Seattle School Board Meeting November 15, 2017 Part 1

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I'd like to welcome everybody.

Hello.

Can you hear this?

We good?

Oh yes there we go that's more than good.

Okay.

I would like to welcome everybody to the November 15, 2017 regular board meeting of the Seattle school board.

This evening Director Burke is not able to join us.

He is currently traveling on business.

So I also want to welcome the audience to our meeting.

Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Here.

Director Geary.

Here.

Director Harris.

Here.

Director Patu.

Here.

Director Pinkham.

Present.

Director Peters.

Here.

Okay will everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

There are no recognitions today and unfortunately the scheduled performance from Van Asselt Elementary will have to be rescheduled because the music teacher is sick today.

So I will now turn the microphone over to Superintendent Nyland for his comments.

Thank you.

Last night at the state of the district we honored our two outgoing directors, Director Peters and Director Blanford and given the fact that this is their last regular board meeting our staff want the opportunity to publicly say thank you as well.

Being a board member is a challenging job and a very important one in ensuring the health of our public schools.

They spend countless hours, last night I said 20 and some board members said whoa that's not enough it's more than 20 hours a week.

So we greatly appreciate the time that our board directors put in on behalf of our students.

Together we have done great things for our kids.

At this point I would like to invite Clover Codd and Cashel Toner to the podium to share a few words about our two outgoing directors and after they do that I will ask if Any of the other directors wish to make comments and then we'll hear from Director Blanford and Director Peters if you have any remarks and then we want to take a picture.

So we want to celebrate this to the utmost tonight.

And thank you for your service.

Hi good evening Clover Codd assistant superintendent of human resources.

I'm going to turn it over to Michelle Toner in just a moment.

We are here representing staff and would like to thank both director Peters and director Blanford for their service on the board over the four years they've attended probably over 80 regular board meetings about as many work sessions and countless committees spending their time with us.

We recognize that you do this work for the same reasons that we do.

For the kids.

And we also recognize that your compensation is minimal.

So you're basically volunteering your time.

And the amount of things that you receive is sometimes even less than that.

And you put in those countless hours because you believe in the beauty of public education.

So I would like to say a few words and thanks to Director Peters and then I'll let my colleague Cashel do the same for Director Blanford.

So I got to work with Director Peters closely as she chaired the audit and finance committee before becoming board president.

And I quickly learned her style is well attuned to the work of Audit and Finance.

She pays attention to the details and ask staff really good questions to make sure that the details line up.

Director Peters you've pushed us to be accountable to high standards and you have been a strong advocate that staff be transparent in our decision making.

You've also been a strong advocate for your constituents ensuring that staff listen to and take into account family voices.

Thank you for your service to our kids and we hope that you'll now be able to enjoy quality time with your friends and family and on Wednesday evenings in the foreseeable future.

I'm sure you'll be watching us on the television.

Channel 26.

Thank you.

Director Blanford it's been a real pleasure to work with you over the past four years.

You've been a consistent champion for the district's efforts to eliminate opportunity gaps including the expansion of our early learning opportunities.

Today over 300 preschool children are experiencing high quality preschool in Seattle Public Schools.

Thanks to your vision and support.

Thank you for pushing the district in a direction that will help more of our kids show up to kindergarten ready to learn alongside their peers.

You've also been a strong voice of fiscal responsibility and you have encouraged staff to consider the long term implications of our recommendations.

As Dr. Nyland noted at the state of the district last night you often focus our efforts by asking the question what problem are we trying to solve to make sure that our work is in support of serving children families and communities.

The question what problem are we trying to solve could be another way of asking us to lead through a lens of equity.

The goal of equity must be to create the conditions to allow all children to reach their full potential.

In short equity creates the path from hope to change.

Thank you for helping to change Seattle Public Schools.

We know that you do lots of work in the space of education and that you share your knowledge with many others.

But tonight we wanted to say thank you to you and Jeanette.

for helping to serve our kids.

The kids of Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you.

What board members like to make comments with regard to Director Peters and Director Blanford.

I'll make comments.

Thank you both for your leadership and guidance over these last two years.

I think of many of the board members that currently are sitting I probably came in with the least familiarity with the actual inner workings at the district having always sort of approached it as the adversarial from the outside.

And so I had to look to you and being that I was starting with people who were equally new had to see and watch and listen to you to see how it goes.

So thank you for showing me the ropes and.

Doing it in a way that surprised me in terms of all the things that I had heard about the board going through the election process was that it never agreed that it was dysfunctional.

And my experience personally is that while we don't always agree for certain I have been surprised at how many votes we come out on unanimously.

I mean significantly the vast vast majority.

And that even when we anticipate we're not going to come out unanimously we spend a lot of time trying to get to that point.

Sometimes putting off decisions continuing to meet with staff to get to something that we can all be comfortable on.

So all of our willingness to do that and your leadership in that has been appreciated on my part because I am certainly somebody who functions better in consensus than constant antagonism.

Sue thank you for being our president this last year and our vice president the year before.

I've appreciated so much your questioning and your critical eye.

Sometimes feeling that the antagonism was a little bit more than I personally was comfortable with and yet really understanding that in your heart of hearts you are fundamentally trying to protect the joy of education in the individual child.

And that's really an important goal.

Be it play or good food or appropriate education and not grinding down to a test score a schedule something that expects us to treat every child as an end and a data point.

And so thank you for that.

Because that's a super important perspective and it was really important to me to see that and follow your leadership in that.

So thank you.

And Stefan again to repeat much of the points I was writing them down and then they said them so I hate to be repetitive but certainly the equity piece.

And you know I came from a very insular place in this district and so had to learn a lot.

And you are representative of many groups of people that I was not familiar with.

So having access and watching you go out into the world and seeing who you were interacting with was a way for me to follow and know who had credibility in terms of representing groups out in the greater Seattle.

And so looking at you and your willingness to partner outside of our district and make those connections with the city with our CBO's and it reminded me how important it is and how much partnering we need to do.

And so I appreciated that in your leadership in that and keeping us focused on our goals and reminding us that we need to lead as a board and once we voted on our goals That we need to respect everyone by focusing on our goals we are respecting our fellow board members by saying.

Whatever how much we agree or disagree in terms of the process of getting to those goals.

Those are the goals we have and we now need to make sure that we're focusing on them.

And you are continually reminding us of that in the context of the money we spend the money we don't spend the voices that we're listening to and the ones that aren't in the room.

And so I will always remember that and appreciate that in terms of your leadership.

So thank you both.

I hope unlike the people who sat here before us or before me that you will continue to show up and advocate on part of the kids.

Some have but I am sort of surprised having been unfamiliar with the process how people just disappear.

I can't imagine having spent this investment in education and making the connections with these people and then not wanting to continue to work for the betterment of our children which is the betterment of our city.

So thank you.

I'm going to make mine just hopefully short but meaningful and thank Sue and Stefan for their leadership on the board here especially when we had four new board members coming on and looking for, could we look to you to help us out and you Betty helped us out to get us on track and going in the right direction.

Stefan, definitely your equity analysis and fiscal responsibility has stood out for me working with you here these last two years and I appreciate that.

It's very thoughtful and insightful for me to learn from your experience.

Sue, just your gentle and caring nature has been a blessing for me and I appreciate again the time we had and your leadership here your last year as the president.

for the executive committee.

