Seattle City Council Governance and Education Committee 4/13/21

Good afternoon, everyone.

The April 13th, 2021 Governance and Education Committee meeting will now come to order.

I'm Lorena Gonzalez.

The time is 2.02 p.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Mosqueda?

Present.

Chair Gonzalez.

Present.

That's for present.

Thank you so much.

Approval of the agenda.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Did wanna just make a note that Council Member Strauss is unfortunately not able to join us.

He is still in jury duty, so he does have an excused absence for today.

Okay, without further ado, we're gonna get to public comment.

At this moment, we are gonna open the remote public comment period.

While it remains our strong intent to have public comment regularly included on future meeting agendas, the City Council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods.

at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

I'll moderate the public comment.

Public comment period for this meeting is 20 minutes.

Each speaker will have two minutes to speak.

I'll call on each speaker.

in the order that they pre-registered on the council's website.

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You can go to the city council's webpage at seattle.gov forward slash council, or you can also look at the link on today's agenda to pre-register for public comment.

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Public comment period is now open.

Again, as a reminder, you will be unmuted and hear a prompt telling you that you've been unmuted, and then you need to press star six before you begin speaking.

The first speaker on my list is Melody McMillan.

Welcome, Melody.

Good afternoon Council President Gonzalez and fellow council members.

My comments today are about Seattle Promise.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

My name is Melody McMillan and I am the Senior Executive Director for Seattle Promise at Seattle Colleges.

Seattle Colleges Vice Chancellor Buttleman has already submitted written comment in support of the recommendations submitted from the race equity or race equity toolkit RET team that is designed to grow and refine the Seattle Promise program.

I also want to add my comments and appreciation for being a part of the Seattle Promise rep process this last year.

I have a deep appreciation for the partnership it takes to serve the diverse community of Seattle through the Seattle Promise program.

Thanks to the work of the council the City of Seattle Seattle Public Schools and Seattle Colleges we are centering equity in our programming to invest in and support student success.

Seattle College's vision is to be recognized as an exemplary learning institution that transforms lives promotes equality equity and enriches the community.

The public engagement in the RET process and the support of city council is essential as we continue to improve the Seattle Promise Program to meet the needs of Seattle students.

The recommendations you'll see later today and your support of them will help us to realize that vision of centering equity and improving student success.

Thank you for your continued support to enrich our community.

Thank you Melody for calling in today and thanks to the Seattle Colleges for their partnership.

Okay.

I don't have anyone else on my list signed up for public comment and I would appreciate it if IT confirmed that that is the case.

We will go ahead and move along to other items of business on our agenda.

Next up are items 1 and 2. Will the clerk please read items 1 and 2 into the record?

Zachary Picadas-Jones as member of Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission for a term to December 31st, 2022, and the appointment of Kristen A. Hawes, member of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission for a term to December 31st, 2023, for a briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you so much, Bea.

Really appreciate it.

We are joined today by Michelle Chen of the Mayor's Office to present these two nominees for appointment to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

So I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Ms. Chen for introductions for the record, and then I will be happy to hear the introduction of the nominees.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

My name is Michelle Chen.

I am the Mayor's Office Legal Counsel, and I am happy to be here today, and thank you for the committee's consideration of the Mayor's appointments of Zachary Jones and Kristen Hawes to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

We are very grateful for the candidates public and civic interest in serving on this very, very important commission.

And without further ado, I do want to allow the candidates to introduce themselves.

And this will now fulfill the two vacancies that the mayor has on the commission.

And again, thank you to council members for your consideration and for your future confirmation of our two appointments.

Thank you.

Thanks so much, Michelle.

Why don't we go ahead and start with Zach.

So Zach, if you could just state your name for the record here, and then tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're interested in serving on the commission.

Thank you, Council President and Council Members.

Good afternoon.

My name is Zachary Pikalis-Jones, and I'm currently an Assistant Attorney General with the Washington State Attorney General's Office.

As a lifelong Seattleite, setting aside just a few East Coast detours over the years, I'm very honored by the mayor's nomination to serve on the commission and excited for the opportunity to serve our city.

The commission plays a critical role in ensuring transparency, accountability, and impartiality in Seattle elections and government.

If confirmed, I look forward to promoting those values in partnership with my fellow commissioners, the commission staff, this council, and the many stakeholders in city government and the broader community.

This is a unique municipal election year coming at what we hope will prove the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In that context, I see two near-term opportunities for the commission to leverage its role in administering the city's election code.

First, while universal mail-in voting in Washington certainly mitigates some of the impact of COVID-19 on our elections, It remains important to ensure the pandemic does not impede voters' ability to participate in the political process.

The commission's recently adopted emergency rule allowing campaigns to post democracy voucher replacement forms online is, in my view, a great example of such a measure.

As the lead assistant attorney general on the litigation team defending Governor Inslee's emergency response to the pandemic, I am eager and I think well-positioned to help the commission find solutions to the challenges COVID-19 continues to pose to campaigns and voters alike.

Second, it is critical that the commission continue to remove barriers to full and equal electoral participation by our city's most marginalized communities, including BIPOC communities.

This would be my number one priority as a commissioner, and it is especially urgent in the midst of a pandemic that has disproportionately harmed people of color.

For example, although participation in the Pioneer in Democracy voucher program nearly doubled from 2017 to 2019, it remained disproportionately utilized by white, wealthy, and older Seattleites.

It is, I think, essential to address those disparities in the city's signature election program.

I'm deeply committed to that goal, and more broadly, to promoting equity in the commission's work, having devoted much of my legal career to fighting against discrimination and for the civil rights of racial and other minorities.

At the Attorney General's office, for example, I sued the previous federal administration repeatedly, challenging actions that, in our office's view, unlawfully discriminated against people of color, LGBTQ Americans, and other groups disfavored by that administration.

I am most proud of my work on the case challenging the public charge rule, which jeopardized the immigration status of millions solely based on their receipt of minimal public benefits, including food, housing, or healthcare.

Before joining the Attorney General's office, I was a trial attorney in the U.S.

Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division in the voting section.

In that role, I worked closely with state and local election administrators to ensure compliance with the language access provisions of the Federal Voting Rights Act, among other laws.

I led teams of federal election monitors and observers in a range of urban and rural election jurisdictions across the country.

And I was part of the DOJ team that successfully sued the state of Texas under section two of the Voting Rights Act based on that state's strict voter ID law.

When I was in private practice at Perkins Coie, I had the opportunity to work on a variety of election related matters, including recounts and election contests, challenges to racial and political gerrymanders in other states, and political law counseling for Washington state and local campaigns.

I also had an active pro bono practice, partnering with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, to represent indigent capital defendants challenging their convictions in state and federal habeas proceedings.

That experience, particularly seeing up close the systemic and overt racism that my clients experienced as criminal defendants, shaped me profoundly as a lawyer, deepening my resolve to eradicate discrimination in the legal system and improve access to justice for indigent and other disadvantaged litigants.

Just as that perspective has shaped my work at DOJ Civil Rights and in the Attorney General's Office, it would guide my service as a commissioner.

Thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself today, and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Zachary, for that introduction.

Really, really appreciate it and appreciate your willingness to step up and serve in this capacity.

As a former Ethics and Elections Commissioner myself, I can tell you that there is no shortage of work in that commission.

And I had an opportunity to serve before the implementation of the Democracy Voucher Program and many of the laws that I have personally sponsored to reform our local election system here locally.

