School Board Meeting 1 18 2017 Part 2

I will now turn it over to Superintendent Nyland for his comments.

All right thank you and again thanks for a great performance.

Tonight I guess something to do with the start of the calendar year.

We have several reports tonight so financial report and annual report from JoLynn Berge, our program evaluation and assessment annual report from Eric Anderson and our equitable access to programs and services annual report by Sherry Cox.

We will start with assistant superintendent for finance JoLynn Berge.

Good evening.

We are just going to hit the very top highlights.

It will be about a two minute presentation.

The detail was discussed at the last audit and finance meeting and that was on January 12.

Now it's on thank you.

This was the presentation that we prepared for the Audit and Finance Committee.

This report meets board policy 6030. We also give the Audit and Finance Committee monthly financial reports and this information is the official filed what's referred to by the state as the F196 financial statements.

So first I just want to point out again the highlights.

So from the adopted budget revenues year to date for as of August 31, 2016 were slightly under but more importantly our expenditures were even further under projection.

So in the end result we had revenues that exceeded expenditures by $35.6 million The other thing that I'd like to point out is how it impacted our fund balance.

So our fund balance actually ended in a higher projection than our adopted budget.

So when we adopted the budget for 2015-16 we had projected an ending fund balance of $25.6 million.

The actual beginning fund balance first was much higher.

It was at $64.9 million and we actually ended the year at $78 million.

that enabled us to have a significant carryover into the 16-17 school year that we are currently in.

Two last points that I would make are just to point out our increase over time in our revenues and expenditures as a percentage.

So just to get some context and we've been having a lot of budget meetings with the board so a lot of this information is very familiar to you, you've seen it many times before displayed in lots of different ways but 14-15 the growth from 14-15 to 15-16 our revenues increased by 9.4% in total This is that pie chart that just shows where we get our money from you can see the state apportionment is 45% and local levy that very important budget factor for us this year is 26.9% of our total revenue that actually came in for 15-16.

And then for expenditures similarly our expenditures rose again by about 9.7%.

That will conclude the information that I will be going over at this time.

Thank you.

Do we have any time for questions or comments?

Sure.

Were there any questions or comments?

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay great.

Good afternoon members of the board and Director Nyland, Kyle Kinoshita curriculum assessment instruction and I'm actually kicking off the report on board policy 2090 which is a required annual report.

Since there is actually a lot of moving parts to this policy and this is meant to be a short report I want to specify a little bit about what we're actually going to report tonight as well as some of the other places that we actually discuss assessment.

I'll be taking on the first part of the presentation which is a very brief segment in terms of our assessment work in Seattle Public Schools and one improvement that we have in that Part of the policy that specifies is processes procedures that assure the purpose that our assessment system is being met.

Then I'll be handing it over to Dr. Eric Anderson who will be reporting on another aspect of the policy regarding program evaluation.

Before I actually get into that I just wanted to locate our report in the context of other conversations that we actually have around assessment over the year.

In November we reported on the student assessment portion and achievement results in the form of the district scorecard in a board work session.

In February what we hope to do is to begin conversation in the C&I policy committee around a new assessment policy draft.

And in March these are conversations that we hope to have but are not yet planned around aspects of MTSS and how assessment relates to it as well as hopefully work session type of situation in which we can update you in terms of the new developments around our assessment system and more about how assessment is used in Seattle Public Schools.

In April we hope to report on the community and stakeholder engagement we have on the new policy.

and potentially look at some of the other board policies that actually deal with assessment and hopefully look at them and check for things like overlap and redundancy.

So that's sort of the context in which our short report exists.

So tonight what I want to do is report on one feature of our assessment process that has improved the oversight of our assessment system.

As you know and we've reported in different work sessions the work that we're trying to do is to develop a balanced assessment system meaning one that supplements the summative end-of-the-year assessments we have with more formative assessments.

that help inform instruction that are useful for teacher collaboration.

The new feature of our assessment oversight this year is as a result of the 2015-18 Seattle Education Association collective bargaining agreement and which specified that a SEA Seattle Public Schools assessment steering committee be formed that have representatives from both the district as well as the SEA and essentially it means to be a partnership to ensure that the balance part of our literacy system remains balanced in the sense of maximizing that part of our assessment system that informs instruction while minimizing those parts that impact things like instructional time and resources such as technology.

The charge that's laid out in the CBA is that this committee has specified numbers of representatives from SEA and the district central office.

We also had representatives from PASS as well this year.

And their task is actually to develop an annual report to the superintendent that helps to provide recommendations that reduce impact on testing on the environment, instructional environment.

They were charged at developing a districtwide assessment calendar and you know to look at you know our slate and suite of standardized and common assessments to make sure that they are effective.

So this year was the first year that this was in operation they began meeting in April and started their work they were able to accomplish a report to the superintendent in June of this year and they also managed to develop an assessment calendar which I'm told because I wasn't here at the time was unprecedented in terms of the clarity and transparency in terms of specifying very clearly which assessments occurred in which grade levels when they occurred at the time of the year in terms of dates of administration and other advice in terms of how the information from these assessments would be used.

The committee also as developed recommendations regarding minimizing disruptions.

The calendar in and of itself was helpful because of the fact that it was a planning tool and schools could then plan the use of resources like technology and classroom space to make sure that disruptions to instruction could be minimized.

And basically what the committee then did is take a look at every single assessment that was administered on a district wide basis from smarter balance assessment to map to ELPA you know to other OSPI assessments and to look exactly what kind of time commitments that you know composed to the administration.

They were able to develop some really concrete specifications and recommendations in terms of how these assessments would be administered in such a way that would actually minimize the impact on the resources in any given school.

They were also able to give some really concrete recommendations regarding the interim assessment system this year with the demise of the interim assessment they were the ones responsible for the recommendation that the smarter balance interim assessments be used for the 16-17 in order to track progress toward the end of year assessment and as well they recommended that an RFP be issued for a new interim benchmark system.

So that was the work of the assessment steering committee.

So just a brief note in terms of next steps in terms of assessment again we will be involved in developing drafts of a new assessment policy and we will be beginning the work of engaging both internal and external stakeholders in the development of this policy.

will be convening the assessment steering committee for the 2016-17 school year to look ahead for the next school year.

And this committee will be charged at again reexamining our slate of assessments to ensure that all the assessments fit most efficiently and effectively the construction of an MTSS system in our schools.

and in general will be looking to continue to build assessment literacy among teachers which relates to helping teachers be very clear about the use of assessment and how to develop the maximum collaboration and impact on instruction.

So I will stop here before I pass it off to Dr. Anderson if there are any questions.

Director Blanford.

Dr. Kinoshita I appreciate the work that's been done and your articulation of what's been done so far.

What I didn't hear that I'm very interested in I don't know if your committee has been working on this issue but one of the key metrics that has been out in the community and in the research is how much instructional, what percentage of assessment time detracts from our instructional time?

Were you able to identify what the amount of time that we are spending assessing our students?

Well I wasn't present in last year's committee deliberations but I think that was one of the things that they did when they looked at each individual assessment you know in terms of exactly how long it took to administer and they were able to develop inferences in terms of okay this is how much class time it would actually take.

and that was a source of recommendations that actually helped to sort of begin making plans to minimize impacts of those assessments and the calendar also helped in terms of the spacing of the assessments just so that they wouldn't be administered too closely together so that instructional time would have a good stretch of time before another assessment came along.

if I can follow up.

Sure.

So was there a number because frequently that is the thing that people catch on is were we at 1% 5% of class time spent on instruction?

This is something that I can you know research and provide to the board.

Great thank you.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

I also want to thank you for the work and I have a couple of specific questions relating to what the assessment landscape looks like from the spring.

One of the points that you mentioned was that the smarter balanced interims will be given in place of amplify.

as bargained or as agreed through this calendar.

Am I correct that previously our directive to schools was that they could either give the map or the amplify?

And is this a third option or how does that play into what they've tested previously when we're looking for growth?

From what I read into what occurred last year I believe that was correct that you know schools have the choice of map or amplify.

I think these smarter balanced interim assessments were meant to be kind of a bridge to the time that we could actually develop a more permanent interim assessment system and so I believe the recommendation was that teachers could use them at certain times of the year in order to track progress.

Looks like Wyeth actually has some information in that regard.

Just a quick one.

We do K2 for the map then we have obviously the literacy assessment as dictated by the state for second grade but then for the older grades schools did have some choice around whether they were going to do the interims or map or both.

A lot of schools actually elected to do both of those assessments primarily at the middle school level.

I guess the root of my question is if the schools are getting continuity of assessment if they are getting value what they do in the fall versus what they do in the spring.

Yeah that I couldn't actually speak to just as yet but you know again I think the value of the smarter balanced interim assessments are to be able to give information to teachers in terms of how kids might do at the end of the year.

And you know these I think are especially valuable I've seen them in other districts where they're able to then tailor their lessons you know to make sure that kids can actually show how they've actually learned different ELA and math standards.

Thank you my last question was also just a clarification through this body of work we are looking to identify and adopt a common assessment that would not be used until the fall but that would be the intent is that it would be part of the assessment calendar for this coming fall.

Yes that's correct and the RFP for that I believe you are referring to that is being developed.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

Thanks Dr. Kinoshita much appreciated.

Where would I look on the Seattle schools webpage to find the committee meeting notes with the CBA SEA past committee and or to find the report to the superintendent that you referenced in June 2016?

For that I might see if I can get the answer from our assessment manager who actually was the one who facilitated these meetings last year, Megan Bail.

Hello everyone so last year being the first year that we engaged in this committee there wasn't necessarily a protocol that we were aware of for how this information was being distributed to the board members.

We presented to Dr. Nyland in June he received that report.

I am not aware of where those documents are currently posted but we would be happy to share those with all of you and make those public.

And might we also upload them to our Seattle schools website because as you can well imagine issues of assessment are extraordinarily controversial for a number of our folks and our big push has been transparency.

Another ticklish question we hear from some vociferous community members that this report does not meet the part and parcel language of policy number 2090. Can you help me with that?

In terms of this particular report?

That's correct.

I'd be interested in a little bit more of what they thought was required in the report I think.

From what I understand this was to be a brief report on various aspects of it so this part you know related to you know again the purposes or excuse me the you know basically processes and procedures that help to oversee our assessment system.