And I just want to say thank you.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ and Hinoxin and any Nez Perce speakers watching excuse my Seattle accent.

But the Himalayan Hinoxin is the accomplished ones and I appreciate again everything that you've done.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Well then I guess I'm next up to both of you.

Thank you for the bottom of my heart.

I.

Am.

Beyond.

Impressed.

With the both of you and your honesty and your candor.

Even frankly when it hurts sometimes.

But growth doesn't happen if we're not straight with each other.

And I think that we all up here are trying to do our best for the right reasons.

And I honor your investment and have but a short picture of what that investment is.

I believe that like good leaders you are leaving this place better than when you found it.

And it's my hope that we haven't completely burned you out and your families completely burned out by your service that we can figure out ways as as director Geary was suggesting that we continue to get a return on your investment for Seattle Public Schools students and and for 10 years from now and for 20 years from now.

So much of what we do up here is profound and a little frightening.

And I think it's that kind of balance and look back and candor that I for one would appreciate in the future.

And I hope we can do it in a little less formal atmosphere.

And I'll bye.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Director Blanford you have any comments for us.

Thank you.

Thanks to my colleagues for those kind remarks and particularly thank you to Cashel and to Clover for for drawing the short straws and very admirably stepping into the void and providing some remarks.

Four years ago after I was sworn into office I shared my aspirations about helping to lead the school district to make progress towards its twin goals of excellence and equity.

I hope to do so with a collaborative spirit and with a sense of passion and urgency and to also do so humbly recognizing that no person has all the answers to the complex questions that we grapple with and that a great deal of deference is due to the superintendent and to district staff who are the professionals that we've entrusted with management and leadership.

I've spent a lot of time in self-reflection since announcing that I wasn't going to run again and I hope hope beyond hope that I have been moderately successful in those aspirations.

however bold and naive they were.

I think in many ways they were very naive.

But I hope that I have reached those goals.

Those were my goals every day when I walked into the building.

You know just allow me to add some value to the conversations to ask probing questions that get us to to talk about the things that we're not talking about.

And to think every day about the 52 or 53 or 54,000 students that we serve because we're not here for our own gratification.

We're not here because we get paid a whole lot of money.

We're here because we have been given this incredible honor to represent those students and those families and the communities that they come from.

And so I've tried to do that sometimes not as successfully but with my heart you know every day trying to be in the right place and trying to have the right pieces in mind.

And you know the thing that I struggle with the most on the board is kind of an unspoken belief that I think is prevalent in our community that those twin goals excellence and equity are at odds with each other.

That you can't have one without the other.

And you know I think about some of the most important classes that I took when I was in graduate school and our professors talking about not only can you have those you need to have both working in sync with one another.

That you need to have, you need to be trying to improve instruction and outcomes for every student that you are entrusted with.

And you need to have particular focus and attention on those who are behind figuring out ways to get them caught up.

There is a moral imperative to do that.

It's not enough to just talk about it.

It's something you need to be working on every single day.

And so my hope to those who are continuing and particularly to the new board members who are coming on board.

is they have a similar orientation that it's not equity to the detriment of excellence and it's not excellence to the detriment of equity that they work hand in hand and that you use that as the lens by which you make all decisions going forward.

It has been in many ways the privilege of my life to be able to serve as a school board director and to represent the community that I love.

I come from a family of people who don't even know what it means to be a school board director and many of my family members look at me like why are you doing this thing where you spend a whole lot of time and get beat up in public and you don't get paid for it but in many ways it's been the privilege of my life to be able to represent my community and I'm so proud to be able to have had that honor.

I would be very remiss if I didn't thank a certain 14-year-old child of mine and Jeanette who has spent an awful lot of hours without dad at home.

And I love her so much and am so appreciative of the sacrifice that she made that allowed me to be here.

And I'm so appreciative of my wife Jeanette Blanford who has put up with so much and so many times when I would come home and just be devastated by what happened during the course of the day.

And she would always be the person who got me to realize that another fight had to be fought the next day and that I'm blessed to have the opportunity to fight for kids that don't have anybody advocating for them.

And so I'm so grateful that my wife is here today and that she has been my wife and put up with all the crazy that I've had to go through for the last four years.

So thank you.

Thank you to staff for the beautiful beautiful flowers and to Clover and Cashel for your kind words.

So I want to thank the people of Seattle Seattle schools community for the honor of serving you these past four years.

I'm proud and humbled to have been able to serve you in the district as your president as your vice president as the chair of the audit and finance committee.

and the executive committee and to have served on the curriculum and instruction committee for two years including during the K 5 math adoption.

I've also been able to serve on the scholarship committee and as a liaison to and from the community.

So I joined the board with the objective of connecting district policy to our communities to our families.

Establishing greater respect for the many voices of our communities for establishing greater fiscal responsibility to invest in curricular materials beginning with math because we were behind in our math adoptions.

Embracing the diversity of our district and valuing and helping all our students fulfill their potential.

I believe I have been true to those objectives.

I aim to share with you all my skills and experience as a journalist, a parent, a researcher, a public education advocate, a former fact checker with consumer reports, An advocate for public education.

My background in communications and to some degree background in education and a longstanding commitment to social justice in all its forms.

When I think back to four years ago when I ran for office towards the end of the campaign when people would ask questions like why are you running?

You get tired towards the end of the campaign but you also have some clarity and you don't want to repeat the same talking points.

And so I remember when I was asked why are you running?

I simply said I hope to do some good.

It's my sincere hope that I've been able to do that some good.

Another more sardonic friend was actually with us this evening suggested a campaign slogan for me of vote for Sue Peters.

She'll make things less worse.

I hope at minimum I've at least done that.

So it's a sport in this town to beat up on the school board regardless of facts information regardless of who's on the board it seems.

It's a shame and it doesn't serve anybody well.

I honestly believe that the current board is one of the best most dedicated and skilled we have seen in many years.

It's also one of the most racially diverse and progress has been made in these four years.

Of course though it's never enough.

I would also like to tell the people of Seattle that there are good dedicated people working in the John Stanford Center.

Please support the district when it's doing good work and let us know when it isn't.

Constructively would be helpful.

I also want to take a moment to thank all the staff members who have helped me do my job.

Yes I ask a lot of questions I'm trained to do that as just I feel I need to have facts on which to make these very important decisions because the buck does stop with us and no matter what happens people hold the school board accountable for any decisions that are made.

And so it's a huge responsibility which I take very seriously.

Thank you though for supplying all the information that I've asked for.

I also want to thank all the families who have come to me over the years to my community meetings who have emailed me family students community members.

Your input has been invaluable and has helped me do my job.

So.

I've been advised that I should list some of the things that have happened in the last four years and so I'll go ahead and do that but I do acknowledge that it's never a solo act.

It's necessarily a team sport here.

We work together as colleagues on the board we work with staff we work with the superintendent we work with the community and so these are things that I was fortunate to be a part of in the last four years.

I'm proud to have authored or co-sponsored policy and amendments that established or addressed many important issues large and small from balancing a budget during a time of fiscal crisis to selecting more environmentally safe non-toxic surface material for our tracks and fields.

I'm proud to have had a hand in granting students and parents rights regarding assessments including the right to opt out.

Passing a resolution calling for replacement to the smarter balance assessments with assessments that are less discriminatory more fair and less draining of the resources of our schools and our students precious time.

