology, and its impact on deaf community.

And Sarah is the author of the New York Times bestseller, True Biz, Girl at War, which was her first novel and it won an American Library Association's Alex Award.

And then as I mentioned, her latest book is Mother Tongue, a Memoir.

She's also an activist and an instructor of deaf studies and creative writing and lives in Pennsylvania.

We selected Truebiz because it was recommended by several adult services librarians because of the great characterization, the interesting story, and the organic way that deaf history and culture is integrated into the story, and this is the first time that Seattle Reads has featured a deaf author.

We're delighted this year to be working with Deaf Spotlight and Deaf Lit Fest as our community liaisons.

They have worked to help us shape this year's programming and have advised us on selecting interviews for the events and also helped us learn about Deaf culture and how we can make the events more inclusive.

and we are also working with the folks at the Hearing Loss Association of American, Washington State Association and the Hearing, Speech and Deaf Center.

They are both program partners and will be at the programming that we're hosting.

We at the library have a number of physical and digital copies of the book already in our collections, and we have more coming in every day.

Our collections team has ensured that we have unlimited copies of the e-book available, and those are available through our always available collection through October 1st.

and then we also have what we call uncatalogued copies, which are copies for which you don't need a library card to take, and those copies and discussion guides are available at all of our branches and also at some of our community partners.

We also have copies of True Biz and Mother Tongue available as peek picks through the library.

We're really excited that Sarah's going to be visiting Seattle.

She'll be in Seattle at the end of September.

She'll be doing four programs designed for all audiences on Friday, September 25th and Saturday, September 26th.

These events will be hosted at Central Library, Ballard Library, Hugo House, and the Southeast Seattle Senior Center in District 2. and Central will also host a program that was designed by and for deaf community on Sunday, September 27th.

And all programs will have ASL interpretation, CART live captioning, and then of course patrons can always request additional accommodations as needed through our library equal access program.

We're so grateful to the supporters that make Seattle Reads possible.

The donors to the Seattle Public Library Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, and our media partners at Seattle Times, and also our friends at 4Culture are also supporting the work this year as well.

So we're really excited to host Sarah.

She's a fantastic author, and we look forward to celebrating both of her books this September, and I hope to see you at some of the programs.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Any questions, Collie?

I heard you, Council Member Foster, say you read the book already.

Yeah, I was gonna say, so I- Star pupil up here this morning.

I was just getting ready to say thank you so much, Chair.

I just finished reading this over the weekend, and I don't expect you all to remember this, but when I say reading, I mean listening to an audiobook.

And one of the things that was particularly cool about the way they did the audiobook is that they included the sounds when people were signing that the signing makes, so to sort of give you that experience.

And I thought it was just a really fantastic example of how this book seeks to bring readers in and highlight deaf culture.

And I appreciate you all for picking this, because I was actually just remarking to my colleagues.

I said, oh, I just finished reading this.

And this was the first book that I have read that is focused on deaf culture and deaf identity.

So it was just a really fantastic read and a great experience for me.

So great pick.

And I recommend you guys read it.

It was fantastic.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Anyone else?

Councilmember Rank?

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to use this as an opportunity to thank you for getting us some copies of this.

I'm really excited to dig into this.

I have a passion project on the side of learning sign language, and so I think this is the big impetus to really jump in and keep learning.

So thank you so much for bringing some copies.

We're really excited and hoping to be able to attend some of the events later this month to hear from the author.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A great feature of Seattle Reads also is that usually you all do bring the author to Seattle and folks get to meet the author and that makes it even more accessible and it's really a treat.

You know, as you all know colleagues, Seattleites love our libraries and so this is really highlighting one of the amazing programs that I appreciate you saying that it started in Seattle, the Seattle Reads program.

and now there are 400 across the country.

That's really amazing and really special.

So thank you.

Thank you, colleagues.

And then Chief Fay, you want to get to the update on the library's levy?

And I should say, colleagues, two of our presentations today are about levies, both the library levy, and then you will hear later from Director Duane Chappelle about the FEP levy implementation plan, but you know, wanna acknowledge the voters for their generous support, both for libraries and for the education levy as we, you know, it is really important and it is a really generous thing that voters see the same, importance that we place on libraries and education.

We all share that passion together, voters, and we all counsel, and obviously the mayor as well.

So anyway, we'll go to the library's levy update.

Great.