Dr. Anderson would be presenting a pretty good chunk of the rest of that policy so I'm not exactly sure what they would be referring to in terms of what we're not reporting on and again The little summary in the beginning that talked about where we provide other types of information about our assessment system was meant to show that yes you know aspects such as for example student achievement which is a part of 2090 is done in places like the district scorecard and as well other aspects of the functioning we hope to actually develop in later conversations in the spring.

Thank you.

Just to follow up on that I think perhaps the component of the report that we've heard about in the public and that I wanted to ask about is the program evaluation part of it.

I do appreciate hearing about the assessments and knowing that you're developing a sort of holistic look at what kind of assessments we need and balancing out how much instructional time we're using or not using.

But the policy does also state, I mean the policy says program evaluation and assessment.

And so can you speak to what your staff is able to do in terms of evaluating the efficacy of our programs?

I know the board has given a direction that we would like to map all the programs we have and that is work that's just starting.

But this is an annual report so what has been done up to now that you could share with us about the status of the various programs the district offers?

If there are no other questions on my part that's actually a perfect segue into Dr. Anderson's section of the report.

Good evening, Eric Anderson director of research and evaluation.

So yes you're correct that this policy does have two primary component pieces assessment being one and program evaluation being the other.

We have historically not invested staffing resources at least through my office into the systematic review or evaluation of our program offerings.

However, we do annually present in our district scorecard work session a summary of the extent to which the district has met the goals and priorities outlined in its strategic plan.

And so that is done annually.

However, program evaluation and review actually is incorporated this year as you actually already referenced.

in this year's board priorities under superintendent's smart goal number three which has two main components.

First is an interactive program and I think I might be behind on my presentation here, oh I'm handling this my bad.

I haven't been here in a while so sorry.

So the first piece is an interactive program mapping tool to enable stakeholders to view and explore our program offerings across our schools and regions and the students that are served.

And the second is a pilot program review process to again to begin to systematically evaluate our current program offerings consistent with board policy 2090. So consistent with this policy the goals of program review are as follows first to institute a rigorous systematic process for evaluating our programs to produce actual formative data to improve our offerings and importantly to improve decision-making by deepening understanding of program design implementation outcomes and cost benefits.

An important additional benefit is to develop over time the capacity of our program managers to collect analyze and report research findings in a more rigorous and consistent systematic manner as well.

So who will conduct the review?

Depending on the nature and complexity of the research questions my office will help determine which of the following models will be instituted and so basically you have internal reviews which is where my office would conduct the majority of data collection analysis working in partnership with program managers to develop the research design.

The second would be in some places and if we have funding or a research partner that's been identified to help coordinate evaluations involving external researchers or contracted evaluators.

I think we don't have hard and fast criteria yet but I would say it's likely that the external reviews would involve studies which require deeper inquiry and more comprehensive research questions or perhaps it would be of great value to have external researchers who have specific technical expertise in the area of the study.

I can imagine for example that a comprehensive review of major components of our special education services would likely be on the capacity of my office to conduct.

So we have developed some criteria because we can't review every program at least my office can't systematically every single year.

So these are some of the criteria that we will be looking at to think about how to prioritize and this information is here I won't walk through these point by point now.

But we did consult this criteria and the process of selecting two programs for this year's pilot.

And those two programs are spectrum or our services for advanced learners, not the highly capable kids but the kids who we would say are advanced learners and so the core of those research questions is the extent to which the spectrum services that have been provided have been effective and more generally what are the best, what's our best and most ideal program service model to help these kids develop and grow to their ultimate capacity.

The second one is our international school dual language immersion programs.

We did consider the degree to which the program leaders were identified as being willing and collaborative partners in this process and in both these cases the people who are in charge with Wyatt Jesse and Steven Martin and Kari Hanson in terms of spectrum and Michelle Oakey and Veronica Gallardo in terms of international schools are both more than willing to participate with high fidelity in a rigorous and systematic review process.

These are collaborative efforts the internal pieces and I just wanted to point out that you know it's important to note that no additional staffing has been allocated for this year's pilots so it's you know as such the comprehensiveness of the evaluation research questions and the depth of inquiry will be constrained by staff capacity and other departmental commitments and obligations.

We are just now initiating our planning process in fact we had a fairly lengthy discussion on international schools today and my office will be providing interim updates to the board curriculum and instruction committee.

Our next planned update will include detailed evaluation plans for both pilot reviews.

I'll stop there for now and be happy to answer any questions.

Are there any questions or comments?

Okay.

Director Harris.

If policy 2090 says we will evaluate each program every year, would it be appropriate that we delve into policy 2090 and be more realistic about what it is that we are doing, what we can do both staff wise and monetarily instead of having folks every year suggest to us that we are failing our policy duties.

Does that make sense?

It does and from what I understand perhaps Director Burke can confirm I believe part of the C&I work plan committee is to review that policy and consider which the possibility of making adjustments so that it is a more realistic and a practical approach.

consistently communicated that program evaluation activities tend to be resource intensive.

They are especially if you want to look at implementation and understand different dimensions of the program there's qualitative research that's involved and that involves people and so yes it's something that unless we and I think we can over time think about a model in which we have more consistent expectations about the program managers themselves and how they develop their own research agendas are important to them.

But I still think the extent to which we do internal independent program review, my office being the independent actor or contract for external reviews that requires funding.

Director Burke.

I would just like to back that up.

I appreciate you bringing that up.

We do have on the C&I work plan for February, March, and April a trifecta of policies that are being worked on simultaneously.

The new assessment policy that Dr. Kinoshita described, policy 2090, and policy 2163 which relates to MTSS the multi-tiered systems of support.

So all of these are closely related and will be worked on as a group.

So if any of my colleagues have feedback by all means let us know.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

My personal request would be that we simplify the policies and that we are transparent about what it is we can in fact achieve so that we are not always in a reactive defensive position.

Thank you.

I'll just add to that.

I agree we should be realistic but I don't want to overcorrect to the point where we don't have the objective of having some degree of review.

So maybe we need a review that is not as deep as we want every single year but we have to have some kind of understanding of what we offer and whether or not we are doing it well, whether or not it is helping our students.

So perhaps the mapping project that we are undertaking will help us get to that point.

You actually raise a point that's worth mentioning here.

So part of that project in partnership with Flip Herndon and Ashley Davies is that my office will be also in consultation with Joe Lindberg.

How can we begin to at least compile at a minimum descriptive achievement data linked to students that are served by programs so as part of our transparency is not just the demographic profile of the students that are served but more transparency around the types of data achievement data in particular and so that is we do see that as part of the mapping project I don't see that as being program review because as you acknowledge that's a more in-depth inquiry that's meant to help really improve programs but I still think we can work to have more transparency about in terms of just data.

Thank you.

All right thank you to staff for those reports and for the questions from the board.

Sherry Cox school operations with the equitable access and programs and services annual report and I think Dr. Nyland wants me to go quickly here.

This is the annual report.

The majority of this report covers changes that were made to services and programs for the 16-17 so the current school year.

and there are some changes noted in the report that were approved in the recent student assignment plan that will impact the 17-18 school year.

So the majority of the changes in this report are around special education.

This year we added 22 special education classrooms throughout the district.

The majority of those changes to special education services were to implement the continuum of services model which was agreed upon in the collective bargaining agreement.

These were in support of the districtwide academic goals to increase access to services in each region to provide availability of services closer to where students reside and considered each middle school feeder region in alignment with the new student assignment plan.

The other upcoming service change will be to our highly capable cohort in the West Seattle.

You approved that Madison middle school will become the HCC pathway for what are the current 5th grade HC students that reside in the West Seattle area those students will be assigned to Madison middle school and then the plan is the following year Madison middle school will be for 6th and 7th grade HC students in the West Seattle area and then the third year would be 6th, 7th and 8th grade so that those students would no longer have to travel to Washington middle school to receive the HC services.

The program change that occurred this year there was just one and we opened an open doors youth reengagement program in partnership with the Seattle vocational Institute.

This SVI initiated this program through Seattle Central College in 2016. This provides instruction to 16 through 21 year olds who have dropped out of school or are expected to drop out and the instruction is geared toward GED preparation, basic skills development as well as case management services.

There are currently 22 students enrolled in this program but not all of these students are Seattle Public Schools students as the program is offered to students who are outside of Seattle Public Schools.

remainder of the report are changes that were made in our schools in the interest of Director Harris and transparency that we've included in this report that do impact how students are served and how families perceive services and I use the word services not as the formal service in our school.

We had some changes to the spectrum delivery model in Lafayette and Whittier this school year.

Those students are now integrated throughout the classrooms at that school and receiving their services no longer in self-contained programs.

We continue to add Seattle preschool programs.

You approved in the student assignment plan that we will have a second site in the north end for our highly capable cohort that will be located at the Decatur building and serve students who live in a geo zone of the Decatur region.

This year we will also be moving Louisa Boren's STEM 8th grade will be added in its third year of implementation.

You approved a truncation to the Madrona K8 so next year Madrona will be a K5 school and those middle school students will be assigned most likely to Meany as that is where most of them resided for an attendance area.

And lastly you approved the chief self-language immersion pathway for Southeast students.

This concludes my report if you have any questions.

I have one question.

Looking at the special education service changes, I'm just picking out sort of an example.

I noticed a classroom for the DHH program, the deaf and hard of hearing has been discontinued at Eckstein but one has been added at Tops.

Can you speak to why that decision was made?

I will turn that over to Mr. Jessee.

Good evening.

Introduce myself at this time.

Wyeth Jesse, Chief of Student Support Services.

So this is, we've gone over this at CNI, we explained some of these moves last year, actually in anticipation of this year, due to the low number of students, we're talking about a few students that were attending Extern who required DHH services, intensive DHH services, and so TOPS K-8, building that we've heard from the community as part of their input was to really build that out as far as our community at TOPS.

I know you've heard some of those requests from public members and then you can see those services are together as a capacity and as far as staff skill set to serve those students all the way from K through 8th grade.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments?

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on.

I'll get my track shoes on here and get through the rest of the superintendent comments here.

As we usually do I'll start with an overview of some of the activities that support our strategic plan.

Our strategic plan goals are student learning, systems improvement and community engagement.

In the area of student learning and eliminating the opportunity gap.

Our principals come together on a monthly basis and meet in this room for a full day.

Half of that day is spent on race and equity issues and the other half on their work with regard to their inquiry plans to close opportunity gaps in their buildings.

The last two sessions have featured Dr. Abhi from Seattle College.