So there's a lot more work on the plate of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

So I appreciate your willingness to serve in this additional capacity.

Colleagues, I do want to open it up for any questions you all might have of Mr. Jones.

I'm not seeing any questions.

So we'll go ahead and move over to Kristen Haas for an introduction and an opportunity to ask her any questions.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

Can you hear me OK?

Yeah.

Great.

And thanks also to the council members and staff for giving me the opportunity to participate.

I am also enthused about the prospect of serving the city as a member of the commission.

Like Zach, I am a native Seattleite, and so I've seen the city change considerably over the course of my time here, and also recognize that Access to elections, equity, and representation are critical as the city moves forward in its governance overall, but particularly in the post-COVID era.

My background is a little bit different.

I am an attorney, a partner at Summit Law Group, specializing in commercial real estate.

So I do a lot of work with clients of all sizes in that arena, both in the city and outside of it.

I come to the commission as a, with legal training and legal background, but also as more of perhaps a citizen volunteer in terms of someone who has a longstanding interest in government and politics and a specific interest in access to justice issues.

As Mr. Jones indicated, he had served previously In the pro bono and access arenas with respect to his career at DOJ before his current position, I previously was a public defender, so have a sense of the difficulties faced by many in terms of their experience of at least our legal system and the difficulties inherent in providing everyone with fair access and fair representation.

As I mentioned, most currently I have been a real estate attorney and have seen, as I mentioned, the city change, the challenges that the city faces.

And I think in terms of adequately addressing those challenges, the work of the commission will be crucial with respect to enhancing representation and confidence in our processes.

I did have an extensive conversation with Wayne Barnett about this and the work of the commission and moving those priorities forward and look forward to the opportunity to serve and assist in that capacity.

With respect to volunteering, I'm a mother of now three teenagers.

So now I have the opportunity since they are more self-sufficient and in and more capable, I would say, the opportunity to dedicate more of my time to public service.

And so we would greatly appreciate the opportunity to serve the city that I love in this capacity.

Thank you so much for that introduction.

Colleagues, any questions for Kristen?

Council Member Esqueda, please.

I'm going to go ahead and unmute myself.

Oh, you're on mute.

There you go.

I was like, oh, no, my computer is freezing.

Good afternoon.

Thank you again for your interest in serving.

You know, Councilmember, excuse me, Council President Gonzalez and I have the chance to really be the first city council members to win using these democracy vouchers.

So I think some of the policy changes that we put into place to try to make them more workable great first steps and I look forward to continuing to work with all of you, not just on democracy vouchers, but also overall the way in which we can make elections more transparent and accessible and voting more accessible.

I guess one of the questions that I have is Do either of you, or do we happen to know the existing board members, which board members have experienced running elections before or running campaigns?

My question comes from both wanting to make sure that we have people who have a commitment to social justice, as you clearly do, but also wanting to make sure that we lift up the lived experience of folks who've been trying to get more people actively engaged in initiatives.

and voting.

So can you speak a little bit to that if you have it, or if you happen to know other commissioners who bring that level of experience?

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda.

I can't speak to the other commissioners' experience.

I can only speak to my own.

I've never, I wouldn't say I've ever run an election, but at DOJ in the voting section, our role was to lead teams of observers and election monitors.

from within DOJ and other federal agencies all around the country.

So I've had the opportunity to observe kind of monitoring for just general procedures with kind of detailed monitoring parameters, and specifically with a focus on ensuring language access.

Those were typically the jurisdictions, the section 203 jurisdictions that we would visit.

So I've observed elections, in-person elections, of course, in contradistinction to our own by-mail elections.

California, New York, Texas, you know, a wide range of jurisdictions kind of, and I found that to be one of the most rewarding parts of the job.

No knock on by mail voting, which has tremendous benefits, but there is just something kind of magical about being in the polling place and seeing all these different people from different walks of life coming together and exercising this fundamental right that's preservative of all other rights.

And, you know, things went wrong on almost every election, but nothing to the point that it was, you know, shook the foundations of our democracy.

So that was a tremendously rewarding experience and I think gave me a perspective for election administration.

Although I certainly wouldn't say that I was ever in charge of it.

I hope that answers your question.

I also do not have experience running elections per se.

I have volunteered and worked for candidates in various jurisdictions when we lived in Western New York and more recently in Seattle.

But I have not run an election, to your question, Council Member.

That's fair, and I haven't run many elections either.

I did, before running for office, run an initiative, helped to run an initiative statewide for minimum wage and sick leave.

And I would just encourage folks, as you get onto these commissions, especially with the SEEC, as you're considering issues, to try to do some outreach to people who are running campaigns or running initiatives to get direct feedback, because you know just even the the smallest the smallest thing can be an impediment either to making sure that the diverse candidates get a chance to get their word out or voter participation can be expanded and so recognizing like work groups or roundtables to pull that lived experience in would be I think a great addition to the experience you're bringing to the commission.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda for that.

I have a general question about technology and how that plays into our local elections in particular under the Democracy Voucher Program.

I think I would just be interested in hearing sort of your perspectives on on innovation and on, you know, sort of technology.

And I think, you know, particularly in the context of COVID and the realities of COVID and how that will continue to impact our community for a good portion of the rest of the year.

So just talk to me a little bit about sort of your I guess, principles or experiences with how to utilize technology in the best way possible in the context of our local elections?

I think with respect to the democracy vouchers, I've noticed in looking at website over the course of the last several elections, it has been broadened to include translation resources for various communities to enhance access via the information provided there.

I think the potential struggle or issue, and frankly, this has been highlighted um, by COVID and the vaccine rollout is that, you know, people's access to technology is, is not consistent, nor is it equitable.

So if we have, we have the mail-in democracy vouchers, we have resources available online, but trying, I think one of the tasks of the commission and Zach alluded to this earlier, will be, um, working in the next few years to ensure that both the technology and is perhaps enhanced and improved, but also in the process of focusing on technology, we don't ignore the fact that a lot of people don't have access by that means or that that access may be limited.

And so proceeding, I envision it proceeding along parallel paths to improve participation in both of those or via both of those means.

Yeah, and I'd echo Ms. Hawza's comments.

The paradox of maybe election administration is that the lowest tech elections are actually the most secure elections, having paper ballots as opposed to electronic voting machines that are hooked up to the Internet.

I don't interpret your question, Council President, as relating to election administration per se, which is kind of outside the purview of the commission itself.

But with respect to democracy vouchers, I think there are tremendous opportunities to utilize technology in ways that help expand the program.

In particular, I mentioned the disparities in race and socioeconomic wealth, there are also tremendous disparities in age in terms of utilization of the Democracy Voucher Program.

In the 2019 municipal elections, voters over 60 years old participated in the Democracy Voucher Program by over 10 percent, whereas voters who were under 30 participated only 3 percent of them actually turned in a Democracy Voucher.

Obviously, when you're dealing with, I guess that would be the millennial generation, any kind of technological utilization you can do, whether it's social media or other kind of internet promotions, is likely to yield more benefits.

So I'd need to do more research to see what efforts the commission and its staff have already done to kind of promote the voucher program on social media.

I certainly know campaigns actively do so.

But I think that's certainly worth exploring as a strategy to generate more excitement and participation among Seattle's younger voters.

I appreciate that.

I would also just, I haven't heard either of you talk about this directly.

