School Board Meeting Date 10072015 Pt1

And we'll do, we'll start with a welcome.

Welcome to the Eckstein Jazz Band and welcome to several of our Seattle delegation members.

And welcome to the other members of the audience as well.

Why don't we start with the roll call please.

Director Martin Morris.

Here.

Director McLaren.

Here.

Director Patu.

Here.

Director Peasley.

Here.

Director Peters.

Here.

Director Karr.

Here.

Okay all right so Seattle traffic being what it is in this rainy day we've got a couple of folks that are still not here yet so what we thought we would do so that everyone could hear the Eckstein band we will go ahead and start with them and then we'll come back to the recognition item.

Oh excuse me I missed the Pledge of Allegiance.

Let's do that first.

All right.

All right, so I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, so with that, we will now turn to the Eckstein Band.

And I think what I'd like to do, is there room down below for the directors to join down below?

So let's go ahead and move down there.

Every day I have to move Every day Every day I have to move Will you see me when we wake up this new morning?

Don't you know?

Nobody loves me Nobody seems to care Nobody loves me

Every day of the week, every day of the week.

You can see me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can hear me, you can Hey.

Hey!

Hey!

Thank you.

You just heard Olivia Pesce, Eli on tenor, Elliot on the alto, and Brooke on the flute.

Now we're going to bring out, yeah, thank you.

Now we're going to bring out Elliot and he's going to play a ballad for us.

This is called Sultry Sunset.

The previous chart was called Every Day I Have the Blues.

so so so uh uh uh uh

so

So you just heard Ailey Hawkinson on the piano and Elliot Hughes on the alto.

We have one more chart for you and this is called Big Swing Face.

One, two, three.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Oh, oh, Oh,

so so so

♪ ♪

Yeah!

Yeah!

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

¶ ¶

Thank you.

Let's see, the soloists on this one are David Settle, and then Nicholas Messler, and then we had Elliot, Michelle, and I think that was it, right?

Everybody stand up.

Nice job.

I'd also like to thank Dr. Nyland, thank you for inviting us and the school board.

Thank you very much for having us here.

We've been doing this, I think this is my fourth or fifth time here.

Anyway.

Alright thank you.

Well, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you.

As always, you guys were spectacular, and I'm thinking it's my microphone.

Sorry about that.

Can you hear me?

So you guys were as spectacular as always, and we're so grateful that you were able to come.

And I would like to take the opportunity just quickly to have each of you say your name and your class, what grade you are in and then we will give you another round of applause.

Sky 8th grade.

James 8th grade.

Tazio 8th grade.

June 8th grade.

Olivia 8th grade.

Eli 8th grade.

George 7th grade.

Elliot 8th grade.

Michelle 8th grade.

Maria 8th grade.

Isabel 8th grade.

Sydney 7th grade.

Maya 8th grade.

Jonathan 8th grade.

Colin 8th grade.

Joe 8th grade.

Roberto 7th grade.

William 8th grade.

Desi 8th grade.

Will 8th grade.

Jacob 8th grade.

Ryan 8th grade.

Nicholas, 7th grade.

David, 8th grade.

Jack, 8th grade.

Willie, 8th grade.

Faye, 7th grade.

Jacob, 7th grade.

Nathan, 7th grade.

Kat, 8th grade.

Luke, 8th grade.

Ailey, 7th grade.

Peter 8th grade.

Aidan 8th grade.

Anna 7th grade.

Max 8th grade.

Edie 7th grade.

Amanda 7th grade.

Josephine 8th grade.

Elena 8th grade.

Devlin 8th grade.

Della 8th grade.

Tim 7th grade.

Kira 6th grade.

Nathan 8th grade.

And I would just like to take a moment as well to acknowledge that this kind of music doesn't happen without the leadership of a superb educator.

And so I would like to.

And the elementary schools.

And the elementary schools, absolutely.

But I wanted to acknowledge Mark Escobedo for his leadership.

Thank you very much.

It's always a privilege to have you guys here, so thank you very much.

We're going to do a quick, we're going to move everything very quietly.

That's fine because we're going to transition as well.

Should I get in a minute?

there.

Alright it looks like the group is mostly packed up and exiting the auditorium so at this point I want to turn it over to Dr. Nyland for a recognition of our state legislators.

Alright well as Eckstein is leaving I echo the thanks.

What a great performance and lots of hard work so thanks so much.

Well it's our honor tonight to recognize our delegation of legislators that has had huge challenges over the last several years in terms of balancing the state budget and figuring out how to best serve education.

One of our critical needs in Seattle has been a growing district.

I think we had 99,000 when I was here as a student and then we dropped down to 39,000 or 40,000 and have gradually climbed back and in the last five, six, seven years have grown by 1,000 students a year and this year welcomed 52,500 students and we're finding it increasingly difficult to find spaces for all of those students.

And I think that 60 60 percent of our schools are 50 years old or older which is a blessing to have that great heritage and history and then a challenge to keep all of those buildings up to date.

So I guess I'll start by recognizing our delegations earlier work.

We opened reopened Cedar Park earlier this year to provide for an opportunity for students to move into that building while Olympic Hills is being rebuilt.

And so that's a tribute to our legislators earlier work.

During this current year they have been instrumental in raising or allocating through the state budget process up to $25 million for capital needs in Seattle.

And so we have several of our delegation here tonight and I'd like to read the proclamation that we have prepared and then invite them to come to the podium and say a few words about their work this last year.

Whereas Seattle Public Schools enrollment continues to grow rapidly up 6500 students in the last five years whereas Seattle Public Schools are at capacity and new land area is non-existent whereas the district has found it necessary to split classrooms put partitions down the middle add portables more than 200 of them evict some of those who have rented space from us close computer labs libraries staff rooms.

and change boundaries, sometimes frequently.

Whereas the above come in spite of voter support and a lot of new construction, we still haven't been able to keep pace with the dollars needed for modernization and capacity needs.

Whereas our legislators have recognized this urgent need in Seattle Public Schools by securing significant and much much needed capital construction funds up to 25 million dollars this last session.

Those funds will allow Seattle Public Schools to reopen Magnolia Elementary School E.C. Hughes Elementary School two years earlier than expected and provide 1100 additional seats which we desperately need.

Whereas, Senator David Frock, Senator Jamie Petterson, Representative Jerry Pellett, and Representative Reuben Carlyle were instrumental in keeping this issue before the legislature as a high priority.

And whereas our entire delegation worked together to win the support of the appropriation which will bring the much needed funds to address overcrowding in Seattle Public Schools.

Be it resolved that Seattle Public Schools hereby recognizes and commends our entire Seattle delegation for a job well done.

Our school board our community and 52,500 students say thank you.

So thank you for being here tonight.

Tonight we have with us Senator Frock, Senator Pedersen, Senator Cole-Wells and Representative Paulette.

So I would invite you to the podium and say a few words about the great job that you did this last session.

Good afternoon, Jamie Peterson.

Very happy to be here with you all.

I got to end my day last night at a second grade curriculum night at Stevens and start my day today at a kindergarten family connections meeting again at Stevens.

And so I really want to thank you for all the hard and thankless work that you do every two weeks.

Good grief.

I looked at your agenda and thought that is something else.

We, I'm really proud of the way that all of us, Senator Cole-Wells, Senator Frock and all of the other folks in the House and Senate from Seattle pulled together this last year to make this capital allocation a high priority for us and a take home demand for us to get out of session and pass the capital budget.

I don't want to let it go unnoticed that the formula by which the state funds capital is broken and we've been working on that for some years so far without success but working together we are going to get that fixed so that Seattle gets its fair allocation from the state and hopefully that rising tide will lift boats around the state because obviously Seattle is not the only district that needs to get better support from the state for its capital needs.

So I pledge to continue working with you on that, appreciate all of the support that we've gotten.

both from the directors and from the staff who have produced a lot of analysis and really spent quite a bit of time particularly with Senator Frock and representatives Carlisle and Paulette with me this last summer coming up with a proposal that could be successful in understanding where the state dollars could be applied to make the biggest immediate difference in resolving some of those capacity needs.

We have a lot of work to do on the operating side but look forward to working with all of you on that and thank you again.

Well I won't repeat everything Jamie just said.

I just want to say it's been a pleasure to work with the board the last few years and really appreciate the communication making sure that we're all working on the same page towards the same ends.

And to that end I want to commend Senator Colwells, our entire delegation.

We have a very unified Seattle delegation and Senator Colwells for many years has been our leader in organizing us and has done an incredible job in particular with Magnolia School in her district.

and all of the things that we've done over the years for Seattle and I'm so proud to have served with her and I think the board should owe her a special recognition because most likely she'll be leaving the Senate this year to the King County Council and she's done a great great job for all of us and all of this community so commend to her and thank you again for this very fine award we really appreciate it.

I want to thank not only the board members for collaborating with us in trying to resolve the growing overcrowding in Seattle schools but the great work of the staff and Deputy Superintendent Herndon who we've been trying to collaborate not only between the state level and the school district but in order to resolve and make headway against the tide of 1,100 students entering the school system every year.

We need to collaborate with the city as well.