And he's provided some interesting historical perspectives with regard to race in Seattle indicating that in our early years Seattle was actually a haven for many who came to Seattle to have greater freedoms and opportunities, opportunities to vote that were not available elsewhere in the country.

and Director Stefan Blanford was with us on that leadership development day and I appreciate that.

Dr. Pedro Neguero was also here visiting and had some presentations that were sponsored throughout the region and then did some news commentary.

And Jeff Clark had the opportunity to participate in a King 5 interview to talk about some of the things that we are doing in Seattle to support elimination of the opportunity gap.

Systems improvement, it's really been about budget and it will be for much of the remainder of this school year unfortunately.

We've really been doing that work on three fronts.

One is to communicate with the legislature about the levy cliff and the lack of funding and what the impact, what that impact is on us.

Second has been to communicate that throughout our community including staff, parents as well as our business community.

And then thirdly has been the work that the board has been very much engaged in and that is how do we close that gap of 74 million.

So thank you to the board for There are many sessions including one last Wednesday that took a fair amount of time and another coming up this coming Wednesday to try to get to a point where we have a worst-case scenario going forward.

It is a very odd and unusual year in that normally when we have a budget shortfall we know that we have a budget shortfall and we act accordingly.

In this case I've been calling it a manufactured crisis in that at a time when the state is under court order to put billions of dollars into public education.

They are actually removing about $500 million in Levee authority, $30 million of that here in Seattle.

So, see if I can do these in the order that I just mentioned them.

From the legislative standpoint we have been working closely with our delegation.

We were invited down, Director Geary was with us, Steven Nielsen, Dr. Herndon, JoLynn Berge and Aaron Bennett and I were down at 7 AM in the morning on last Wednesday.

Well received by our delegation and our delegation has been supportive over the last number of years of trying to find a solution for McCleary.

So they've been asking for graphics.

We provided them with the graphics.

They've been asking us for A show of support we worked with Puget Sound ESD they held a regionwide press conference on Thursday morning again thank you to the same group including Director Geary for being there on Thursday and that was nice and the Renton school superintendent like Washington parent and Bethel board member kind of led the charge demonstrating that this is not just a Seattle issue this is a statewide, regionwide issue.

Meaning that thousands of teacher jobs and staff jobs are at risk.

Probably missing a few things in there and then on Monday Martin Luther King Day WA, SEA, Seattle Council PTSA, the State Council for PTSA held a huge rally in Olympia.

Again thank you to Director Geary for being there.

And we were well represented I think there was about 600 to 700 teachers that were there and about 100 parents that were there.

So again a great show of support to let the legislature know that this is important work.

Part of the challenge is that this as in the case of Congress does have a political divide to it and so the house appropriations committee did report out the extension of the levy cliff on a partisan 17 to 15 vote.

We've been working with other districts to encourage Republican leadership on the Senate side to hear the bill.

and hopefully move the bill forward.

We are told that the Republican caucus is working together, well trying to work together to figure out what it is that they would propose as an alternative.

So that was at least somewhat encouraging that there may be an opportunity to have the bill have a hearing.

We are told that may very well include the levy swap and some of the other elements of a grander bargain.

Locally Director Blanford and I had the opportunity to meet with a chamber group last Monday and explain again the impact of McCleary and the impact on Seattle Public Schools.

Along the way we have been working diligently in partnership with the Seattle Council PTSA.

They helped sponsor many of the regional meetings that we had.

We've met with SEA, with PASS and with our other labor partners to make them aware of what the worst-case budget is shaping up to look like.

And then as we reach certain milestones as we did the work with the board last Wednesday we've been sending out information to parents and to staff as kind of a broadcast letting people know where we are.

One of my rules of thumb is that it takes four times to hear new or difficult information and so our commitment to staff particularly and to parents is to get new information out, well maybe not all new, maybe some repetition of information out on a weekly basis.

So coming up we have had Issues, concerns with regard to are we, where are we with funding for the elimination of the opportunity gap?

Are we staying true to our commitments?

And the answer is qualified yes and we will report that in more detail shortly.

Is administration taking bigger cuts than the rest of the organization?

Yes and we will be reporting that in more detail in the next bit.

So I think that's kind of the budget in a nutshell.

Lots of work yet to come and again thank you to the board for continuing to work with us and figure out how we deal with the hand that we have been dealt.

We do know that we have to adopt eventually a balanced budget and we certainly do hope that the legislature will move forward in a timely way to avoid the worst of the levee cliff.

So that takes me to community engagement and I'll kind of pick up on Martin Luther King Day so Monday there were many many events there was I guess Mount Zion had their event on Friday and then there was a breakfast at the Sheraton on Monday and then many of our Teachers came back and participated in the march and then Martin Luther King Jr. elementary had a great volunteer event and board president Peters was there to provide some hard work and some inspiration so I heard great things about the remarks that Director Peters brought at that event.

Also on that day Director Blanford had an op-ed in the paper in terms of the encouragement for us to continue to work on our elimination of the opportunity gap and creating an inclusive community as part of celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Wow, I do have a lot of stuff here.

I'll skip through some of it in the interest of time or at least highlight it.

PAR is our peer assistance review process and it's been a partnership that has been involving a monthly meeting with about 40 to 50 educators both teachers and principals and lots of energy and enthusiasm behind that work so we appreciate that partnership.

The BEX oversight committee meeting has taken place and another incredible group that gives so much time, effort and energy to keeping us on track.

Our race to the top work, that work is winding down.

I think we've had a couple of extensions on the grants that we have had and that has enabled us to work with Seattle Housing Authority and others to extend our eliminating the opportunity gap work IEP meetings recently at South Shore and then last night Wyatt Jesse and I and special ed staff had the opportunity to meet with the special education PTSA group and hear some of their concerns, share some of the things that the special ed staff is doing in response and talk about the levy or the budget issues that we face.

Moving to hot topics.

We do seem to have had a fair number of student demonstrations over the last several months I guess.

And in concert with the inauguration on Friday we hear that many student groups are again planning a walkout.

We continue to be, as far as I know, very, very, very, very consistent in terms of whether it's the Seahawks and the Super Bowl celebration a number of years ago, we wish, or whether it's protests of some actions that the superintendent might or might not have taken, or whether it's a national issue is that we try hard to find the radical middle and yes we understand that it is our students right to exercise their first amendment rights and no it is not the district's purview to decide which community events we should be dismissing school for.

Parents when they send their kids to school expect us to be there.

and to be there for their students.

So we tried and we've heard I think we have about 50 comments in response to our publication with regard to this coming Friday.

We were told that kind of the official district version was a little too harsh and then the version that we sent home, sent principals to send home was a little bit more on the caring side.

But we've had about 50 responses and they're pretty evenly divided on both sides.

Yes we do recognize that students will walk out.

Principals do I think a pretty good job of providing alternatives for students that will keep students safe.

Maybe suggesting certain spots ideally on the school campus but in some cases I know when I was at Nathan Hale When they did one earlier in the fall it was kind of like okay on the opposite corner of the street there's an open area and please walk safely going across the street and please respect property and all those other kinds of things but that would be a great place to act responsibly and do what you need to do.

So we will move forward with that and find out how broad that protest is.

We have had calls for us to dismiss schools and join in solidarity with students and sorry we've got to do what the law says and we will be here and we will have school for students and try to keep them safe if they choose to exercise their first amendment rights.

Also on Friday In partnership with the city there will be events for our parents who have concerns about being undocumented and what the change in administration might mean for them and for their safety.

And unfortunately we in Seattle as well as nationally have seen an increase in the number of student to student and in a very few cases adult to students threatening of immigrants or others and that certainly is not something that we condone and it's something that we want to provide safety for our students and for our parents.

As I say we will be partnering, we've already partnered with the city on one event, we'll be partnering with them on another event on Friday.

We have an event coming up I believe on February 11th that will be a further extension of what we can do to help keep students safe.

And our legal department is working through some of our policies and procedures to make sure that we are clear and up to date.

So for example some of our parents are concerned about whether immigration services will be showing up on our campuses.

Under the previous administration that certainly was not the policy or the practice and did not occur.

I don't pretend to understand what might happen under a new administration.

I don't really expect that policy or procedure to change and the immigration is usually not here for the students.

They are here out of concern for parents.

At any rate we will update our policies and do as we do for any law enforcement.

issue in our school we will do what we need to do legally but we will also make sure that we are protecting the rights of our students.

Finally, almost there, almost on time.

Good news, we do have out of our thousands of educators we have thousands of them that do amazing things.

I appreciate the inspirational remarks earlier tonight.

One of those individual teachers, actually librarian, is at Northgate Elementary.

And Northgate has surprisingly, has a huge impact with regard to homeless students.

And so they keep backpacks for students, sometimes they'll admit two, three, four students new per day or several per week.

who are there for shelter because they have been homeless and they do their best to create a warm welcome for students.

Anyway the librarian realized that when they are sheltered at Mary's place do they have books?

So the Northgate librarian has been working with Northgate and with North Beach to collect materials and to make sure that they not only have books but they have a leveled library and they're library bound and kind of doing incredible stuff above and beyond and then coordinating parents and others to go and read with the students.

And then Hawthorne Elementary we've mentioned several times they've been recognized many times over the last several years by John Hopkins national network of partnership schools in terms of the work that they do with parent engagement.

So they are featured in the John Hopkins newsletter this week.

Upcoming community engagement meeting.

January 18 understanding school evaluations 6 to 8 p.m.

community engagement task force meeting January 23 here at the John Stanford Center 6 p.m.

African-American male advisory committee meeting January 26 from 4 to 6 p.m.

and the options school choice fair is coming up on January 28 from 10 until 2. at Cleveland and that's an opportunity for parents to come out and hear more about the different option schools whether that be options, non-traditional, ALE, a variety of programs that we offer.

And finally Cedar Park will be opening in the fall of 2017 as an expeditionary learning focused school and they have been having meetings and they have further meetings coming up.

This meeting on Friday I believe is timed around the end of the school day so that parents who will be there to pick up their students can have some opportunities available to them.

And that concludes my remarks.

Thank you Dr. Nyland.

So now we turn to our student guest.

Welcome to Macarie Dysart from West Seattle high school.

Ms. Dysart is a junior at West Seattle and is a student also in the running start program.

She is active in many sports and multiple clubs.

I will now turn it over to her for her remarks.

Thank you.

Hi again I'm Okari Dysart so thank you for having me.

Just a little about West Seattle recently we just had a really good MLK assembly invited a couple former representatives and former senators from the state who actually put into action the MLK day as an official holiday.

