Seattle City Council Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans & Education Committee 3/27/19

Good morning.

Today is Wednesday, March 27, 2019. It is 9.34 a.m.

This is our regularly scheduled meeting of the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.

I'm Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez, chair of this committee, and joining me at the table is my colleague Councilmember Rob Johnson.

Thank you for being here.

I almost changed your last name to Johnson.

English, it's so hard for me.

And there are two items on today's agenda.

First, we will be having another discussion on the 2018 Families Education Preschool and Promise Implementation.

plan as proposed by Mayor Durkan.

This is of course a levy package that was graciously passed by Seattle voters in November of 2018 and this committee meeting today will focus on issue identification within the proposed implementation and evaluation of So, as usual, we begin all of our meetings with some public comment.

So before we continue into the items of the agenda, we will hold our regular public comment period.

Public comment is an opportunity for those individuals who showed up in chambers today to provide us public comment on an issue on the agenda.

And also, each person is provided up to two minutes to speak.

Each speaker is asked to state their name for the record before they provide us with their public testimony.

Public comment is not a period of time where public commenters and council members just engage in dialogue.

This is an opportunity for the public commenters to show up in the morning to provide up to two minutes of public testimony consistent with council rules.

And to the extent that the speaker is on topic and on point and compliant with all of council rules, they will not be interrupted if there is an interruption.

It is because there has been a violation of those council rules and will be corrected.

All right.

So that being said, we will enter into the public comment period.

Again, each person has up to two minutes to testify on an item on today's agenda.

We only have one item on today's agenda, and each person will be asked to come up to one of the microphones up here in the front.

So, the first person is Alex Zimmerman.

The second person is Melissa Westbrook, followed by Kyla Lackey.

Why is camera not working?

Why I don't see my face in TV?

Mr. Zerumin, the camera, the microphone, and the audio functions are not on the agenda.

You have two minutes.

Please speak to an item on the agenda.

Thank you very much.

I'm only checking.

Say hi, my Dory Fuhrer.

I'm not a garbage rat.

I'm pure antisemite, crook, and cretina, and pure criminal.

I once spoke about agenda, about school levy.

I think school levies is good because us children need money.

Our school not so good.

But it's not money for school teacher because I think, and I give you couple example why I think school teacher not deserve more money.

Number one, because it's a pure fundamental, I repeat, one from biggest, fundamental school teacher in school union who supports this Nazi social democratic mafia.

It has gone for many years.

It's number one.

And number two, because I right now go to many school board meetings, you know what I mean?

I see this as brainwashing children.

brainwashed children totally right now for support Seattle, Nazi social democratic mafia socialism.

It's exactly what is happening now.

A very stupid and idiotic situation.

It's not surprise me because consul here exactly same, a Nazi social democratic mafia.

You consul consul.

I'm going to ask you to speak to an item on the agenda.

Yes, exactly.

I spoke about this because school teacher together with you, go against the principle of American democracy.

It's exactly what's happened.

You are criminal, Consul Goncalves.

You violate constitutional law by five times.

Why you sit in this chamber when you five times- Can you turn his microphone off, please?

Can you turn his microphone off?

Okay, great.

Your time is up.

You are not speaking to an item on the agenda.

I'm going to ask you to sit down.

Next person is Melissa Westbrook, followed by Kyla Lackey, followed by Keith Steer Van Essen.

What's that?

Oh, they should both work, Melissa.

Hold on, give us just a second, okay.

I can limp.

There we go.

Good morning, my name is Melissa Westbrook, and I write the most widely read public education blog in Seattle and Washington State.

Number one, why are charter schools included in some funding like school-based, but not others like wraparound services?

Number two, why is Seattle Schools required to have a signed partnership agreement in order for their high school grads to access Promise Funds, but charter schools are not?

That's page 103. Number three, why is all the mention of serving homeless students centered around Seattle schools?

While it's true that charter schools serve far fewer homeless ELL and SPED students, there must be some homeless students in charter schools.

Also, I assume this plan is fairly recent, and yet I note that on page 72 it says SPS serves 2,000 homeless students.

It's closer to 3,000.

Four, I do want to point out in the measuring outcomes, it is important to remember that charter schools counsel students out, and their attrition rates tend to be much higher, and therefore their graduation numbers look better.

Number five, despite the frequent use of the phrase charter schools, it is not defined in the glossary.

Charter schools are put in with the phrase under public schools, which they are.

But according to the Washington State Supreme Court, they are not true common schools under our state's constitution.

I would say that definition needs some clarification.

Lastly, to remind you, charter law does not require you to share these funds.

I, along with many voters, asked during the levy campaign over and over if charter schools would get K-12 levy dollars.

We were told the city was waiting for a legal opinion from the attorney.

After the levy passed, I asked the city attorney's office for the legal opinion and was told there is none.

Interesting that after you got the money, it was announced that charter schools could access those dollars.

When the charter law was passed, Seattle itself by a wide margin voted no.

I'm surprised the council and the mayor's elected officials did not take that vote into account.

in deciding this.

However, when anybody on the council or the mayor runs again, I'll be glad to remind them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next person is Kyla, followed by Keith.

Good morning.

My name is Kyla Lackey.

I'm the director of post-secondary readiness at the Puget Sound Educational Service District, and we staff the Puget Sound College and Career Network.

And as you know, students today need post-secondary credentials in order to access family-sustaining jobs, especially in the city of Seattle.

I work across Pierce and King counties, and we know that right now, only 29% of current ninth graders will be able to actually obtain those post-secondary credentials within six years of graduation of high school.

So unless we do something very different, we should expect the same results.

And I'm excited to see the Seattle Promise implementation plan and believe that this is something very different that our city is doing to take action on this issue.

In the Seattle Promise design team, people across different systems were working together to envision and refine supports to ensure that we're creating more equitable opportunities for students in our region.

I was part of the design team and saw the group comprised of leaders from Seattle colleges, Seattle public schools, and the city grapple with complex cross-systems issues.

The design team persisted through numerous challenges and complex decisions and worked hard to refine and deepen a shared vision for how to create more equitable post-secondary access systems in our region.

We worked to think outside the box, bridge gaps, and utilize the promise as a way to make it easier for students to access their next step.

There's excitement in the region to support and learn from Seattle.

My team works to staff the Puget Sound Coalition for College and Career Readiness, and we're working on a King County Promise model, and we're excited to learn from and partner with Seattle to support this access across the entire region.