Thank you, Chair Rivera and council members.

A big thanks to all of you on this committee for moving the mayor's proposal out and obviously working through several sessions with a lot of information and a lot of data thrown at you from the previous levy and what we were looking to accomplish with the 2026 levy.

It was a lot of work but a lot of transparency that I think really helped the public understand what the last levy did and what this current levy will do for the next seven years.

It is a little early in this process, but I will remind folks what this levy is supporting in its books for a city of readers and really a city of literature.

We are one of only two in the United States of the UNESCO City of Literatures.

Also, public spaces, really creating that safe and welcoming space for folks to have a sense of belonging in their community.

Early literacy for children and their caregivers.

Enrichment, which is materials and programs for all ages.

And empowerment, which is classes and resources to help achieve life goals.

and as you know there's some key investment areas and that's around hours and access, open libraries at 27 locations, early learning support, all ages programming, of course collections, books and materials, e-books and e-audiobooks.

Thank you for the note of the e-audiobook as well.

A growing trend in libraries for sure.

Building maintenance, capital improvement, routine and responsive maintenance.

technology and online services, public and staff computers, access to high speed internet, digital equity initiatives.

It's important to note that this, just this week, we started on our integrated library system upgrade.

So for those who are saying, hey, it seems like things are down, some things are down, but you're still able to check out books.

So it's good, but we will have a new system and that will be a result from the 2019 levy which will modernize our back end that supports all of our library functions.

As noted, the voters were very generous in their response.

Over 75% of August voters said yes to the library levy proposal.

The levy package presented to voters was 479.8 million over seven years.

That's 2027 through 2033. And just a note, obviously, as our board has oversight and authority on all fiscal aspects, including the levy.

We're still in the budgeting process.

As you all know, the mayor will deliver her budget in less than two weeks now.

And as part of that, we will be working with our board as we create our operations plan, which includes the budget.

We will be working through that as you contemplate the mayor's proposed budget in September, October, and November.

Our board then will approve our operations plan in December of this year for 27 and 28 from a biennial perspective.

And with that, I'm happy to take any questions you might have.

We don't have all the details yet as budget is still underway, but happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Chief Fay, and thank you for being here this morning to give a reminder on what the levy is supposed to be funding.

You may not have all the information today, but for transparency sake, as you mentioned earlier, and as you know about me, that I wanna provide as much information and constantly so that the voters and our constituents are aware of what we're doing and what the libraries are doing and what they can count on to see from their libraries is really important.

So to me, more information, however much or less that we have at the moment is still okay because I think it's important for folks to know that there were some things in particular that this levy was supposed to be funding.

And so we will continue on, as long as I'm chair here, we will continue to give updates often so that people feel like they understand what's happening, and they're being brought along as these decisions are being made.

And there are a lot of folks that weigh into these decisions, including, and very importantly, our foundation, sorry, our board, our library board, I meant to say.

The foundation's important as well.

They help support some of the funding as well, and they raise money for the library, so we very much appreciate the foundation.

but it's the library board that helps make decision and they are required to do so under the law.

So they're an important partner as well as the mayor and council in this endeavor and you all as well.

So thank you.

Colleagues, any questions?

I know this was just like restating what the library levy is supposed to be funding and post passage of the levy in August.

I thought it was important just to center us again but if you have questions, happy to take them.

I see Council Member Rink, you have a question.

Yes, thank you Chair Rivera and thank you for bringing this presentation into committee today just as a touch point following the passage and huge thank you to the voters for their overwhelming support for our libraries and thank you to our SPL leadership for the continued work you do to lead our library system.

Just a quick question, actually building on a point that you raised just now, Chair, just about the interplay between the library board and some of their decision making.

So Chief Librarian Faye, if you can just touch on a little bit, what are some of the upcoming decisions that might be coming before the library board as it pertains to the levy?

So what we as staff will be doing is taking a look at all those items that were contemplated year one and year two of the levy.

We then prioritize those looking at our strategic plan and then put that forward to our board starting as early as October so they start seeing how that draft looks.

They'll continue to look at that through November until your decision is a full council on the budget.

and at that point then as we move into December that we will finalize the operations plan which will include the full budget along with our private dollars that are budgeted as well which is kind of a separate effort that we go through but also rolls up into the full budget.