City planning decisions have to begin taking into account where the students in those new units will go to school and working very closely with you and with us as a team to make sure that we have the capacity And that goes forward as we, I promise you, we will be funding lower class sizes, we will be doing the right thing for our students, and that means making sure they have a safe and good educational environment to go to school with lower class sizes, not an overcrowded, portable, without a bathroom.

So thank you very much.

Yes, thank you very much and I was able to be not on this group working over the summer but I was able to be the voice on the Senate Ways and Means Committee to offer amendments and be there working with the other three here.

Incredibly important.

I'm thrilled that Magnolia Elementary School will be reopening.

That's part of my legislative district.

I would like to put in a plug though for a downtown, Belltown, South Lake Union School, very, very needed.

So I hope that we can manage to have that open up.

And lastly, of course, we have the operating budget and we really do need to come to grips with McCleary ruling from the Supreme Court.

Thank you.

Okay, so why don't you go ahead and step here up right where you were and then I just want to take this opportunity as we get ready to come down and actually hand out the certificates to say that there's nothing that puts a smile on a school board director in Seattle's face and then more money to address capacity.

So thank you very much for your work.

It means a lot to the families in this community and to our educators.

So thank you.

And to Senator Caldwell, thank you for your service.

All right, so we'll come down and hand out certificates.

Two more.

Let's get to that.

When we're all, what are you saying?

Thank you again.

Alright so that brings us now to our superintendent comments section of the agenda.

So I'll turn it over to Dr. Nyland.

Alright well we'll start with some additional recognition.

The Washington Art Education Association educator of the year awards for 2015 include Jennifer Lundgren from Montlake Elementary.

And Jennifer Heller from Eckstein Middle School.

So congratulations to two of our fine educators.

Current updates are enrollment as mentioned is up.

It's up I think about 400 plus students 411. However it is down from our projections and turns out that our projections probably would have been almost exactly right on.

But last year we had about 350 students who left the district for neighboring districts.

This year we had about a little over a thousand students.

So see our enrollment pattern in our schools near the boundaries.

Lost students during the strike as parents found spots in Highline or Shoreline or Renton.

So we are working through the process of adjusting staffing at many of our schools.

A few did go up and we'll get additional staffing and several went down and we'll probably be in the process of losing a teacher.

Even after we do that we still benefit from the 50 plus teachers that the legislature added to as part of McCleary.

So class sizes at elementary schools even after taking back some of these teachers will still be better than they were a year ago.

So we're working through that process in the next few days and we'll also be setting working towards setting in place some hiring and travel restrictions at the district level to help make sure that we compensate for that lost enrollment.

Advanced learning has been working on a variety of things increasing efficiencies and helping us figure out mapping where our highly capable students are throughout the district.

So that information will be posted as part of the school data for each of our schools.

And then continuing to work on the legislative requirement to make sure that we are able to serve our highly capable students in any of our schools in the district.

And then continue to work on the issue of making sure that our underrepresented populations have opportunities to get into the highly capable program.

I think I've reported before that we've got a lot of federal compliance issues.

We've worked through some FERPA issues, which are Family Privacy Act issues, trying to figure out how to help parents fill out a form that will honor their wishes with regard to privacy and still give them access to things like yearbooks and other services that they would like.

Part of our settlement that we reached earlier was an ADA coordinator to make sure that our websites remained compliant for visually impaired students.

And then school messenger the Federal Communications Commission has limited our use of our automated calling to only emergencies.

So we're trying to work through that as well.

And that was something that we relied on heavily especially for our ELL families.

Later in the agenda tonight we'll have a report on the tentative agreement soon to be finalized tonight with SEA.

I'd just like to comment that I appreciate the hard work by both of the bargaining teams.

Hundreds of hours of time went into that bargain over the summer and particularly in the last few weeks just before school started.

many of those nights, late nights, early mornings.

So thank you to both teams for working through that process.

It will be a stretch for us as we figure out how to implement that contract.

We have postponed the K-5 literacy adoption from this year.

And we do agree with our teachers that regional compensation is needed to recognize the higher cost of living in Seattle and the resolution that will be introduced later in tonight's agenda calls that out as part of our legislative agenda for this upcoming session.

Been lots of opportunities throughout the district for public input and comment.

Several of us from the district level had the opportunity to meet with special ed PTSA on the 28th and hear from many of our parents what their interests and concerns are.

Several of us had the opportunity to meet Monday night here in this room with the Seattle Council PTSA.

And I think as as I was leaving about 9 o'clock they were taking action on the similar resolution to the one that will be introduced to the board here tonight asking the legislature to continue their work to fully fund McCleary including facility issues.

The board also held a work study session on October 1st around the issue of closing the opportunity gap and that will be going forward along with other board governance priorities and be working its way back toward the board for adoption in the next few weeks.

With school open I've had the opportunity to visit many of our schools.

Graham Hill, Orca K-8, Jane Addams Middle School, Nathan Hale and John Rogers over the last two weeks.

And at Cleveland recently I was just really I'm always impressed with what I see in the classrooms and the quality of our teachers.

And as I get it go to one school sometimes I get kind of corralled and it's hard to leave and get to the next one on time.

I was glad that I got to Cleveland on time because they had a whole delegation waiting for me.

So not only the administrative staff but about a half dozen teachers joined us on a learning walk which they do regularly and they handed me the sheet saying that they were looking for building a strong culture of learning in the classroom and they were looking for engaged students.

And there was the sheet telling us what that looked like.

And so then we would visit a classroom for about 10 minutes we'd step into the hallway and then we'd kind of go around the principal would say ask a teacher and the teacher would respond as to what we saw.

And I was impressed both with what we saw in the classroom.

A lot of work had gone into creating that positive learning culture every classroom at the high school level with groups of four and protocols in place for students pushing each other's thinking asking questions paraphrasing helping each other through the process.

And then the comments in the hallway were really perceptive and higher level comments so.

One of the comments was five out of seven groups in the classroom gave the activity today an interest score of four.

So they were really kind of digging into what is it that we're trying to accomplish.

And then before I could get my notes done I got a summary of the notes from the school kind of circulated back to all of the teachers saying this is what we saw and here's some great ideas and things that we'd like to steal and copy so.

Always a good day to visit and was very impressed with Cleveland and what they're what they're doing.

Lots of good news.

Hawthorne Elementary won a Johns Hopkins University Award and we were here in this room recognizing a lot of the people here locally that had had a hand in that.

So that was yeah.

Congratulations to Hawthorne.

Today, Bill and Melinda Gates held a U.S. learning forum and had people here from all over the nation.

Bill Gates and Melinda Gates both had comments and then they were interviewed for a PBS program that will be aired this evening.

Bill Gates began his remarks with a learning line.

that he had copied from Lion Terry our local teacher and Washington State teacher of the year last year.

And then that was the theme for the morning was a learning line for our educators a learning line for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a learning line for the rest of us.

So.

Kudos to lion Terry and then Matthew O'Connor preschool teacher at South Shore also got a positive shout out at the event KCTS Channel 9 has awarded the 2015 Pathways to Excellence Award to Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth International High School as two of their three recipients for the year.

They recognize schools that are helping low income students and students of color achieve at high levels and close the opportunity gap.

So proud of Danny and Chief Sealth.

Next week's going to be a busy week.

October 15th is being scheduled as the largest earthquake drill in the world.

So several of our schools will be participating.

We've also been doing a lot of fire drills as I've been visiting schools.

Ballard, for the second year in a row, their talisman has been nominated as a pacemaker finalist in the tabloid category from the National Scholastic Press Association.

This is a big deal I'm told.

So great recognition for them and their publication.

Pathfinder K-8 put in a new playground and has their dedication ceremony tomorrow.

Discover U is next week which is encouraging all of our students to be college ready as Gates event today pointed out two-thirds of all of our future jobs will require some college and so we want all of our students to be college ready and make that choice.

And whether they go to college or have a career, the skills are pretty much the same.

This coming week is Discover U week and staff are encouraged to wear their school, college colors and promote the idea that I guess we all have this learning line and we encourage students to continue to develop theirs.

NASA astronaut Michael Barrett recently came to STEM K8 at Bourne and talked with students about living and working on board the International Space Station.

And then PCC natural markets has recognized John Rogers Elementary with a grant to continue their ecology based program.

Lots of well-deserved recognition for our schools and the good things that they're doing with students.

The last comment that I, I guess two, I neglected to mention that we opened three preschools on, I guess we opened Gatzert on the day school opened on the 17th and then we opened the two new city-sponsored preschools at Van Asselt.

on the 21st and so look forward to where that program goes both for Seattle and well for Seattle Public Schools and for Seattle as we prepare more of our preschool students for kindergarten.

And then the last comment is lots of work with regard to bell times.

I think we've had six rounds of public testimony and engagement and survey work, and each time we learn a little bit more, which works to the benefit and to the frustration, I think, sometimes of people who've been involved in earlier stages.

because we keep adjusting as we get more information.

So we're in the process of making those final adjustments and bringing them forward for board review and approval.

I think our simple challenge is We are trying to move later for the benefit of high school students.

That pushes us to an 8 o'clock start for a first tier of buses.