A lot of things that we've been talking about our school is just improvements as we go on and one thing I've been talking to our principal about a lot which has been who is a very amazing principal just a little shout out to Ruth.

But we've been talking about the new senior there's a new requirement for the amount of credit seniors need to have and its usefulness and how it could actually help solve a lot of problems at West Seattle high school.

One thing that two things that are really prominent in West Seattle is the lack of diversity in our staff and also the lack of funding for our lab programs.

So with this new credit requirement one thing that I hope will happen is that rather than it going to credits that people won't be able to use it will go to things that could help further career paths for high school students who plan to go to college or a vocational career.

This could be done by creating more internship opportunities within high schools that can help them gain credits outside the classroom but give them real career experience that could help build resumes as well as expanding science departments and giving classes that are more direct towards career goals.

So that if someone wanted to go into these career paths they have a lot more options and can utilize these credits to gain more experience in these fields.

And that can also help if we wanted to help to fight diversity this would be more long-term effect but we could target these minority students and give them more pathways to get into the teaching career and show that there are a lot of options within teaching that can be very beneficial and can help them and can in the third year time once they become experienced teachers they can come back to the school and then help diversify our staff.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

So we now have moved on to the consent portion of our agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move approval of the consent agenda as amended.

Seconded.

Do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda?

Seeing none, all those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

The consent agenda has passed.

So we have now reached the public testimony part of the evening.

Ms. Ritchie will read out the names of our speakers tonight.

The rules for public testimony are on the screen and I would ask that speakers be respectful of these rules.

I would note that the board does not take public comments on items related to personnel or individually named staff.

I would also like to note that each speaker has two minutes to speak.

When the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

Ms. Ritchie will read off the testimony speakers.

Thank you.

Callum Prinster, Frank Swart and Chris Jackins.

Hello board, lovely to meet you again.

I've actually spoken to you about six months ago on the same subject.

I have papers this time so that I don't ramble on too long.

I understand that can be a little bit bothersome especially following someone like Mickey who is so eloquent.

It's an honor to speak to you all again and some of you may remember last year June 15 my peers and I from West Seattle high school's GSA came and spoke to you about implementing more all-gender restrooms in the district.

You may also remember that our message was echoed by a coalition of teachers and staff from other schools who spoke later the same day.

I think these spaces are very important and I hope I can convey their importance to all of you so that perhaps students can by way of your support get the simple comfort of a bathroom that matches their gender identity.

An all-gender bathroom doesn't have the division of bathrooms in the gender binary like are in all schools or just past those doors.

Nor does it single out trans kids as would going to the nurses single use bathroom.

Instead it's a bathroom that's convenient and accessible for all students use.

It's as simple as that.

This does of course raise the age old and stale argument as to whether or not these bathrooms are safe.

The idea people present for these bathrooms is that there will be a venue for bullying, truancy and other illicit activities.

I believe however this argument pardon me is unjust and based in an underestimate of the student body.

We don't stoop to base actions like bullying in a place like this instead I think it does like SPS hopes that it does, it raises us up, it makes us move forward and be progressive.

I think that we don't luff our sails in a place of mediocrity only trying to meet the low standards we're held to.

Our bathroom has been open since mid-April of last year and admittedly it was a bit of an oddity at first.

Many students struggled to understand why but at this point it's just mundane, it's a part of life.

Essentially my message is it's inclusive and I want and I would love for the underrepresented students in other Seattle schools to have just as underwhelming an experience with their restrooms as we do.

Thank you very much for your time.

Hello again I'm Frank Swart and I'm here on behalf of Loyal Heights.

I'd like to start by saying that I think the main problem is that the ed specs are an extremely poor fit for Loyal Heights and dictate many superfluous classrooms.

41 classrooms, the sheet is being passed out right now, what on earth are they going to be used for?

And flip minimizes the savings at 3.1 million by eliminating only six of them.

What about eliminating 10 or 12?

Would we get 6 million savings?

And he doesn't even mention the one million projected savings on from moving away from the geothermal wells.

Meanwhile the ed specs for the grounds have been completely ignored.

And if you're really worried about enrollment increases in Ballard and Crown Hill and really really think you need the capacity for the thousand students plus there are great options with the reopening of Webster part of BEX 4 and now I see North Beach right next door and BEX 5. As you know Webster is actually closer to the potential hot spots of growth in Ballard and North Beach is on a second seven acre lot versus the 2.8 acres in Loyal Heights and is also closer to any of your feared growth in Crown Hill.

And now regarding the option to eliminate the preschools, that's a no-brainer.

There are more than enough preschools and daycares in the Loyal Heights area including one my son attended right across the street from the school and three preschools within one block.

If you make only one exception to the hallowed ed specs This one is an easy choice.

I know it's very late in the process to make changes that we seek but I do believe there are viable cost effective ways of doing so if the district would try to help rather than hinder.

And the widespread opposition has been well communicated to the district all this time including over 200 people at the first community meeting a year ago who expressed near unanimous opposition to the size of the school.

But through the district eyes that meeting was simply a checkbox.

did that and let's move on.

Your vote for the amendment today will be a clear sign that you intend to fulfill your duty to the public and will require the district to truly listen to the communities they serve both at Loyal Heights and future construction projects in other neighborhoods.

Thank you.

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. On the transportation service standards, bell time changes were expected to improve attendance thereby increasing revenues from the state.

What is the amount of these improved revenues?

On the student assignment plan two points number one the new student assignment plan has been causing racial imbalance in schools.

Number two students are supposedly guaranteed their neighborhood school but when the district cannot meet the guarantee the district simply redefines the neighborhood.

On the Magnolia project $5.8 million budget increase the board has not decided which students the school will serve.

Please vote no.

On the multi-million dollar increase in the contract cost for the Loyal Heights project, six points.

Number one, please approve amendment number one and do not approve the original motion.

Number two, the amendment gives a better ratio of play space per student by downsizing the project to three instead of four classrooms per grade level.

Number three the amendment increases playground space by removing daycare areas.

Number four the amendment saves some $12 million while the current plan increases costs.

Number five, the availability of Schmitz Park as an interim site should reduce impacts on project schedules.

Number six, Webster can be considered for future growth rather than putting an outsize ill-fitting school at Loyal Heights.

Please vote yes on amendment number one.

Thank you.

James Bristow, Mike Giancola and Daryl Tolan.

Hello thank you for taking the time to hear our testimony today.

I'm here to urge you to vote yes on board member Pinkham's amendment one.

I live across the street from Loyal Heights for about 18 years now and the sheer magnitude of this project is an economic and environmental disaster.

From the SPS website Seattle Public Schools is committed to modeling environmental stewardship wisely manage the use of natural resources in supporting conservation in order to create and maintain sustainable, healthy school environments.

For 35 years I've owned and operated a sustainable construction firm in Seattle, Bristol Enterprises, and there is absolutely nothing wise, healthy, or sustainable about what I'm witnessing every day at the LHE project and the current building design proposal or the environmental impact and massive expense that will require to heat and maintain a finished building.

It's too late to save the beautiful community built playground and park but it is not too late to change course and do the right thing for future students, families, community, environment and already overburdened taxpayers by scaling back to the appropriate class through a three classroom model.

Family, students and staff at the temporary LHE site are experiencing firsthand the negative effects on the children's welfare by putting too many kids on a playground that is too small.

I understand that they are considering a ban on running at recess at a grade school.

What's next?

A ban on recess all in the name of unnecessary infrastructure.

Principal Floyd was going to be here but I'd like to encourage principal Floyd and other employees of Loyal Heights To support the families and community that gave so diligently or have so diligently supported the school and staff for decades.

We have always been there for you, will you be here for us?

And finally, Superintendent Nyland, in your letter dated January 12 you state that you are frustrated and it is not the fault of SPS that there is a $74.2 million shortfall.

This may be so but by supporting amendment one at least $12 million can be saved on just this project alone.

I know it is separate from the operating budget etc. but it is all taxpayer money that can be spent in a more responsible manner.

It is the paramount duty of all public officials elected or otherwise to wisely manage budgets and put the well-being of citizens first.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Mike Giancola.

My wife and I are parents at Loyal Heights.

We both fully support the amendment proposed by Director Pinkham.

I'm here today to speak for my wife however who is unable to attend so I'm going to quote her now.

Last night I was looking again at the current plans for our new remodel.

As I was comparing the old layout with this proposed layout I was looking at the grassy field and remembering the flyers up game with Frisbee.

After school there were usually 20 or 30 kids playing at a time.

They'd throw the Frisbee across the field and then they'd all run after it.

My daughter loved it.

They would throw the Frisbee from one side of the field to the other in one throw.

I'm looking at the plan side by side and I can see the small grassy field, the one that the kids could throw a Frisbee across and I realize that field is the same size as the entire play area of the new design.

It would cover almost the new playground equipment, the basketball court and the paved sports field.

The school district staff said at their community departures meetings that they couldn't change the building size because of the specs.

But the ed specs call for a grassy play area that is 90,000 square feet.

Almost 75% of our lot.

In addition the specs call for an outdoor learning area and a structured play area which includes all weather surface play area and equipment.

The only open space in the new plan that could be considered field space is a paved sports field that is just 8,000 square feet.

A far cry from 90,000.

There won't be room for flyers up or soccer or even just running around.

I know our lot size is small, I know there's no way we can have everything in the ed specs.

Why did the district honor the ed specs for the building size and totally disregard them for the play space and open space?

We are a small lot but our children need room to play.

Please consider voting yes for Director Pinkham's three classroom model." I would add just to my wife's quote that a redesign is the best solution but we would also support just simply removing the play school because that is the very least we could do. Thank you for your time.

directors, my name is Gerald Tolan.

Let me start this way.

I have two daughters, one is 15 and one is 12. They both went to Loyal Heights K-5.

My youngest daughter was the last graduating class from Loyal Heights.

My wife would volunteer and do would do a tree walks throughout the neighborhood.

I'm sorry she passed away in May so anyway she would start these tree walks at Loyal Heights and if she saw today what is happening now it would break her heart.

But when we first heard about the renovations and remodeling we were very excited because we love the school and we know it needs improvements but when we saw this plan my first thought was they took away our school and they are giving us a Costco.

The building itself besides being aesthetically horrible it's so large for this footprint.

But that's not even the main problem I have with it.

The main problem I have with it is it takes away so much of the playground.

