School Board Meeting July 11, 2018 Pt1

And we have the roll call please Ms. Ramirez.

Director Burke here.

Director DeWolf here.

Director Mack here.

Director Patu here.

Director Pinkham present.

Director Harris here.

And Director Geary is out of the country so we will not see her tonight.

Could we stand if you choose for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Do we have recognitions this evening.

We do not.

We do not have student presentations but we do have superintendent comments.

Superintendent Denise Juneau your first meeting.

Welcome to Paradise.

Take it away.

Well thank you.

Tonight is my first board meeting as your new superintendent and I'm really honored and excited to be in Seattle and to have the board's confidence to lead the district.

So thank you board of directors.

I really appreciate it.

And I know that I made the correct choice in coming here because of the warm welcome I received from the school board the staff families students and the community.

It was the city's commitment to public education and the district's commitment to racial equity that attracted me to the district.

Every person I talked to during the interview process and as I've been out meeting people over the last couple of weeks shared a personal commitment to educational and racial equity ensuring racial equity ensuring racial justice in education is no small charge.

But I know from my previous work as Montana superintendent that positive change can happen but the work has to be steeped in community.

The solutions we develop in Seattle need to reflect and address the needs of our students and families.

On Monday I launched my entry plan which centers around listening and learning because it's important that I spend time getting to know the district strengths challenges and opportunities before making any changes or developing plans for the future.

So far I've met with all of the school leaders the mayor city staff central office staff the school board families and Seattle colleges.

I've also met with student journalists some members of the media the Alliance for Education and I attended the manufacturing industrial council luncheon.

These were all great learning opportunities for me.

Because Seattle Public Schools has close to a billion dollar operating budget and is one of the largest employers in Washington State.

I've also been reviewing operational budgets operational documents like the budget our student achievement data and board policies and there's a lot to learn.

But I feel so fortunate to be here now at this time.

Seattle Public Schools is leading the nation in so many ways.

Nationally Seattle is considered a high performing urban district.

Graduation rates have significantly increased especially for students of color.

Discipline is down and family satisfaction is on the rise.

Seattle offers a host of enriching learning opportunities career connected learning arts education access to international schools and dual language programs student supports that you don't find in every district.

Those are all things to be proud of.

Unfortunately like many districts across the nation we also have unacceptable opportunity gaps.

Like the board of directors and the staff of Seattle Public Schools I am deeply committed to ensuring each Seattle student graduates college career and community ready.

I look forward to supporting the district and taking the necessary steps to ensure that educational excellence is realized by every student in our care.

I truly believe that together Seattle Public Schools can be the best public education system in the nation providing every student the education and future they deserve.

There's some good news across the district I'd like to share.

We have a lot of good news and here's just a couple of highlights.

The summer leadership institute on June 28th that was an excellent company as I met with the school leaders at the June summer leader institute.

I got to hear about some of their successes and challenges that we will address together as we move forward.

Yesterday I attended the mayor's ORCA opportunity signing event with board president Leslie Harris.

I was inspired to hear from Rainier Beach High School student leader Ari Patu at the event and I think director Patu knows him a little bit.

Aria and his peers raised their voices and the city listened and the city also followed our lead as Seattle Public Schools was already offering orca passes to about six thousand high school students.

This addition by the city allowed us to double that number.

So all Seattle high school students have access to free year round orca passes.

That's good news.

Summer capital projects when school lets out for the summer work ramps up for projects funded through voter approved capital levies.

This year most projects are funded by both the buildings athletic and technology or BTA and the building excellence BEX capital levies and some of those projects include improvements being made to athletic fields and track improvements being made to increase Earthquake safety and solar projects are scheduled at many schools and there's a full list of that on the district website.

It's also a congratulations to Roosevelt High School student Virginia Wade who won her gymnastic division at the Special Olympics USA games.

That was pretty exciting.

Last week Seattle hosted the Special Olympics USA games which highlighted the incredible abilities of athletes in a variety of sports as well as inclusive games of unified sports.

and we're so proud of our current and former students who compete in that event.

There was a very sweet prom story that was in the news.

Chief Sealth International High School graduate Juan Old Chief.

You may remember he performed the chicken dance at our last state of the district honored his great grandmother by bringing him bringing her to his senior prom.

at the Seattle Art Museum in June and the new principal induction week.

The lead up program began its principal induction week for nine new principals who have been hired to Seattle Public Schools.

I stopped in today to greet them as they begin their journey to help us lead SPS to new heights.