And then from there what we will be doing just to follow on with Chair Rivera's comments, we will be actually reporting out to this committee likely sometime in the first quarter or moving into the second quarter on the 2019 levy and all of its results and outcomes.

And then we will then also be reporting out as we go through time on the 2026 levy.

Just to note that we put out a quarterly report on the levy that our board approves every single quarter.

That's posted on SPL.org and the public can view that at any time to keep track of how we're doing.

We also do an annual impact report that also contains much of that work plus a lot of the other work based off the strategic plan.

Fabulous.

Thank you so much for unpacking that.

And that was my only question for today, Chair.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Anyone else?

All right, then I'm gonna thank Chief Fay and Kirsten and Stesha for being here.

We're so excited again to read the Seattle Reads pick this year.

Encourage everyone watching to pick it up at your local library and read that book.

Again, True Biz by Sarah Novick.

shameless trying to promote Sarah and the libraries.

Thank you all, really appreciate you being here.

And now we have Clerk, our third item of business.

Agenda item three, Families Education Preschool Promise Levy Year One Implementation Plan Update for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, Clerk.

We are joined by Director Duane Chappelle from our Department of Education and Early Learning to tell us about the timeline for the implementation and evaluation plan for the Families Education Preschool Promise Levy that this council just recently passed the implementation plan.

And again, as with the library levy, this is just a high level beginner update or a preliminary, not beginner, preliminary update on that implementation plan.

But like the library's levy, I really wanted to have an opportunity to hear high level what the department is working on and the timeline for that implementation plan.

Director Chappelle, please state your name for the record and you may begin.

Good morning, Dwayne Chappelle, Director, Department of Education and Early Learning.

and I would like to, first of all, thank you all for the opportunity to come and share a few updates, as Councilmember mentioned.

One second, we're trying to load the presentation.

I just need to do this.

And then hit share.

Share this.

There we go.

All right, thank you for your patience.

So once again, it's a pleasure to be here this morning to see you all, and thank you for having me, council members.

So today, what I'll do is I'll revisit just the purpose of the Every Child Ready Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy and share some updates regarding the levy governance and implementation.

So as always, just wanna ground us, but also start with just the vision for our city is simple.

All children and youth will attain the skills and credential needed to earn a living wage as adults.

We do this through investing across the lifespan from cradle to career.

Our Every Child Ready investments are organized, and I know you've seen them before, but these three domains, ready to start, ready to learn, and ready to launch.

The funded strategies will promote kindergarten readiness, college and career readiness, and post-secondary access, as well as completion.

So today's update on the first year of the levy includes the both 2026 calendar or fiscal year investments, which began in January of 26, after revenue collection had begun, as well as school year 26, 27 investments, which just begun this month.

So last month, this committee and council confirmed 12 appointees to the Levy Oversight Committee.

And this month, our members are completing their boards and commission training and will actually begin our regular monthly meetings in October.

So for a little bit about the governance.

So what I'm doing, I am also looking forward to the first meeting of the levy interdepartmental team, which will happen later this month with cabinet members from all of the levy-funded departments.

we will establish staff work groups who will have key deliverables, including finalizing the quarter one and two 2026 report, update the competitive grant schedule to reflect rebid requirements in the implementation and evaluation plan, and then we'll begin evaluation planning and work plan development.

So, for the implementation in the ready-to-start area, so just now I wanna share a little bit about some programmatic updates.

All ready-to-start investments have begun implementation as planned, including home visiting and health investments.

Our Child Care Assistance Program increased co-pay support for families, bringing our subsidy rates into alignment with county and state programs, effective 9-1 of this month.

The application for our childcare worker payment program implemented in partnership with Bright Sparks opened earlier this week.

And also this month, we begin the 11th year of the Seattle Preschool Program with our new full-year 10-hour day program model available at 35 locations citywide, including all family childcare providers.

And we are indeed ready to start implementing this levy.

Okay, so now in the ready-to-learn domain, the majority of these investments do operate on a school year model.

And to prevent a gap in service delivery, these investments were sustained for one additional year with existing service providers.

And as a reminder, those partners are listed in the appendix of this implementation and evaluation plan.

And in response to community feedback, the levy included funding to expand school-based investments to add five schools.

We have been working closely with Seattle Public Schools and plan to announce this later this month.

Okay, ready-to-launch investments have also started as planned.

And Deal, we are currently preparing to release the Path to Trade's non-colleges' request for proposals later this fall.