Thank you for your leadership and your commitment to supporting students and accessing their next step.

Thank you.

And our last person signed up is Keith.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So my name is Keith Starr-Vanessen, and I serve as the director of programs for the College Success Foundation in Seattle and the greater King County region.

And I was privileged to serve, like Kyla, on the design team in developing some of the recommendations for this implementation plan.

And I'm really excited because my vested interest was really supporting the low-income students in our city in transitioning into college and post-secondary institutions.

And for the last 11 years since I've been in this work, the biggest challenge has been the disconnect between K-12 and post-secondary.

And so this implementation plan, I think, has a laser focus on really tying those institutions together.

and with supports and with funding that will help students transition more effectively and brings people to the table from both those systems more regularly to ensure that that happens.

And so that's been the biggest rub for me in supporting the hundreds of students in South King County and Seattle.

over the years has been the fact that these institutions don't talk enough and coordinate enough.

And now I think this is a great opportunity.

This implementation plan is a wonderful step forward.

And I think it may, while imperfect, I think it will evolve into something that's gonna be really effective to move the needle for our students going forward.

So I appreciate your time and effort in this and I look for your support in this plan.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Keith was the last person who signed up on the sheet.

Is there anybody else in chambers who has not given us public testimony that would like to offer some?

I saw you walking in, Renee.

Perfect timing.

It's like that announcement was made for you.

Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Sorry, I'm late.

Oh, you're fine.

I'm Renee Murray with Youth Development Executives of King County, and I did want to make a couple comments in thank you for the process.

We've supported the FEPP since the beginning, and in particular, the inclusion of the community in looking at the implementation plan.

I think we continue to hope for, a little bit worried about how our expanded learning opportunities were reduced, but we think that how they're being implemented is wonderful and we appreciate the work.

Thank you.

Thanks.

All right, anyone else?

Okay, well, we will go ahead and close out the public comment period.

I want to thank everybody who took the time to show up today and provide us with their thoughts via public testimony on this particular issue.

For those folks who can't, unfortunately, make time out of their busy schedules to join us in chambers at 9.30 a.m.

on a Wednesday, which is probably I don't know, 95% of the city.

You are all welcome to reach out to my office directly if you have any thoughts or concerns or ideas or just want to generally give us your feedback on the FEPP levy implementation and evaluation plan.

You can reach out to my office at 206-684-8802.

or you can email me at Lorena.gonzalez, that's Gonzalez with a Z at the end, at Seattle.gov, or you can always connect with us on our Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram accounts.

We are accessible and ready to listen to your feedback on some of these issues.

All right.

So let's move into the agenda.

And I'm going to invite Mr. Goodnight to join us at the table while Roxanna reads the first and only agenda item into the record.

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

All right, let's go ahead and start with introductions.

And do you have a presentation or is it just?

Just the memo that they were gonna.

Just the memo, okay.

Roxanna can help project the memo if you need that after she turns the TVs back on in the chambers.

All right, let's do introductions and then we'll hand it over to you, Brian.

Thank you.

Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

Do you need help with the presentation?

You got it?

There you go.

All right.

Okay, thank you.

Take it away.

Thanks.

So at the previous committee meeting on March 13th, Deal provided a presentation on the Families Education Preschool and Promise Implementation and Evaluation Plan.

And that's something that I'll just refer to as the implementation plan going forward.

So the purpose of this meeting is to just walk through the central staff memo, and that provides some background information.

It evaluates the consistency of the plan with policy direction that's been provided by council, and it raises eight issues for council consideration.

So last June, the council approved Ordinance 125604, which submitted a proposition to voters to fund education services with a property tax generating $619.6 million over a seven-year period.

The proposition was approved in November and with support from 69% of the voters.

Section 7 of that ordinance states that the levy proceeds may only be spent in accordance with an implementation and evaluation plan that is approved by ordinance, and it specifies that the plan should include priority criteria and outcomes for levy-funded strategies, the process and schedule for contracting with partners, and the evaluation methodology to measure individual investments and evaluate the overall impacts of the levy.

At the same time, council also adopted a companion resolution and that's resolution 31821 that provided funding guidance for many of the programs and also requested that the executive address specific policies and priorities in the plan.

So council bill 119480 was transmitted on March 5th by the executive and it proposes a plan that's intended to meet the requirements of the ordinance and also to address the council's resolution requests.

The plan maintains the broad investment areas and spending levels from the approved ordinance.

And if you're interested, at the top of page two in table one, now it's shown on the screen, those are the four broad investment areas and also the funding amounts for them.

In addition to approving the implementation plan, the council bill also amends the 2019 adopted budget.

And essentially during the development of the 2019 budget, DEEL intended to move away from the current practice of collecting preschool tuition from families and then submitting those payments to providers.

So they decided against that policy shift and in order to still allow them to collect and then send the payments along to providers, they're asking for sufficient appropriation authority.

So the budget amendment increases appropriation authority in the early learning BSL by $860,000.

And the idea is that is entirely backed by tuition revenue.

So as mentioned a moment ago, the council also adopted a companion resolution to the levy ordinance last year, which provided some guidance regarding the development of the implementation plan.

The proposed plan does include a reference table in the appendix that lists the council's priorities and the page numbers where that priority is addressed.

And some corrections to this table were needed, and so a revised table is attached to the back of this memo as attachment one.

At the next committee meeting, council members may want to offer an amendment to correct this table and fix any other drafting errors that are identified.

But overall, the plan addresses the majority of the council direction from the resolution, with a few exceptions.

Specifically, there are three areas that are not fully addressed by the plan, and that's prioritizing investments for certain groups, expectations for the family support services funding, and then the way that resources are prioritized for Seattle Promise.

All three of those items are addressed by issues that we'll get to in a moment in the memo.

Brian, on the chart that is attachment one to your memo, it appears that those are by and far technical changes.

Is that an accurate characterization?

Yes.

It's just the references, you know, as the plan gets developed, the page numbers change, and so that's all that is.

I think it's, if you're wanting to receive some direction on how to incorporate those into a suite of amendments, I think it's fair to say that we are fine with that advancing as a suite of amendments.

Council Member Johnson?

No objection from my colleague over here.

Great, thank you.

Check that one off your list.

Excellent, I like to do that.

So the last part of this is there are three other items that were included in the council's resolution that aren't specifically addressing the plan, but where the executive has performed some work.

So the first of those is developing a unified application process for families.