Passing a moratorium on K-5 nonviolent suspensions.

Passing a resolution that affirmed our district's commitment to our district's rich diversity in our immigrant students.

Passing a resolution reestablishing our board's commitment to truly public not charter schools.

Passing a resolution recognizing the indigenous people of the land we are on the Duwamish people tribe.

Passing a resolution establishing indigenous peoples day which incidentally earned us a national mention and faux mockery on Stephen Colbert's the Colbert report.

I have consistently advocated for mitigation funds for the start of school.

I refer to it as a student stability fund.

I have supported the efficiency review of the central administration so that we can be fiscally responsible and we can make sure that we are directing as many resources as possible to our schools and that we're making the best uses of the resources we have.

I have supported funding for international baccalaureate at all of our three high schools that offer it.

I've supported advanced learning acknowledging the need investing in opportunities increasing diversities and simply defending these children from the unseemly and irrational prejudice that is fomented by too many in this district.

I have supported our teachers.

And sometimes that means and I'll tell this to our new directors who are joining us sometimes you're going to find yourself all alone with a vote.

You might be the only one in a 6 1 vote.

Every one of us up here has been in that position.

Don't be afraid to do that.

I was the only one to vote against an injunction against our teachers during a teacher strike.

I have supported our special ed students in our discussions of capacity and I was very proud to be a member of this board majority that advocated for adding special ed mandate to the city's pre-K program and maintaining the EEU program at the University of Washington.

I was part of the board that passed the bell time initiative that better aligns students school schedules with their biological needs making Seattle a national leader in this area as other districts follow suit.

In my four years on the board we've increasingly developed a board majority that values curriculum and understands that a key component of equity and is offering every student a fair chance of success.

To that end We have adopted K5 math materials.

We are piloting middle school math materials social studies middle school materials.

We have continued to support since time immemorial and we now have a commitment to ethnic studies.

I am proud of this work.

It is fundamental work.

I'm also proud to have been a part of a board in a district that for years has had clean audits, has balanced the budget through good times and lean, that has transitioned to superintendent leadership peacefully and will continue to do so, that has recognized that the district can no longer close or sell schools and buildings but has instead committed to opening and building new schools almost every year I've been on the board.

I'm part of a board that has voiced a commitment to every student of every race and every gender.

But we must make good on that promise.

I'm proud to be a member of a school board that knows we owe it to our students and families to get things right.

Crucial components like the student assignment plan, school improvement plans, funding as many educators and counselors as possible for our schools, recognizing that we have many students of various needs and there are gaps in outcomes that we can and must impact.

There is still much work to be done.

No question about it.

We need to create a district with more vision more imagination greater stability for our students and predictability for our families.

More options not less.

In our schools more joy less stress.

I would like to extend my best wishes to my continuing colleagues Leslie Harris, Betty Patu, Rick Burke, Scott Pinkham and Jill Geary.

They are conscientious, intelligent, they understood their role and duty they have to the public that elected them.

Each brings valuable skills and insights.

I congratulate my longtime colleague and friend Betty Patu on her decisive reelection to the school board for a third term and an opportunity to complete her valuable decades of work on behalf of the students of Seattle Public Schools.

And I welcome newly elected members Eden Mack and Zachary Pullen DeWolf.

Thank you for stepping up.

The district is fortunate to have you.

This is a rewarding job and of course challenging.

Your decisions will matter to so many and will have a lasting impact.

I know neither of you take the job lightly but I can also assure you you will be in good company and there will be moments of laughter and joy.

I found it amusing while observing on the campaign trail this time around on behalf of other candidates that there was a candidate who erroneously claimed that this board doesn't even speak to each other.

I had to laugh when I think of how many times at meetings I wish the board talked less to each other myself included.

So my main tip to the two new board directors is do your homework.

There's a lot of reading a lot of thinking to do.

Ask as many questions as you need to feel comfortable with your decisions.

Vote your conscience and don't be afraid to be the sole vote if that's where your conscience and intelligence leads you.

So the day must come when we treat the job of Seattle school board director with the respect and resources it deserves and requires.

And so it does not have to be a hardship and a sacrifice to serve.

After all we directors are called upon to oversee the largest school district in the state and a one billion dollar budget.

And no the mayor and city should not be called upon to take over.

It's crucially important that the people of the city have elected representatives on the school board who are answerable to them directly.

Research has shown that this is still the most accountable model of school district governance.

In terms of compensation this has been referenced before the board's maximum stipend of $50 a day only on days where we have meetings has remained unchanged since the 1980s.

Adjusting for inflation alone it should at least be $100 a day.

That still doesn't take us very far.

Board directors are only compensated for days when they have meetings.

We are not paid anything for hours spent researching and reading.

Directors do not have their own direct staff or office space other than two shared staff members in shared space.

I find it interesting that no one has made a point of the fact that we are now going to have four mayors in four months.

Meanwhile the school district is entering into its fourth year with the same superintendent.

So again there's a lot of misinformation out there about the school board the superintendent and the district that it would behoove us all to correct.

So above all I want to thank my family my children and my husband who gave up more than I realized they would to lend me to you.

Thank you for your patience and love.

You know more about the complexities of a school district than any teacher any teenagers should ever have to know.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you both for your great service and thank you for your remarks and with that I would invite the board to come down and we'll take a picture with this board and we have a plaque for you as well.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Very nice.

Thank you.

All right I still have to do a little bit more work before we let you go.

So thank you for your remarks and thank you for your service.

I would recognize as was commented on by our directors that EP2 has been reelected for a third term.

Congratulations.

And I would like to recognize Zach Wolf and Ed Mack who are in the audience tonight.

So if you want to stand and wave.

My apologies to Eden I neglected to introduce you last night.

I had your name written on my list.

I just read right by it.

I think you did.

You did.

OK.

No.

I feel better.

All right.

November as we know is Native American month and at our last board meeting I read read the governor's proclamation.

And last night we were joined at the state of the district by Boo Balkan Foster and Juan Betancourt who shared the power of their native education program at Chief Sealth High School and the importance of identity safety.

And Boo reminded us that they get to celebrate native history all year long not just in November.

Tonight I'll invite Gail Morris our manager of our title 6 Indian education services program to the microphone and she will introduce our advisory committee president and say a few words about our program.

And I think we also have a student presentation tonight.

And I guess Gail I would ask for a little guidance.

Normally when we do student presentations at the beginning of the meeting which we didn't do tonight we invite the board members down so you know about the presentation.

If you want us to come down and sit in the audience that would be fine.

If we can do it here that would be fine but we'll rely on you to let us know whether we should come down there whether we should stand whether we should sit.

I think sitting right there is fine because they are going to be right here on either side.

I'd like to thank you board of directors and incoming board of directors for having us up here for Native American heritage month.

I want to raise my hands to you Dr. Nyland for always being so supportive of our program.

I am going to let this lovely group of students introduce themselves because they are phenomenal.

Hello everyone.

As you know I was there last night.

If you weren't my name is Juan Betancourt Old Chief and my tribes are Squamish, Yakama and Blackfeet.

And I'm wearing the chicken dance outfit and that comes from my Blackfeet side.

It's part of the chicken dance society and I'm accepted into that and have those the rights to dance in this regalia.

And as superintendent Allen was saying Miss Boo and I'm sorry Gail here have helped all the native students at Chief Sealth with our class called the Shikachi and it's helped in so many ways like.