There's a lot of summer activities including summer staircase the summer skills center 54 elementary and kindergarten grade 8 K 8 schools will provide a gentle jumpstart to thousands of kindergartners each morning the week of August 20 to 24th.

So just a lot of things going on in the district just because it's summer doesn't mean that the activities end here.

The work continues and the good work to make sure that every student reaches new height is going on.

And that Madam President I look forward to strengthening our work and continuing our efforts to provide a quality education to every student.

Thanks so much for having me.

And thank you to you.

OK.

Board committee reports who would like to go first.

Director Burke C&I chair.

So if I go first I can be really quick then set the stage.

So our next C&I committee meeting is actually August 22nd.

So it's good.

There's going to be a little bit of a time between now and then.

And I believe I already reported about the previous one so I'm just going to touch a little bit on what's coming.

We have our continuous school improvement plans that have all been updated as of I believe the first of the month.

By the time we meet in committee they will all be updated uploaded.

So directors can have a chance to review them.

We will do some spot audits as part of our committee work and then potentially bring that forward to the full board.

We have a standing agenda item for 24 credits update where we'll talk about any of the progress that's been made around the high school work or the Naviance implementation high school and beyond planning for high schoolers.

And then we also are going to be talking as we do pretty much every month about instructional materials updates specifically milestones around the science adoptions.

We have a middle school and elementary school science adoptions which are in process now and the committees have already met a couple of times.

The high school science adoption will be starting next year.

And one of the things that we as a board need to do this is just sort of a.

little bit of a warning or a call to action that the policy 2015 that governs instruction material adoptions includes a component for the board to provide guiding principles at the outset of adoptions.

And that's one of those things we haven't converged on yet.

So I'm going to be reaching out to you individually and trying to put that together so that at our our August meeting we can share that with staff.

We'll be revisiting electronic learning policies which has been a multi month thing and probably will be another two months before we think that's ready to see the light of day or to see the full board.

And we we also have a standing agenda item which is basically the formula for success.

We rotate through every meeting where we will we will get a report on each of the three pillars.

MTSS EOG and PAR.

So the multi tiered systems of supports is what's coming in August.

This is one of our SMART goals and it's the first time that we're being presented on the new newly adopted SMART goal.

So the request to staff is to to create a just a high level milestone schedule that can help us throughout the year to see how that progress is being made on it.

Essentially a.

whatever tool they're using to guide their work to bring that as a high level so we can ask the right questions at the right times.

And then we also have a standing item on the advanced learning update which we'll talk about the work of the task force and see what sort of progress has been made by then.

So much.

Next up would be.

Director Pinkham A&F Chair Audit and Finance.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.

Yeah our last meeting was back in June 11th and I had an update on that meeting our last board meeting and I'm going to have to wing it here because I don't have my notes in front of me.

But I was looking at it.

I need to check with Jolene on my calendar says our next A&F meeting is until September 4th.

There's none in August.

Although we do have I don't know September 4th is our quarterly audit meeting and the next A&F meeting is until September 10th.

I need to make sure my calendar is reflecting correctly that we do not have an audit meeting in August.

That's correct.

Correct.

OK.

So.

Not that we have the summer off but one of the biggest things we're doing now with definitely Julian's help and all the staff here is the budget that we're going to be talking and voting on tonight.

And then also as we project as we go on future of how much.

impact of the McCleary decision now helps us out maybe next year but future years we still have things to discuss and look forward to.

So that's as much as I can share right now.

But thank you very much.

Short and sweet.

Was that enough or do you want me to ramble on some more.

Director Mack chair of operations please.

I'm also going to be short and sweet.

Our last meeting was actually prior to our last board meeting where I gave a brief update there.

But our facilities master plan task force has launched.

I had a first meeting on Monday.

Full room 20 committed community members super smart ask great questions.

We had a presentation around implicit bias and.

Data that was helpful and useful.

And you can find information about the task force on the Web site has the dates and meeting notes will be posted etc.

One quick correction to my colleague is that C&I is actually on August 21st.

You had me really concerned because I was like whoa wait my meeting is on August 22nd.

So.

So C&I will be on the Tuesday and then operations is on the Wednesday the 22nd and then directly after that we have a work session on BEX V. So that'll be following directly thereafter and that'll be scheduled.

That's scheduled after the facilities task force facilities master plan task force has Provided some recommendations to us so that'll be incorporated into the information that we get at Ops and at the BEX V meeting.

So I'm looking forward to that but we will have a bit of a break between now and then in terms of meetings but staff is going to be continuing to work incredibly hard around all of these planning planning things that we're working on.