DO has added a question to the SPP application to identify families that might be eligible for the Child Care Assistance Program, and they've indicated that they will continue to pursue opportunities to streamline the process where that's available.

The second is researching the concept of a cross-subsidized tuition methodology.

DEEL explored the concept but chose not to pursue it due to the concern that increasing tuition levels for higher income families may discourage their participation in the program.

And this is a concept that we'll return to in a moment as well in issue number three.

And then the final, the third one is exploring better coordination with the state's preschool program.

DEEL has stated that they will continue to look for opportunities to work with the state and also the city's Office of Intergovernmental Relations on improvements to childcare and preschool programs broadly.

In, Brian, in any one of these three categories, with the exception of potentially number two, does the implementation and evaluation plan, or in any of your conversations with the Department of Education and Early Learning, has there been any indication as to when we can expect some work product in those categories?

Timelines, I wanna know by when.

Yeah, not specifically.

I mean, the items one and three are both, they're things that are kind of ongoing bodies of work.

So we could build in something to that.

We could make a request of them, but we haven't discussed.

Would it be appropriate to include council's expectations around timelines in the implementation evaluation plan as it relates to those two ongoing bodies of work?

We absolutely could, yes.

Thank you.

I would like to do so.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, if there aren't any other questions, we can move into the identified issues.

So the first issue relates to levy goals and outcomes.

And the proposed plan contains essentially one of each of those that may need to be expanded to appropriately recognize the levy activities and then the prioritized groups.

So as quick background, the plan includes one goal and many outcomes for each of those four investment areas.

It also contains a goal and an outcome for the levy overall.

And if you're interested in the proposed plan, the complete list can be found on page 10, which is table number two in the implementation plan.

So the first of the two items that may require expansion is the proposed outcome for the levy overall.

The proposed outcome contains an abbreviated list of prioritized groups relative to the list that the council considered in last year's levy ordinance.

So implementation principle number one from the levy ordinance, I'm just gonna read it here so I don't get it wrong, states prioritize investments to ensure educational equity for historically underserved groups, including African-American, Black, Hispanic, Latino, Native American, Pacific Islanders, underserved Asian populations, other students of color, refugee and immigrant, homeless, English language learners, and LGBTQ students.

So the abbreviated list that's in the levy outcomes omits the final four groups from that list.

So refugee and immigrant, homeless, English language learners, and LGBTQ students.

In addition to the actual levy outcome itself, the abbreviated list also occurs in other sections of the plan, including sections related to the intended recipients for K through 12 investments, and also the prioritization process for the Seattle Promise tuition funds.

Moving on, the second item that may need expansion is the proposed goal for the K-12 school and community-based investment area.

The proposed goal as drafted reads, Seattle students have access to and utilize college and job readiness experiences that promote high school graduation.

This is a rather narrow focus on college and job readiness experiences and doesn't seem to actually fully account for the breadth of the strategies that are pursued through the K through 12 investment area.

Some examples of other activities are increased instructional time, academic preparation, social emotional skill development, those types of things.

So with respect to potential options, sorry, I'm going to scroll down.

I've done a poor job of keeping this up to date.

That's all right.

Just so as a kind of orientation, the first option for all of these issues is just to accept the proposed plan as drafted.

So that's always going to be option A.

And then I just want to point out that where there are other multiple options, so B's and C's, those aren't mutually exclusive.

So council members could choose to do just B, just C, some combination thereof, or of course any other option.

So for this one specifically, option B relates to the overall levy outcome, and it would essentially just entail modifying that outcome to include those additional prioritized groups that were left off the list.

In addition, other references in the plan where it's appropriate could also be updated to reflect that complete list.

And then option C relates to the K through 12 goal, And that could be modified to include elements that are more broadly applicable to the levy activities and to younger K through 12 students.

Council Member Johnson.

Thanks.

Brian, I think while it is certainly true that we want to make sure that our high school kids are very focused on college and career readiness, I think that the way that the community-based goal is written right now is to your point from earlier, pretty narrowly defined.

And for me, thinking about sort of the K through eight side of things, I would love for us to talk through option C in a little bit more detail.

Because college and career readiness is something that I think even ninth graders can totally grasp in concept, but may not even be totally ready for.

Some seniors that I know may not be totally ready and understand the college and career readiness element.

But particularly in that K-8 environment, thinking about some of these other options that you've outlined as part of their goals and objectives, whether that's instructional time, academic preparedness, social emotional health and well-being, I think that those would be very welcome additions to this community-based goal.

So I'd love for us to talk through an amendment that would broaden that slightly to think through a little bit more about what some of those K-8 goals could be outside the college and career readiness side.

Great, thank you.

I would concur with that.

So it sounds like we will advance a version of option C, and I'd like to pursue option B as well to make sure that it's, that the overall levy outcome is reflective of what council's intent was in terms of who would be prioritized through these limited resources.

Okay, great, thank you.

So moving on to issue number two, the proposed plan as it is drafted contains language that would allow DEEL to modify elements of the plan during the term of the levy without council approval.

That would include some resource allocations and eligibility criteria.

For example, on page 77, related to K-12 wraparound services, the plan states, DEEL has the authority to reallocate resources over the life of the levy as determined by program outcomes, student need, local funding opportunities, demographic changes, and district and state policy shifts.

There's also another example that's provided in the memo, which is up on the screen, related to the Seattle Promise Program.

And this type of modification authority is currently scattered throughout the plan in about 17 different sections.

And the references aren't all the same.

The council may be comfortable delegating some of the authority.

For instance, one of them is the ability to issue additional competitive funding processes.

So that, you know, seems in the normal course of business for a deal.

For other areas, council may wish to retain greater control.

And so one model for how to handle plan modifications can be found by looking back at the implementation plan for the Seattle Preschool Program, which the council adopted in 2015. And that plan essentially, in the overview section, listed circumstances where modifications would require council approval by ordinance, and then a separate section that required written notification to the council for modifications.

So that could be a model to follow.

And then in addition to controlling those specific modifications, council may also wish to specify certain topics for regular reporting by deal.

This gets back to the issue that you brought up a moment ago.

So in this kind of reporting section, we could have reports on items that aren't necessarily addressed in the implementation plan, and then also any other things that council would just like regular reporting on and to be specified.

So the options are to accept the language as currently drafted.

Option B is to create a new section or appendix that would specify which modifications require approval authority, which modifications may just require notification to council.