Last year is my first year there and as soon as I walked in that class it just you feel the good energy the good vibes and it's helped me get past through last year.

Helped me with grades.

Helped me get through this year with graduating and setting me on the right guide and I just want to give thanks.

And Chikaachib is the meaning of that word.

It comes from the Lushootseed.

I'm sorry how do I say it?

Sushi language.

And it means raising of the hands and we raise you guys we raise everybody in here.

Everybody who needs that strength and healing.

And I want to bring up my sisters here and they're going to introduce what is called the powwow squad.

And here they are.

Hi, my name is Shannon Nunikawasis.

I am from Onion Lake, Saskatchewan, Plains Cree Tribe.

I dance jingle, dress dance.

It's a healing dance, and I am part of the power squad.

So hi everybody.

I'm Baby Clarissa Morning Gun.

I'm 12 years old.

I'm in the seventh grade and I'm Yakima Squamish in Blackfeet and I'm dancing fancy here.

And our power squad started about last year or two years ago.

It's almost two years in March and it only started about eight girls and it just became bigger and bigger each year and each month.

And we fight against bullying and fight or dance to get our our veterans.

and for people who cannot dance and our elders.

And so, it's just been getting bigger and bigger each, and we want to just spread the word that if you're getting bullied, you're not the only one.

We're going to pray for you and dance for you to make it better.

I just want to raise my hand to them.

The beauty of fancy dancing and jingle dancing and chicken dancing and as I found out I want to take them on tour.

This is identity safety.

This is what we're talking about every day in our schools when our kids can come to school and be proud of who they are and what they do.

And I pray for people all the time too.

So I'm so happy you said that.

I'm a little emotional over that.

I would like to bring up the parent advisory committee.

And again I'll let them introduce themselves to you.

And I would also like to bring up just two staff members very quickly.

They're not going to talk but I think it'd be good to introduce them.

Can we ask if the students can stay for just a few more moments so that we can take a picture with everybody.

I was thinking of, and I didn't need to figure it out.

I would just like to introduce them very quickly because we have a new staff member.

So you know Richard Summers and he works as our secondary high school liaison and this is Dr. Georgina Bedoni.

She's new to our staff this year.

I just want you to get to know them.

I'm very happy to have them on staff.

Now I'm going to turn it over to Emma.

I'm going to let you guys go.

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you Dr. Nyland and school board.

I'm Emma Medicine White Crow.

I'm actually the president of the parent advisory committee for Huchoosedah program which is the native education program of Seattle Public Schools.

And the parent advisory committee is made up of parents of native students enrolled in Seattle Public Schools.

And our role is to oversee the title six grant.

But more importantly we're also the support for the native education staff in its mission to ensure academic success.

Of all our native students across the district.

and they support grades K through high school K through 12. And in that we believe that academic success of native students is grounded in a strong sense of cultural identity and belonging as well as safety.

Identity safety is so critical.

The PAC team is made up of elected officials.

We just were elected last last week was it?

I'm again.

president the vice president is Chandra Hampson who will introduce herself in a moment.

The secretary is Amy Markestam.

Our elder representative is Kay Fidler.

Our foster parent representative is Miller Hoyrup.

Our SPS teacher representative is Shana Brown.

Our members at large we have seven parents that are members at large.

We were blessed by having so many students attending the meeting who all said we want to be a part of the pack.

And because they're not here and their parents aren't here I can't identify them.

But I will tell you we had first graders through high school kids all say please I want to stand up and be a part of this.

As far as this being Native American heritage month my sister Boo is quite correct.

I'm Indian all year and I'm over 60. So it's my whole life.

But particularly during this month we'd like to honor the fact that we are currently on Duwamish band land tribe.

And we'd like to also recognize that Muckleshoot tribe is our treaty tribe.

I'd like to lift my hands up to Muckleshoot.

They've been very generous to our pack.

They've given us funding not only this year but last year for a total of $20,000 and that money buys coats jackets.

shoes and supplies and resources and backpacks whatever our students need.

They've been exceptionally generous with us and a really good partner.

We also partnered with the Chief Seattle Club in an effort to help families experiencing homelessness in finding housing.

And that was to the tune of $40,000.

And I know that Gail will give you an update on that but they want to increase that.

We also partner with other native community partners such as United Indians of All Tribes, Chief Seattle Club, the Cowless Indian tribe because we host a community gathering for the holidays and gift toys for tots at that event.

And you're all welcome to attend.

It's really a lot of fun and Santa does come.

Are the objective objective of our native education team and staff is literacy.

Dropout prevention and exceptionally well work done by who you met Rich.

But also our focus is academics.

and our students are the priority.

High school retrieval.

We only have one person doing that.

The needs are increasing.

And if you can see it in your hearts to increase the staffing it's needed.

We only have one family support worker working on the homelessness as well as acting as a resource person for some of our families at crisis.

And again that need is increasing.

More family support worker for native will be again something you might want to consider.

Chukachi.

I can't speak more highly than the work being done there.

Not only are the students flourishing but I'm hearing from other parents across the district that would like to see that successful model replicated because it's a win win situation.

It serves the students from Meany Middle School and in middle school is when we lose so many of our native students.

And the amazing students that you saw participating here.

They feel not only better about themselves but they want to come to school.

So it's reducing absenteeism.

The Native American Youth Leadership Academy that Rich is also a part of with Western Washington title six people has 18 students attending currently.

We need a librarian for our Meany middle school office that we have.

We've got an extensive gathering of resources for students and teachers to utilize.

But without a librarian it's hard to track things.

So I would appreciate funding.

I do write grants.

I'm doing that now.

But if you could give me some support and guidance we'd appreciate that.

It's very dedicated staff that we have in native education.

Academic academic student support in all our Seattle Public Schools is something that they do on a daily basis.

And because of FERPA they can't disclose much of what they do do.

However they they also serve as resources for IEP meetings.

Answering community questions about not just November and Thanksgiving questions about tribes or.

Any other questions they may have but they're available for parents who need resources and have questions or who kids whose kids are suffering from bullying.

They're kind of the go to people but that adds to their burden and their plate to help ensure students are identity safe and acknowledge who they are and to be successful.

There's a lot being said about how our students are failing and we want you to know that this team is making things better.

Our students are doing better and are better cared for because of this team of dedicated professionals.

We as a pack we do what we do to support them but we need your support as well.

Please support this team and help them grow to ensure our students success and continue to work with this pack.

We're here for you and we want to serve as your resource.

With that I'll let my other pack members speak.

Thank you very much.

Hi everyone my name is Chandra Hampson I'm Ho-Chunk from the Winnebago tribe of Nebraska and Ojibwe from White Earth.

I am a mother of two daughters a second grader and a fourth grader at Sandpoint Elementary.

As Emma said I'm the vice president of the parent advisory committee.

We meet the second Thursday of every month is that correct?

And we're always interested in having current and future board members join us as they're able to learn more about what we do on a week or month to month basis.

I personally volunteer at Sandpoint Elementary for twice a week after school program for our 10 native students out of our 220 we have 10 native students most of whom are qualified under McKinney-Vento.

And in addition to providing literacy support and other identity safety support we are also twice a week for an hour and a half.

One of Gail's staff comes and works along with one of the teachers from Sandpoint Elementary and we work with the kids on literacy identity safety and most recently we've been doing storytelling.