I want to encourage you as soon to be commissioners on the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission to not forget about legal permanent residence and our immigrant refugee population in that category.

The Democracy Voucher Program is available too.

legal permanent residents and the numbers there are dismal in terms of usage and in large part it's because it's a little cumbersome to get folks to ask for the vouchers and to know that they're supposed to ask for the vouchers and that's an area where I I think the commission can continue to improve and have targeted strategies and approaches that would really create a much more inclusive access to such a historic, one-of-a-kind program in our country.

So we just encourage you all to consider lifting up that particular access piece for this program.

Yeah, thank you for pointing that out.

Yeah, of course.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments?

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Michelle, do you have anything else to add?

I don't, other than to say that we are so grateful for the service of these two candidates who are qualified and obviously have a personal passion to see Seattle have the very best and nationally recognized democracy voucher program as well as access to BIPOC community and making sure that our elections are run as fairly and transparently as possible.

So thank you, Council President Gonzalez and council members, and we look forward to their confirmation.

Thank you so much, appreciate it.

Okay, seeing that there's no more questions, I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion.

Council members, I move the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 1868 and 1869. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Are there any additional comments?

Hearing no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed?

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Gonzales?

Aye.

All in favor?

None opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the April 19th City Council meeting.

You all are welcome to tune into the meeting, but you are not required to attend full council meeting on April 19th at two o'clock.

And I expect that there will not be any issues with the final vote confirmation.

But for now, congratulations and thank you for your willingness to serve the city in this capacity.

Thank you for your consideration.

Of course.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you all for joining us.

You are welcome to exit the meeting.

Item number three, will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Agenda item number three, Best Starts for Kids Levy Renewal for briefing and discussion.

Thank you so much.

OK, colleagues, I'm really excited about this next agenda item.

And as we all know, I'm sure that we are all fans of the best starts for kids levy that is administered by King County.

I know that when it was first placed on the ballot, many what feels like many moons ago at this point, I was an early endorser and booster of this really important levy that serves so many of our families and kids.

So we are pretty unique compared to many other jurisdictions across the country and that we as both the city and a county are willing to tax ourselves in addition to the taxes that we pay that fund our public schools to support really critically important childhood development and education-based interventions and strategies.

I'm extremely grateful for the strong partners that we have at the county and for Sheila Kapastani in particular who's with us today who is going to provide us with a briefing on the best starts for kids levy renewal efforts that are underway over at the King County Council.

So I just want to again echo my thanks to King County Executive Dow Constantine and to our colleagues over at King County Council for the tremendous work that they did in getting this passed in the first place and she led to you for all of the amazing administration and implementation that you have done here.

We've seen really tremendous results and I'm excited to learn more.

So I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you to introduce yourself and walk us through your presentation.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

And thank you, council members.

Again, Sheila Kappa standing for the record director of our Children, Youth and Young Adults Division at King County and lead for Best Starts for Kids, which is really my big honor.

I have a very large PowerPoint that hopefully you all will have access to that has lots of information.

But really, I just want to go over some of the higher level aspects of Best Starts for Kids and talk about what the new levy renewal is.

So I believe that it is being shared by you all, so we can...

Yeah, I think V has it and is starting to share it now, so...

All right, and so I...

And you can just let her, you can just let V know when you want to advance to the next slide.

Okay, this is a wonderful exercise for me.

I kind of have control issues, so not having control of this, this is wonderful.

So next slide, please.

Next slide.

No slide.

No slide.

There we go.

There we go.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much, Bea.

I always love to show this slide when I'm doing presentations because this guides everything that we do with Best Starts for Kids.

And it's become a part of the county's mission and vision for itself.

in general as we talk about our work with children, youth, and young adults.

Our government, we started off with a really long vision statement.

And over the first year of the levy, we came down to these four words, which we kept hearing.

So happy, healthy, safe, and thriving for all of our babies, all of our children, all of our youth, young adults, parents, families, and communities.

That is the goal that we aim for.

And we want to see our babies born healthy, our kids thrive, and our young people grow up to be healthy, successful adults.

Next slide, please.

Next slide.

So our current levy, I wanted to go over just to sort of let you know what the framework is as we move into what our renewal will look like.

With the first levy proceeds, since it was the very first time this levy was passed, we knew that we would start collections in January of 2016, but would not have an approved implementation plan until the end of that year.

So with the first year's worth of collections, we used some of those dollars to start a youth and family homeless prevention project with about $21 million.

And that was to be spread out over the six years.

With the remaining amount, this is how the funds were divided.

So 50% of the levy went towards what we call investing early in our prenatal to five.

35% went to sustaining the gain five to 24. We knew from the research and what our community told us that getting that deep investment in the earliest part was going to be the way that we would provide the healthiest foundation for our children.

But we also understood that if we did not sustain the gains that we had made in those early years, that children could lose ground.

So 50% for prenatal to 5, 35 to 5 to 24, and then 10% to wrapping communities around our kids.

Communities matter.

We have a program called Communities of Opportunity in partnership with the Seattle Foundation, and that was 10% of this levy.

and then 5% going towards data and evaluation.

Next slide, please.

I'm not going to go deeply into this, but wanted to show that Best Starts for Kids as a full initiative, we have a theoretical framework that is underneath everything that we do.

This framework is one that we put together based on both science and research that we knew about what was out around what was important about serving children and young people, and from the extensive community outreach and partnership that we did and the things that folks told us about what they knew to be true for their own communities and what children and youth needed.

We put those two bodies of knowledge together and came up with our theoretical framework.

Essentially, what this says is if we increase the good and decrease the bad, we will get to healthy development and well-being for our children.

So increasing promotive and protective factors, reducing risk factors would allow us to get to this healthy development.

If you were so inclined, you could actually map all of the strategies that I'm going to talk about next to one of these dot points on this list to see what was the purpose of that.

So, it all links together as an initiative.

Next slide, please.

So, in our prenatal to five investments, they really focus on these as overall strategies.

And if you think about this, what we're looking at is babies and their families at the center.

and the supports that are needed for them as individual babies and families.

And then we go sort of a next circle out is how do we create peer support.

and community support around parents, new parents and new ones, new little ones.

And then the next one out, who else spends time with our children besides parents?

It's our childcare providers and then other providers who come in contact with children at this point.

And then the biggest circle is coming out to our system.

So what kind of supports can we provide the system that families have to move within?

So we're looking at public health services for new parents and babies, home-based services for new families, developmental health services.

And when we identify young people who might be experiencing some delays, we also invested in our early support system, community-based parenting and peer supports.

then that next circle out of child care consultation.

And finally, the system supports around workforce development, infant mental health, and a program called Help Me Grow, which is really about creating a system so that people know where they can go when they need assistance.

Next slide, please.

Our 5 to 24 investments are really grouped around these strategies.

And again, I won't read everything on this slide, but they cluster around youth development, around school partnerships, family and community connections, and transitions to adulthood.

So for all of our kids, these are the levers, if you'll have it, that you could link back to that theoretical framework.

And then we have a significant investment in our strategies around stopping the school-to-prison pipeline, which are both direct services to young people who are caught up in our system and funding some work to to change the system that is actually putting our children into this peril.

Next slide, please.

So measuring success, an essential part of Best Starts for Kids is also to make sure that we are measuring and achieving the outcomes that we set out to achieve.

And we are using the nationally-based model called results-based accountability.

Essentially, we are asking three key questions for all of our programs.