So thanks.

OK.

Next up is the consent agenda.

May I have a motion please.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

And I'll second the motion.

Would any of the board members like to take any item off the consent agenda.

Seeing none.

All those in favor of passing the consent agenda please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

OK.

It is 430. We have a complete hour before public testimony.

But let this be a caution to my colleagues that we are not going to take a complete hour in our board comments so we can move our board comments up now.

Who would like to go first.

Director Burke.

So I actually have even less to say around board comments than I did around committee reports.

I will confess that I have already taken a vacation.

So that's one of the reasons that it's been a little bit of a light load in terms of school board things.

It's really nice but I'm excited to be back.

So some of the work that's happened for me.

Superintendent Juneau mentioned the manufacturing industrial council luncheon that she attended was actually a two day event and she was kind enough to attend the first event the first day and I was part of the second day.

which included a leadership luncheon and it was a pretty impressive group of people coming together to talk about how to how to actually put.

Some of these things we keep talking about into action around career connected learning and there's a heavy emphasis on manufacturing maritime industrial applications and some of the amazing careers that are offered there and the educational opportunities that partners in that area can provide.

So the event was called Together Seattle Works and it pulled together folks from industry of a variety of different you know local industry folks.

But it also had a really broad swath of people from government city Seattle Public Schools King County State Port of Seattle all around a host of issues.

Education was one of four topics they talked about.

But it was obviously the most fun.

One of them was like industrial cleanup where the theme was whether or not kids can eat dirt or not.

So that wasn't quite you know it kind of ties in.

We have kids we have dirt but that's not really our mission.

So it was a really you know I had I had the opportunity to do a sort of a keynote speech there and also heard from Superintendent Chris Reykdal.

who was extremely eloquent in describing the challenge of the K-12 system in preparing students not to be workers but to be thinkers but to prepare them in a way that they will succeed in a working environment.

And he just he absolutely just hit all the right points about how we have marginalized entire groups of students by.

putting them you know tracking them in into programs that.

you know because of preconceived notions and that it's time for that to change.

And so it's really great to hear that from state level leaders and to see everybody in the room just nodding their heads and grinning from ear to ear.

So that was that was really a high for me to be with that group of people and to hear how much passion there was around it and to be able to talk about how the work of the city with their Seattle promise and their 13th 14th year can inform what we're doing in our K-12 and that we can we can just make a better better system for our students make it more seamless give them more opportunities more engaging education throughout.

There's a couple of topics coming up in public comments that I would like to actually reserve conversation for.

I think there's there's there's just some some real amazing places where I think we can come together as communities and look forward to doing that.

So I'll withhold comments until afterwards.

And then I don't actually have a public meeting set but I will book something for probably early August before the school year starts and then I'll get on a regular cadence in September and October.

Next up.

And and before I since I since nobody else has jumped in I want to say welcome to the table.

Next up.

Colleagues do not all yell at once.

Director Pinkham please.

Kind of an awkward pause here.

Experiencing.

So let's hope the rest of the meeting goes a lot fast a lot more entertaining.

But thank you and hopefully everyone's enjoying their wonderful summer.

Definitely a beautiful day today.

And I do welcome Denise.

Totsa Payne.

Thank you for coming.

And I mentioned last I think one of the last weeks I'm starting to learn my language the best that I can.

So if I use a few words I know the the closed caption people may ask me to for spelling and I'll try to provide the best that I can.

But thank you.

Tots clout.

Good evening.

My comments tonight I think there are definitely going to be a lot that I'll save for after public testimony.

I still just want to voice my support that as we go along that how can we get Indian Heritage High School a native focus school back not just for our native students but for the entire community because it's going to benefit everyone here as we learn more about the indigenous people of the Northwest but.

Also across the globe I think that this is a good school that type of school that can help provide that the community input that we're looking for to involve schools.

The challenge we're asking our teachers to engage and get to know each and every one of your students.

You know that's why hopefully I see this could be a way an avenue for us to get there.

I recently came across a paper or actually a book in Chapter 7 decolonize indigenous education post-war city talked about how Native women were very active in bringing education to the Native students in the Detroit metropolitan area and how successful it was and the challenges it faced as well.

The schools that they created there unfortunately don't exist either now but you know what they did and the leadership that they had helped establish the schools and gave them strength.

And so hopefully as we look at this and I would like to go forward that we start looking for those leaders now.