They've been learning through Roger Fernandez and Fern Renville have been working on the salmon boy story which is well known up and down the Pacific Northwest coast and are already ready to become little storytellers.

I couldn't tell you how grateful I am to have had the staff in our school and supporting these students.

Just in the few weeks that we've been going it's it's become quite a source of comfort for the kids to be able to come together and be with their other native students in the school.

There's about one they're pretty well spread out about one in each class so for them to be able to have that opportunity to come together twice a week is really impactful.

Thank you for all you do.

Let's invite all of you up and let's invite the board down and have the students come up so we can take a picture.

th th so

Thank you again for sharing with us all of the good work that the parent advisory committee does.

This last week we learned that we lost someone dear to Seattle Public Schools and many of our families.

Tracy Libros who retired in 2014 after a dozen years of service as the head of the Seattle Public Schools enrollment planning office passed away on November 2nd following a two year struggle with cancer.

And I've asked Pegi McEvoy to share some thoughts on Tracy and her service to Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you superintendent.

It is with great sorrow that I'm standing here to talk about a former colleague who was a legend in our district.

Tracy started her career in education as an elementary school teacher in Philadelphia.

She continued her studies and received a doctorate from Harvard graduate school in administration planning and social policy.

Her focus became desegregation planning in urban school systems and we were lucky enough to have Tracy come to work for us in Seattle Public Schools.

So for almost 12 years Tracy guided the district during difficult times including major reductions in student enrollment and implementation of the Supreme Court decision.

Throughout these times she was stalwart in her commitment to the students and to equity.

She was always problem solving with principals community members and families.

She always said to us that she felt personally responsible for ensuring that every student had a teacher and a bus on the first day of school.

Tracy was a great listener but she was also not afraid to explain her thought processes after all she was a teacher.

She was fully committed to our district and even after retiring she volunteered for schools first to help support our latest BTA levy.

We had all hoped that Tracy would have a long and well-deserved retirement and we were shocked and saddened to learn of the news of her death.

Her colleagues have described her as a bright star in our district and she was truly that.

So now whenever I look at the logo in Seattle Public Schools with the adult and the student walking towards the star I'm going to think fondly of Tracy.

And as we're thinking about the student assignment plan tonight I'm hoping that we continue Tracy's legacy and focus on ensuring that we're creating a system where each and every student has a high quality teacher and a bus on the first day of school and for every day of their school with us.

At this point I'd like to introduce Kelly Armaki who's going to introduce ORCA K8 to talk about some of the highlights of the work that they've been doing and leading the way for some of the rest of our schools.

All right hi Kelly Aramaki executive director.

I'm excited to introduce Tony Talbert the principal at Ork K-8.

At the past leadership Institute this summer with principals and assistant principals principal Talbert shared her work that she and her staff have been doing around eliminating the opportunity gaps.

for students of color.

Principals and assistant principals who attended her session were extremely inspired by the work that they're doing and I've been asking her to teach them how to do those types of things in their buildings.

Principal Talbert is going to share a few of those things today about how the Orca staff builds positive relationships with students of color.

How they empower students through innovative courses at the middle school and how they tackle implicit bias and racism head on as a school.

Tony Talbert.

Thank you Kelly.

Thank you.

So Orca K-8 is located in Columbia City Southeast Seattle.

We are definitely a welcoming community.

Well we looked at our data and we saw that African-American male students were not being as successful as our white students.

So we said it's going to take more than a handshake and a smile.

The closest academic gap.

So we got together as a group and including Kelly of course and we're reflecting on some questions.

Our first question was to our African-American students.

What problems are you confronted with that's preventing you from being successful?

And then we took that information and we said all right with those problems how can we improve and inform our teaching practices to make sure our kids are successful?

And the last question we reflected on was Are we providing any leadership opportunities for our students of color?

And we met.

It's very time consuming but if I can share one strategy that I wish every single school can implement.

Every single school in Seattle Public Schools.

Every student that enters our building African-American student.

We have an intake meeting.

And we ask, what is your story?

Tell us your narrative.

Because I'm going to tell you right now, if you don't tell people your narrative, they will tell you what your narrative is.

Someone once said you can get more information and more knowledge by asking someone what is your story?

Then a simple how are you today?

So if every school can ask someone what is your story and if you attach a name to it it is so empowering for our students.

What is your story Betty?

Names are empowering.

They give us identity.

They connect us to our culture.

They make an imprint on this world.

And so we with our students.

Start off each year and every single student that enters our building.

What is your story Scott?

How are you today Leslie?

Because if you add a name you can feel that power that comes from the students.

That I want to see implemented and implemented in every single school.

Asking kids not just knowing kids by name their strength and their need but knowing who they are personally.

It makes a huge difference.

The second strategy we call gap closing strategy.

We decided to create two academies.

One is a film academy academy where kids team they collaborate.

And for African-American students it offers them an opportunity to step out of that box of comfort.

and to visualize their potential that they have in our creative community.

That's really powerful for them.

The second academy that we have in our middle school is called our social justice academy.

This stemmed from the information we received from my African-American students on what problems they were confronted with that was making it difficult for them to be successful in school.

They are given a leadership voice so that they are valued and valued in their school community.

Topics that are discussed in the social justice academy sometimes are generated from the students.

Sometimes it's generated from the teachers.

Topics such as grade discrepancy racial profiling Being called an Oreo.

Friendship.

Divorce.

Using the N word.

The topics vary.

What's really interesting about our social justice academy because it's also a line we have what's called a race forum at ORCA which we invite our school community our parents and other school communities once a month.

I can tell you right now the most powerful tool that you can use with our African-American families is a phone a phone call.

And what we realize the least powerful tool was an email.

We make an assumption that many of our parents have access to technology but we realize that ORCA is that they just have an iPhone and they don't always read those emails.

But if you pick up that telephone it's empowering.

That's how we're bringing our parents into the schools.

And the third strategy that we felt that we really had to be well for us we needed more support so we had to really pull in some community members we pulled in Dr. Felder and we have some other parents working for us.

is making our kids a part of the community in which they live.

Many of our students don't even leave their homes on the weekend.

So we're providing leadership opportunities during the week.

Once a week our middle school students attend.

I don't know if you're familiar with Esperanza House with the elders.

So every week a group of our African-American students go to Esperanza House and they work on skills like empathy, They share their stories with the elders.

The elders share their stories and they have different topics that they talk about.

They talk about safety.

They talk about how to communicate with others.

And our hope is that they'll bring those skills back to our school and apply them in their learning.

Yes we have a way to go but one day I know this is going to happen.

I'm going to turn my head to the left in this in this room and I'm going to see Orca on that wall because I hope and with the help of Kelly and everyone else and I always tell principals in the school district that we're all in this together that we're going to close this academic gap and we're going to make sure that we're working on the same goals and we're walking that same path.

So thank you for providing me this opportunity and I look forward to seeing you.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Well in the interest of time I will pass on the superintendent comments and they will be in the Friday memo.

Okay as we've now reached 530 we will next go to public testimony.

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

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

I would also like to note that each speaker has a two minute speaking time when the two minutes have ended.

Please conclude your remarks.

Ms. Shek will read off the names of the testimony speakers.

Thank you all for coming tonight.

If you have any documents at this time that you'd like to share with the board you can bring them up to me and I'll hand them out.