We need 50 minutes between each of the tiers.

That means that the third tier is later and not as popular.

So right now I think we have 40% of the schools in Tier 1, 40% in Tier 2, and 20% in Tier 3. So we've tried to do what we can to accommodate those interests.

And now making those final adjustments based on equity and other factors that people have brought to the fore.

So that'll be coming to the board soon.

Thank you.

All right, the next item on the agenda is the student comments.

And we do not have student comments scheduled for this evening.

So with that, we are to the consent agenda.

And I will start by asking any of the directors if you have anything on the consent agenda that you need to have removed.

So I think that I know what the question is going to be about back there and it's about the public testimony and I think they have the first slot when we get to that.

Yeah.

I didn't skip you honest.

All right so do directors have anything they want to see removed from the consent agenda?

All right so with that could I have a motion please?

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

All right.

And so all of those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

All right the consent agenda has passed.

Okay, so, so that brings us to the end of the consent agenda, and the next item is public testimony.

We're going to hold off on that for just a moment because Dr Nyland's indicated that there was an item that he forgot to cover in his comments so we'll go back and allow him the opportunity to do that.

A year ago the board passed a resolution declaring that the second Monday in October would be indigenous people's day and so we've turned that resolution into a proclamation that I have that I'll present to Gail Morris here in a moment.

And I would like to invite Gail Morris to come up and inform the board as to what has been done to help support schools in preparing for Indigenous Peoples Day and to give a brief update on other aspects of our Native American work that we've been working on.

Good evening.

I am here to give a Native American education overview and update of what we are doing and I believe that you got that and then what's happening for Indigenous Peoples Day.

I'm going to ask you to get a little closer to that microphone because we're not quite hearing you.

Okay can you hear me now?

And you're welcome to pull it out if it's more comfortable.

Okay is this good?

Okay, so I'm just going to go through this and if you have any questions afterwards you can go ahead and ask me.

We have about 500 self-identified native students in Seattle Public Schools but we know that the number is greater.

Because of the multiracial box we cannot pull them so we have not fixed that.

We are trying to figure out a way through technology how we can move forward to have a true number of what that looks like.

I wanted to talk about my program and who we are.

I want to give a name to the people that work in this program.

Of course there is me and I am the manager but I have two certified positions.

One is open as one person had retired last year.

Another person I have is Vicki Segundo and she is HIDA and she has been with the district over 25 years.

She is also retiring at the end of this month.

I have two para-educators, one is a K5 para-educator, her name is Jenny Miller and she is Alluit and she works in more schools than she can handle but she is so committed to her work, she does this lovingly.

I also have a secondary liaison and his name is Rich Summers, he is also Haida and he just popped in.

And he is new to the staff.

He is one person that works in five regions for all middle schools and high schools.

I wish I could hire more of him.

I have a family support worker and her name is Adriel Foxley.

She is Seminole Creek from Oklahoma and she works in all of the schools as well.

I don't have enough native family support workers.

So just an overview of what we do.

We do work with community-based organizations however I don't do it on my own.

My staff works with community-based organizations as well.

We also had several, we ended last year with seven after school programs.

We don't have that right now with the strike and the late start we are currently Starting three of them we are looking to, which are John Muir Highland Park and Whitman 6th grade.

We are looking to add Licton Springs and Broadview Thompson at this time.

I wanted to just let you know things that we are doing with students as far as partnerships go.

We have started the first native cohort ever for parks and recreation.

We had about eight students start that last year from Ingram high school, West Seattle, I feel like one was interagency I'd have to go back and check.

They all went on through the summer and two graduated to move into the YMCA in a full-time job.

We also started Native American youth leadership academy for our students.

Rich is facilitating that with students to empower students.

and to give them leadership skills in the schools.

This is something that we haven't done and so we are really excited about it.

It is being funded through a Bill and Melinda Gates grant through the Western Washington Native American education consortium.

So it is a bunch of Title VII people that come together with students to help them get students out into the schools in leadership positions.

There has also been funding for Native American mentoring, the college prep class, we are looking at Chief Sealth and the Denny site looking to put a classroom in there and the model is really around Proyecto Saber and I met with their teacher and their para yesterday with Veronica Gallardo and we had a really great meeting to look at how we are going to facilitate this in the second semester but we feel that we need to get a teacher started right away to catch those students who are falling in the cracks and who aren't taking the right classes and who are kind of lost in that big system.

So we're moving forward on that and it's pretty exciting to finally have something in place.

We know there's a huge need everywhere but West Seattle still is our biggest demographic of Native American students.

I wanted to talk about the Since Time Immemorial and the training that we've done around that.

We had a training August 24th, September 1st.

We're having one next week on October 13th with the librarians.

We also are working with curriculum and instruction to do another full day of training on Since Time Immemorial, a Saturday and two three-hour sessions as well to have those completed by January.

We hired somebody to put together our Native American library which is Huchoosedah and we have a whole bunch of books and so it's Dr. Nyland's vision that we have that uploaded into Seattle Public Schools and we would have it by grade K-12 so teachers who are looking for resources don't, it would be available to them and then they could contact me and we're still trying to figure out how we're going to get those books out.

But it's a really, it's a great start for the teachers to have access to all of the books that we have.

I wanted to talk about the cultural training at Ingram.

Equity and Race did that in June, I believe it was June 3rd and so that went really well.

And since then We had the whole team from Ingram come to our professional development for Since Time Immemorial including a lot of their ELA teachers as well and from what I was just told that they have a, outside of their library they have a Native American display for students to see.

which is going out there to work with them because they want to start their Native American club back up again.

We've had a lot of participation through Ingram recently which is really, we're really happy about that.

I also, there's also the recognition of the Robert Eagle Staff Middle School which is wonderful and Indigenous People's Day.

I want to just let you know that I haven't done this on my own.

I've had great partnerships with teachers.

We have such great teachers and principals that want to do this work that call me and ask me what can we do.

My staff goes out and help them.

Shanna Heath, Casey Henry and Shanna Brown who is a teacher at Broadview Thompson and who is the lead developer for the Since Time Immemorial curriculum.

and I came up with what we put in the principal's communicator to get out to the schools for teaching on indigenous people's day and so we asked all the schools to make an announcement in the morning to celebrate indigenous people's day and there were some did you know facts that they could use unless they wanted to come up with their own.

And so we had, you know, a basic to cover it, and then we did some read-alouds, more depth, and some videos, and what not to do.

What not to do for indigenous peoples.

Don't do art.

You know, we don't want the buckskin paper bag and the popsicle stick feather.

displayed and I know that's been such a thing embedded in all school systems but you know there's a lot of teachers that are really excited about indigenous people today and really teaching, intentional teaching in the school around this as Dr. Nyland likes to discuss with me is identity safety and I agree with that.

That's why my staff is native and so I'm hoping when I am hiring for more staff that we can get more native teachers to apply for these positions but it's been a challenge because there are not a lot of teachers, native teachers that are certificated.

We have some examples in here of schools who have informed me of what they're doing.

We haven't compiled it all.

I know that there are more teachers doing things, we have Pathfinder, Licton Springs, Fairmont Park, Nathan Hill, South Shore, Graham Hill that are doing wonderful things with students in the schools.

I myself would love to be in the schools on indigenous people's day but I have been Mayor Murray sent me an invitation to spend the afternoon with him at a roundtable discussion to discuss urban Indians in the Seattle area so I felt that I needed to accept that invitation and I will meet with him and some other people on Indigenous People's Day.

And you know I just want to say that through all of this really in looking at putting, when we drew up the resolution for Indigenous People's Day it wasn't just me it was Teresa Hale, it was Shauna Heath, Bernardo Ruiz and Ronald Boy as well.

We sat together and worked on what that Indigenous People's Day would look like to support the city of Seattle.

And my staff helps me tremendously.

They're so great and I don't know what I would do without them and I just want to also say that I'm very grateful because there's a woman here who's on my parent advisory committee and I haven't seen her and I'm just glad Chandra Hampson is here and I'm just so glad that she's here tonight so I could say I have somebody from my parent advisory committee even though she wasn't here for me but I feel like she's here.

I feel like there's a lot that we do that we could do better.

I definitely could do better in getting the information out but we're so busy.

Being short-staffed.

I'm busy in the schools right now with IEPs and 504s.

Trying to get students whose siblings are in one school but because the boundary changes their younger sibling was sent to another school and we're trying to get them together because often times these families are single parents who have after school and before school.

So we've been super busy.

You know, we will, I will make a better effort at putting this information out.

I sent out an email and a newsletter.

We'll continue to send more updates as we get them to the board as well.

Thanks for your great work.

Thanks for the report.

Thank you.

Thank you we appreciate the work that you're leading and thank you to all of your team members for the work that they're doing as well.

It's important work.

Yes it is.

Thank you.

Looks like Director McLaren would like to make a comment as well.

So I had a question but I think you answered it.

You had mentioned that there were some positions that were not filled and then it sounds as though you've been they are posted you have not been able to find the people.

We're trying to hire we do for identity safety we do want to hire Native Americans to be in our program because you know that's where our students connect the most.