I don't know how many of you have kids but children need to run, they need to scratch around the dirt, they need to climb, did I mention run?

I urge you to adopt Director Pinkham's proposal.

Thank you.

James Wurzer, Mariana Furpo and Shanti Brinsnow.

My name is Jim Wurzer I've lived in Loyal Heights neighborhood for 25 years and I'm going to tell a story of a sad tale of a gigantic waste of money.

The authors are Flip Herndon and Richard Best.

These guys decided that the school should be historic.

But then you add a new school onto an old school and gee it gets way over complicated, it gets very expensive, it costs millions of dollars more.

So then we go, they say well because it's so complicated let's make it a GCCM.

So they go out and they hire Skanska.

Now Skanska is the largest, one of the largest construction companies in the Northwest.

And so you have Skanska and you have a GCCM contract that in many projects is rife with cost overruns.

And gee, where are we at now?

where originally it was $26 million then it was 37 that's only a 42% increase and now it's 48 million and that's only a 29% increase but at least the increases are going down.

So why don't you just change the name from Loyal Heights to Money Pit Elementary it's just an embarrassing waste of money and if you had anybody that ran a GCCCM you'd fire the people that are wasting that kind of money.

These millions and millions of dollars when you have a 42% overrun on a GCCM it's shameful.

It's downright shameful and you should not let it happen.

Redesign this school.

Hi my name's Marianne Furpo.

Thank you directors Pinkham and Patu for getting this amendment onto the agenda.

Please vote in favor of Amendment 1 and redesign Loyal Heights as a three classroom model with no preschool facility.

Reject Scenario 2 the oversized monstrosity that is currently planned.

Reasons for doing so are many and include Scenario 2 is incompatible with the city permit condition requiring play in the courtyard.

Scenario 2 is incompatible with school board adopted ed specs both general and for Loyal Heights including but not limited to build classrooms to minimize distractions, a neighborhood walking school, a grassy activity area, playground with places to run and explore in and amongst trees and shrubs to create a respite from academics.

The neighborhood is saturated with preschools.

The preschool program is the city's responsibility.

SPS primary responsibility is for K through 12 students.

currently on-site childcare is provided by NKS.

Loyal Heights parents are concerned that NKS would be ousted in favor of the city run preschool.

It's not broken so don't fix it.

District finally admits that 660 schools have room for more from the capacity management task force committee on 914 in response to the question about Genesee Hill capacity being listed as 701 when it was built for 660 students Mr. Best explained the school was planned with the four up model and included flex rooms.

Before and after care as well as preschools were not counted in the 660 count.

The principal decided to put kindergarten classroom in what was originally designated for preschool and childcare.

This statement confirms what Loyal Heights concerned parents and neighbors have suspected all along.

That the district's repeated statement that there is no intention of ever putting more than 660 kids at Loyal Heights is a lie.

Why else fill the school with 41 available classrooms?

It doesn't make sense.

Please conclude your remarks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chanty, Angela Herndon, Ricky Malone and Wayne Floyd.

Hi I'm Angela Herndon I'm a mother of three kids at Catherine Blaine.

I want to say thanks to Sue Peters and Peggy McEvoy who came out to our November meeting at our PTA meeting to talk about the problems we're dealing with at Blaine and other tier 3 schools.

I was glad to see that some of our concerns were listed in the background section of the transportation standards you'll be voting on tonight.

Parents in the district are well aware of the fire you're dealing with right now in regards to addressing the possible $74 million budget shortfall next school year.

we're all frustrated at the deep cuts this could mean in our schools.

Everyone of course hopes it doesn't come to this but at the same time we will keep pushing for that two-tier system so all the kids in Seattle Public Schools are going to school at the right time.

As you plan for next year whether we have the shortfall or not please keep the significant issues of the third-tier schools on the top of your mind.

First and foremost there is a drastic lack of before and after school programs in the in our communities as most of the programs are centered around the earlier tiers.

Programs that can accommodate the late start and dismissal times of tier 3 are over full.

The morning and after school care is almost impossible to find for families and very costly.

Most working parents just can't get to work at 10 or 1030 in the morning.

So the third tier can be a hardship for our working families.

We have significant learning disruptions at the end of the day so kids can make it to extracurricular activities when dozens of kids are signed out at the end of every day to go to sports or tutoring the classroom is always disrupted when the kids should be learning.

Three, kids with special needs who require doctor or therapy visits can't get appointments so late in the day and that means they have to miss classroom time on a regular basis because most pediatric specialists don't schedule appointments after 4 o'clock.

Our schools consistently have a hard time getting subs because if a teacher has to call in sick we can't get a sub, the pool is already depleted by the time we request one.

because of bus riding we can't get school buses for our field trips unless they are less than three hours long or we have to pay $1800 for charter buses which is 10 times the cost of a normal yellow school bus.

In conclusion please help us get to a two-tier system.

I believe you all know that two tiers is the right way, the right model for Seattle Public Schools students but budget constraints remain and maybe even bigger next year.

What we're asking for is make this a top priority.

The transportation standards say you can fit two or three kids per seat on a bus and we all see a lot of wasted space on our buses and hope we can eliminate the inefficiencies that keep us from finding the funds to implement the two-tier system.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ricky Malone.

Yes for head start additional hours, we need more.

The only good thing you can do about a ghetto school is to make sure they don't exist.

Not by tearing them down or by closing them but by giving them the money and resources they need to make them disappear if they do exist.

I need the definition of what a ghetto school is in Seattle.

I also need to know where these ghetto schools are as soon as possible since next month is open enrollment and I'm sure our parents would like to know.

One last thing If a school is ghetto does that mean the children are ghetto?

Does that mean the staff is ghetto?

I'm so angry about this whole ghetto thing when a school board member in an open public school board meeting saying we stopped another ghetto school from opening.

She said this when she found out Cedar Park would become a whatever options goal as well as saying we took lemons and made lemonade.

Not one of you said anything.

My God what is she saying behind closed doors and what are the rest of you allowing her to say?

It seems she even gets rewarded for it by becoming the vice president the next board meeting.

When the newly elected president First action was to put Mr. Blanford and what he said in public to a community that he should have.

She talked about him like he was a boy.

That seemed to be a Trump bully move in a public board meeting.

Nothing about, she didn't say nothing about her VP that called some of our schools in Seattle ghetto schools.

Shame on all of you.

for not saying anything.

You only give me two minutes but I'm not done.

I'll be back and I hope some other people come.

You Ms. Harris should resign.

There is an organized group of parents who have been relentless in trying to halt the proposed project at Loyal Heights.

This group has been very vocal, visible and aggressive and for that reason I am told by many of the supporters of our new school that they are reluctant to speak out in favor of the project.

They have been under the impression that the project is going as planned as it should.

Whenever changes occur there is discourse and disagreement however in this disagreement we have to look through the lenses of what's best for children.

At the end of the day we are building a school not a park.

Lower Heights has always been open to the community after hours but its primary function is still as a school.

The projected growth has already begun.

This year we've had the highest known number of kindergarten students show up.

This year prompting us to have four kindergarten classes not three.

Something we could not have done without the classroom availability at John Marshall.

We also offer Spanish, instrumental and vocal music, resource room, tutoring, PTA, etc., etc., etc.

Before and after school care, all of which a space is needed to serve our students in addition to our classrooms.

As a lifetime supporter of athletics I support and understand the importance of physical activity and its impact on student learning.

Contrary to what has been said I am not canceling running at recess.

and I understand that the amount of time spent on the playground is disproportionate in favor of other learning environments such as the classroom.

Postponing or changing this product would not only make financial, would not only be financially inappropriate but cause a snowball effect to all the projects propped up against it and causing the district more time and money that we do not have.

Please honor the work of the architects, engineers and members of the design team who gave months and months of their time to come up with the best case scenario for site remodel and addition at Loyal Heights.

A design team which included staff, parents, community and diverse points of view who did not always agree but kept our focus on building a school that would last for all of our future students.

Please do not vote for this amendment.

Thank you.

Maggie Campbell, Mary Bannister.

Andrea Berning Berningding.

Good evening my name is Maggie Campbell I'm the executive director for nurturing knowledge schools.

We offer unique quality and experiential school age programming on site at Loyal Heights.

Our program focuses on the whole child providing opportunities for growth in social emotional cognitive and physical development.

It's the goal of our program to provide all of our students a safe and nurturing environment where they can learn, grow, be themselves, relax, socialize and have fun.

We work hard to partner with the Loyal Heights teachers, staff and principal to provide valuable academic support for our students that enhances their learning day.

Our program includes a hands-on project-based approach to learning including literacy, language, STEM, the arts, games, sports and more.

Nurturing knowledge currently services 55 students daily and nearly a quarter of the school community weekly at our temporary building John Marshall.

The new facility would allow us to nearly double the students we could support.

The students in our program include kindergarten through fifth graders, girls and boys from many walks of life, students with different learning, physical, social and emotional needs.

We support students on IEP's and 504 plans and participate in SIT meetings.

We are home to students on city of Seattle and state subsidy and provide in-house scholarships when possible.

All students are welcome in our program.

Having an on-site quality childcare program not only contributes to the success of our school but to a well-rounded education for our students.

Overwhelmingly our parents have told us that they want and need for our program to continue on-site.

With a shortage of programs in the city and the increasingly difficult and blindingly expensive prospect of finding a new space we ask you to allow our program to remain on-site at Loyal Heights.

This is in the best interest of the schools, teachers, parents and most importantly the students who benefit from our unique program.

Please vote in favor of including our incredible program nurturing knowledge that offers the students at Loyal Heights the very best care before and after their day.

Thank you so much.

Sorry about that it was Kirk Spann then Mary Bannister then Andrea Bernardi.

Well let's shift gears and talk about athletics for a little bit.

Hi my name is Kurt Spann I'm a science teacher at Ingram and I'm the head track coach there.

Today I'm petitioning for the javelin to be allowed at our metro track meets.

I've coached in the metro league since 1994, a year or two elsewhere but mostly here and we've never been allowed to do the javelin.

I've researched Seattle Times track meet results all the way back to 1920 and haven't found any javelin results.

This past year I've collected 60 signatures from coaches which greatly represents a majority in the metro league and they want the javelin.

We have tried in the past to go to the governing bodies we went to the metro league coordinator for track and field and the athletic director of overseeing track and field.

We've gone to the metro athletic directors collectively and we've also gone to the MAEC the metro activities executive committee and there's small bits of support there but the overwhelming sense is that they don't want to do it yet.