First up for public testimony we have Addison Wynkoop followed by Alicia Goodwin and Sonia Kukendall and Noah Fung.

Hi my name is Addy Wynkoop and I'm a sixth grade student at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School.

I know that you have concerns about the use of technology in schools.

I'd like to tell you about my school and how we are using technology to help students learn.

At Eagle Staff we have laptop computers in every classroom.

I never have to leave my classroom to access technology.

In world history we use laptops to look at lessons and take notes about the things we are studying.

The laptops allow me to do this at my own pace.

In language arts we are using mobile technology to watch video lessons that help me become a better writer.

The lessons are always there for me on Schoology so I can go back at any time and rewatch them.

In Spanish when we finish our work we can use the technology to practice vocabulary using Quizlet and Duolingo.

In my math class we have taken surveys and used Kahoot to practice math and show our teacher what we know in a fun and interesting way.

In science we use laptops in class for amplify science curriculum.

The laptops let me use an interactive simulation that showed me more about metabolism and how the body works.

I could even zoom in to see human cells closer up.

As a student I also use the source to check my grades and missing assignments.

I can use the school's wireless on my own device to research for my classes.

I recently finished a timeline project for world history.

I used eLibrary, World Book Online and ABC Clio for my research.

I use Office 365 daily and this helps me to save my work between school and home.

I am so lucky to have quick and easy access to mobile technology in all of my classes.

I know that most schools don't have this so please ensure that all students in Seattle schools have the same opportunities and access that I have at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School.

Thank you.

Goodwin and I am a parent at Montlake Elementary.

The community of Montlake respectfully requests that our school is added to the list of schools to be improved with money raised from our next capital levy.

I believe you're voting on next year.

The poor state of our 93 year old building has a negative effect on the educational experience of our kids.

The building is not ADA accessible.

We are an access school yet our special ed program is given one portable to deliver needed services and as a result of the lack of space kids receive special ed instruction in the hallways.

There's no access to water in our seven portable classrooms and of the classrooms in our main building only one has a sink and that limits the educational activities and of course effective handwashing.

The boiler that heats the building takes the space of several classrooms.

I think it's original and it is noisy and a safety hazard.

Last week the whole school was evacuated because of a cracked valve in one of the classrooms that shot eight foot jets of steam into the classroom.

The playground is over 25 years old and I have a few there are a few other people today that are going to testify and give you a few more details but the first one is going to be Sonia.

My name is Sonia Kirkendall.

I'm eight years old.

I am a second grader at Mollick Elementary School.

We need a better better school building.

If you are in a wheelchair you can't come to come into our school anywhere.

You have to go to another school.

That is not fair.

Thank you for your time.

He's just the next one.

Is that okay?

He's our second, okay.

My name is Noah Funk.

I am seven years old.

I am a second grader from Mullick elementary school.

We need a new school building.

The playground is old and rusty.

The ground under the playground is so hard I fell off and broke two bones in my arm.

I also split open the back of my hide head.

Thank you.

Next up for public testimony we have Chris Jackins followed by Melissa Westbrook and David Shepard.

My name is Chris Jackins box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4 on exiting board members.

Thank you for your service.

on the Magnolia elementary construction contract.

Four points.

Number one the project would drastically shrink the playground.

Number two many Queen Anne families are likely to lose their current neighborhood school.

Number three project bids are over budget by five million dollars.

Number four the district has tacitly admitted that the plan will aggravate racial imbalance.

The board is being asked to spend an extra five million dollars for a plan that will explicitly protect racial segregation in schools.

Please vote no.

This should be an easy no.

On the proposed field lighting projects at Cleveland Roosevelt Ballard Franklin and Eagle Staff.

Parks Department news currently stops at dusk.

Families across from fields can get their young children to bed by 730. After noise has stopped.

The plan is to continue parks use until 10 or 11 p.m.

every night.

Please change these plans.

On the Queen Anne Elementary Wing Luke and Webster projects.

Three points.

Number one these projects would shrink playground space and cause impacts on parking bus loading trees and history.

Number two at Queen Anne the district wants to park the buses on landmark Queen Anne Boulevard Park.

Number three at Wing Luke the district noted that references to former city councilman Wing Luke were inadvertently omitted from the checklist.

The district would demolish a 12 year old addition 12 year old which cost six point five million dollars in 2005. Apparently the district is feeling flush with taxpayer money.

Please change these plans.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I first want to briefly comment on the survey being done by the district about boundaries.

If you hover over the link to survey monkey you can see there's some kind of linking to school messenger email accounts which leads me and my readers to believe that staff is tracking who takes this survey.

This is wrong and may lead to people not taking surveys in the future.

Secondly the survey is poorly written.

My degrees in sociology and I can tell you this is not how you create a valid survey.

You should not consider any information that comes from it.

About Naviance, why did this pass out of ops five months ago and yet it's just getting here?

Why is there no list of vendors to compare to?

The student privacy information is minimal and lacking.

There are no penalties to this company if data is breached and in all cases with student data there should be penalties.

Documentation was not available to the public until yesterday.

That is not transparency and it is unacceptable.

One key item that the district is in control of what different aspects of the platform they wish to use.

Some things are included, some things cost more.

This is exactly from their website.

Each school and district configures the product in a way they see fit for their students.

District features are available to be turned on or off at the sole discretion of the school or district.

None are compulsory.

Keep that in mind in the future.

Also the documentation talks about parent data.

My understanding that parents will have access to see what their child is doing but any data on parents should be restricted to name and possible ID number.

Are we going to track parents that are not using this?

The costs are not clearly delineated.

We are paying Hobson for their services but the staff did not address the cost for an additional FTE at headquarters and paying for a staffer at each school to be the Naviance whisperer.

Where is that money coming from?

What is odd is that this bar mentions a couple of alternatives but not the obvious one, the coalition for access and affordability.

This is a coalition group of colleges and universities including UW that work together to make applying for college easier for under-resourced students.

It's free for districts to use.

The contract with Naviance should clearly state no third party vendors have access to any data without parent permission and Naviance has refused to tell parents in other districts who their third party vendors are and what data they get to see.

Parents should be able to opt their children out of using Naviance without any kind of repercussion.

All data on students who leave or graduate from Seattle Public Schools that is in the hand of Naviance should be destroyed within three months.

God bless you Tracy Libros.

Thank you.

Shek will be Katie McVickers followed by Andrea Peterman and Vanessa Goldberg.

Good afternoon, or good evening.

As you are aware, the remodeled Lincoln High School will provide an opportunity to address overcrowding in high schools in the North End.

We know that Lincoln will serve as the neighborhood school for students in Wallingford and Queen Anne.

These two neighborhoods alone, however, are not sufficient to fill Lincoln.

With this in mind, please consider placing the HCC and Dual Language Immersion programs at Lincoln.

These programs would draw students into the open seats at Lincoln.

It would help to relieve overcrowding at Ballard Roosevelt and Garfield.

The neighborhood students attending Lincoln would also benefit from the class offerings made possible through these programs.

The current HCC pathway proposal recommends placing new HCC programs at Ballard and Roosevelt.

These two high schools are already overcrowded.

As a result the addition of an HCC program would require major changes to the school boundaries in order to accommodate the new students who would be pulled into these schools.

The location of pathways and the placement of high school boundaries are inextricably linked to one another.