And then option C, which could be a complementary, is to have a section that identifies what reporting requirements the council wishes to have.

Great.

Council Member Johnson.

Yeah, I mean, I just, I think one of the models here for us to contemplate, Brian, is the housing levies implementation and evaluation plan or A and F plan, I forget what A and F is.

Administrative and financial plan?

Administrative and financial plan, thank you.

You know, we as a council don't regularly approve that every year.

However, we do get regular reports on things like the implementation and acceptance of our multifamily tax exemption credit projects or the construction of new affordable housing units by type, for example.

I think that that kind of data would be really helpful for us to continue to see from the Department of Education and Early Learning, whether that's about, you know, the enrollment numbers, whether it's about different investments that we're seeing in different school-based health centers, although that's about the partnerships that we might have with after-school providers.

There's a level of detail there I think that that is, can be overwhelming, but there's also I think an appropriate level of detail there to be shared with folks, which I, you know, threading that needle I think is going to be really great to work on.

The other thing that I'm curious about is to what extent council might want to see the sort of signed partnership agreements that we may have between the city and the school district as well.

Those agreements, I presume, we would never want to go all the way up to council for a signature.

But those kinds of partnership agreements are oftentimes good opportunities for proactive relationship building between the city and the district and our partners.

And so getting updates about how those partnership agreements are being signed, when they are signed, what they're about, those might be, I think, of interest to the council as well so that we can understand where we're working proactively together and continue to build off of that good relationship.

So I'm not suggesting that we be the ones who have to sign those partner agreements because I don't think that that's our role or our job.

But getting updates about what those partner, what's inside those partner agreements I think would be helpful too.

Okay, thanks.

And I, in terms of the model here, I think a model that has worked really well in the past in the specific context of DEEL and their administration of education-related programs is around sort of how we have structured the SPP investments and sort of what we lay out as principles or criteria related to when we expect Deal to come back to us and effectively request a modification.

I do think it's an important part of the council's oversight role to make sure that if there is a fundamental shift away from a council priority, for example, or from a potential aspect of the nuts and bolts of the ordinance that adopted this particular levy, I think those are reasonable spaces for DEEL to expect to have to come back to the city council as the oversight entity to seek permission and request to modify the programs accordingly.

I think where the line gets tricky is trying to make sure that we allow the department to have the flexibility that they need to be able to continue to innovate and to be flexible based on responses that they're hearing from some new programs or emerging programs that they're investing in.

And I think that in sort of from my experience and understanding of how it has worked in the SPP context, that model has been able to achieve both that flexibility but also the expectation and, you know, compliance with Council's responsibilities to continue to exert oversight.

So I'd be interested in pursuing an SPP model.

Okay, thanks.

The third issue in the memo relates to the proposed SPP tuition scale and the concern that it would increase subsidies for families at the higher end of the income spectrum relative to the current tuition scale.

So in the SPP implementation plan from 2015, the scale charges families with household incomes greater than 300% of the Federal Poverty Level, or FPL, a percentage of the tuition cost.

Just as a reminder, FPL takes into account both household size and family income, and the scale in the plan ensures that households of a similar size pay progressively more as their income rises.

The scale was also designed to provide at least some level of subsidy for all participating families.

So in practice, the scale goes from 301% up to 760% of FPL, at which point the tuition subsidy is about $535 per year.

And the maximum tuition amount that families pay is about $10,170 per year.

Just in terms of calculating what the subsidy level is, essentially we're comparing the family's total tuition amount compared to the average amount that the city pays directly to providers for direct services.

And the department refers to this as the base slot cost.

So the proposed implementation plan makes a few changes to the tuition scale for SPP.

The first is that it increases the free tuition threshold from 300% FPL up to 350% FPL, and the council's, we talked about this at the last meeting.

The second is that it simplifies the administrative complexity of the scale by reducing the number of steps that it contains.

And then the third is that it caps the maximum family tuition amount at $10,000.

And this third change is where the potential issue lies.

So DO has proposed, slide this up here, DO has proposed to cap the tuition amount at $10,000 due to the belief that this is effectively the maximum amount that can be charged to families without encouraging them to seek preschool services outside of the program, outside of SPP.

The base slot cost for next year is estimated to be approximately $11,000.

And so families at the top end of the scale would receive a tuition subsidy of about $1,000.

just in terms of how it's structured.

In addition, the proposed scale reaches this maximum tuition amount at 711% of FPL rather than going up to 760% like the current model.

So the option that's identified is, of course, we can just accept the model as it's drafted.

The second one would be to modify the scale to increase the maximum tuition amount for families at the top end of the income scale.

Changes to that top income amount could also include revising the number of steps that's contained within the system and also how far up on the FPL scale we go in increasing that.

Thoughts?

So, I have a couple of thoughts, Brian.

One of which is, you know, I think part of the goal of having a voter approved preschool program is to provide some level of subsidies to almost everybody in the program.

Obviously I was one of those folks that pushed in the resolution for us to consider a cross-subsidized model that has proven to not be a preferred option for us to consider at this point in time.

But I think that for those folks who are at that 711% of FPL, A $1,000 subsidy is something I would need to understand a little bit more about.

I do believe everybody participating in the program should receive some level of subsidy, but, you know, as I've articulated at this table many a time, I still believe that a six-hour-a-day model, five days a week for a family at that level, they're getting a heck of a deal compared to what they would be getting on the private marketplace.

full disclosure, for the last time I was writing a preschool tuition check for three days a week for four hours per morning, we were paying in the $11,000 a year range.

It was a good school.

It was not an SPP-certified school.

It was not a six-hour-a-day model.

It was not five days a week.

So I think that there are a lot of benefits to our program, and I think that we should be offering some level of subsidy But I haven't landed yet on whether $1,000 or, you know, we're not quite subsidizing at 10%, but almost a 10% subsidy is the right level.

I also am curious to understand a little bit more as the folks in the early learning team continue to contemplate the difference between a six-hour model and a 10-hour model, whether or not that affects both this base slot cost and how much families might be paying in tuition as we contemplate reaching out to providers who have suggested to us that they would be more likely to participate in the program if a 10-hour model was an option for them.

So I want to make that a sort of one amendment discussion, because I think it was great to see the scale shrink because of the 850 different options that people could...

460. Sorry.

460 different options that people finding themselves on that scale was really hard.

So I think that that's been a good change, but I still think it's worthwhile for having us spend a little more time talking about at that upper tier, how much subsidy should those folks get?