They don't actually say no we can't they say it's not our decision it's the school board's decision.

So that's why I'm here.

I really want you to say let's allow us to do the javelin.

There's reasons that I have here that it's sanctioned in both our district meet and our state meet.

It actually happens at the district meet at Seattle high school, Chief Sealth high school every single year.

Yet we don't do it in the league meets.

Every league in the state of Washington does allow the javelin except for our league and is verifiable on an athletic.net website that all schools use.

Even some middle schools do the javelin in the state.

We have the space, we have the interest, we have the personnel.

something that I think we should be at the forefront of allowing and not limiting students being the district we are and not the ones limiting students or athletes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Mary Bannister teacher librarian at STEM K8.

Dear Dr. Nyland and Seattle school board directors, the K5 literacy adoption is a necessity.

A professional highlight was participating on the K5 literacy adoption committee which came to a unanimous decision to recommend the center for collaborative classroom.

This week in library lessons for K and first we are reading and discussing Dr. King in the book Martin's big words.

When I grow up I'm going to get big words too.

There is nothing more basic in education than providing our students the curricular materials necessary to develop their reading, writing and thinking skills.

All our students across the district deserve access to well-developed literacy instruction materials and teachers that have had the professional development in how to deliver this instruction.

The current reality is that every day well-intentioned teachers are making up each literacy lesson they teach.

We haven't had an official literacy adoption in 15 years and those 2000-2001 outdated materials aren't available in most classrooms.

Teachers are told that the common core ELA standards are the curriculum but that doesn't put books information or research materials in any students hands.

We've had a variety of literacy initiatives that went to some schools not all.

We've had classroom libraries and reading materials funded for some schools and grade levels but not all.

Our dedicated teachers will keep doing their best but we are not serving our students well.

On the current reading and writing assessments for Washington State in grades 3-5 only 65-69% of Seattle students are successful and the opportunity achievement gap is dismaying.

We are leaving students without the skills they need to be successful readers, writers and thinkers.

It is a huge equity issue that all Seattle public students should have access to quality literacy instruction every single day.

Seattle Public Schools must invest in the systematic professional development and quality literacy materials for all their teachers and students so we can align our practices for 21st century learners.

The K5 literacy adoption is a necessity not for some but for all.

Thank you.

Good evening my name is Andrea Bernarding and I'm here on the Loyal Heights issue and asking that you reject the amendment.

My daughter attends Loyal Heights and she is a nurturing knowledge student.

She is in first grade and she's been there since kindergarten.

I also have a son who will be starting at Loyal Heights in the fall and he will also be a nurturing knowledge student.

By history we are a two parent working household and our whole life operation does not work without NKS.

The disagreement as I see it here is over 3300 square feet out of a 90,000 square foot complex.

That is a tiny slice of the overall complex.

And while I understand the arguments on the other side and open space certainly is important when weighed against the potential displacement of NKS by forcing it to either accept less students even though the student body is vastly expanding with the suggestion that perhaps they use an open gym one day to house them or the cafeteria the next or maybe the janitor's closet.

There's 55 of them.

They need a dedicated space where they can go.

Most of the student body is at the school for six hours a day.

My children and other NKS children are there for up to 10. Not having a dedicated space is simply short-sighted and disruptive and frankly unsafe.

If you are going to build a bigger school you will inevitably get more working families and that number will grow.

There is a lack of resources for before and after school care in the community.

A year before my daughter started kindergarten I would put my name down at small faces, I paid $100 and was number two on the list and as of last week I'm number two on the list.

Same thing with the boys and girls club.

There is nowhere else that these children can go if these numbers have to be cut.

NKS does great work and adds value to the community and I ask that you let them keep their dedicated space.

Thank you.

Perry Yotter, Eli Tangin, Lyon Perry,

Good evening.

Thank you so much for giving us the platform to speak today.

It is a privilege for me to be here and speak on behalf of NKS the nurturing knowledge system.

My name is Terry Yoder and I have lived in Loyal Heights for 12 years and I have two kids who are eight and six and they are both currently enrolled in the NKS program.

I'm happy because I get to talk about the incredible program that the staff and the team at NKS offer our kids.

We had the privilege of going through a very good preschool before our kids entered Loyal Heights.

We were obviously quite nervous to go into this new school and lose that community which we so greatly valued during their early years.

And we have been blown away by the incredible community, the incredible staff and the incredible program that NKS has built for us.

They provide a warm secure space for our kids to rest, learn, create and socialize.

Just to provide a small example of to the extent of experience they offer our kids in afterschool program Last year the staff got together and actually put together, produced, and performed Snow White as a play for all of the NKS parents.

I feel really proud because my daughter was Snow White.

I think she did a pretty good job.

But to sit there and watch her do that and know that after school, you know I would rather be with them when I can't be.

So to know that at the after school program this is the stuff that they were doing.

providing an experience for my daughter to become even more confident.

It made me so proud to go to Loyal Heights and I'm already very proud to be a part of the general Loyal Heights community but the fact that I was able to witness that through her was just completely invaluable to us.

We are so thrilled to be part of NKS and their exceptional staff and we just ask that you please provide space for them to continue to do this incredible work.

Thank you so much.

Eli, Lyon Terry and after him is going to be Steve Neish.

Good evening, thank you for taking the time.

My name is Lyon Terry, I'm a fourth grade teacher at Lawton Elementary.

I'm a national board certified teacher and I'm the 2015 Washington state teacher of the year.

I urge you to adopt a new literacy curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade schools.

This is a priority for our students.

It is an equity issue that is required to close the opportunity and achievement gaps as Mary Bannister has already mentioned.

It's astounding to me that Seattle Public Schools has had no literacy adoption in the last 15 years.

Basically this is what happens right, so I and all the teachers in our district we've been making up our reading and writing and thinking curriculum out of thin air.

Right?

We look on the internet.

and we develop our curriculum maps.

Hey we use the standards of course but you know so somebody like me I'm experienced I've gotten really good at it I've actually been trained in other districts on how to do this so I have lots of experience and I can help out a lot of these teachers and help them get better at it but very few teachers are lucky as me particularly in Seattle Public Schools and not every teacher in our district is good at this curriculum development business.

And they shouldn't be, they're teachers.

They had no training at any time in doing curriculum development.

The new teachers at my school are dumbfounded by the thought that we do not have resources beyond the internet and ancient textbooks to teach literacy.

At Lawton at least these new teachers have experienced teachers like myself plus we have a PTA that helps support our library with books and other materials.

This is not what a public school should be about.

We do it a lot because we can and we must for all our kids.

However, the students at high needs schools and all our schools need and deserve a curriculum to assist the predominantly new teachers in those buildings in the teaching of literacy.

We cannot continue to ask them to make up everything.

They need a curriculum that addresses the challenging standards.

They need a curriculum that provides the resources required to teach how to read, write and think.

the center for collaborative classroom curriculum a unanimous choice of a 12 month long selection committee and I piloted this fall does these things and provides these opportunities for our kids and we need to adopt this curriculum as soon as possible to support our students.

Thank you.

Steve Nesich.

And going back to Shanti Bresnau.

Our Eli Tangen Weiss.

Okay that appears to conclude our public comments for the evening.

Thank you all for coming and for sharing your thoughts with us.

So we have now reached the board comments part of the evening.

Would any director like to begin?

Director Geary thank you.

Hello everybody and thank you for coming.

I know it's really hard for people from one school to come and I hope that whatever we do you as a community will move on, come back together, support your kids and make it work.

Our district is facing a lot of changes and it's hard, I understand it's hard and it makes me feel bad to see a community have to come together but as we see Meeting after meeting the stresses on our city and the stresses with our budget do create these problems but we count on you as communities who are willing to come up and speak on behalf of your children and sometimes against one another.

We understand that you do it because you want what is best for our kids and your kids and we want the same and hopefully we will find the way that we can all move past it.

As far as other loyal heights comments I'll save that when we get closer to.

the actual vote.

I want to thank Kenny Alhadeff I want to make sure I say that right but Alhadeff to hear about somebody who has devoted so much of their life to the education of our students it's inspirational and then to have that followed up by the Pathfinder K8 choir which was just sort of an inspirational soundtrack for that information.

It was really lovely.

I want to thank our student board member for coming from West Seattle and speaking on the student perspective with regard to the credit change.

And I was going to talk about it later in my notes but I did go to Noam Gundel's biology class at Ballard high school and we were working on creating fermented foods and it was really a lot of fun but it also gave me time to talk to the seniors there or not the seniors it was a mixed class but talk to the students there about the credit change And it made me realize how important it's going to be to make sure that we are talking to the students because they had a wide variety of ideas but themes came out in terms of perhaps waiting critical classes more heavily for credits.

Making sure that we're not taking away any breathing space for them through the course of their day.

Having us explore the trimester they seem to like that much more than just adding another layer of classes on their day.

They wanted flexibility but they have lots and lots of different ideas and so I think that that's a really fertile place for us to go.

So I begin by thanking Macri for coming and sharing her thoughts about other ways and I think that's just, we have such smart kids and they are the future and they are so much more savvy about us and how tomorrow is going to look.

We have to use them and their knowledge.

As Superintendent Nyland said we've been very busy with our legislative activities and I hope that you all are taking time to educate yourself about what you can do.

We're not supposed to say anything too specific from up here I think but I think I can say that it's important for us all to participate and perhaps in our 24 credit expansion we can look for a way to build more civics into our high school curriculum so our high schoolers will graduate knowing how to engage with the legislature as well.

I had the pleasure of attending our training over the weekend, ensuring educational and racial equity Institute.

We are building out our race and equity teams throughout our schools.

It was lovely, I didn't have any schools from my particular district but it was great to hear the perspective of the teachers from other schools and to think about the heavy lift that we are asking, we train small groups of people and we ask them to bring that information back into their schools and help train and create a change of culture.

And even as I sat there without anybody from my own district thinking about how I could do that it seemed like a really big lift and I felt anxious about it and so we are asking our teachers to take that lift on and go back into their communities and so I hope that as we are presented with the opportunity to learn new things about ourselves, about institutional, cultural, structural racism that we keep an open mind.

It's not easy for the person presenting that information necessarily to approach a room with what appears to be a very foreign and perhaps difficult idea.

So let's all remember to keep open minds, be kind to one another, expand our willingness to listen and engage in a very kind openhearted way and that goes for everybody speaking to us board members too.