Unfortunately the boundary task force did not consider pathways as part of their deliberations.

Interestingly after considering many possibilities the boundary task force ultimately recommended the map that created the greatest disruption to existing boundaries.

This largely happened because they adopted the concept of feeder schools as one of their guiding principles.

It's important to note that there is no recent historical precedence in Seattle for setting of high school boundaries based on middle school feeder patterns.

This feeder school principle greatly complicates the boundary question and displaces far too many families from their current attendance areas.

It's also clear that in a rapidly expanding city it's highly unlikely that newly established feeder patterns could be maintained over the long term.

In summary placing HCC and dual language immersion learning programs at Lincoln would minimize disruption to existing boundaries and maximize the number of students who have the opportunity to attend their neighborhood school.

Thank you for your time and congratulations to the newly elected members of the board.

Thank you.

Good evening I'm Katie McVickers full-time working mother of three Seattle Public Schools students a junior a freshman and a sixth grader.

I urge the school board to adopt amendment one to the 18-19 student assignment transition plan and address the issue of HC pathways at the same time as it addresses the high school boundary changes.

Also it is not the appropriate document to address HC pathways for the subsequent year.

Regarding the related issue of high school boundaries.

Most fundamentally I oppose scenario H2 due to the severe transportation issues it will cause for Magnolia students who would be assigned to Lincoln.

The commute from Magnolia to Ballard High School is already greater than to most high schools in the district and a change to Lincoln makes it worse stretching it to well over an hour each way for many students.

As I wrote to you on October 25 a key reason for this is that Magnolia is the only neighborhood considered for Lincoln that does not have a designation of an urban village or urban center as defined by Seattle municipal code.

Which means it does not have frequent transit.

So not only is the access to transportation across town from Magnolia to Lincoln disproportionate.

There is also an equity and it's also there's also an equitable access to the frequency of transit.

This was not considered with the H2 proposal.

The task force did not adequately perform due diligence with regard to transportation.

From a process from a process perspective I attended two of the meetings that the district hosted as community engagement.

They were not engagement and they were not meetings they were open houses with inadequate information provided as to how the changes will affect the current students.

The opportunity to provide input was limited to suggestions of one emailing the task force which had delayed or no response and two testifying before the board which provides no opportunity for collaboration.

The opportunity to provide input was limited.

I just read that.

Please conclude your remarks.

Lastly both the proposed student assignment transition plan and the proposed boundary changes are commingled and both affected by school capacity issues.

Leading with a vote for one without the other unfairly represent some student groups while prioritizing others.

Please consider adopting Amendment 1 to the 18 19 student assignment transition plan and addressing the issue of HC pathways at the same time as the high school boundary changes.

Thank you for your time and attention.

First I would like to thank the board for their time and their service and their positions.

I think you work very hard especially to the outgoing board members.

My name is Andrea Peterman.

I'm the parent of two kids in SPS a third grader at Salmon Bay and an HC seventh grader at Robert Eagle Staff and I'm here as a representative of racial equity in HCC.

Although the HC high school pathways decision might be delayed I'd like to share our group's support of the current pathway plan.

It will take a lot of work to make sure it's effective and equitable at every school but it is a step in the right direction.

In gathering information to guide this plan I commend the district for including all families in the survey and for reaching out to underrepresented communities.

It's clear that communities in all quarters of our district want advanced learning options and they want them close to where they live.

I heard a complaint that the survey data wasn't accurate or useful because it wasn't just limited to HC families.

I want to say that families of color are missing from the program and they do deserve a voice on this matter.

I've also heard concerns that it will harm the integrity of the HC program.

Brown and black kids are overwhelmingly missing from this program.

And it's hard to defend its integrity when it is a clear example of institutional racism.

It's been this way for over 20 years and it's time to stop protecting the status quo and make radical changes.

Other districts are doing this and they're tackling it well and we can learn from them.

Our team is grateful for the small improvements over the last year.

But we want more.

When I look at the world right now I am filled with a sense of urgency to stop racial injustice.

And I don't know how to instill that in the board but I know that our children and our communities are depending on you to have that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening members of the board.

My name is Vanessa Goldberg.

I'm a PTA member of the board at Thurgood Marshall Elementary where I'm the parent of an HC first grader and I'm a member of this racial equity and HCC team.

The equity and HCC team does support the five school pathway plan and I personally support the plan to have as many schools as possible to be equipped to serve HC students in their home neighborhoods.

Starting with high school and looking also at middle and elementary schools.

I could list a bunch of reasons why I think this.

You should have letters from us on your desks in front of you that we sent yesterday.

I would add that I know for a fact from speaking to parents at our school that there are lots of Gen Ed parents at Thurgood Marshall who would prefer to be in different schools but they are placed there as their neighborhood school.

They don't feel like it's a school that's welcoming for non HC kids.

It's overwhelming and they don't feel comfortable.

Spreading the HC cohort out could help alleviate some of these feelings.

Concerns about high cap program offerings being equitable across schools are valid.

Concerns about how shifting boundaries will affect students are valid.

Also if HC groups in each school aren't large enough it could be hard to meet those HC needs which are special needs.

The social studies program however we use it Thurgood Marshall is an example of success.

It has shown that peer to peer work across cohorts can have benefits for all kids including increased learning and confidence.

In light of last week's report on Seattle's achievement gap I believe the district should be considering everything possible to increase outside the box learning opportunities for students in those cohorts most affected by the gap and spreading HCC has the potential to positively impact the gap.

As long as there are enough kids within each school to create a healthy program the changes are coupled with high cap best practices and are approached with lots of thought about both equity and functionality.

It could work.

Some practices which might be helpful include transition to universal non-language testing for second and potentially fifth graders such as the testing practices at North Shore equitable use of construction levy funds to make sure all schools are close to their chest right size and to change.

Excuse me.

Anyway thank you for your time.

Peters Thank you.

Shek Next up for public testimony we have Andrea Toll followed by Karen Williamson and Gentleman Ed Rosa.

Hi thank you for having me here.

My name is Andrea Toll and I'm a parent of a freshman at Ballard High School and a seventh grader at Our Lady of Fatima.

It's a K through 8 school in Magnolia where we live.

I would urge the board to adopt Amendment 1 to the 2018 2019 student assignment transition plan.

eliminating the 2019 2020 HC pathway language.

I support this amendment because the HCC pathways are a separate matter and should be removed from the transition plan.

Since I'm here I would like to also give you input on the high school boundary recommendations specifically scenario H2.

It is clear that the roundtrip between transportation between Magnolia and Ballard high school versus Magnolia and Wallingford where Lincoln high school will be we're not taking into consideration.

Using the King County Metro Transit trip planner travel to Lincoln High School for my students or my children to Wallingford at 730 in the morning would require them to take two bus transfers and travel time of 50 minutes one way versus the commute currently to Ballard High School of 35 minutes.

After afternoon travel at 4 o'clock from Wallingford to Magnolia would take up to 52 minutes.

versus the travel time currently from Ballard to Magnolia of 14 minutes.

This would add travel time for my children of over an hour a day.

I think it is fair to request and ask that the heat maps be reviewed and provide the data needed to make an analysis for the 2018 and 19 school boundary recommendations.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

you

We're back.

So I'm with this lovely group of people racial equity in advanced learning and we're an ad hoc group of parents who would really like to see greater diversity in that program.