Because I think they should get some, but how much is the right question?

And then does that change if it is a 10-hour slot model versus a six-hour slot model, and what are the impacts of that slot cost and the subsidy associated with it?

So I want a little more time to just think that through.

Now, the chair may have already thought through all of these things, and she's got an answer ready to go.

And if so, I'm excited to hear it.

But if not, I'd love the chance to think through that a little bit more.

No, I mean, I think I would agree with that observation.

I don't think we have clear answers to how the model is impacted if we assume a hybrid or a combination of six-hour time slots versus 10-hour time slots.

And so I think that's some work that we would need to do offline to get a better sense of how this model, as proposed, would be impacted by longer days or how we can modify the subsidization levels by ratcheting up the 7-11%, for example, or ratcheting down the bottom.

to also and then layer over the number of hours available.

I think those are things that we would need to play with and experiment with before we have a clear sense of how the model impacts the overall number of slots that we will have available by doing that kind of a modification.

Because obviously we want to also stay true and committed to our intent to nearly double the number of preschool units seats available for kids in the city.

So Brian, is that enough direction and sort of sense to be able to work on something over the next couple of weeks?

Yes, DEAL has shared, has been kind and shared their model with us about how the tuition scale is made.

And so it's something that we can kind of plug and play and look at some different scenarios with.

And we'd be happy to do that as staff and share them with you and see kind of what things look like when we actually start putting numbers down into the model.

Yeah, that'd be helpful.

And does that plug and play platform allow you to also modify the number of hours?

That's something I haven't discussed with the department yet, so I would have to talk to them and see if they've considered that or how that works.

I know that historically, the kind of before and after the six hours has been through the child care assistance program type of funding, which is still provided through the FEPP levy, but it's in that different program.

It's layered on top.

It's layered on top, right.

So I don't know how the 10-hour day would affect that.

Well, let's take a look at all of those variables, including the layering, and seeing what outcomes we get as a result of that.

I know that there are folks from DEEL in the audience today, so I know that they're listening and taking notes and will hopefully gladly work with us on seeing if we can move some of those dials in a way that still meets the ultimate goal of wanting to meaningfully expand the number of preschool slots available for kids in the city while also really staying true to what I think the ultimate goal is, which is to have mixed income classrooms throughout the city.

I mean, we know that that is a model for high quality preschool and enriches the preschool experience for everybody who's participating in the preschool program.

I hope you have enough direction.

If you don't, you can come and chat with us after committee and we can share with you a little bit more about our thoughts.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Brian, you know, to be totally transparent, I think my goal here on the on the upper end of the income spectrum is to really understand how many of those families we have.

So if we have a very small percentage of those families and we can understand that a difference of between a $1,000 subsidy and a $500 subsidy creates, let's pretend, five more slots.

Those five more slots may be very valuable to the students who could get access to the program that may not have been able to access it before.

However, we may have other institutional barriers that prevent those five slots from even existing.

And so if we're going to make that effort to reduce the subsidy from $1,000 to $500 a year to open up five more slots, but those five more slots can't get filled because we don't have providers who can really make the economics of adding five more spots work, then that's not worth the intellectual or financial exercise in doing so.

So that's the kind of model run that I'm interested in, is how do we take that very upper echelon and tweak a little bit some of the subsidies that they're receiving and see if that creates more slots.

And if it does and those slots are real, then I think it's worth considering.

And if it does, but the slots aren't real, it's not.

And if it doesn't, and it's not, then it's definitely not, right?

So I think that that's just my personal interest in understanding a little bit more about the model.

Okay, thank you.

Great, thank you.

Let's move on.

Okay.

So the fourth issue relates to family support services, and essentially the uncertainty with how the FEPP levy's investment will be utilized after the first year due to the Seattle School District's effort to develop a coordinated care plan.

So during the 2011 Families and Education Levy period, the city's funded family support services in essentially two different ways.

So the first way is through an agreement with Public Health Seattle-King County, and the second way is through elementary innovation school investments.

The funding that's gone to Public Health has been passed through to the school district, and that's provided for their centralized family support program.

The central program allows the district to locate staff at schools based on the levels of student in need.

And in the current school year, so the 2018-19 school year, the city's funding five family support workers and two administrative positions with those dollars.

The family support services that are funded with innovation schools are for those schools that receive the school-based investments, and those schools have chosen to fund a family support worker as a strategy in order to help them meet their levy investment outcomes.

And in the current school year, six schools have used their innovation funds in that way.

So for the FEPP levy, DEEL's proposing to contract directly with Seattle Public Schools, as opposed to, or for family support services, separate from how we have gone through public health in the past.

And the plan states the deal in the district will collaborate to identify which schools will receive services, and the funds will be directed generally towards schools with high concentrations of students.

For example, that aren't meeting grade level standards, that aren't scoring well or making progress on state assessments, that are experiencing homelessness or have chronic absenteeism.

Now in considering the FEPP levy last year, council added $3.6 million to the family support services area for a total of $14.5 million over the levy period.

This was intended to provide resources sufficient to cover the equivalent of 15 family support workers and their associated costs.

And according to DEEL, the district has requested flexibility to develop a coordinated care plan for family supports in order to maximize the number of students that are receiving services.

And then one aspect of this plan may involve utilizing different job classifications to provide those services.

And it's the district's intent to develop this plan over the next year.

So during that year period, DEEL is going to, is intending to provide funding to the district to support family support workers at the elementary schools that have in the past chosen to fund those positions with innovation funds.

And then the remainder of the funding would go to the centralized program.

Beyond the first year of the levy, though, it's unclear how many district staff would be providing services within schools, and then also what the job classifications for those workers would be.

So the options that are laid out in the memo are to, of course, just accept the plan as it's currently drafted, or to essentially, since we don't know what it will be, to request periodic status reports from DEEL during the development of this coordinated care plan, during the district's period, and then also in advance of actually the deal entering into a project agreement with the district for the 2020-21 school year on how those services will be provided.

So essentially it's just increased information to the council.

On this one, so I think the reasonable option here, in large part because we don't know what we don't know, is that option B in my mind.

I will just say that I think for me, when we really explored investment in this area, And this is one of those areas that we worked really hard to restore some funding to or protect the funding of to make sure that the city didn't back away from this particular investment.

Is that, you know, I think for me the bottom line is that these investments were made not with the intent to backfill.