So in summary, the interdepartmental team and levy oversight committee begin this fall.

All calendar year investments are well underway and expected to meet their annual service targets, and all school year contracts are signed or in the final stages.

So looking ahead, and despite all of that work, we're just getting started.

From starting feasibility studies, evaluations, and competitive processes, we have lots of work ahead of us, and we're eager to do it.

So I just wanna just thank you all for your support of this levy, but also wanna thank my amazing department staff for stewarding these investments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Chappelle, and thank your staff for all the hard work that they're doing to make sure that we started the school year on track with our levy investments for those investments that are tied to our school year.

As you may know, colleagues, deals, levy investments go on the school year calendar because so many of the investments, including the childcare and preschool investments, and obviously the K through 12 investments go through the school year.

So everything is on track.

Like I said, this is a preliminary update.

There will be more to come later in this committee.

We will have more robust updates on each of these pieces.

but it was important to me that again, we were level setting and also hearing from the department about the work that they've done leading up to this, the start of this school year, which started last week.

Colleagues, do you have any questions on this preliminary report?

And like I said, there'll be more to come later.

Council Member Rink, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair Rivera.

And as always, thank you, Director Chappelle for all of the work that you were leading within DL.

And please extend my gratitude as well to your hardworking team for their work also.

and thank you, Chair, for bringing forward this initial presentation just to really start getting rooted in the work that is ahead of us and for the department.

Just a couple of brief questions for today.

One, just being on this point that you referenced around the interdepartmental team, I'm wondering when it comes to the IDT and the evaluation and co-design and work plan development, and is there anything you can share about the departments or organizations or other government entities or stakeholders that will be a part of that IDT as they're kind of coming together to start initiating that work?

Yes, so it'll be all of the departments that we currently are connecting or partnering with right now for their investments.

So from HSD parks, fire and police.

So we're looking at bringing all of those departments together and I'm actually really excited about that.

So we get a chance to coordinate and collaborate to make sure services are executed and aligned to what the levy requirements are.

Certainly.

I'm excited to hear about that work as well, particularly because, of course, there's the matter of ensuring that we're efficient and all moving in the same direction, but also for the sake of really taking a citywide approach when it comes to investing in young people and their families is just so important.

So more opportunities to be able to really be on the same page and working on unified approaches for supporting families in our city is so important.

Very excited to hear about the IDT coming together to be the underpinning for this work.

And I suppose my other question just for this time, knowing that we're at the beginning of this process, is just some of the RFP timelines.

I'm really excited to see that we're starting the RFP process.

Could you just do a quick refresher on the timelines for those RFPs?

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Can you repeat your question again?

Yes.

There was a mention, let's see, there was a couple of mentions with RFPs I see on slide 10 with the Path to Trades RFP opening this fall, just high level.

When do we anticipate that closing?

What's the timeline?

Have we built out that timeline yet or when can we expect to see it?

Yeah, so it'll be sometime, like I said, this fall, we actually are going, our team is working on language, working with legal to make sure we're following all of the implementation and evaluation guidelines, and as soon as we get that up, of course, the sooner the better.

My team is constantly hearing from me, like, what you're asking, all right, are we ready to go?

But once we actually meet everything that we need to do, I'm happy to shoot you an email just to let you know that, hey, it's gonna be posted on a certain date.

But the plan is to do it as soon as possible.

But we've been working on it for a while.

Fabulous.

Thank you so much, Director Chappelle.

Really appreciate it.

And thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

and thank you to your team because though we want to go quickly, we also want to get things right and I know that they're doing design on the RFP and then making sure that on the legal front it aligns with both the implementation plan and also the levy language itself because we need to really meet and make sure we're not running afoul of that levy language.

So all that work is happening and I really appreciate your team for crossing the T's and dotting the I's.

on that front.

All right, and the Council Member Lynn, I see you have your hand up.

You are recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Director Chappelle.

Just wondering, now that we have a new superintendent, thankfully they were able to reach a TA with the Educators Union.

But just wondering, we continue to see pretty devastating equity gaps in our outcomes.

Just wondering in terms of, and I'm certainly happy to follow up this later, but are you seeing any changes that they're talking about in terms of their approach to addressing these equity gaps that we might align with or, yeah.