For whatever reason that they're not you know raising their hand in school or they need extra help when we do have native staff come in and work with them.

My staff doesn't pull students out.

We work, my program is academic based so we work with principals and counselors and teachers in the classrooms offering support however way we can and often times it leads to co-teaching in the classroom.

And so we're hoping to fill that.

We have interviews set up next Friday for the Native American intervention specialists and after Vicky retires we're going to be hiring for a Native American Title I consulting teacher.

And then we did hire someone for the librarian and then we're looking at Chief Sealth in the future whenever that comes together.

Thank you for your work.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright, so it is after five o'clock, and so we will now move on to our public testimony section of our agenda.

And I'm going to assume though I can't see it on the screen in front of me that it is a fact that the rules for public testimony are on the screen to my left your right that I can't see.

And I would ask that speakers be respectful of these rules.

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

I would also like to note that each speaker has a two minute speaking time and when the two minutes have ended you will need to conclude your remarks.

And so with that what I will do is read the first three and if the first speakers could come forward and then the others kind of be ready in the queue following that would be great.

Alright, so the first speaker is Eli Consker, Jada Standing Rock-Peterson and Stella Ramos.

The second speaking slot goes to Carolyn Kramer and the third to Chris Jackins.

While you guys are coming up, I'll just clarify that confusion that was a bit earlier.

We try to have a student actually participate in the board meeting up here with us and you can see that empty spot down there on the end and so in schools in session we try to have someone participate and that earlier student comments was an opportunity for that person to speak.

In addition to that, we try to hold the first public testimony spot for students as well.

That's the slot that you guys are filling.

So with that, when you start talking, the two minutes will start, the meter will start running and we'll let you go ahead.

Hello I am Eli, this is Jada and this is Stella.

We are from Nathan Hale High School.

Eight years ago Nathan Hale had hundreds of thousands of dollars distributed to clubs, sports, and ASB activities.

This money came from vending machines containing regular healthy food.

Can I ask you to pull that microphone out and maybe put it right up close, there you go.

And plain popular foods.

When they were removed we lost, we were down, we yielded 10% of what we were making before.

These, in response the school board promised that we would be compensated for our losses.

The new money was supposed to come from advertisements around the schools and publications.

But yet we have yet to see any of that money.

Nathan Hale ASB received 35 budget requests last year to distribute to clubs and we could only afford to support 25 out of 35 budget requests at just 15% capacity.

90% of our students are involved in ASB activities and 90% of those students end up graduating on time.

Being unable to fully support our club is detrimental to our students and school overall.

So when are we going to receive money from advertising?

Why haven't we gotten any money from the advertising?

How are we going to support Nathan Hill ASB activities and how are you going to accommodate our needs?

Without any money how are we going to support our community?

The school board has left us in a financial crisis.

With the vending machines where students were allowed to have the choice to eat, we were able to work with over hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Without the vending machines, it hasn't improved eating habits.

Now students buy the food at local stores to bring here, and that leaves us with only $1,200 in vending revenue as of last year.

The school board promised you would make up that difference.

If you cannot or will not pay us the money you promised, allow us to restore the vending machines.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you to each of you.

All right, so we go to Carolyn Kramer followed by Chris Jackins and Sasha Demirjian.

All right, here we go.

Hey, good evening, my name is Carolyn Kramer and I served as the chair of the district's wellness task force.

It was a great presentation to have before me because I'm going to touch on some of what they talked about.

So I helped facilitate the creation of the PE policy you guys saw earlier this year, a recess policy and the wellness policy that you'll be voting on tonight.

I've worked with the district since 2004 to support healthy schools and healthy kids.

I do this work because when I was a kid I really struggled in school and honestly I don't want other kids to have to struggle like I did.

And I know and I think you know that health and wellness are really the base of any safety net in a district.

I'm standing here tonight because the work of the wellness task force is not done.

Our task force term of 18 months was not enough time due to a multitude of things outside of her control including the nutrition services manager resigning in March with no replacement to date.

We created great policies, however, without further work, there is no guarantee that any award will be implemented, which is what those guys are talking about, because district staff do not have the capacity to develop procedures and implementation plans, which is exactly what happened with Nathan Hale and ASBA years ago.

There was never support from implementation.

Good health is the base of being able to do anything, in particular, being able to learn.

When kids are hungry, depressed, tired, and distracted, they are not ready to learn.

Kids who struggle the most are the kids living in poverty and kids of color.

We know these facts, let's change them.

So please do what's right tonight, let's make wellness a policy in Seattle schools.

So first, pass the wellness policy you guys will be seeing tonight, it's a really good one, we've worked hard on it.

Two, please reauthorize the wellness task force to finish the work, work that is clearly detailed in the final committee meeting notes that I'll send you.

Three, request that leadership bring you the recess policy and that the task force develop back in April.

SCA's new contract guaranteeing 30 minutes of recess helps enormously.

However, recess policy will assure sustainability as well as address the serious and real issues of recess being withheld as punishment.

Please make wellness a priority for the 52,000 kids in Seattle schools.

Thank you.

Chris Jackins and then Sasha Demirjian.

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. On the collective bargaining agreement with the Seattle Education Association, two points.

Number one, comparing the final agreement to the previous salary proposals, the SEA appears to have given up seven times as much as the district.

Number two, Appendix T of the contract is a form which allows a school to waive any provision of the contract apparently without school board approval.

On the Wilson Pacific total contract cost of $81.5 million the district closed Indian heritage school, sued the city landmarks board and demolished an official city landmark with native significance.

Please amend this action to require the reopening of Indian heritage school or else vote no.

On the recent adoption of a moratorium on out-of-school suspensions for certain nonviolent behaviors, five points.

Number one, it seems that there could still be in-school disciplinary actions for these behaviors.

Number two, will the new in-school disciplinary actions still be reported?

Number three, how will in-school disciplinary actions affect individual education plans or IEPs?

Number four, will in-school disciplinary actions be subject to appeal?

Number five, without some form of review and appeal how does one know the effect of in-school disciplinary actions?

Perhaps this is too harsh a comparison but some nations use what they label as psychiatric evaluations and treatment as a substitute for incarceration without due process.

On school capacity we heard from state legislators tonight.

Our state legislators also helped to pressure the school district to sell off schools like Crown Hill University Heights, Allen-on-Finney and Fauntleroy just when the district should have been keeping its schools.

I and others went to court to try to stop those sales.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right Sasha Demirjian, Jana Robbins and Liliana Penuela.

Good evening my name is Sasha Demersian and I'm the mother of two elementary students in Seattle.

I stand here tonight in support of the wellness policy and wellness of Seattle public school children in general.

I ask you to please use your power to ensure that all the children in our city have a healthy foundation at school.

Our children's basic needs must be met.

Here's what I've been hearing from families across the district so far this year.

There are numerous reports across the district of kids not getting 20 minutes of seated lunchtime, some still getting just 15 minutes of lunchtime period, including standing in line for lunch.

In this time, kids have maybe gotten to their main dish, but very unlikely to any fruits or vegetables.

Also, there are many reports that recess is being taken away as a form of discipline and this is in direct violation of K-12 health and fitness learning standards.

Administrators and teachers should know this just as they should know that recess is considered instructional time per the Washington state legislature.

We seem to be seeing either a lack of awareness of existing policies and or a lack of ability for schools to implement them.

Both aspects need to be addressed.

This wellness policy is an important first step in ensuring the health and well-being of Seattle students.

And for the sake of Seattle school children's wellness I further ask you to reauthorize the wellness task force to complete their important work and please see the recess policy through as well.

But please don't stop there.

Do not let these great policies like the lunch policy languish in inaction.

See that the sound research and work put into these wellness, PE, lunch and recess policies are put into motion.

Create and support procedures and plans for education and implementation.

Set these policies and procedures up to succeed.

Provide the schools the funding, training and support they need to enact these procedures and in real time.

Without policies, procedures, funding and support at the district level, our students will receive supports based primarily on what local PTAs are able to provide and that would not be equitable and should not be okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Jana Robbins.

Walking to school last week I joined up with another parent at Leschi Elementary that I hadn't run into for a couple of years.

I asked her how the school year was going for her kids.

She said she was frustrated and had to call the school the day before and I asked what was going on.

She said that her two children have been coming home so hungry and falling apart.

She said that her children are supposed to eat breakfast and lunch at school every day and she is angry that her children are telling her that they don't have time to eat and they are being told to throw away their food.

She talked about not understanding how the school can expect them to learn when they are hungry.

She talked about being frustrated that they want to eat, don't have time to eat and are throwing perfectly good food away.

Only to come home and be so hungry that she now has to feed them a large snack right before getting started on dinner.

This is a financial burden for her that she does not believe would be there if her children were just able to eat the breakfast and lunch they count on every day at school.

And then at the end of her talk she told me that she felt bad for calling the school to complain.

She felt bad.

I feel bad too, not for speaking out but because a year after everyone in this room has been told about two short lunch times, food waste, hungry kids, teachers and parents having to pay for and provide snacks during valuable academic time, and hot lunch kids getting the shortest time to eat, it is still happening.

The school board lunch policy and procedure is still not being followed.