You know because we're not going to be able to open the school tomorrow or maybe next year but we can start the pathway so when the school opens it will be strong and students will want to come and not look at it as necessary something as a last choice to get me through but as the first choice this will get me through my education.

Just looking at some of the comments and in the paper that I was looking at give vision to make sure you get her second Anishinaabe woman Judy Mays and I believe another relative Esther Mays and what they did to bring that to the Detroit center that they actually had the Detroit Indian education.

Detroit's Indian Educational Cultural Center and also the Medicine Bear American Indian Academy that were founded there in the Detroit area and came after the postwar and just how successful they were until they had a challenge and couldn't overcome.

But I think again as a superintendent you know notice we are a strong district I think we can sustain this and I I look forward to hopefully continue this conversation as much as we can throughout the summer and as we enter the new school year so that we can hopefully come to for me also a closure to what happened to Indian Heritage High School that was it closed correctly or wasn't it.

But we'll we'll go on.

Just want to know quickly they had the just what they did there the Indian pledge which I thought was the Indian pledge which said I I always respect myself and others and never fight or call others names.

D don't do drugs.

I improve in school.

A always respect parents and teachers and never be a dropout.

So.

get to that rate where 100 percent of our students are graduating.

And I think our community can help us sustain that.

I feel like again now I'm just trying to ramble.

So I will save as I mentioned before my comments for later on this evening.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.

Other colleagues that would like to go next.

Director Mack please.

I good evening.

I don't have a ton of comments.

July 4th was a pretty quiet week.

I hope folks got some relaxation and enjoyment.

We had great weather.

I hope students and teachers are getting a rest now.

It's been nice for the last couple of weeks to be a little bit slower.

And I've taken a bit of a break like Director Burke.

So I don't have a ton of things to report but I do want to mention that.

If everyone remembers we passed a resolution back in February around sensible gun safety legislation that the board supports that.

And on Monday the city of Seattle Council passed an ordinance that.

supports the safe storage of firearms.

It's a sensible law that will help keep our kids safe and just want to let folks know that that's happening and I think we might be supporting some education in terms of sharing what that means and the supports that are out there to help people have the right boxes and types of things to store.

guns if they actually have them so that they don't get into the hands of folks that could hurt themselves or others.

And so excited that that happened with the city of Seattle on Monday as well as the Orca passes.

Excited to see our continued partnership around planning for our buildings and just simply want to welcome Ms. Juneau.

Thank you.

Director DeWolf or Director Patu you want to do rock paper scissors for next.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you.

Thank you President Harris.

I'm happy to go now.

I don't have much to say other than had a really great breakfast meeting with Superintendent Juneau and to start that conversations about personal goals but also just getting more connected to our work here.

So I just appreciate that opportunity.

I also haven't had as much going on the last two weeks and I am reserving most of my comments for after public comment.

So thank you.

Director Patu next up.

I just want to welcome our superintendent Juneau and also it's great to be back.

A lot of things going on in various places and hopefully to say more on doing our next comment times just thinking right now.

Last but I hope not least.

I have no formal meetings scheduled.

I am looking for a picnic venue for a potluck and a party probably to be at Camp Long or at Lincoln Park.

So stay tuned to the board page.

I'm also going to upload some photographs.

From our recent doings both Pride Parade the Chief Sealth International High School football team pancake breakfast and yesterday's Orca signing ceremony.

So do stay tuned for that.

The Orca signing ceremony was beyond.

It was beyond because that means that the county that Metro that the city of Seattle Seattle Public Schools and our extraordinary young students from Rainier Beach High School who we have seen advocate here time and time again got the win and most importantly got the credit for the win.

And that means that.

Over 5000 high school students will have year round orca passes so that this city in fact this county will be their oyster.

That means they can get anywhere they need to go.

They can go as far as Sky Comish Washington as far as Snoqualmie Pass to all the trail heads in the Cascades and all of our extraordinary parks.

I.

I'm beyond and assistant superintendent McEvoy we didn't see you there yesterday but we sure felt your presence and making this happen.

Way to go.

Thank you.

I was able to get into SLI on the second day as of course they were breaking up the way that schedules work because I spent the morning at Moss Adams taking a look at some drafting on our audit for teaching and learning.

And these people have worked hard and they have spoken to over 70 folks and to the folks that gave their unvarnished input.

Thank you very much for that because we're all in the same team and we're all interested in doing better.

Some of the things surprised me.

Some of the things did not at all.

And the whole concept of benchmarking And what about what about what about because for every sentence I had 10 questions because this is a complex one billion dollar organization with 8000 employees 54000 kids 104 schools.