I mean, I think we had a very strong intent to supplement existing investments that are happening as it relates to family support workers within the K-12 system.

And whatever the model is and however the district chooses to ultimately administer the program is, I think, appropriate for the district to determine.

But I think it's important for the school district and for DEEL to understand that our goal, I think, our shared goal, is that we will not be backfilling, that this is actually intended to supplement existing investments in this space.

And our hope is that the school district will continue to partner with us in this space and continue to invest at the level that they have been historically investing in this area in order to get these really critically important wraparound services to students who really need it.

And I had an opportunity to sit down with a group of family support workers who work in the K-12 system a couple weeks ago, and the stories of help that they give to students in the K-12 system are just really impressive stories of of people, you know, driving kids to hotels, you know, driving them to shelters, driving them and their family to an immediate housing opportunity, you know, being that safe place for them to not only express that they're having housing instability, but then knowing that the person that they're telling it to is actually ready, willing, and able to do anything they can to help them find that stability is so important.

And I don't think it can be undervalued.

And we had a great meeting with school board members yesterday here at City Hall.

heard from them that they understand that this is an important function and an important service that is provided to students and their families in the K-12 system.

And my hope is that, again, setting aside how the district chooses to ultimately manage the program, it's important for the city to take the position that That we're not backfilling services here.

We we we intend for These dollars to be leveraged in equal parts with the district councilmember Johnson I think you like to add to that just that that value of continuity that you talked about is really important and While every principal faces their own individualized budget challenges I hope what we are doing with this level of investment is protecting those positions from being on the chopping block So I think that that you know To your point, we need to leave it up to the district to figure out how to administer that.

But I would hate to be in the position where a year from now, two years from now, with a potential budget downturn, that we are back in this place again where we're pitting family support workers versus librarians or other important functions within a school in and of itself, I'd like to think that our investment is going to make sure that those family support workers stay there so that they can continue to provide that very valuable resource that you talked about for students.

Great.

Excellent.

Thanks.

Hey, issue number five relates to the Seattle Promise Program and how the proposed allocations for its financial support strategies may need to be reallocated over time to ensure that equity for the students that are being prioritized.

The Promise Program contains two strategies that provide financial support to participants to assist with the cost of attending college.

So the first strategy is a tuition strategy, and that's a last dollar scholarship that covers all tuition costs after federal and state supports and individual student scholarships are applied.

The equity scholarship strategy is the second one and it's targeted towards students with the highest financial need and would provide funding for non-tuition related expenses such as books, fees, childcare, transportation, things like that.

The companion resolution adopted in 2018 alongside the levy ordinance requested that the implementation plan provide an equitable methodology for prioritizing resources to students with the greatest need if necessary.

The proposed plan on page 102 does this for the tuition strategy and provides a prioritization process for if demand for tuition exceeds supply.

There still might be a broader equity issue, however, with this funding split between the tuition strategy and the equity scholarship bucket.

So in general, the lowest income students will receive federal or state tuition support, and they won't need support from the Seattle Promise tuition bucket.

So those are going to be families likely with a zero expected family contribution, the EFC, and those students are going to be the ones that are eligible for the equity scholarship.

Students with higher incomes, they might receive not enough or they might not receive any financial or state aid to attend college.

And so therefore, they would receive tuition support from the Promise Program.

And those students would not be eligible for the equity scholarship.

So essentially, the program design creates a situation where most likely, Promise students would only be receiving financial support through one of the two buckets.

The provost plan allocates $16 million for over the seven-year levy for the tuition strategy and a little more than $3.6 million for the equity scholarship strategy.

Now, depending on the interest in the program and the demographics of the students that participate, the allocations may be entirely sufficient or they may need to be reallocated over time to meet student need.

So the concern is that if there are more students that are eligible for the equity scholarship and that bucket doesn't have enough funding in it, if there's excess funding in the tuition bucket, it may need to be reallocated between those two.

So the options identified are to accept the plan as drafted or to essentially, again, this is another situation where we don't really know what the uptake is going to be.

So we request that DEEL provide detailed reporting for the council during the first few years of the program, including both the demographic information of the participants and also the expenditures by strategy to ensure that the funding allocations are adequately serving the prioritized groups of students.

No?

Seems like we should go with option B on this one.

Okay.

And thanks for laying that out, Brian.

I know it was complicated to do the mapping, so I appreciate the clearing, concise description in the memo.

Sure.

Thanks.

Okay.

I feel like I need to reiterate the thing that I've said on several occasions at the committee, which is I think our goal here is to intend to serve those kids who may not have the same sort of access because of their financial circumstances or other institutional barriers that they have, and ensure that the kids who benefit from a system that encourages them to go to school, that it's not those kids who are the first 575 who are getting in the queue.

So I think that this reporting is going to be really important to ensure that the goals that we have are aligned with the students who are participating in the program.

Let's make sure that the first 575 kids aren't from Lincoln and Roosevelt.

And let's make sure that it's the kids who we have intended to be doing a lot of outreach on.

And I know that that's the objective of the department, and I know that that's the objective of the mayor, and I know that it's the objective of Seattle Colleges, and I know it's our objective, too.

But I think having some reporting out to ensure that that is the outcome is going to be important.

Right.

We always have to be careful and aware of the potential of unintended consequences of well-intentioned, well-meaning policy choices, and I think this is one of those spaces where we want to make sure that we are very intentional and deliberate in monitoring what we're actually seeing happen in the deployment of these investments to make sure that we don't have those unintended consequences.

Great.

Number six.

Number six.

So issue six relates to the design of the Seattle Promise Program and how it's targeted towards students who are able to attend college on a full-time basis, which could have the effect of excluding part-time students that would benefit from the program supports.

So as kind of a primer, the program is proposed to operate on a cohort model, which is that students would graduate high school, they would matriculate in the fall to Seattle colleges, and then they would attend full-time for two years or up to 90 credits.

Full-time enrollment is defined as a minimum of 12 credits during the fall, winter, and spring quarters, and then attendance in the summer quarter is optional.

And the plan explains this design decision by stating that cohort models for higher education have proven to be successful in supporting students through program completion and building a sense of peer support.

According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, which is located within the U.S.

Department of Education, 62% of students attending two-year institutions in 2016 attended part-time.

Seattle Colleges experiences similar enrollment rates, with 64% of their students this year enrolling on a part-time basis.

Now, the Promise Program is designed to just target first-time college students that have just graduated from high school, as we just said.