In order to reduce plate waste, increase nutrition consumption and actually eat enough to get through the day, children need their 20 minutes to eat and additional time as needed for standing in line.

The current lunch procedures are great.

They are solid.

They just need to be implemented and have an accountability process.

Every day parents are posting stories about kids coming home with nearly full lunch boxes and falling to pieces and losing weight.

Every day parents are posting about kids being kept inside from recess to finish an assignment or because an individual or class disciplinary reasons.

Please conclude your remarks.

Basic needs to eat and have breaks are a human right not a privilege.

How will the wellness policy and all its related lunch policies be implemented and followed?

Thank you.

Alright the next person is Liliana Penuela followed by Dawn Alexander and Eden Mack.

My name is Liliana Penuela.

and I am the Greenwood Legislative Affairs liaison, along with two other people, and we are working as hard as we can right now.

We have so much work with you, what the school district did to us, and what the state legislature wants to do to us.

We cannot keep up with it.

I also would like you to know that I started something called Soup for Teachers.

We had no voice, parents did.

And I said, the one thing we can do is feed the teachers.

And we did it.

We fed them all over Seattle.

So this is what happens when I get mad.

I do something radical, OK?

And with respect to the legislative agenda, I'm prepared to work with you to do something radical to get the state legislature to do their work.

I was going to do a lot more.

I don't have prepared remarks, but I mean, levy swaps?

No, absolutely not.

I also want to point out something to you.

You know who cares about education?

Women, children, immigrants, people of color, you know who doesn't care?

Boeing.

They got our tax money, and we get nothing.

I mean, I have it at the point where I think, do we have to threaten to leave the state en masse?

Parents and children, just leave the state.

That's what Boeing did.

You've got to help us, man.

Sherry, I'm going to see you on Saturday.

I look forward to it.

Thank you.

Alright our next speaker is Dawn Alexander followed by Eden Mack and Jessica Logan and I'm not sure that I see Mr. Alexander here in the room.

Alright let's go on to Eden Mack, Jessica Logan and Margaret Moore.

You're going to hand, yeah, if you hand it around.

Hi, I'm Eden.

Good to see you guys.

I'm here today for two reasons.

First, I want to congratulate you on the introduction of the resolution to request that the state promptly and fully comply with the court's orders in the McCleary case.

Thank you for taking that on.

And secondly, I have concerns about the proposed legislative agenda.

I think it might be a little incomplete and insufficient.

I personally spent a lot of time this past year advocating Olympia.

And per the McCleary decision, and as reiterated in the contempt sanctions ruling in August, the state is responsible for providing all of the funding needed for basic education.

This means actual costs of teacher compensations and the cost of school buildings, too.

They're presently ignoring the court's orders, and our schools and children continue to try to make due, which right now means cutting teachers a month into the school year.

We all need to raise our voice louder including Seattle Public Schools voice and we need you to clearly say what is needed and is the legislative agenda that provides the script for what you guys are saying.

And last session the state fell billions of dollars short.

They didn't fulfill most of the priorities that Seattle Public Schools and the PTA had on our agendas.

They did not fund the capital costs for the 350 new classrooms that we need.

They did not fix the school construction assistance formula as Senator Peterson pointed out.

They did not do a lot of the things that our kids need and we've been asking for.

Yet unfortunately most of those things are missing from this year's agenda.

I think it's a really good start but shouldn't the legislative agenda make fully funding education the number one priority and shouldn't the district continue to advocate for funding for the buildings that we need.

I respectfully request that you revise the legislative agenda to at least include all the issues from last year's that were not satisfied.

I brought copies for you, you're looking at them, of last year's legislative agenda, yours, and also Tacoma's because it has some things on there that you might want to refer to as well.

And let's hope that the governor and legislators will start to act to fully fund education when we join all of our voices together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright next is Jessica Logan followed by Margaret Moore and Eddie Rye Jr.

Hello thank you.

My comments regard the student assignment plan and how students can access various programs and schools.

I cannot commend Seattle Public Schools enough for taking the initiative to create the international education programs.

It was always my intention to have my child participate in one of these programs.

However, when the time came to enroll my child, I was shocked to find out that these programs are only available to a lucky few.

As I researched the situation, I found that not only was my daughter number 27 on a wait list of 75 children, I found that there were approximately 284 children waiting, hoping to access these schools and programs.

I realized that public schools are only mandated to provide a basic education and that these services go above and beyond a basic education.

And that is why it is so disturbing to me that the vast majority of international schools are not option schools, leaving most families with no hope of ever accessing these programs.

If the majority of schools offering international programs are neighborhood schools does that not create unfair access or unequal access to these special privileges?

My local school John Muir elementary is a great school but it has no foreign language program Therefore, the district is offering other children an advantage and benefit that my child has no opportunity to access purely because of our address.

And most families cannot afford to relocate in order to access these services.

I want to know how the current enrollment system is not creating unequal and unfair access to these programs.

If all special programs such as the international program were optional and all students had to apply for the limited spots either to win or lose in the draw, in my estimation, this would be equitable.

Right now, I am unable to see how it is fair or equitable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Margaret Moore, Eddie Rye Jr., followed by Valerie Cooper.

Good evening I'm Margaret Moore Yakima Nation Seattle area educator and board member of the Urban Native Education Alliance but tonight I'm here to speak to you about Licton Springs and inform you of some great news that we have there.

First of all before I forget I'd like to invite all the board members to come to Licton Springs for our Indigenous Peoples Day assembly that's going to be happening on Monday at 945 so you'll have an opportunity to see storytelling.

We have five students that are competitive dancers that will be dancing.

It should be an interesting morning so please come if you're at all available.

As you may know Licton Spring has the highest percentage of Native American students of any K-8 in the school district and is the only native focus school in Seattle Public Schools.

and our enrollment is growing greatly.

In fact last week one of the teachers who teaches 5-6 split said that she asked her students and 45% of them identified as native affiliated.

Dr. Nyland I had a chance to meet with you briefly in December 2014 when you first came to Seattle Public Schools and had a chance to speak briefly with you after that meeting at the Duwamish Longhouse about the native education situation in Seattle Public Schools and I spoke to you at that time about my conviction that part of the reason that we have a high number of dropouts among native students is because our expectations are not high enough.

and talk to you a little bit at that time about best practices of native education and best practices of gifted education and how those two can come together.

I still have that same conviction and moving forward a year and a half later John Chapman and I put together a Gates Foundation grant which we received so we have money for this year and hopefully for the next two years which we're hoping will come to about $150,000 to do the work.

of pulling together native education and gifted education.

I would like to know how Seattle Public Schools would like to partner with us.

Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you.

Alright we go to Eddie Rye Jr., Valerie Cooper, Robert Barnes and before Mr. Rye starts I'll just point out that I'll look to them to keep count but there might be one or two spots left if somebody wants to come up and sign up still.

So I'll go ahead and turn it over to you now.

Yeah, Eddie Rye Jr. one of the co-founders of the Martin Luther King celebration in Seattle.

It's been held at Garfield for over 30 years.

A group of us came to you last year because we were getting a run around in terms of using the facility.

It's really sad because the only public school Dr. King spoke at in 1961 was Garfield High School.

It's really unfortunate you have an administration that's adverse to celebrating Dr. King's national holiday at Garfield.

After we came to you last year, we went up to Garfield for the event.

We found that the gates were locked.

People could not unload their materials for workshops.

We had a hard time getting the food in.

The classrooms where we had workshops were trashed.

And I just think it's really unfortunate that we brought this to you last year and told you the situation we had only to have the Garfield administration put us through all kinds of changes and virtually tried to sabotage the program.

Now I realize the basketball tournament is very important.

but every high school in the city is closed.

We've been having a celebration at Garfield for over 30 years and it's unfortunate that young folks don't have enough respect for Martin Luther King Jr. to disrespect and not acknowledge his day is just really unfortunate.

So who could they be teaching our kids?

And out of all the schools in the city, Garfield needs Martin Luther King.

I keep up with the news as well.

And you know what I'm talking about.

But I think it's really unfortunate to have a commitment from the board.

We didn't get the chance to talk to the superintendent.

But to have a commitment from the board that we would have this event at Garfield and then have the administration sabotage the event.

OK.

I know that the same game plan is up right now.

And I'm coming to you real early.

I want to make sure that the board, if the board can't do it, the superintendent, advise the Garfield administration that the Martin Luther King event will go on as usual, unimpeded as we had last year.

It was really unfortunate for us to come down here and then go up to Garfield and find everything locked up, classrooms trashed.

All that was deliberate.

So I just want to let you know we're very concerned about it.

You're elected officials.

I hope you can do something about it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, Valerie Cooper, Robert Barnes, David Posner.

Hi I'm Valerie Cooper and I'm a mom who's spoken to you before from Lawton Elementary.

I have a first grader at Lawton and I have a daughter who will be at Lawton in two years.

We're grateful for our legislature and the board's work for the funding that will happen for the Magnolia School which will come on board two years which was otherwise expected.

And that is going to help our capacity issues within Magnolia.

But the Magnolia community itself is planning on 30 more thousand people moving into the area within the next several years especially with Expedia coming to the neighborhood.