We are volunteers we spend a great amount of time caring about the children of this district and we are not all perfect we don't always say exactly the right words in any situation but take the time to explore what we have said if you find it jarring and open your hearts to the idea that we are doing the best we can and we are willing to learn as well.

But be kind, be respectful to us.

On Monday I joined the SEA on a bus down to Olympia that was a lot of fun to get to hang out with our teachers and go down to Olympia and stand on the steps.

It really was stunning when you saw all the people down there standing up on behalf of our kids and the speeches were inspirational.

It was a great event.

Lots of kids there too and so again I think of our next generation and how we can do that.

We jumped back on the bus and we came and we joined the MLK parade at Union and 12th March downtown to support equity in our schools and in our city and another great event also lots of kids there.

One of the things I've been doing is I've been trying to expand my community access by having coffees Thursday morning best I can.

Look on my Facebook if you want to know whether I'm doing it.

Often times it's last minute because it seems like there's been so much illness going around I often don't know until Thursday morning whether I'm going to be able to leave early.

So and I've been joined by special ed leaders at my meetings lately and enjoy hearing from them.

And it's given me a thought that we need to figure out ways, we have so many community organizations out in the city addressing issues of equity both for our special education populations and for our children of color.

I'm trying to figure out a way to get those voices in because we have a board meeting that gives priority to the issues on our agenda which is good and appropriate but if people show up to speak if the agenda is filled then they have come which is not easy to get down here and they don't necessarily have an opportunity to speak to us.

So we need to figure out a way to one let the community know what issues are coming up on the school board's agenda in a way that is efficient.

so that not every community leader is having to take the time to ferret that out and then figure out ways to make room for them in our meetings to come and give us an update on the community perspective on the issues that we are facing.

So I think we are all open to figuring out how to better do that and I certainly am and have been talking to people in the community about that because while I think our district does a good job of trying to synthesize those messages into the direction we as a district are going you too are only given so much time and by the time you present all the intricacies of what the district is trying to do to move forward sometimes the synthesization of the community voices gets too abbreviated for us and I think we need to make room to hear from them so I want us to continue to look at that.

And other than that I will continue to try to do Thursday morning coffees at Zoka on Blakely behind the U village and then my next community meeting is January 28 from 345 to 515 it's a Saturday and it will be at the Montlake community center.

I am finding it hard as well as some of our other board members to find space these days so that's what I was able to come up with.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ and Todd Kilauea.

Thank you and good evening.

I want to first of all just start off by thanking all the people that got up and spoke today and appreciate your input and thoughts and to help us know that there is some things that are going on and we've got to listen to what's happening here.

I want to hopefully be that bridge so we do come up with a good solution to this.

Not to take something away from someone else or to give something to someone who when someone else is getting something else but to make this a nice equitable solution that we can come out and find within.

I'll share more comments for later when this amendment comes up for Loyal Heights.

But Loyal Heights thanks for showing up and coming here and letting us know your views and perspectives.

We've got to take them all into consideration.

I want to thank Kenny Hotif for definitely coming here and sharing his inspiration.

It made me think about who was that teacher that sparked it for me.

And I'd have to I actually kind of wrote down can I remember all my teachers.

I got all of them except my kindergarten.

For some reason my kindergarten teachers are escaping me.

But yeah, having the teachers there are definitely going to be their inspire teachers and Kenny apparently found a role model or some teacher that believed in him.

And that's what I'd like to see all of our teachers you know believe in your students and let that be reflective in how you work with them.

just how our school district works that we believe in all our students.

We believe that they can all exceed what it says up there on that wall.

Every student gets through here in our district.

Thank you to the Pathfinder K-8 choir.

Pathfinder does have talent and I appreciate their coming here and sharing their songs.

Thank you to McCurry Desar for sharing her perspectives on the West Seattle high school and also that 24 credit.

Yes I think we can come up with some ways to do this so it isn't as costly you know.

Do we redefine our credits?

Do we give more credits for currently classes that may only be half a credit?

Can we make up some other groundwork there?

Thank you I did meet with Michael the VP of SEA Tamayo, both of those are wrong but I appreciate him taking time out to come and talk with me to share his views and perspectives and hopefully again we can all go to the same area because what I really appreciate about him was talking about the interest-based you know that we got to really of get away from our differences but what are some interests and do what's best for the district that will serve the interest for all our students.

Keep in mind that it is the students that we are here for.

I also want to give a thank you again to Marnie Campbell the planning director for Robert Eagle Staff Middle School.

She again showed up for the UNEA meeting and she is having that collaboration and outreach to an organization that has seen Robert Eagle Staff being a place that they see as a sacred to or part of their culture and then she's been there saying hey I see that as her reaching out to us and yes I acknowledge that.

So again Marnie Campbell thank you for being there.

For myself and Director Geary as well finding a place for a meeting has been getting extremely difficult.

I do plan to have one that same weekend January 28 or 29 but it is still to be determined.

I was looking at the community center but no.

Someone took that 330 to 5 o'clock space.

No but I'll keep you posted and I'll let our board office know when I do get that schedule so be on the lookout for community one meeting January 20 or 29 and I definitely try to hit the libraries either Broadview, Northgate or Lake City.

And I also want to definitely give a thank you again to our staff and I don't want my mentors to feel like I'm trying to put you out there but they do do incredible work.

I appreciate the work that they do and it is very hard.

Things that we've got to do, decisions we've got to make and I think we've got to keep in mind that we're all doing this, yes, for our students.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

Good evening to everybody as well.

I would like to start also by thanking our student board guest Ms. Dysart for her feedback on what's going on in West Seattle.

I really appreciate the bringing up career focus pathways preparation for folks ranging from education to science and it resonates for me because There's a body of work going on right now around within the district on college and career readiness and the 24 credit planning team.

So I'm excited that the student messaging and the student interests actually coincide with a body of work that we're doing here.

We'll have to make sure that they keep tabs on us so that we're doing it the right way.

I also want to publicly appreciate the inspirational words and a lifetime of actions to back them up from our citizen service award recipient Mr. Kenny Alhadeff thank you.

And since Director Pinkham brought up the idea of who was inspirational for you it did trigger something for me that I just because I've become typecast I've got to give a shout out to Bill Bogota Ballard high school woodshop teacher who taught me how to sharpen a plane iron which is something that very few people do nowadays because you can just buy a new one but it's a skill that I retain to this day because of his tutelage so some of these things just stick in your brain.

I want to publicly say that we've also gotten a little bit of a slow start on our Cedar Park outreach and I know that there's been some public concern around that and some concern from directors as well.

I know that that has been an area of importance and we had a couple of speed bumps getting that school that Cedar Park option school set up and establishing a curricular focus or a theme for it.

We are building up ahead of steam on that you know we have an option school model and community meetings forming so I'm excited to see that starting to take shape.

I had a community meeting on last Saturday and it was lighter attended than some of the previous ones which I think means that we are getting into potentially a more, less confrontational, maybe I'll say less confrontational topics.

But one of the guests that came, the messaging that they brought and the request that they was something that I wanted to share they were from Hazel Wolf K8 and they were interested in how they as an option school could help improve their diversity and so they were holding a registration fair for their families at their school.

and they were asking about district support for that and communication channels for that and strategies to make it most effective and they also extended the invitation for Cedar Park as a school to participate in that work essentially a little North End option school enrollment fair.

And so just that level of commitment from our schools from our families really pulling together around our mission of equity and our mission of serving all the students It moved me to the point where I wanted to share it out with my colleagues in the public.

Moving to public testimony I want to thank everyone who came, took the time to come down here and share your ideas, your stories, your passions with us.

I've been behind the mic before, before I got up here so what that means is that you'll be up here next.

But I know it's tough to come down here and make your way, sit in the audience, wait for your turn, come up to the mic and so I really appreciate the messages that come out because I know they are from the heart.

Anybody who is willing to take the time to come down here is speaking their passions.

I want to thank the testimony around the instructional materials adoption.

That's a point that resonates with me also as a critical element of what we do as school board directors and what we do as an institution.

That we have to provide infrastructure and that includes the buildings.

We have to provide educators.

We want to retain, train, support our educators but we need to provide resources as well.

And so that means instructional materials, that means assessments, that means the tools that allow our educators to focus on educating our children and not pulling down and creating their own resources off the internet.

So this has been a common message for me, it will continue to be and I appreciate hearing from the educators in the field that it's also important to them.

I'm going to close my next community meeting is February 18, Saturday February 18 at Fremont Public Library 330 to 530 PM and I hope to see you folks there.

Thanks.

Director Patu.

I want to say good evening.

I also would like to say thank you so much for coming out and share with us your thoughts and also your ideas in terms of what direction we need to go.

We might not always do what you want us to do but we do our best to make sure that when we are actually moving towards in those directions that it benefits our children.

I also would like to really wanted to add another congratulation to our special award recipient Mr. Al-Haddaf.

Al-Haddaf well deserved and such an amazing inspiration speech.

I really appreciate that and we award well-deserved.

I want to thank you to the Pathfinder K8 for the great choir.

They actually had different voices in that choir which you don't hear too much from younger kids but they actually sound really great.

So, thank you for that.

And I want to also to thank our young women from West Seattle, our students who actually represented West Seattle well and talked about the extra curriculum courses that we're actually looking at and that's something that we've been discussing for quite a while hopefully that we'll get to the point where we can actually figure out what's best for our kids.

I know when we were doing the 21 credits we had a little problem with that and now we are going to 24 so hopefully by the time we implement that we will all get it together.

So I want to say thank you so much for spending time with us today and also my community meeting is on January 28 at Wacom tour in Wilson Avenue in Seward Park.

You are welcome to come.

I'm always waiting and willing to talk to anyone that has any subject matters and I know I get a lot of visitors from the north end which I really appreciate.

So thank you very much.

Have a good evening.

Director Blanford.

Much of what I would say has already been said so I'll go through very quickly.

I also want to thank the Pathfinder K8 choir for a stirring presentation singing.

It was a wonderful start to the day and helps to ground us I think when we have the opportunity to see our students perform.

We spend a lot of time looking at dollars and cents and words that form policies but it's all in service to our children so it's nice to have that type of grounding.

I also want to thank Marlene and Ken Alhadeff.

Kenny Alhadeff I was sharing with him I didn't know if he remembered but when I first became an executive director of the Rotary Boys and Girls Club in the central district in Seattle My board told me to schedule time with Ken Alhadeff and his offices downtown.