How much do we do?

How well did we do it?

And is anybody better off?

And so we've collected data.

We're asking these questions for all of the strategies that we have.

And we're measuring change at three different levels.

We're measuring it at the headline indicator level, which is really population-based.

Did we make any changes that moved the markers for our community as a whole?

Secondary indicators, which are more immediate.

Those headline indicators we may not be able to see for another few years, but the secondary indicators get us a little closer to that.

And then we have performance measures for every organization that we contract with.

And each one of these performance measures lead us to pushing on the secondary indicators, which lead us to our headline indicators and shifting for our communities.

Next slide, please.

So BSK by the numbers.

We have funded and are partnering with 360 plus community partners to administer 654 programs.

We've provided, or our community consultants have provided about 7,000 hours of TA for our community partners, and we've served over half a million children, youth, parents, and caregivers.

With our system supports, we've trained 24,000 healthcare providers, childcare providers, and community health workers.

When you include communities of opportunity in these numbers and the numbers of people who've attended their leadership workshops, this number goes up to significantly to almost 200,000 leaders and providers in our communities.

Next slide, please.

And then just to talk a little bit about Best Starts for Kids and the city of Seattle.

We have a lot of program partners and programs in Seattle, 80 plus partners that we've funded through BSK and 85 plus programs that we have funded through BSK.

Our Seattle partners are funded in nearly every one of the Best Starts for Kids strategy areas.

And we have done a lot of this work through strong partnerships with the city's deal and with Seattle Public Schools.

Next slide, please.

So proposed levy.

There's several aspects to this that I wanted to go over quickly.

So with the proposed levy, we really want to say, let's maintain what we're doing.

We know we're getting good results, but we also know that we are just in the beginning of getting those results.

So much work went into figuring out, working with our communities, and having community design strategies come through.

So we want to make sure that we maintain that good work that our communities have done to help us form Best Starts for Kids.

So keeping the framework of investing early, sustaining the gain, our Communities of Opportunity Program, and our Youth and Family Homelessness Prevention.

Next slide.

We also want to build upon what we're doing.

So we heard very clearly from our communities that we needed to deepen our investment in our school age children.

and in our youth and young adults.

So we are proposing a deepening investment in out-of-school time programs that will focus on 5 to 12-year-olds, deepen our investment in school-based health centers, and deepen our investments in transitions to adulthood.

So those young folks who are 16 to 24 who may have had a difficult time getting through the school system, and so offering alternative education and ways for high school completion, and then on to secondary and post-secondary and employment support.

Next slide, please.

And finally, we proposed a new investment in child care.

And this would create a new child care subsidy program through King County to make child care more affordable for more than 3,000 low-income children and their families.

This subsidy program would be working closely with the city of Seattle and with the state as we all, and the feds as well, as everyone is paying attention right now to childcare and what we need to be doing so that we leverage this to really assure that all of our families have the access that they need to childcare.

We also will be establishing a new childcare wage project.

We have a couple of models that we've seen throughout the country that looks at supplementing the wage of childcare workers.

This in particular because we know that child care workers are some of the most underpaid providers in our county while providing some of the most important work.

They also tend towards being women and tend towards being women of color.

So this really helps us push forward our equity commitments that we have in Best Starts for Kids.

Next slide, please.

Those proposals were based on what the executive transmitted That has been approved by our Regional Policy Council and approved by our Committee of the Whole for King County Council, so we are looking forward to that going for a final vote to our County Council.

There was an amendment that was accepted in both committees that came through our RPC that would take some of the investments that are with somewhat extra.

So I have a couple of slides down here where we talk about when we transmitted the economic forecast was it would be about $800 million.

The new economic forecast says it'll be about 872 million.

With some of that additional funds now, we will be adding a capital project so that folks who are running youth serving organizations, childcare, youth housing would have access to both new building funding and improvements on their current funding.

Next slide, please.

There were several other amendments that came through, but those are the biggest.

That's the biggest one within the framework.

We also have an amendment where we will be reporting our data by zip code and amendments just to assure that all cities and communities have access to BSK dollars.

So this is a six-year property tax levy.

It's at $0.19 per thousand assessed value, which for the average King County home is about 600K, so that's about $114 per homeowner.

And again, the economic projected revenue went from $811 million from August to $872 million in March.

Next slide, please.

That may be it.

OK.

Thank you.

Very, very quick and efficient.

Thank you, Sheila.

Colleagues, any questions or comments?

I know some of you serve on the Regional Policy Committee, so this probably looks very familiar to you all, but did want to give folks an opportunity to weigh in if you have any questions or comments.

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Sheila, I want to thank you for being with us today.

I think it'll help to inform the public conversation and our decision making on the resolution that we're going to consider momentarily.

to support the Best Starts for Kids levy efforts at King County and so appreciate you being here today.

I'm especially excited about our renewed collective focus on child care capacity, both from the child care provider perspective and also from the facilities perspective, and I'm really particularly excited about the opportunity to address the pretty significant impacts to our child care network and system, both in home-based child care and in Center based child care, it was an issue before coven and it's become even worse now during coven.

It's going to take us a while for us to recover, but it is.

Perhaps a unique moment in time to be able to leverage all of these dollars, both regionally and federally to to really make a difference and an impact as it relates to child care, which is. obviously going to be a key strategy for us in terms of economic recovery, but also just the right thing to do for our kids and our families.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah.

All right.

Colleagues, are there any other questions or comments on this before we say goodbye to Sheila here?

All right, looks like it was easy peasy.

Thanks again, Sheila, for being with us.

And we really appreciate all your work over at the county and we will see you soon.

Thank you so much for having me and I really appreciate your partnership as well.

So thank you.

Thanks so much.

See you soon.

Yes.

Okay, folks, we are gonna go ahead and move to agenda item four.

So will the clerk please read item four into the record?

Agenda Item Number Four, Resolution 32002, a resolution supporting renewal of King County's Best Start for Kids Levy for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Great.

Thank you so much, Vi.

Colleagues, I'm excited to have this resolution before the committee today.

We just heard about all the great work and significant infusion to childcare access for families with children under five, home-based visiting programs for new parents, and supports and services for homelessness prevention for thousands of young people and their families.

All of this is featured prominently in the Best Starts for Kids Levy Renewal.

So this, of course, is in addition to many other services that will continue to build strong children, families, and communities across our region.

So this resolution is designed to lift up and support the efforts of the Best Start for Kids Renewal and affirms the City's support for King County Council's efforts in terms of this renewal that will come before voters very soon.

So I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Brian Goodnight, who's going to walk us through the resolution, and we'll go ahead and take any questions, hear any comments, and then I do hope we can vote to recommend adoption of this resolution.

Brian.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

Since you've just received the presentation from on the proposed renewal from the expert on the levy I'm going to just spend no time on background and we'll instead just briefly run through the resolutions recitals.

So the first six recitals provide a quick history of the city's investment in education supports including the four families and education levies the Seattle Preschool Program levy and most recently the Families Education Preschool and Promise or FEPP levy.

This area also recognizes that despite these valuable investments widespread educational inequities still exist within Seattle.

The next three recitals focus on collaboration and recognition that partnership with others including students, families, educators, community-based organizations, cultural organizations, and governmental partners is essential to supporting the development and education of the city's children and youth.

The following nine recitals describe the existing six-year BSK levy that was approved in 2015 and the proposed renewal of the levy that would cover 2022 through 2027, including the newly proposed child care subsidy program and the wage project for child care workers.