Yeah, so I'll say yes, and I wouldn't call it a main change, but one thing the superintendent has been clear about is using data to identify where the gaps are and making sure that we're being as intentional as possible and some things such as like tutoring and mentoring, which he continues to speak to, which we know what research has talked about, the impact of high dosage tutoring and what mentoring would look like.

So those are some things that I'm hearing.

Those are...

things that we know that the levy was kind of built around to make sure that we're gonna be focusing on students' academic needs.

So he's been very consistent.

We've been very clear and consistent on what the levy is tent set to do.

And I see a lot of energy and partnership around that.

Yeah, thank you.

And I just, I think, obviously, that alignment and collaboration is so important.

I know it's hard for us because we don't control, you know, Seattle Public Schools.

And at the same time, obviously, critical partners in investing.

So, yeah, anything we can do to sort of align and collaborate with them.

Thank you.

And then just any similar questions sort of around public safety, our public safety investments, anything that you're hearing from Seattle Public Schools or our collaboration with them around addressing public safety in the schools or any of our investments there?

I think what I can say, what I've been hearing is that just the appreciation that of our collaboration, that we really get an opportunity to bring our teams together and look to see like, again, whether it's the data or our investments and how our investments are really catered to meeting students and community needs, specifically in or around the schools.

So our conversations have been pretty robust.

And like I just mentioned, I'm just excited that we have the partnership.

I was actually with them a few moments before I came down here.

So super robust conversations, but more importantly, there's a lot of interest in continuing to collaborate to make sure that kids are gonna be safe in and around schools.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, council member Lynn.

And I will say for my part, I have had really great conversations with the superintendent.

He's really, I have found him to be really collaborative and thoughtful.

and I know that he wants to do all he can to ensure that our kids are meeting their education milestones.

He's really focused on closing gaps and making sure that we're doing both the things that we know and that research shows actually close gaps which is really addressing their supports, academic supports like mentoring and tutoring as Director Chappelle just said.

And he's also very focused on accountability.

And there was, if you haven't seen it, a really good article in Substack about that piece about accountability and some areas where the SPS had gotten lax.

over since COVID on the accountability piece and sort of how we're making investments in the K through 12 space for our kids, particularly those who are not meeting their third and fifth grade math and reading milestones.

And I'm glad to see that this superintendent is really focused on ensuring that we have both the supports in place to make sure kids are meeting those academic, that they're having academic achievement at the end of the day, because we know if they're not meeting their third and fifth grade reading and math now over time, you know, and once they get to their senior year of high school, things are not gonna get better.

So we really need to address math and reading early, particularly with our kids who, you know, the kids who are not meeting those goals, we're really doing a disservice to them if we are not focused on ensuring that we're helping them meet those goals so that as they move forward, they have opportunities in 12th grade to enter either our path to trades or the college is ready.

and not having to take remedial courses, which is what we're seeing now when they do enter, our Seattle Promise students are entering the colleges.

And so the goal is to make sure that we are closing those gaps early so that kids have, our students have the best opportunity in life.

And so I really have found the superintendent to be both collaborative and really eye on the prize and helping kids meet their academic goals.

And that's really important to him.

And I know that's important to all of us.

So I am very encouraged by the relationship with this new superintendent.

I'm very supportive of what I see that he's doing.

And he has a lot of energy.

And I think that's really great for our students, for our families and for our city.

wanted to recognize because we do need to recognize folks when they really are doing a great job and ensuring that we're keeping our eye on the prize on what kids actually need.

So thank you, Director Chappell.

I know you're in constant communication with the superintendent as well.

And I know it was important to us because in the INE and the implementation evaluation plan, we put in a note about ensuring that we're collaborating with the superintendent on all the investments in the K through 12 space.

So I know that the department is taking that seriously and they're doing that.

As you heard today, Director Chappelle was with the district this morning.

So thank you, Director Chappelle for being here.

And thank you all.

Oh, Council Member Foster, you just joined us.

So do you have any questions?

Are you good?

Okay, great.

All right.

Or not that you just joined us, you came back.

you've been here all along and you stepped out for a minute.

All right, thank you Director Chappelle for being here.

More to come colleagues on the implementation and evaluation plan.

All right, let me get to the end.

of my script for this meeting.

All right, hearing no further questions or comments, we will move to conclude this meeting.

This concludes the September 9th meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

Our next committee meeting is scheduled for after budget on December 9th at 9.30 a.m.

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

Hearing no further business is 1053 AM and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you for being here colleagues.