It was the first time that I ever walked into an office and actually asked a person directly for money that would come out of their personal bank account.

And Kenny was very gracious to me, very nervous as a brand-new executive director at that point and not sure how I was going to overcome the discomfort that comes with asking someone for money for other children.

But like I said Kenny was very gracious to me and very generous as he has been to lots of Seattle's children in lots of different ways and so It warmed my heart to see his name on the agenda today and the fact that he's receiving some recognition for a huge amount of generosity that he's provided over years and years and years.

I also wanted to thank the Lowell Heights contingent who came here today.

Both those who spoke for and against the action that we are taking today.

My hope first voiced by Director Geary is that once whatever decision is concluded this evening that we can quickly mend the wounds that have happened in that community and I appreciate so much Principal Floyd's leadership in that area.

I know it's a tough conversation that has been had and lots of energy and passion on both sides of it so I hope that very quickly we realize that we set an example for our children and that we can quickly get back to the business of educating them.

We had a kind of an uncomfortable moment a little while ago when Ricky Malone came and spoke to us For those of you that don't know, you should know that Ricky Malone is a well-known and highly decorated principal of Seattle Public Schools retired, who when I first met her I was so impressed with how unapologetic she was about her advocacy for students of color in particular but all of the students in the schools that she worked in.

And that unapologetic fiery nature was demonstrated again today obviously and sometimes having difficult conversations about difficult issues makes people feel a measure of discomfort.

But sometimes as part of the editorial that I wrote this week that was published in the Seattle Times.

was about us living up to the values that we set.

And I look at Ricky Malone as someone who is like I said unapologetic who lives her values every day.

And so I support Ricky Malone.

And then finally I will Note that I have a community meeting that is scheduled for the 4th of February.

I was unable to secure a place to have an earlier meeting but I have one set for the 4th of February from 10 o'clock until noon.

It is scheduled at the Douglas truth library at 23rd and Yesler and again it starts at 10 o'clock and goes until noon.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

Hello good evening and thank you for being here.

Thank you for watching and thank you for all of your input.

Voluminous as it is.

We need it.

We need it for guidance.

On my thank you list Mr. Alhadeff he is a true Seattle treasure.

He is an extraordinary man and his whole family has done so much for this city and certainly as we saw tonight for our school district.

I have had occasion to cross paths with him over the last couple of decades and he is truly a Seattle hero.

Thank you to the Pathfinder choir district 6, thank you to the West Seattle student Ms. Dysart she certainly was extraordinarily articulate and I personally agree with her that internships and mentorships are critically important and we have to find the bandwidth and the money to enhance those kinds of programs in this district because that one-on-one somebody cares makes such a big difference.

And we can open doors for folks.

Thank you to Washington Paramount duty and Superteachers for the extraordinary turnout.

I read estimates of 6500 people in Olympia.

I wanted to be there, I got up, I got dressed and realized that after two weeks in bed it was a bad idea.

But I'm ever so proud of folks like Director Geary and Superintendent Nyland, our SEA representatives, for standing up and getting counted and now more than ever it matters.

Today the McCleary fines at $100,000 a day from the Washington State Supreme Court is $52.1 million.

I don't know about you but that is an awesome in a really negative way figure.

Those of you all that might have seen on the Internet yesterday the United States Senate hearings for the appointee for the Department of Education and heard our Senator Patty Murray ask whether or not that appointee would cut funds in her And the appointees answer and the appointees answer with respect to IDEA funds, I don't know about you but I've been writing letters to every Senator in the United States Senate because a good bit of our district does run on federal funds.

and a good bit of our district has to do with things like IDEA funds and civil rights legislation and man it matters, it matters so much.

A shout out to the NAACP and some other folks including Wayne Au, John Greenberg and folks from our own SPS race and equity department regarding an ethnic studies curriculum.

I know this board member is most anxious to see that resolution that proposed resolution I hope you send it.

School board at Seattle schools.org.

We've not been gifted with the resolution as yet but I'm excited to look at it and try to figure out ways that we can have relevant curriculum in our schools.

Money bandwidth, calendaring, remember a year ago this time civics curriculum came forth, did not get adopted.

We heard testimony tonight about the K5 ELA adoption.

We don't have the money with the $74 million deficit.

But we can work together to come up with ways to braid in some of those issues before we can do a full-scale curriculum adoption.

We are 20 years behind on many of our adoptions.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't open that conversation and start working together.

Absolutely believe we should.

Also I believe with the breadth of the folks involved in the ethnic studies curriculum resolution that we've heard of.

Let's work together and find some grant funding so we can get this process started.

Thank you to Director Blanford for calling out the uncomfortableness of hard conversations.

I made a really grievous mistake on November 16. when I used inappropriate language when we were working towards addressing the boundary reviews.

Principal Fauntleroy was absolutely appropriate in calling me out on it.

I acknowledge that.

I believe I apologized.

If I didn't then I certainly do now.

I have spent my career working on civil rights.

I am here at this dais because I care about our children.

I believe in good faith I am trying to make a difference.

Do I need to be more sensitive?

Do I need as many of us do more appreciation for language and the loaded context that it can have and respect for diversity and all of our children.

Most definitely.

I own that.

I'm willing to work on it.

I believe in it.

And one of the things that this board has been talking about is whether or not we're getting enough of that information and enough of that training and I believe that we will be getting more.

I know that we will be discussing the race and equity tool at our next board retreat.

And I would say to Principal Malone I'd love to take you for coffee.

I believe my heart is good and I would be willing more than willing to accept your coaching.

Thank you so much.

Okay thank you everybody that leaves me.

I also would like to thank the students who are here tonight and spoke and performed for us and to all the public who came out and shared your many views.

I'll try and go through my list a little bit quickly.

Thank you to city year and the community at MLK elementary school for inviting me to come and speak during your day of service.

It was fantastic to see the work that these young people did on behalf of the children of MLK elementary.

They are transforming the walls in the school into beautiful murals with all kinds of colors.

There is one that has flags that represent the different countries that some of the students' families come from.

More importantly perhaps these city year members are helping these students in their day-to-day classwork and being an extra person there for them which is something we know is crucial in helping all our students succeed.

So it was really inspiring to be a part of that.

I also along with Director Geary participated in the MLK March from Garfield to the federal building.

Fantastic tradition I'm so glad we are able to support it.

I did notice though that the tone in the crowd this year is a little little dispirited, little confused.

I think we are heading into some new territory in terms of what's going on with our nation and so that leads me to the discussion about our potential walkout on Friday.

You know I think as a district we have to be careful with our messaging and I appreciate the fact that our communications department did an adjustment in the communication that went out to our families.

We have to be very sensitive to the fact that we have some very engaged students who have a lot of energy and interest in being active parts of our society and especially when they are teenagers and there is not a whole lot you can do to hold them back and nor should we.

because they are the next generation who will probably have to clean up a lot of our messes frankly.

And one of our important duties as a school district is to teach our children to think for themselves.

So we have a very difficult balance you know we have to remind them that their duty is to be in school and that we as a district have to ensure that to the best we can and make sure that they are safe.

But we also don't want to ever quash their instincts to speak up, speak out and fight for all the things that are worth fighting for in this country.

Thank you so much to Lyon Terry and the others who spoke on behalf of curriculum adoption.

As you know it's something that's very near and dear to my heart and I'll be consistent about that and I'll take this all the way to the end of my experience with Seattle Public Schools.

I believe it's a crucial thing for us to do.

and we really need to make it a priority and I think your speech was brilliant and how you really brought it home what it means for us to not give our teachers and our students what they need.

We are asking them, we are asking our teachers to be creative, make things out of whole cloth and for some teachers that could work.

And we certainly want to allow the innovation for our teachers but we can't give them nothing to start with.

And we sure as heck can't give them the common core standards and say this is a curriculum.

Because even the makers of the common core standards will tell you it is not curriculum.

It is not.

So we've got to do better than that.

So I really, I really continue to advocate for us keeping the K5 literature adoption, ELA adoption on track.

because it is very overdue and I also feel we need to take a look at our middle school math adoption and I'll say it again what we forgot to mention in our recent conversation about middle school math is we are about to open two new middle schools.

What are we going to provide these students with?

All right are we going to give them the math that we currently have that's outdated or are we going to invest in something better for them?

So it seems like we have an opportunity right here, a timely opportunity to do right by our middle school students as well and I don't think it necessarily has to be the most expensive option.

I think we can take a look at what's been working for Mercer, Aki and Denny and see what those teachers have been doing and replicate what they're doing and spread it out so that all our middle schools can benefit from strong math.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox on that.

I'll be unapologetic about my feelings on that.

I will have a community meeting this Saturday at the Queen Anne library from 4 to 545. That was the only time that was available.

So everybody is welcome to join me there.

Let's see.

Regarding the Lowell Heights conversation, you know I think there is a bigger conversation to be had about Ed specs.

And whether the vision we have as a district for our schools is the same as what our community has and wants.

I mean the district doesn't always have the opportunity to build new buildings.

You know we just have to coordinate so many things in terms of funding and timing.

So when the district does it, it wants to make sure it's something that kids won't outgrow quickly.

But you know you want to do things that are proportionate to the space in the neighborhood.

So that is another place where we need balance.

And so I think this is a conversation we'll be having a little bit later tonight.

as well.

And then I also want to address the issue tonight that Director Geary first brought up and that is the fact that we are all imperfect those of us here on the board and we do make mistakes and it's very hard to speak publicly.

Apparently it's one of the most stressful things that humans ever do is speak publicly.

So yeah, sometimes we trip up when we say things.

And so we do hope you'll give us some forgiveness on that.

As far as Ricky Malone, you know it was good to see Ricky again.

She and I worked together as part of a coalition back in 2008-2009 rallying against the school closures.

And so there was a whole group of us that were trying to prevent the district from closing schools back then.

She actually delivered a petition to the school board that I had written and we've gotten 1,750 signatures.

It was one of the biggest petitions around at the time opposing school closures.

So yes she certainly is unapologetic in things that she believes in and that can certainly be a strength.

But there is also a strength to being apologetic.

and to having humility.

And one thing I'll say about Director Harris is she has a great deal of courage and she is willing to publicly admit if she's made a mistake.

And I admire that in her.

So I actually think we've got a good team up here.

We're not perfect but we're trying very hard and I hope we can continue to have constructive conversations about how we can move forward.

And so with that I would like to call for a 10 minute break for the board and we will resume at about 10 past 7. Let's see.

10 past 7. Thank you all.