Over the next four recitals, the resolution addresses the city's history of providing child care subsidies to low and moderate income families, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has had on child care providers, and the way that the city has responded by both increasing or by increasing its assistance to families and with providers.

And then the final five recitals touch on the city and county's past collaboration, opportunities for future collaboration with the programs in the proposed renewal package, and a recognition that a continuation of investments through a renewed Best Starts for Kids levy will benefit residents of both the city and the county.

And then lastly, the legislation resolves that the Mayor and the City Council support the renewal of the Best Starts for Kids levy for the purpose of funding prevention and early intervention strategies to improve the health and well-being of children, youth, families, and their communities.

And I'm happy to take any questions if there are any.

Great, thanks so much, Brian.

Colleagues, any questions or comments on the resolution?

It's pretty straightforward, very simple, consistent with our ethics and elections rules.

We have customarily in the past passed resolutions in support of particular levy renewals when it is in our interest to do so and when we think that our constituents would be very interested in seeing our position on it.

Would be happy to hear any additional comments that folks might have on the resolution.

Councilmember Mosqueda.

Thank you, Madam President.

I really appreciate you bringing this forward today.

I'm excited to vote for this.

I just want to emphasize my support.

We had a really good conversations at the county's regional policy committee where I have the opportunity to sit on that committee and talk and deliberate about the best starts for kids policy.

I think it's important to note the incredible work that went into this.

effort from the staff and trying to pull together diverse perspectives across our region.

I'm very excited about the commitment to equity that's really embedded in the policy that will soon be in front of voters.

I also want to thank the work of OIR and specifically the work of SEIU 925 Child Care Resources and Children Youth Advisory Board, who provided quite a bit of input over the last few months.

And I think that this is a package that we can all be really proud of, that we're going to be able to with fingers crossed, be able to implement major improvements, not only for improving access to child care, but making sure that we're looking at wages and stability for child care workers, the over 1400 child care workers in our county.

and just want to lift up one line from SEIU 925 who works directly with child care providers who wrote in in support of the Best Starts for Kids levy.

Best Starts represents a singular opportunity to expand access to high quality care and invest in the workforce at a time when child care is absolutely critical to our economic recovery from COVID.

So I'll be strongly supporting this resolution and look forward to more conversations with folks across our county as we hope to implement the potential changes from Best Starts for Kids Levy in front of them.

Thank you so much, Council Member Skidden.

Thank you for your work on the Regional Policy Committee.

I know this was a big lift, an important one, but a very, very big lift, and thanks for acknowledging all of the folks who played an important role in getting the package to this particular place.

So seeing there are no other comments here, we're going to go ahead and call the roll.

So I am going to move it first and ask for a second, and then we'll take a vote.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend adoption of Resolution 32002. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend adoption of the resolution.

Are there any final comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that resolution 32002 be approved for forwarding to the full city council.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Gonzales?

Aye.

Those for in favor and none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation is that The committee will recommend that the resolution be sent for approval to the April 19th, 2021 City Council meeting.

Okay, last agenda item, item number five.

Will the clerk please read item five into the record?

Agenda item number five, Seattle Promise for briefing and discussion.

Thank you so much.

So colleagues I'm really excited about an opportunity for us to hear this briefing.

It's just a briefing and discussion.

We're joined today by our Department of Education and Early Learning team members who are going to make a presentation today about Seattle Promise but in particular about the racial equity toolkit analysis and recommendations that came from that racial equity toolkit that I had the pleasure of introducing this particular subject as part of my my support of the Seattle Promise Program.

And I'm really thrilled that Seattle Colleges and and that our team members over at DEEL were also really supportive of doing this racial equity toolkit and took it very seriously and did a lot of work over the last gosh it feels like two years now at this point to bring us this set of recommendations.

So I'm excited to learn more.

about this and to hear directly from you all.

So with that being said, I'm going to hand it over to Director Chappelle for introductions and the presentation.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President, and good afternoon, other council members as well.

Happy to be here.

Thank you for having us.

I will and I know where time is not our best friend today.

So as you just mentioned, what I'll do is just dive in.

I'll introduce Dana Harrison.

She's our director, K-12 director, K-12 post-secondary director.

And then Dr. Ismael Fajardo, he's our date and evaluation director as well.

They'll be here.

And Council President, are we going to have the slide up?

Yeah.

B, do you want to share that?

There we go.

Thank you.

Okay, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you for this.

So you can go to the next slide, please.

All right.

So today, Council President, and so what we'll be doing, we'll be sharing an update on the Seattle Promise enrollment data.

We'll also include some outcome data from the 2018 cohort.

As well, we're going to present the results, as you just mentioned, about the Seattle Promise racial equity toolkit.

And, you know, the last time we were here, we presented should I say we presented to a committee about the promise program was back in December, where we really were celebrating more than 800 of our promise scholars who enrolled into the fall 2020 program.

And Council you all had endorsed our FEPP FEPP flexibility legislation then which gave our Promise Scholars the flexibility to request part-time waivers and receive Promise supports for up to three years.

So that was in response to our COVID-19 impacts to their learning.

Next slide please.

So you know here at DEEL we do everything and or should I say everything we do here at DEEL is rooted in results and the results we hope to achieve.

So what you'll hear today connects to our fourth departmental result right there.

And that is that that really all Seattle students attain a post-secondary degree credential or some type of certificate.

And And that's you know with that what I'm going to do now is hand it off to my team just to guide you through today's presentation.

So I'll kick it over to Dr. Fajardo to get us started.

Thanks Dwayne.

Vy can we advance the slide please.

And one more time.

Okay so just as a reminder the goal for Seattle Promise is Seattle students have access to and utilize post-secondary opportunities that promote attainment of a certificate credential or degree just like Duane just mentioned.

But specifically we have three outcomes.

One is Seattle Promise get that certificate credential or degree or transfer.

Outcome number two is Seattle Promise delivers high quality services and clear pathways to success.

And then the third outcome is race-based opportunity gaps are closed.

Next slide please.

And here is the Seattle Promise program model.

It has 3 components.

The preparation phase where 12th grade students seniors are eligible to apply for the Seattle Promise.

So they work with student success and outreach specialists with the hope that they are prepared and are knowledgeable of the Seattle Promise opportunity and support them to ensure that they enroll as a Seattle Promise student in the fall.

At when they're enrolled in Seattle Promise they have a retention specialist that they meet quarterly to ensure that they're connected to resources and also have opportunities with the new Opportunity Promise internship.

Ultimately with the goal that they get their degree or transfer.

The next slide please.

And just as another kind of context setter in 2008 South Seattle College launched a 13th year scholarship program.

In 2017 the Mayor Durkin signed the Promise Executive Order and in 2018-2019 the 13th year Promise Program officially became the Seattle Promise.

As a reminder in 2019-2020 FEPA levy funded the Seattle Promise and was eligible for all Seattle graduates from 17 SPS High School in Seattle.

Now the table is is a high level a clean way to see all the milestones that occurred between 2017 all the way to 2020-2021.

You know where the name of the program was the fund source the high schools in which were eligible to participate in the Seattle Promise Program.

In particular the green is focused on the high school class of 2018 and that is where we're going to take a deep dive of what happened with class of 2018 to to understand their experience in Seattle Promise but we're also closely monitoring the class of 2019 and the class of 2020 and then we'll dive into what to expect with the class of 2021 this coming fall.