As a result, we know that Magnolia will continue to have crowding issues into the future and Queen Anne is already having exceptional capacity issues.

While at Lawton we received an extra FTE to make a K1 split, we don't have the resources available if this bubble in large amounts of students persists into the long-term future.

We have no further space for an additional FTE.

What I am hopeful that we can see is that we can push the legislature to fully fund our education in a much more strong way.

I understand that we're limited in terms of our amount of funding that we can put towards classrooms, buildings, and smaller class sizes but that's what we have to do to get that to happen and that money needs to come from our legislature.

And the McCleary ruling is saying that we need to have all of the funding by the 2017-2018 school year, which is just two years away.

And the state is responsible for funding the facilities needed.

They should have given millions more past the budget to fund the buildings that we need.

They didn't.

And so as a result we need to hopefully have funding for buildings for the whole district to be able to fund basic education.

If we have any hope that the district will start planning for the school buildings and the capacity we need we need to have funding for school buildings from the state as a part of our Seattle schools legislative agenda.

Finally, a quote that I had seen recently, students who loved at home come to school to learn, students who are not come to school to be loved.

So we have to remember all the needy students that we have in our midst who have extra help that they're going to need from their school and class size matters in that regard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Robert Barnes, David Posner, Kristen Donovan.

Mr. Barnes, is he here?

All right.

We'll circle back before we go to the wait list.

David Posner.

I don't see him here either.

What's that?

I still didn't hear you.

No, he's crossed off.

Kristen Donovan.

Is Kristen Donovan here?

Well, OK.

Chandra Hampson.

Yay, we have someone.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

I'm Chandra Hampson, PTA president.

representing Sandpoint Elementary speaking to the October teacher and staff counts announced on Monday.

We are a Title I school of 275 with 32% ELL and 40 to 50% free and reduced lunch which varies apparently depending on how many of our parents complete their nutrition services paperwork.

along with some 25 other schools we will now lose one of our 12 full-time homeroom teachers and a .9 combined ELL SPED full-time equivalent.

The only options we have currently even with support from PTA fundraising cut mostly from existing programs supported by the PTA would result in a shift in class and teachers for 54 kindergartners and 13 first graders.

Two years ago as our enrollment shifted and half splits became subs which became classrooms some 25 first graders experienced three classrooms in five months.

The toll on the kids, parents and staff was significant.

When you combine evidence of structural school transitions, lowering student achievement with the extensive research on the positive effects of teacher student relationships on elementary school students it is perfectly clear that moving teacher student placement one month into a school year is not a decision that promotes or protects student academic achievement or social and emotional well-being.

The expectation we have created that PTAs can cover the cost of inadequate funding which sets up an imbalance of resources for high income over low income communities is unconscionable.

Instead what we are asking for today is a commitment to stop moving peas around on a plate in the form of class ratios, a board game which is about our children's lives, and instead work together as partners to create a more equitable and empathetic financial solution even if it means deficit spending so that we can show Olympia what full funding looks like in reality.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, the next speaker is Davina Dilley followed by Rick Burke and Cecilia McCormick.

Hello I am Davina Dilley and I teach first grade at Alki elementary as do these three other women.

We are a team of four first grade teachers at Alki that are being impacted by the staff reduction.

We at Alki are losing a .5 PCP teacher as well as 1.0 FTE of a general education teacher.

For us that means that we will have a reduction in school staffing that provides student supervision during lunchtime and that guarantees all students have the 20 minutes of seated time at lunch.

It will be a reduction or elimination of time for art, PE, and technology for all of our students, all 414 of our students at our school.

It is a possible loss of common planning time, our PLCs.

Possible increase in the number of classes per day for the specialist teachers.

First grade class sizes will now shift from the current of 21 or 22 students per class to 26 a class.

We will also have second grade classes that shift from 23 to 24 students in a class to 26 to 27 kids per class, which is an overload.

At least two of our classrooms will be in overload status.

Creation of a first, second grade combination classroom in addition to the fourth and fifth grade classroom that we already have will need to be created.

We are looking at seven classrooms of students, over 40% of our students having to shift rooms, shift teachers, shift classmates.

It also changes our entire master schedule to allow those students to be able to have recess and lunch with students who are in their same grade level.

was allocated staffing for the express purpose of reducing a split class, of reducing split classes in our school.

Please conclude your remarks.

We have also been granted by capital and facilities an entirely, a wall built to divide one classroom into two classrooms and now that classroom will sit empty.

A brand-new classroom will sit empty.

Thank you.

All right Rick Burke, Cecilia McCormick and Jenny Evans.

Good evening.

My name is Rick Burke.

I'm a parent, school board candidate and avid supporter of sound instructional materials.

I'm here before you today, I'm concerned that our instructional materials process is broken.

A year and a half ago You as a board approved a K5 adoption process for our math and focus materials.

You committed $6.9 million towards this program to purchase the materials, to instruct professional development.

You formed a group, the math adoption committee of dedicated teachers and community members who looked at the programs for alignment.

for consistency, for rigor, for teachability, for formative and summative assessments.

I've heard now some things that concern me from teachers and parents.

The status of this program in the schools is unclear.

Parents tell me the books aren't coming home.

Teachers I talk to say that they've been told not to follow the books but instead to follow the new scope and sequence and to use online resources and handout worksheets.

So this really gives me pause.

Despite an expensive and transparent public process to select instructional materials, now a small group seems like they're directing what we're doing in math with a restructuring our board approved materials in a closed-door process.

So I ask the board and the superintendent to clearly communicate to our principals, to our teachers, our commitment to board adopted materials and our commitment to followings policy.

We didn't choose materials to align to MTSS.

We didn't choose materials to align to Smarter Balanced assessments.

We chose materials that we thought would do an excellent job teaching the kids and that teachers would have an excellent chance of delivering and had sound resources.

So please honor that commitment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll get it right this time.

Cecilia McCormick, followed by Jenny Evans, and then I'll make one more pass on Don Alexander, Robert Barnes, David Posner, and Kirsten Donovan.

Thank you.

You know me, Cecilia McCormick.

This year I have the honor and privilege to be president of the special ed PTSA and I wanted to touch upon some good things and some things that are still, still need work.

At this time the PTSA is collaborating with the special ed department to cosponsor a parent advocacy workshop for the deaf and hard of hearing communities and parents.

And I think it just is a wonderful exciting process to put this together.

Another good thing is I'm happy to hear that the district is working on training principals and teachers on alternatives to suspension.

My hope is that this training will be also delivered to the 6-12 schools because there are students there who need just as much support as the K-5.

Some of the not so good news is the zero tolerance policy for discipline in six through 12. It really has a terrible impact on students with disabilities.

A child with autism will act out.

And I understand that they're still being placed in in-school suspension or the principals are calling parents asking them to come pick up their child.

And none of that data is collected and it should be, it must be.

I'm going to ask parents to insist on that.

The final note, oh gosh, I ran out of time so you got off lucky on that one.

Thank you very much.

Thank you All right, so Let's go to Jenny Evans next and then one more call for Don Alexander Robert Barnes David Posner or Kirsten Donovan And we'll start the timer when you start speaking.

I'm Jenny Evans from Thornton Creek.

I'm an admin secretary there, and I'm here to speak tonight about the displacements that are currently happening in our buildings and At Thornton Creek, we've all, the district has just put this out to buildings and we're all kind of reeling with it.

I've heard other people talk about what's happening in their building.

At our building, we're losing both of our resource room IAs.

And I know the district believes that push-in service model for resource room is important.

We believe that too.

Those IAs deliver those valuable minutes from IEPs.

When they're gone, a lot of that push-in is gonna go away too.

We can't be alone, this has to be happening all over the district, wherever the 29 people, the IAs that are being displaced, they have to be, there's a huge issue when they leave.

For us, it's also safety.

Our resource room IAs also change an hourly change for a student that needs to be diapered every hour.

We have one with brittle bone.

We have all kinds of issues in our building.

We have kids that disappear.

They find these kids.

They make sure they don't slip away.

This is really important and this decision is impacting everybody.

Please put it off.

A part of the new contract develops this task force that we're all supposed to be talking about.

Making a decision like this, implementing it quickly and harshly after we've started the school year is like changing the rules midway through a football game.

We are playing the Super Bowl out here and you're playing with people's lives.

please dip into the rainy day fund, make this stop for right now.

Give us time to think about it and have a conversation with SPS and do something that's truly meaningful and not something that everyone is going to regret.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I haven't seen any of the four speakers whose name I called, so we'll go to the two that are on the wait list, and there would still be a slot or two if there's anyone that still wants to sign up.

So we'll go to Chad Smith and Jessica Holguin.

Good evening, my name is Chad Smith, I'm the parent of a first and fourth grader at Loyal Heights Elementary.

I also serve as the legislative and advocacy chair for the Loyal Heights PTA.

I echo and endorse Ms. Mack's earlier comments and encourage you to revise the draft legislative agenda.

Specifically I encourage you to more clearly and forcefully articulate that the so-called grand bargain of funding schools consistently with the McCleary decision is the district's overarching legislative priority.