So of the total enrollment in Seattle colleges, there are roughly 1,100 of the students that are those types of students, that are first-time, just out of high school students.

Even of that group, 43% of students attend part-time.

So given this large percentage of the students that are attending on a part-time basis, the program as proposed may fail to serve a significant number of the students that could benefit from the program.

There's essentially two ways that part-time enrollment could be addressed.

The first is to allow students to attend part-time on a temporary basis.

According to Seattle Colleges, the Promise Program, students may appeal to enroll less than full-time on a quarterly basis.

And so they actually are already doing that, but the plan as it's currently drafted just doesn't make that attendance flexibility clear.

And then the second way would be to address part-time students, would be to open it up to students that want or need to attend part-time on an exclusive basis.

So developing the policies and requirements for exclusive part-time attendance would likely include a collaborative effort between the city and Seattle colleges.

For example, determining how long a student would get to complete their 90 credits.

Would they get four years, six years?

What does that program design actually look like?

So given that it'll take some work, the effort may align with a racial equity toolkit process that DEEL is already intending to complete in 2021. And what it's focused on right now is expanding access to opportunity youth and to public charter school students.

So once again, these options aren't mutually exclusive.

So the first option B would be to amend the enrollment description section just to clarify that part-time attendance on a temporary basis is already available through an appeals process.

And then option C would be to actually amend the description of the potential program expansion to include part-time students.

So in addition to they're already gonna be looking at opportunity youth and public charter schools, then to have them also look at including part-time students in the program.

I'll just say that I think this was an issue that my office flagged in conversations and offline conversations and meetings with Deal and Seattle Colleges.

And I appreciate, Brian, your follow-up with Seattle Colleges on getting some more data related to what what does this actual population look like in terms of full-time attendance versus part-time attendance?

And I personally was shocked by the numbers.

I didn't appreciate until I received the report back from you, Brian, the high percentage of recent high school graduates who were attending Seattle colleges, but attending in a part-time basis.

And so I think that it's really important for us to to meet students where they're at.

And part of that in my mind includes creating a meaningful pathway for public school students who want to go into the community college route to be able to do so in part time.

And so I think, while I appreciate and respect Seattle College's commitment to wanting to focus resources on those who have high levels of rates of matriculation, which tend to be Students who go full-time, I don't think it would be wise for us as policymakers to ignore or underfund the need of part-time students to have these same supports.

And I believe that in doing so, we will actually be able to turn the corner on potentially even seeing better matriculation rates from part-time students, and that to me is an important policy goal.

Can I ask a few questions?

Sure.

Brian, can you say a little bit more about the appeals process?

It sounds like that's something that people can do now, i.e., a high school student who is currently enrolled in the our current version of the Seattle Promise Program could appeal to be a part-time attendee, but what does that process look like, do you know?

Yeah, I don't have a lot of detail on it, but my understanding is that, so part of the Promise Program and the existing program that's been done is there's a strong level of advising that occurs.

So students are required to meet with advisors on a quarterly basis, so they're in frequent contact with them.

So if a student, I don't think they could apply currently, right, through this appeals process to attend exclusively on a part-time basis.

But if a student was enrolled, and let's say by the spring quarter, they had a life event that required them to move on a part-time basis, they could work with their advisor to attend, let's say, spring quarter of their 13th year on a part-time basis.

I think the expectation is that that student would then switch back to a full-time basis when allowed, or when able to do so.

That's pretty much all the information that I understand about the program right now, but it's not explicit.

If you just read the text of the implementation plan as drafted, it specifically says that it's for a full-time basis, minimum of 12 credits per quarter.

Well, when we've had various members of the Seattle Colleges sit at the table, they've talked a lot about how important those advisors are to their model and how they believe those advisors are going to be real kind of guideposts for a lot of the students that are going through this.

And I think even going so far as to talk about limiting the ratio of students that an individual advisor can advise.

I'd be interested in understanding a little bit more about how that advisor might be able to direct somebody to the program on a part-time basis and how we might be able to give that tool to the advisor a little bit more clearly than it sounds like is being articulated right now that may solve the inherent tension.

It sounds like this is an option that does exist, but it is rare and maybe not discussed until someone might come forward proactively and ask for it.

There might be an option here that is available to us where we are being very out front with advisors to say that, you know, you're working with your students and you know your students best.

And if you've got somebody who's got a life event going into their 13th year, that's going to keep them from matriculating full time.

but you still think that they are the kind of kid that is going to really benefit from the program, we should be talking with that kid about a part-time option.

So understanding a little bit more about how the advisors might have a real role to play in that appeals process I think would be helpful.

And just the appeals process in and of itself.

The word appeal doesn't sound great to me.

Like I have to appeal to get access to this thing.

But instead to think about it as just a really viable option for people.

Nomenclature matters.

And I think I'd be interested to know a little bit more about how we can change some of that nomenclature to allow for this.

as more of an option, maybe not one that we promote a ton, but one that advisors know is available to their students.

I, like Council Member Gonzales, was surprised at the number of students who are attending part-time, but also the number of students who are not coming straight from high school.

24,000, 23,900 students who are not coming straight from high school.

So the population that we're talking about here, I think is a select one.

So if we can be discreet about that population getting access to this, I think that that's gonna be an important pathway to your point, Madam Chair, to make sure that we do encourage access for everybody regardless of your economic circumstance.

I guess I want to know a little bit more.

Yeah.

And I think of the 1,100 students that are coming from high school, that are recent high school graduates, 43% of those are attending part-time.

That is an astonishing number of students.

So I think creating some path to acknowledge that that that that is who we are trying to help is really important.

I just feel really strongly that not paying attention to part-time students is a huge mistake and doesn't feel good to me.

So let's make that happen, Brian.

Okay, moving on to issue number seven.

So at the March 13th committee meeting, council members requested additional information on the satisfactory academic progress or SAP eligibility milestone for the Seattle Promise Program.

In general, SAP requirements are determined by individual colleges and are applicable to students that are not covering their education costs independently.

So that's gonna be any student that is having state or federal financial aid.

The three central elements are maintaining a minimum cumulative grade point average, generally that's 2.0.

Earning a minimum percentage of credits relative to the number of credits attempted.

And then the third one is making sufficient progress towards completion of the degree or credential.

So depending on the funding source, it's either 125% or 150% of the normal program duration.

So if the student was trying to pursue a degree that required 90 credits, they would have to complete it within up to 135 attempted credits.