Last we spoke in the fall there were 846 fall enrolled students at Seattle Promise whether first-year or second-year students.

But you can go to the next slide.

This winter we had 668 students return for the winter of 2020. As a reminder there were remote learning and virtual supports provided for our students.

We also had 2100 Promise applications for our high school class of 2021. As a reminder this class completed admission application and chose a Seattle College campus.

They are expected to complete financial aid applications.

Participate in Readiness Academy.

They have to graduate from high school and they have to participate in a summer bridge program before they enroll in the fall as a Seattle Promise Scholar.

Next slide B.

Thank you.

So I mentioned there were 660 Promise Scholars enrolled.

That is a 80 percent retention from fall to winter.

And I also show the first year and second year breakdown by cohort.

You'll see that we had within the cohort 2020 there were 699 first year students and 555 students returned.

That's about a 79 percent retention rate from fall to winter and a similar retention pattern was experienced by the second-year students.

We do not have data as of yet for students of color or part-time students.

We are working with our Seattle College partners to ensure that we get that data.

So we can expect that data in May.

And also in spring we typically get this data from our partners in the summertime.

So we expect an update in the summer for spring data.

Thank you.

≫ Thank you very much.

I see the disaggregated data comment here.

I just heard you mention the data that is supposed to be coming in.

So we've at DEO we we are we encourage so we have multiple platforms where we get data.

We have an early learning.

We have SPS and then we have the Seattle College data platforms.

Not all of the platforms collect the same level of data.

Last I spoke with the Seattle Colleges they were creating a workgroup to further disaggregate Asian and Latinx populations.

When I did a quick look within the disaggregated fields there wasn't that many differences within the groups.

What I mean by that is a level of specific specificity that was being collected by the Seattle Colleges.

Also understanding that they are reporting to the I forget their technical board so they may not have the data systems to be able to collect the level of data that we were hoping to collect and report on.

But we're working with them.

But Ismael and the the data that we're expecting May 2021 will or will not have data for Latinx and AAPI populations disaggregated.

Our hope is we we will but it's it'll be disaggregated by the way the Seattle College is disaggregates the data.

And they they disaggregate just slightly different than what we are used to used to in the city.

Okay.

And when we get the report in May of 2021, that distinction will be made clear so that we can understand the, the difference in data collection.

Yep.

Okay.

Thank you.

And great question.

And if we could advance to, and we'll also get part-time status information in May.

So here is a table.

It's a it's a little there's a lot going on here.

So I'm going to take a few seconds to kind of explain it.

Here we're looking at all the cohort data from 2018 2019 2020 and 2021. This cohort data allows us to track trends over each of these cohorts as we get data.

2018 is the first cohort where we have complete two year data for the program.

In 2019 we will also for the 2019 cohort we will also have a full set of data but that won't be until summer.

And in 2020 which is what I just spoke about is one of our more recent and largest Promise students.

And in 2021 right now we're at a place where we've collected over 2,100 Seattle Promise applications and this is the largest applications to date.

And if the trends continue we expect a larger enrollment this coming fall.

You'll notice that there are green text on the screen and this is where we track our fall-to-fall retention numbers.

You'll see that CORE 2018 had a 61 percent retention from fall-to-fall so year 1 fall and year 2 fall.

And to date we have 29 percent of the students that started within the Promise cohort have completed their degree.

This is this is as of summer so we still expect once we get new data in May we will update who has completed their degree from this cohort.

I also want to lift the cohort 29 team.

We have 26 students that have completed their degree early.

This is one we will continue to update as we get more data but I just wanted to take a moment to celebrate those that are in the Promise Program that are finishing early within before the two years.

The other reason why we look at the data this way is it allows us to look at previous cohorts to see if the retention number is going up or going down.

I do want to acknowledge that within the 2020 cohort the 79 percent is lower than the previous two cohorts where 2019 cohort at the same time had an 87 percent retention from fall to winter and the previous 2018 cohort had an 83 percent fall to winter retention.

So this is something that we'll want to monitor and dive deeper as we get more data and more information.

The next slide, please.

So we know that 2018 cohort just is the only cohort that has two years worth of data.

So this is worth exploring.

And we at DEEL and with city partners and also our levee oversight committee have dug into these numbers a little bit to understand what is happening within the enrollment the persistence the preparation and the completion.

Here within the 2018 cohort what we found when we looked at enrollment by race and gender that the cohort was 76 percent of students of color.

The largest group were Black males within the largest race and gender group that represented 15 percent of the cohort and the cohort was pretty balanced within the gender breakdown.

The next slide please.

To understand how our students were entering the Seattle College system we looked at how many students were requiring developmental courses.

And what we found was over 53 percent of the students that entered were taking a math or reading are writing a developmental course.

The largest group taking developmental courses were Black and Latinx students in particular the males where we found 70 percent of Black and Latino males were experiencing or needing to take developmental courses.

Asian and White students were less likely to need to take developmental courses but but still required to take developmental courses.

Next slide please.

So Here we're looking at the persistence from fall year 1 all the way to spring year 2. And what we found were that half of the 2018 cohort remained in Seattle Promise for the full 2-year program.

However you can start to see that within each quarter that passed retention numbers were different by racial groups.

In particular the Latinx group experienced the largest fall to winter drop-off.

from 100% to 68% were still retained within the first year.

And Latinx group were less likely to be retained within two years compared to the Asian group that experienced an 89% retention within two years.

The other thing that we looked at were completion rates.

Well who completed within the two years.

What we found were 25 24 percent of Promise Scholars completed degree certificate within two years.

As you saw in the preparation and the persistence this impacts the completion where we noticed racial disparities which to no surprise we see racial disparities within the completion degree.

Asian more likely to earn a degree within two years.

and Black Latinx students were less likely to earn a degree within two years.

As you all know developmental courses plays a role in whether you can finish within two years.

Next slide please.

So the other thing that we did were looking at the data.

Well how does this compare nationally.

How does that compare locally.

And in fact how does that compare within the Seattle colleges that are full-time.

So what we did is that we looked at the fall-to-fall retention.

So again the cohort 2018 had 61 percent retention and had a 2-year 24 percent completion rate.

So we looked at comparison groups that had similar Promise programs that had advising and student success supports and we found was Seattle Promise performed better than the Seattle colleges overall but trailed established programs within retention the fall-to-fall retention.

But when you looked at the two-year completion rate, we saw that it was pretty comparable to even more established programs like CUNY and also more recent programs like San Diego Promise and Tennessee Promise.

Okay, so to summarize, I just kind of want to bring back to the group is this is only one full two-year cohort analysis.

cohort 2019 will have data this summer that will be able to take another deep dive to look at trends.

I do want to acknowledge that COVID-19 will impact longitudinal analysis and that 2018-2020 program growth will play a role in that and we'll have to make sure that we provide context.

For instance, cohort 2018 had six eligible high schools.

The more recent cohorts have the full 17 eligible high schools.

So the the enrollment demographics may shift and we'll want to monitor that.

But I do also want to acknowledge that enrollment has more than tripled and based on what we're seeing we expect the enrollment to be growing.

And with that I'll pass it off to Dana Harrison who will talk about the racial equity toolkit.

Okay, before we hear from Deanna, are there any questions about the first part of the presentation?

Scroll for any hands raised.

Okay, doesn't look like we do, so take it away.