Focusing as the current draft does on specific budgetary items potentially sends a mixed message to the legislature that something short of fully funding our educational system may be acceptable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jessica Holguin followed by Maison Blackbird.

Hello, my name is Jessica Holguin.

This is my son Vinny.

He's a first grader.

We're parents out in the Magnolia area.

And I just want to address the wellness task force.

I really hope that you guys vote on the stronger language and really help us out here.

Because as you can see, Exhibit A is crawling under the podium.

Kids can't sit still.

They need room to move.

They need time to move.

And when they're losing their teeth, do you know how hard it is to chew when you've got three loose teeth and one's gone, and you've got to hurry up and get that food in you and get out of there, because otherwise you're going to be hungry all afternoon, and you're going to get in trouble in your club, and then you're going to be crazy when your mom picks you up.

It's basic nutrition.

If they were working, they would be required to have a half an hour.

What's 10 more minutes?

When you want your kid to eat and actually eat their food, that extra 10 minutes is the difference between them being hungry and sane for the rest of the day or just being like totally off the rails.

And lastly, I just want to take a moment to just let you know that kids are trying their best to get through those lunch lines and remember their codes.

And when kids who can't get through the line in time to eat, hear that bell that it's time to go out to the recess, they forget all about eating.

I help out in the lunchroom.

I'm putting apples in a bag.

I'm saying, take this home.

Eat this when you get a chance because I know you're going to need it because I saw you throw half your food away because it was time to go run around and you can't sit still.

So can you help take care of our kids?

They're hungry.

They need to move.

Their basic human needs are being violated and we're counting on you to help us.

So please help us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mason Blackbird.

Good evening my name is Mysoon Blackbird and I'm from Sandpoint Elementary.

I have a third grader in Sandpoint Elementary and a seventh grader at Eckstein.

And I'm the new Sandpoint Elementary legislative chair at the PTA so I'm new to all of the process side so this is my first meeting so I am excited to be here.

But as Chandra was saying we are struggling with some issues at our school right now with staffing.

We are also struggling with the bell times issue that has come up for us recently.

What has happened in our area in Northeast Seattle is currently all our schools have more or less the same start time around elementary schools, around 9.25, 9.30.

And then the Bell Times proposal came out and said that all the schools in our area would start at 8 a.m.

except for our school, which is being given a 9.40 a.m.

start.

So a huge difference in start time and end time.

And our concern with that is that we want to be a part of our community.

The kids in our area, they won't be able to participate with the other kids, play dates, after school activities and other opportunities.

It is particularly important at Sandpoint Elementary because we are a Title I school Our kids already have many disadvantages and this is just one further disadvantage and I think maybe the Seattle school district was giving us a later time date, the perception was maybe that's what we wanted but really we want to be in sync with our community whether that's 8am, 830, 850, 940 just keep our neighborhood together please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so that brings us to the end of public testimony.

And I want to go back to an item that I missed.

I missed a cue when Gail Morris was up here earlier.

And we have a proclamation that will be read into the record on Indigenous Peoples Day.

And so, Jackie, is the person that was going to read it here?

No.

OK.

So do you want me to read it into the record?

OK.

And actually, if we want to each take a paragraph, that might be really helpful to me, because I'm seeming to be stumbling over my words here tonight.

So why don't I take the first whereas, and then we'll go down the table and see where we end up.

So OK.

So this is a proclamation called Indigenous Peoples Day.

And I'll read it as follows.

A resolution of the board of directors of Seattle school district number one King County Seattle Washington reaffirming the board's commitment to promote the well-being and growth of every district student especially of Seattle's American Indian and indigenous students.

Whereas the school board recognizes that the indigenous peoples of the land that would later become known as the Americas have occupied these lands since time immemorial and

Whereas, the school board recognizes the fact that Seattle is built upon the homelands and villages of indigenous people of this region without whom the buildings of the city would not have been possible.

Whereas, the school board values the many contributions made to our community through indigenous people's knowledge, labor, technology, science, philosophy, arts, and the deep cultural contribution that has substantially shaped the character of the city of Seattle and

Whereas, the school board has a responsibility to oppose the systematic racism towards indigenous people in the United States which perpetuates high rates of poverty and income inequality, exacerbating disproportionate health, education, and social crises and.

Whereas, the school board has a responsibility to oppose the systematic.

Whereas the school board seeks to combat prejudice and eliminate discrimination stemming from colonization and to support awareness understanding and good relations among indigenous peoples and all other segments of our district and.

Whereas the school board promotes the closing of the equity gap for indigenous peoples through policies and practices that reflect the experiences of indigenous peoples, ensure greater access and opportunity, and honor our nation's indigenous roots, history, and contributions.

Whereas the Seattle School Board of Directors has amended policy number 2336 required observances to observe the second Monday of October as indigenous peoples day and therefore be it further.

Resolved that all schools are encouraged to support of the well-being and growth of American Indian and indigenous students and recognize the contributions of native peoples on October 12 indigenous people day.

Therefore, October 12, 2015 is hereby proclaimed as Indigenous Peoples Day.

And the proclamation is signed by Dr. Nyland and enthusiastically supported by the board.

So thank you.

All right.

So that, bear with me one moment.

That now takes us to board comments and so I will look to my left and right and see if there is a director that would like to speak and I see Director Patu is ready to speak.

Good evening.

First I would like to say thank you to Eckstein Middle School for giving us a marvelous performance as always.

Thank you Eckstein students and also the director.

Second I want to say a congratulation to Duane Chappell for a great appointment as the new education director for the city of Seattle.

Although I am sad that he is leaving but I am encouraged that having him there will provide greater opportunity for the district and city of Seattle towards a better working relationship for the betterment of all students of Seattle Public Schools.

I also would like to announce my community meeting will be on October 17 at Cafe Vita in Seward Park on Wilson Avenue South.

Lastly I would like to say I was very impressed with the collaboration and support that the teachers received during the strike from parents and communities all over Seattle.

Also received the support from the city of Seattle politicians.

It was amazing to see that kind of relationship which is something I like to see within our Seattle public school district.

Kudos to the teachers, parents and community.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Others?

We'll go to Director Blanford.

I too would like to commend the Eckstein Jazz Band.

I walked in a little bit late because I got stuck in traffic but the second I walked in I was taken back to my days as a jazz musician, a junior high school jazz musician and they were far better than the sad band that I was a part of way back in the day.

I'd also like to thank the Seattle delegation for a very explicit show of support and of partnership with Seattle Public Schools.

It was inspiring.

I can remember lots of times where we would have liked to have had more of a connection with the Seattle delegation so I'm glad that that's happening and that it's public and that hopefully we can build on it and have one voice down in Olympia particularly on issues around funding both capital and operations.

The McCleary issue continues and I believe that it is at the root of so many of the challenges that we face in Seattle Public Schools and we have to try to figure out a way to split a dollar in order to provide for different schools.

In my mind we have to get that funding structure figured out so that we are not always taking from one school to give to another.

A former employee of Seattle Public Schools, Addie Simmons, is her organization, the Washington State Family Community Engagement Trust is leading a conference this weekend called United for Student Success and it is all about parent and family engagement.

And so I encourage parents and families if you have the ability to come to that meeting.

It is scheduled at 830 a.m.

to start at 830 a.m.

on Saturday, this Saturday at Evergreen Middle School in Everett.

I'll be giving a presentation there and as will a number of local and national experts to speak on the issue of community engagement.

I have a community meeting that is scheduled for October 17 from 10 to 1130 at the Douglas Truth library at 23rd and Yesler.

And lastly I want to give my thanks to Gail Morris for an inspiring and informative presentation about the work that her department is doing for Native American students in Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's go to Director Peters and then we will go to Director Martin-Morris after that.

Well I'd also like to thank the Eckstein Senior Jazz Band for their fantastic opening to our performance tonight.

I felt like we needed a glass of wine or something.

It was just a wonderful way to begin the evening.

And also thank you to our Seattle delegation for being here tonight and allowing us to thank them in person for the hard work they do trying to bring all the funding we need to our district from the state.

I know that's an ongoing battle.

Regarding the Martin Luther King Jr. event at Garfield high school it is my understanding that that event will happen and it just needs to be coordinated and I understand that Dr. Herndon is working on that matter right now so I appreciate the reminder this early on and it is my understanding that it will be able to happen.

To the Ballard newspaper team, congratulations on being a finalist with your talisman newspaper.

I know it seems to be an annual event so great job with your consistent great work in a field that I care a lot about.

My next meeting will be at the Queen Anne Library on Saturday, October 24th from 11 until 1. I also want to thank Gail Morris for her presentation on Native American studies and update and the numbers of students in the district.

I think this is important work and thank you very much for that and for reminding us of indigenous peoples day which is next week.

Regarding the head of nutrition services.

Perhaps we could have a status report about that in a Friday memo.

I know that is a position that we are still, I believe we are still looking to fill.

It's an important position.

That's fantastic news from Licton Springs regarding that grant.

Very excited about that so I look forward to hearing more about how that grant is going to be used.

and congratulations on the initiative that was taken to obtain that grant.