And frankly given the McCleary fake news that we are fully funded we're doing better than most.

Other issues of concern and time investment deep time investment.

And let me assure you the folks up here in the dais the folks at the wall all work very very hard on your behalf.

Several things we met yesterday in closed session to talk about collective bargaining with our labor partners the Seattle Education Association.

Let it be said that we value our teachers and our staff and we want the very best for them.

Let it be said that we're negotiating in good faith.

Let it be said that we have handcuffs on because we do not know what will happen in years two and three after the levy swipe.

So stay tuned.

They're rich conversations but the interest based bargaining that has happened to date and there have been many many meetings with many many folks from the SPS administrative staff and from SEA and their bargaining teams and their leadership working together.

And it is my hope that as we work throughout the summer that we will come to a place of mutual trust and respect.

Given the money in the bank which of course we don't know how much that is given McCleary fake news and what the legislature may do to us next year.

Other issues you've heard me state my concern that there is not an affirmative statement that the city's families education preschool promise FEPP levy does not have a bar against sharing those funds with charter schools.

We're still waiting for information from the Seattle City Attorney's Office but one of the ideas that has come up is that the second charter schools ordinance language says the charter schools don't get levy funds whether or not we can stretch that to a city levy beats me.

But I'm sure hoping we will try because I know there are a number of folks in this city who are Quite vociferous about that issue and we absolutely need to be able to partner with the city and in conversations very candid conversations with city council members Mayor Durkin etc.

We've expressed those concerns because of course as all know This board and several boards previous to that have stood up in favor of public schools not charter schools not charter schools who for the most part hire teachers that are not represented by unions.

And given the effects of the Janus decision that the United States Supreme Court has put out it's even more important that folks are not abused.

And now I would look over to Noel Treat the general counsel and find out whether I'm going to PDC jail yet.

Mr. Cerqui have I touched the line yet.

Thank you sir.

Can I push it harder.

Thank you.

OK then.

Other issues.

A huge thanks to our folks that are working on current task forces.

We are asking people to volunteer extraordinary amounts of time both in terms of getting down here to work together on really difficult complex issues and more importantly we're sending them home with.

An extraordinary amount of homework to do between those meetings and to the folks on the information technology advisory task force the BEX V task force the transportation task force the advanced learning task force.

Thank you.

And meetings on all of those task force should be uploaded to the web.

If you don't see them then please please have a shout out so that you can follow along with this hard and good work.

This is part of this board and this district's commitment to community engagement and seeking information.

Don't have to necessarily agree with you a thousand percent on that but we absolutely need to reach out wide.

Also getting excited about the standing committee on community engagement that will have come from the task force last year that we're behind the curve on but.

It hasn't fallen off the plate and we're going to be doing community engagement to do the community engagement.

So stand by for that.

Subject close to my heart.

Program placement is coming up this next year.

You'll hear some discussion about program placement this evening.

Ancillary to a BAR board action resolution and and we're not there yet because when we talk about equity Where we put programs and who we can afford with limited funds and limited bandwidth.

It's going to be frankly a messy conversation but we ought not be afraid of messy conversations that will be happening this next year.

The other thing that I hope will be happening this next year is that we will actually have a definition of equity for policy number 0 0 3 0. Other issues that have occupied a fair amount of my time are the Concord literacy Spanish literacy purchase from the Concord equity funds in supplement to the K 5 ELA CCC adoption and how we interact and intersect with our equity race advisory committee how that works whether or not that needs to be codified whether we need to understand it better.

But we've got some loose ends there for clarity that that I think we need to to talk about and they may or may not be messy conversations but they're absolutely worth having.

I wanted to follow up with Director Mack's comment about gun boxes gun safes.

Let it be known that the Seattle King County Public Health Department will give you one free.

And I don't know.

Thinking out of the box might be of value to have a depository here at the John Stanford Center if folks want Such a gun safe come down pick it up and hopefully save a few lives.

Last we lost a West Seattle high school student last week in a motor vehicle accident and thoughts go out to his family and certainly to the entire community.

And there is nothing more sobering than getting those phone calls.

that we've lost one of our students and we need to stay safe and I keep thinking about the and I'm old enough to remember this unlike many folks.

The Hill Street Blues let's stay safe out there.

It's a long hot summer and we need to make sure that our students are valued and most all safe.

Thank you.

Now we are going to take a break.

For 30 minutes I wish we had a dance party or some such because our next order of business is public testimony and we cannot start that until 530. Thank you.

Stretch.

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