Okay, thank you, Ismael.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm going to speak a little bit about the racial equity toolkit analysis and the recommendations that came from the team.

You can go ahead and advance to the next slide.

And one thing I'll just remind you of as we start, and I'll say this once more before we finish, is that the data that you just saw, the 2018 cohort data, was not yet available for the Racial Equity Toolkit team to review.

And so it's just an important thing to keep in mind that they didn't have access to all of the same information that we do today.

So we continue to build our understanding about how and what to do with program implementation data to date.

So just a quick reminder of what the racial equity toolkit analysis is and does.

As I think you all are familiar from our time before you in the past and from what you know of our director Dwayne Chappell, DEEL is very committed to the goals of the city's race and social justice initiative.

And that includes the application of the city's racial equity toolkit.

towards our budgetary, our programmatic, and our policy decisions along the way so that we work to minimize harm and maximize the benefits to Seattle's communities of color.

We knew early on, and as you pointed out, Council President, at the beginning that with the Seattle Promise Program being in its infancy, that we needed to take advantage of an early opportunity to analyze the initial program design to make sure that it would continue to be in a position to achieve our racially equitable outcomes that Ismael spoke to a moment ago.

So a team was convened to conduct this analysis that included 19 members that represented city perspectives, college partner perspectives, and the voices of many community members as well.

They began their work in November of 2019 and concluded in December of 2020. So over a year's worth of effort talking about the program, evaluating data, getting perspectives from participants and from community members along the way.

In their work, they analyzed three different areas and considered 14 elements, which I'll detail in just a moment, all of which had the potential to impact the equity of the program and its delivery and outcomes.

And at the conclusion of their work, the team submitted a set of recommendations to deal for consideration.

You can go ahead and advance, please.

Thank you.

So those three areas of analysis included eligibility expansion, continuous enrollment, and program support services.

And on the slide that you see, you see the different elements considered in each of those areas.

So for eligibility expansion, we looked at the inclusion of opportunity youth, charter school graduates, nontraditional diploma recipients, and students completing their GED.

In terms of continuous enrollment, the Racial Equity Toolkit team looked at part-time enrollment, pathways to reading and eligibility, and the impacts of SAP, SAP being Standard Academic Progress, which is a qualifier for financial aid.

And on the program support services, I won't read every single one to you.

You'll have a chance to look at them again and in the report that you received.

But here, there were the most elements that we were considering knowing from our experience to date, as well as our research into other Promise programs across the country, how critical that wraparound program support is to student success and completion.

So of those 14 elements, I do want to note that three of them, opportunity youth, charter schools, and part-time enrollment, were required or called out for review in the FEPP levy implementation plan.

And five of them were identified as a particular interest to count the council or to specific council members.

You can advance, please.

So here is a very brief snapshot of the recommendations that deal received and in total.

You'll see on the far right-hand side that the team identified six items as high-priority actions and two as medium and the remainder as low.

In their prioritization, the team took into consideration the needs identified by the community and that of the Promise Racial Equity Toolkit team, as well as the overall impact on the program.

and the ability to implement recommendations in a timely manner, knowing that some of these would take more planning and development than others.

The items elevated for action included expanding program eligibility, addressing student preparation, and the need for developmental coursework, as Ismail was speaking to earlier, as well as increasing the affordability of the program.

I'm going to go into some of these recommendations in more detail, in just a moment, but before I do, I just want to ground us in the timeline and the various conversations that have happened around this set of recommendations.

So as I mentioned just a moment ago, please keep in mind that the team didn't have access to all of the data that you were able to just see around the 2018 cohort.

And they did have some access, but not to the same robust level that we've been able to evaluate with our stakeholders since then.

And in addition, obviously, the bulk of their work was happening during a pandemic.

So that had some implications for what and how they did their work.

You can go to the next slide, please.

So since receiving the recommendations from the team in the early December, DEEL has been engaged with our levy oversight committee members We've been reviewing the data shared by Dr. Fajardo just a moment ago, as well as other implementation and feedback from students and staff participants to date.

In our conversations throughout the first quarter of the year, we definitely have taken into consideration the impact of the pandemic on Promise students' experiences, as well as the budget resources that are or potentially are available to us going further.

And as we move into quarter two, we anticipate further engagement with our city leaders as we're doing today with you all, as well as many more conversations with our levy oversight committee in the months ahead.

And then all of that will hopefully give us a conclusion by the end of the second quarter about actions that we will be able to pursue in the 21-22 academic year.

You can go ahead and move forward, please.

Thank you.

So here, a similar table to what you just saw in terms of the summary.

The addition here is, as you are all well aware, the city is deliberating how to purpose federal COVID relief and recovery resources.

And at DO, we definitely believe that post-secondary education and affordability are part of economic recovery.

And when given the opportunity to advocate, we certainly have put forward some of the recommendations for use of federal resources.

And those are the five that you see flagged here.

So I'll just briefly call out in terms of our advocacy for federal resources to support these recommendations.

We are naming the path to regain eligibility as a possible action, actions to support academic preparation and developmental coursework, covering college fees for students with income criteria meeting the eligibility requirement that you see there, the prioritization of tuition support, and student support staff ratios.

And I'm going to go into each of these in a little bit more detail next.

Thank you.

So here, in terms of prioritization of tuition support, the RET team analyzed the specific question, how should tuition support be prioritized if more students enroll in Seattle Promise than there is funding allocated?

As many of you will remember, as we deliberated the implementation plan for this levy, We had to do a lot of forward thinking and planning for what we anticipated student participation would be.

I will name, as Izzy shared earlier, that just this past fall, we welcomed our largest class of students to date and definitely exceeded our projected enrollment.

And also, as Izzy shared, we got the largest number of applications to date for the current senior class.

And if our trends continue, that will put us over our projected enrollment next fall as well.

But I will also say that this is a great problem to have.

It means that students are interested in the program, that students and families are seeing the benefits and spreading the word, and that we're really starting to develop a college-moving culture in our city, which are all great things.

So in terms of the recommendation received, the team indicated that Diehl and our college partners should continue to monitor this closely.

They named it as a priority level medium.

And the timeline here, you'll see that they indicated it could start as early as this fall.

The tricky part of timeline on this one is that we have to almost be a year ahead where we're notifying high school students of the eligibility criteria, not always knowing exactly what enrollment that fall will be.

So we have to be very mindful about planning and making sure that we're transparent in our communication with students and families.

So as I said, DEEL does project that additional funding is going to be needed in order to sustain program as a universal access program for classes going forward.

If we don't have that level of funding support, then we would likely need to introduce prioritization of tuition.

And this is certainly something that we anticipate taking to our LOC in the coming months.

Thank you.

Ahead of the game.

Okay.

The next action that we're recommending or seeking the use of federal funds to support is around academic preparation and developmental coursework.

So here the question considered was, as a system, how can we reduce the need for students to take remedial or developmental coursework?

As Izzy was sharing with you previously, we're seeing high percentages of our students of color enrolling in these particular courses.

And while the Seattle Promise does fund their participation in those courses, it doesn't count towards their program completion.

And so when we think about the 90 credit limit and their ability to achieve their educational goals within the two-year timeline, the need to take developmental courses certainly has an impact on that.

Here, the Racial Equity Toolkit team strongly recommended, which is what you see as the high priority, that we develop a systemic plan across institutional partnerships to think about how to address this challenge.

It's certainly not something that develops just in a single year.