Regarding the start of schools and the changes, the proposed changes in staffing as a result of enrollment, as I said to another parent earlier today, predicting enrollment in the district is not an exact science.

You know this is a sad ritual that I wish we could discontinue.

So I will continue to advocate for less disruptive and less painful start of the year.

I really implore the superintendent and staff to see what we can do to find the funds to keep the staff in place in these schools.

I understand the economics of it.

I understand that we can't get the numbers exactly right in all the schools but this is really where it matters most.

you know the people we have in our schools are ground zero for helping our kids and we really need to prioritize that area for our kids and so I strongly urge us to find the funds whatever it takes to have as least disruption as possible and to have the staff there for our students.

and let's see regarding the math in focus which was our K5 recently adopted math curriculum.

I've also been hearing a number of concerns about how it's being used and so I would like to ask staff to explain the scope and sequence work because I think that will help people understand what's going on and that could be something that could go into a Friday memo so that we can publicly explain how the curriculum is being used and how that works with the scope and sequence.

And I think that is everything for me tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Martin Morris and then we will go to Director McClaren.

First of all I would like to publicly thank Ken Gotch our assistant superintendent for business and finance for the wonderful work that he did over the weekend in Phoenix Arizona.

He led a discussion around school budgeting and how to do more with less.

It was a training workshop for school districts, about 100 school districts represented in the Council of Urban Boards of Education and Ken did a fabulous job.

We did it in tandem with Cleveland Public Schools and the comments that I got from my fellow board members that attended the session were extremely positive.

A lot of people are very interested in how we do our budgeting and how we schedule it and make that work.

And so kudos to Ken for a job well done.

This, not this Saturday, on the 17th of October.

At the University of Washington is the annual MAP breakfast, Bridging the Gap.

This is the multicultural alumni partnership.

I know last year Director Patu was one of the recipients of the award at that breakfast for all of her tireless work for the Pacific Islander community.

I don't even think she knew that was coming.

She just showed up and they said come up on stage.

But it's a great event.

It's a time where alumni from the University of Washington come together and try to see what they can do to help keep the University of Washington a very diverse place for students to come and for staff and faculty to grow.

So if you have the opportunity, it's a great event.

It starts at 7.30 in the morning.

ends at 10 I know that's hard for some of you but there's a football game I think that morning as well so we want to be in and out before the craziness begins at the football game so please attend.

Thank you let's go ahead and go to Director McLaren please.

Thank you.

My community meeting that was scheduled for next week has been canceled.

I wanted to thank everyone who was here to testify or who is here to testify.

It's amazing what an incredibly intricate and true picture you present of the challenges that our students and teachers and parents face in our schools.

I just wanted to acknowledge in particular the student speakers who talked about the lack of revenue from the vending machines that were banned several years ago and this is a problem that we've revisited periodically and it's a matter of concern that we have yet to come up with a good solution to that.

Thanks to the Seattle legislators the fact that we have worked so closely together and so effectively together is really gratifying to me to see that kind of you know shoulder-to-shoulder partnering for the betterment of the students of our city is encouraging and it's a good omen for the future I hope.

And finally I wanted to thank our superintendent for going into detail about his learning walks at Cleveland High School.

I guess it's because I used to be a teacher.

That, those kinds of stories make my heart sing.

It's so exciting to hear about the way we are raising the bar in our schools and teachers are rising to the challenge of really focusing on their practice and elevating their practice.

And it takes very thoughtful, very well planned work and I really want to compliment Shawna Heath, our Director of Curriculum and Instruction.

and Michael Tolley, associate superintendent for teaching and learning and all of the staff who have participated in this very focused effort to raise the level of teaching and learning in our schools.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's go to Director Peasley.

Well I'm kind of putting my thoughts together here connecting a lot of dots and they all connect to money tonight.

There was a story in Seattle Times I think it was yesterday no I think it was today.

Seattle schools have one of the nation's largest equity gaps new study says.

We rank 47 in the US in our equity gap.

We also rank, is it 47 or 42?

I'm not sure.

Anyway, it's one of those two numbers, not good.

And it's right about where we rank in per student spending in the US.

So many of the issues that came up in public testimony also are tied to the fact that we don't have enough money.

Staffing adjustments.

We have to do that every single year because deficit spending is not an option.

So every single year we go through this process as painful as it is and it is very painful.

Bell times.

The rub with bell times is three tiers.

That's the rub.

Whoever is in the third tier is going to school at 940 in the morning whether we change bell times or not.

And the reason we have a three-tier system is because that's all we can afford.

We can't afford a two-tier system.

Even the 20 minute lunch time, that has to do with funding.

We are required by the state to increase student instructional time.

We are also required by the state to add, well the new high school requirement for graduation will be 24 credits in 2017. Both of these things together require that we make our school day longer.

And as you will find out later in this meeting, the new collective bargaining agreement that we reached with the teachers union does this in year three at an enormous cost.

And we don't have that money.

So it's going to have to come from somewhere and we don't know where yet.

So the point of this, even the ASB funds and advertising which we really do need to look at, we look at it, I think we looked at it last year, I think we need to look at it again this year and probably ask for an update on the advertising.

and where we've gone with that.

But this just all speaks over and over and over again to the urgent need to fully fund K-12 and McCleary won't get us above the middle.

But it will get us to the middle and right now we are at the bottom.

So this is up to our legislators.

We know our Seattle delegation is working very hard to make this happen.

But the parents, the citizens, all of the people who are impacted by this need to contact legislators and let them know that you feel that this is an urgent and high, very high priority.

There was one more point I was going to make on that.

And I can't remember what it was.

Anyway, until we are fully funded we simply can't do all the things that we know our students need in order to succeed.

We don't have the funds to do it.

So, it is unbelievably frustrating for us as a board.

It is unbelievably frustrating for the superintendent and his staff but that is the reality that we are in at this time and it is up to the people of the state of Washington to decide that fully funding public education is worth it.

So that's all I have to say right now, thanks.

Thank you.

Alright I'll go ahead and make a few comments.

I'll start by saying thank you to the Eckstein middle school jazz band.

I'm always so thrilled when they come and a special call out to Mach Escobedo.

My student was once upon a time in his regular band.

The man puts in an incredible amount of hours and the parents work really hard to support the program as well.

And the result is that those students feed into the nationally recognized programs at Hale and Roosevelt.

So thank him for his work and I'll just say that Mr. E is a personal favorite at our house.

We have a lot of respect for him.

Thank you to our legislators for the work that they did on achieving, getting us the $25 million in capital funds.

That was no small accomplishment in this economic climate.

To be able to convince a majority of their colleagues to give us that kind of money was a huge accomplishment, and they worked very hard to make that happen.

So I'd urge anyone to say thank you to them for the work that they did there.

Materials adoption, like Director Peters, I have seen some email traffic and I did forward it on to Associate Superintendent Michael Tolley and asked that he provide an update to the board on what the back story is there.

help us understand what that's about in the Friday memo.

So we'll look forward to that.

And then the next item, I don't, I try not to repeat what other directors say but it was like Director Peasley was reading off my notes because I had almost exactly the same things written and I think that bears, I think it bears repeating.

I was struck as I was looking through the topics and testimony and listening to the testimony how many of those items are budget driven.

Teacher reallocation and every school that is impacted has a compelling story including those that are receiving those teachers.

The lunch and recess, language immersion programs, ASB funding resulting from the loss of the vending machines of the unhealthy snacks in the vending machines, overcrowding in the schools and Director Peasley listed several others.

And when you peel those subjects back it comes down to the core of it, it comes to money and funding.

And the bottom line is, it doesn't matter how you reallocate it, when the pie is too small, there's not enough for it to go around.

And as to the reserve, we've already dipped into it once for, to cover the special education dollars that were withheld because we were not in compliance.

So, you know, that reserve money only goes so far.

And by law, we cannot deficit spend.

Our budgets have to be balanced.

We are not Congress.

We have to balance to zero and not overspend.

And so the bottom line is I need to issue to you all a call for action.

It needs to be phone calls, emails, townspeople with torches on the steps of Olympia.

We need voters, constituents, parents.

We need people down letting our state legislature know that we have reached critical mass on this issue as Director Peasley outlined and we'll talk about shortly.

It gets worse.

It gets worse from here.

And so we need everyone's support to help deliver the message because as you may have noticed the four that were up here were the four legislators were very familiar with all of us and our messages because we have an ongoing dialogue with them.

And they've been very supportive, but we need to get very loud and very clear what needs to happen.

And what we experienced in the form of a strike and not having the kinds of money to close on the issues that we needed to with our labor partners was not unique to Seattle.

It was Pasco, Kelso.

Spokane came right to the brink there was issues in Wenatchee I mean it's it's not just Seattle so I think we need to be very widespread in our message and we need to really start stomping our feet and making it clear that we have got to have some action and so with that I'll stop my soapbox and say thank you for all of your testimony and for coming here tonight.

All right So with that, why don't we go ahead and move on to the business action item portion of our agenda.

Do we want a break before we jump in?

Okay, why don't we take a 10 minute break because I'm hearing from directors they need a pause.

So we'll take a 10 minute break.

I see 635. We'll restart at 645.