So it's that progress marker.

Student performance is reviewed both annually and quarterly, and students can either be in good standing, can be put in a probationary status or a warning status, or become ineligible for financial aid.

Students do have the right to appeal in an ineligibility status, and if they're successful, then they're placed into a probationary status.

But since SAP requirements are required to receive federal or state aid, they're not really something that the city has the ability to directly influence.

However, since the Seattle Promise Program is designed to provide a variety of wraparound supports to students, then the city may want to keep an eye on how the SAP requirements are affecting different groups of students.

And that's kind of where the options, and I will pull them up, where they center around.

So option B is to essentially amend the plan Again, I linked it to the racial equity toolkit process, but for Seattle Promise, of an evaluation of where the satisfactory academic requirements, how they're, or if they're disproportionately affecting certain groups of students, and then which that may suggest that adjustments are needed to the types of supports that the program provides.

I think that's a reasonable approach.

And we have been, again, spending a lot of time with DEEL and Seattle Colleges talking about this concept around unintended consequences.

And there's a very large stream of where we can have potential disproportionate impact on students that we intend to actually be supporting and helping.

And I think this is one of those areas.

So while I understand and appreciate that we can't modify the college's legally mandated concepts around satisfactory academic progress, I do think it is reasonable for us as a city that is investing in this space to make sure we have a good, clear understanding of how those particular legal requirements may or may not be disproportionately affecting certain groups of students that we have said are being prioritized through these investments.

And my hope is that that will, as you've indicated in this memo, provide us an opportunity to shift and be flexible in the event that we see that there is a disproportionate impact.

Last one.

One.

Issue number eight.

So the final issue relates to the types of advisory services that are provided to PROMIS students.

So again, at the March 13th committee meeting, council members expressed interest in ensuring that PROMIS students would be informed about and connected to complementary services or assistance programs that they might be eligible for.

One of the strategies, as we actually just discussed a moment ago, of the PROMIS program is to provide advising support to students, and that actually begins in high school and then continues throughout their 13th and 14th year.

As I mentioned a couple of moments ago, during their time at the colleges, the students are required to meet with an advisor at least quarterly.

That's the requirement.

There's that 100 to one ratio that Council Member Johnson referenced.

In addition to providing program and course registration guidance, the advisors would be responsible for supporting students in completing financial aid files and referring them to other connecting students to other campus supports that may be available.

So these descriptions imply that students would be connected to at least some of the assistance programs that they may be eligible for, but it doesn't really explicitly describe the range of programs and services that may be applicable, especially for students that may be eligible for the Equity Scholarship.

So the options for this one, again, there's a B and a C, would be to amend the plan to provide additional direction regarding the types of referral and connection services that should be provided by advisors.

So just be explicit about that list of programs.

And then option C would be to request that deal in this kind of annual reporting process to report back to the council on the referral rates of Seattle College advisors, and then also the successful student connections to those programs.

I like both of those.

I do too, Madam Chair.

And again, Brian, I think the words here matter.

I mean, I referenced this when we talked at the last committee discussion, but, you know, a question on a form that would ask, are you eligible to receive a low-income fare ORCA card versus a question on a form that would ask, would you be interested in receiving a low-income fare ORCA card?

That presumes two different pieces of information.

One which says, I am in an economic circumstance that requires me to get access to this in order to make ends meet.

The other is, wow, I'd really love that benefit if I'm eligible for it.

I think even just the framing of how we talk about availability of services really matters here too.

So I like both of these options and would love to understand a little bit about how we're gonna be continuing to ask students how they might need additional help.

Okay, great, thanks.

Excellent.

Anything else, Mr. Goodnight?

No, that does it for me.

All right.

So that's the one and only item on our agenda.

And I wanted to just give folks a quick reminder that next week, April 2nd, We have a deadline related to any additional issues or potential amendments to the Implementation and Evaluation Plan.

They are due to Council Central staff.

That's to Brian Goodnight and Ali Panucci.

By close of business on April 2nd, I sent out a email to all of my colleagues yesterday as a reminder of that deadline.

And so it's my expectation that any potential amendments for consideration by the committee will be submitted on April 2nd, and it's fair to say that I will be loathe to consider any amendments that come to us after April 2nd of 2019. We will then have a special committee meeting of this committee on April 18th.

That's a Thursday at 2 p.m.

here in Council Chambers to consider all of the amendatory language, both technical and substantive, and to consider a possible vote on those amendments.

If all goes well, we will likely have an amended package available for full city council consideration on April 22nd of 2019 at 2 p.m.

during our regularly scheduled full council meeting.

So before we adjourn, wanted to say thank you to the Department of Education and Early Learning for sticking it out with us and for all of your hard work in getting us to this point in this draft of the Implementation and Evaluation Plan.

Really have appreciated working with all of you to date and I'm sure we will continue to work well with you all to make sure that we get this right.

Also want to thank the members of the FEPP Levy Oversight Committee who did the hard advance work for several months before the package was And I was really excited to hear that in the February LOC meeting, the LOC unanimously recommended the advancement of the implementation and evaluation plan.

So I really appreciate all of their work in making sure that the issues they care about and the issues that the communities they represent are included and reflected in the base plan.

So a lot of good stuff here, really excited about it.

And then lastly, just want to acknowledge that this is Council Member Johnson's last committee hearing in this committee.

As a member of this committee, I have really had a pleasure of having you be one of my colleagues on this committee.

I have really enjoyed over the last two years, we've been on this committee together now for two years, yes, and have really appreciated your thoughtfulness and the fact that you show up and that you are always ready to do the work and that you have been just sort of a really strong ally for me in championing the needs of our kids and families.

And of course, we're talking about education now, but you've also been there along the way for everything related to public safety and gender equity issues and immigrant and refugee issues and just really have appreciated the opportunity to serve with you in this committee.

And just wanna thank you for all of your service in this committee and beyond to the people of Seattle.

So there are some folks in the audience, so I think we should applaud Council Member Johnson.

And if you'd like to give any remarks, you may.

It's been my pleasure.

God, he's so concise.

He's gonna save all his words for April 1st.

All right, so for those of you who are tuning in or are wondering why I'm saying a long goodbye to Council Member Johnson, it's because this is his last committee hearing and he will no longer be on the City Council after April 5th, so just wanna really acknowledge your public service.

Thank you.

All right, that is the end of our agenda.

There being no additional business before the committee, we are adjourned.