It has long-term ramifications and is going to take a systemic approach to address.

And here, again, our LOC has had many conversations about this at our most recent meeting.

It was a high priority for them.

They are definitely very interested in reducing the need for developmental coursework or thinking about ways that we can support students in different types of program models that allow them to do more than one credit earning opportunity at a time.

And largely that's driven because we know that our BIPOC and low-income students are disproportionately impacted by this particular pathway.

So some immediate actions that we're exploring in ways to address this, again, alongside and in collaboration with our institutional partners at Seattle Public Schools and also at the colleges, include thinking about the Readiness Academy and the Summer Bridge experience in new and different ways, particularly for the 2021 class who is coming out of their senior year now, hoping to enroll and promise in the fall.

We're looking to expand their access to summer opportunities so that they begin their fall experience in credit bearing coursework to the extent possible.

We're also looking to learn from different programs across the country and best practices that we know and that the colleges have been exploring around tailoring first quarter classes to adapt pedagogy to better meet the needs of students.

who are enrolling in these types of courses.

That might include some co-requisite remediation or some specific course pathways, particularly around math for students.

entering into this type of course.

And it also means thinking about how we support students once they are enrolled to success and completion.

And this is everything that happens in that support services that we were mentioning earlier, those critical wraparound supports and connections to peers along the way.

Go ahead, thank you.

This recommendation around staff support ratios, the question considered was, should student support staff ratios be modified?

So as a reminder, the current program model puts one outreach specialist, which are our high school support personnel, to about 300 high school students, and one retention specialist, which are our personnel at the college level, to 100 PROMIS scholars.

And again, this is initial program design based on the best available information at the time.

And here the Racial Equity Toolkit team recommended that we continue to monitor this and they put it at a medium priority.

And here, while we know that the Promise was designed as a universal access program, we also know that Promise students have unique needs.

And so, Deal and our college partners definitely aligned in our support of tailoring staff to meet priority student populations and the unique needs that come up for students experiencing college in different ways.

This also includes making sure that we're responsive to the feedback that we're hearing from students along the way about the types and methods that are most helpful to them, and learning from successful Promise Program models across the country and sometimes in our own region.

There was a study just last summer that indicated that Promise programs are having tremendous amount of success in terms of completion rates for participating students, but that is because of the types of supports that they introduce along the way, whether that be through staff support models, as was suggested here, or also through coordinated student experiences and peer mentorship experiences to make sure that they have connected relationships to help them persist.

and go ahead and advance fee.

So college fees here, for those that might be less familiar, in addition to tuition costs, there are also typically called enrollment fees that come up for students each quarter that they're enrolling in college coursework.

So here the team considered the question, should college fees be covered under the Seattle Promise?

And the recommendation came out as a medium priority that we figure out how to cover the mandatory and general fees for income qualifying students.

And so currently, the equity scholarship that's offered through the Seattle Promise is for students who have a zero EFC, which is the family contribution based on their financial aid package.

And for students that qualify, they receive up to $1500 per year that they can use flexibly to cover whatever it is that helps them persist in their educational pursuit.

But for students who have an income above that contribution level, we don't currently have, through the Seattle Promise model, a financial support for that.

So this recommendation would expand the eligibility to include students who up to 1,000 at EFC.

Thank you.

Okay, and rounding us out.

So here, the path to regain eligibility is the question that was considered by the racial equity toolkit team was should a formal pathway to regain eligibility be developed for students?

And the recommendation was yes, coming in at a high priority.

And here, as Ismael was sharing earlier in the program model, there are a series of milestones that students meet along the way.

And we tend to see, from our initial applicant pool all the way to completion, drops along the way for various reasons.

We do know that continuous full-time enrollment is correlated to higher completion rates.

However, there are many students that would benefit from an opportunity to regain eligibility because of life circumstances that come up.

And this year especially, COVID, we know, has had a pretty wide-ranging impact on students' ability to maintain eligibility.

So even with the allowance of the modifications that we made last fall, there are many students that might benefit from a path back into the program.

so that they can continue pursuing their educational goals.

And here, we would need to work closely with our college partners to develop what that pathway looks like and all the parameters that come with it.

But that could start as early as this fall for students that are near the end of their program.

And with that, I feel like I just talked a lot.

I'm sure there are lots of questions along the way.

So I'm going to turn it over to Duane for next steps, but also welcome any questions that council members might have.

great.

Thank you so much.

I didn't really appreciate that presentation.

I am happy to sort of, if any council members have any questions, you're welcome to raise your hand using the zoom feature or the old fashioned physical raise the hand.

I know we are continuing to have conversations.

Councilmember Mosqueda, of course, is the chair of our budget committee.

And I know she and I have been having a lot of conversations with the executive around a prioritization of COVID-19 federal funds, and looking forward to continuing to have those conversations in the Finance and Housing Committee, particularly as it relates to putting dollar amounts to each one of these proposed priorities.

But looking forward to having a deeper dive into those particular recommendations as we kick off the conversations in the Finance and Housing Committee.

Dwayne, do you want to walk us through next steps?

Yes, will do.

So, as you see, so basically we've had some sentiment from our LOC and some interest in exploring the recommendations that you've seen specifically around the remediation and prevention and support while being engaged more so in the developmental coursework components of it.

So what DEEL is going to be doing, we're going to continue to evaluate multiple sources or points of data, our recommendations, our implementation data to date, our staff and student feedback, the process evaluation, and then the impacts of COVID.

We're going to also seek additional resources, as you kind of were mentioning, whether from, you know, from federal, the federal funds relief, the city funds, external partner funds, colleges and philanthropy.

Then we're going to also be we're going to also continue consulting with our LLC and small groups in March from basically starting from March's meeting.

And then we're going to have a retreat starting this month.

And really, so what we're looking at for, like, timelines is, like, we'll have a retreat right now in April, and then, you know, we know there will be some upcoming decisions around the federal relief package vote, and then thinking about the supplemental budget, and we're going to continue to move forward as noted.

Next slide, Vee, I think that's it.

Yes.

You can't forget the thank yous.

Yes.

So thank you.

That's right.

You're absolutely right.

We we can't forget to thank you.

So I just want to really just just take time and thank you all for giving us this opportunity to present here.

We also are appreciative or should I say I'm appreciative of the directors that spoke today.

Dr. Fajardo, Dana, thank you guys for all your work that you've done.

And we're looking forward to continuing our collaborative approach, making sure that we're going to do what's best for our scholars in the Seattle Promise.

Great.

Thank you so much.

As I mentioned, we'll continue this conversation, particularly as it relates to those five priority areas and recommendations in the Finance and Housing Committee.

Look forward to that conversation.

And colleagues, are there any other questions or comments?

Very rich presentation as usual.

Thank you all for your hard work on the presentation and and on the racial equity toolkit analysis.

It was it's kind of amazing to think that it took a year and a half to develop.

A what?

2729 page report.

A lot of a lot of really good information in there.

Really appreciate all of your efforts and the cooperation of Seattle Colleges and so many other partners who who were very willing and willing and receptive of the opportunity to engage in this work to make sure that there weren't any unintended consequences as a result of a universal Seattle Promise program.

So really appreciate all of the partnership.

Okay, folks, is there any further business to come before the committee?

Hearing no further business, that does conclude our meeting for today, and our meeting is now adjourned.

Thank you, everyone, and hope you get to enjoy some sunshine.

Take care.