My name is Karen Williamson.

I am a substitute in your district.

I'm the parent of an HCC eighth grader who had very few black and brown students in her nine years with the district.

And I think that is to her detriment as well as to the detriment of the students who didn't get the opportunity to go to school with her in HCC programs.

So I also work on equity and diversity issues as a teacher trainer for teaching tolerance.

And when I work with different groups I like to ask them to imagine that only once in their career will their organization be in the New York Times?

And I say to them what do you want that story to be about?

Right.

So schools all over the country district all over the country are making headlines.

Sometimes they're making headlines because they're on the right side of equity and achievement.

And sometimes they're making headlines because they're on the wrong side of that.

It's not improbable that we will be in that position.

And I want that story to be memorable and awesome.

And I want it to happen like this.

I want the issue of having greater diversity in HCC to be taken out of the race and equity basket and put into the achievement basket.

We want to raise our achievement rates, we want to raise our graduation rates, we want to raise our college and technical school attendance rates for our graduates.

Those kids are out there.

They're already out there and you just need to find them.

You just need to find them grab them and you need to report to your staff that it's their job to solve that problem for you.

You say we want this to happen.

We want you to give us some strategies for making that happen.

I hope you'll do that and I hope we'll be in The Times and I hope it'll be a paper you want to buy and save forever and ever.

Thank you.

Thank you.

After Jennalyn Egrosa, we have Margaret Serrato-Blue, followed by Andy Jensen and Katherine Farley.

Hello my name is Jenna Lenadroza and I'm a parent and PTA board member from Stevens Elementary.

Back in June I asked the board to move the Stevens waitlist.

The school board heard our pleas and 10 students who were siblings were given choice seats at Stevens.

Unfortunately around that same time we lost two valuable teachers due to the district's low enrollment projection.

Come October our actual enrollment went up to 288 which was 25 students more than the district's projections at 263 and entitled Stevens to an additional teacher.

However when we met with the district they told us they couldn't give us a teacher because the 10 waitlist students didn't count toward our final enrollment and the state funding for these kids didn't follow them to Stevens because waitlist moves had to be budget neutral.

As you can imagine we are all shocked to hear this as the term budget neutral was never clarified to all stakeholders involved when wait lists were being discussed.

This is not fair for these kids who are not getting the resources they are entitled to as well as all our students who are in overruled in class classrooms as a result.

So today on behalf of Stevens and the central PTSA I'm asking the school board to not approve the student assignment plan being proposed by the district because of the new language that states space availability depends on the seats available given the staffing capacity of the school.

Historically space availability always took into account a school's building capacity.

Staffing capacity is a variable that is solely controlled by the district where the district uses trends data to make enrollment projections that are then used to determine staffing capacity for the following school year.

This would give SPS even more authority to decide the fate of a school which begs the question why does Stevens want why does SPS want Stevens and other schools to be under enrolled?

It doesn't make sense when our city is growing.

If the district will not allow boundaries, not move wait lists and not use actual student headcount to determine staffing capacity, what other recourses Stevens or other schools have in order to prevent further under enrollment?

This underfunding is not only unsustainable, it compromises our school community with the prospect of losing valuable teachers and families who may leave public schools together.

SPS should support every school and not let any school fail.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lin Anderson who's number 17 has ceded her two minutes to me.

Is that OK?

She has to actually come and do that.

And have you spoken before?

Oh no sorry no you can't speak twice.

You haven't.

Margaret.

OK.

You can only speak once.

You understand that you can only speak for two minutes.

You can't combine two speaking slots.

Right.

No you can't.

The two of you can individually speak for two minutes each and share your speech.

We can't have one person have two four minutes.

No they don't.

I'll go as quickly as I can.

Okay.

Good evening.

Margaret Serrato Blue.

I'm ready to be fast.

Mother of a 10th grader at Ballard High School and a resident of Magnolia.

I have one request and I urge you to grant it as soon as you can.

Immediately actually if you can.

My request is that you communicate to families and students in current eighth, ninth and 10th grades that no high school student in 2019 will be required to move from their current high school in 2019 when Lincoln high school opens.

Here are two reasons for the request and the urgency and one way you can begin to change this.

First shame on the school boundary task force for telling families and students individual students are being told this that Magnolia high school students at Ballard will have to leave.

In 2019 that they may be forced to go to Lincoln High School the task force has no authority on grandfathering and cannot recommend to you any changes in the grandfathering longstanding Seattle Public Schools rule on this grandfathering.

policy.

No one can in fact unless Ballard high school burns down.

Because to require students to move from their high school violates the protections afforded to them under the 5th and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution and the Washington State Constitution.

This has been communicated, this is the second reason, it has been communicated to such an extent that even I, who is a regulatory lawyer, woke up one morning last week sick to my stomach thinking that if the school board or superintendent agrees with the task force my 10th grade son at Ballard High School could be forced to be yanked from his friends, the biotech program, the varsity football team, his coaches, basically leave his life as he knows it to go to Lincoln High School which by the way is not in his neighborhood.

If I was feeling sick to my stomach think how badly current children are feeling.

Last you can begin to change this I have the frequently asked question on your website and I have updated it with Seattle Public Schools is required by law to allow high school students in 2019 to stay at their current high school until they graduate from their current high school.

Unless students choose to move to Lincoln High School in 2019 they will be entitled by law to remain.

I've told my son he's going to stay.

Constitution protects it.

If the school policy changes I can assure you we will object to it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Andi Jensen.

Hello my name is Andy Jensen I'm the legislative chair for the Gilbert PTA parent of a sixth grader at Meany Middle School and a first grader at McGilvra.

The current enrollment and student assignment plan worsens the education gap for students of color and middle and low income families living in the central attendance boundary area and increases segregation among students.

Very few public school attendees can afford to buy or rent homes in the McGilvra assigned attendance boundary.

Allowing families to use choice to attend McGilvra can come off the waitlist not only increases the diversity of our school but provides more students living in the central area attendance boundary with reliable excellent education that rivals HCC scores and surrounds them with a supportive and engaged parent teacher community.

We are committed to making our excellent school that is a three time winner of Washington excellence award more accessible regardless of a student's attendance boundary of origin.

We are seeking a fair and balanced approach that is efficient and effective called the real choices real opportunities enrollment plan.

This is available on the McGilvra PTA website.

Finally some facts about McGilvra and the attendance boundaries.

We lose over 30 students who live in the attendance boundary to other Seattle public schools.

We support this school choice.

However the district needs to allow the waitlist to move to allow other families in the central area attendance boundary to attend the excellent school that McGilvra is.

We propose these following these following differences for the waitlist allow all Seattle Public Schools to be choice schools not only the option schools for every student who leaves their attendance school attend another Seattle Public School allow a student off the original schools waitlist into those schools.

If a student is within six blocks of the waitlist schools attendance boundary please allow that student in.

These students would need to walk the nearest SPS bus stop if transportation is needed.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

After Catherine Farley we have Lynn Peters Anderson followed by Brad Halverson and Rebecca Winecoop.

Good evening I'm Kate Farley I'm a Magnolia resident and a parent of three Seattle Public School students a junior and a freshman at Ballard High School and a sixth grader at McClure Middle School.

I'm also a member of the Magnolia for Ballard High School task force which to date has almost 2000 petition signatures and along with dozens of active community members.

We're all advocating for Ballard High School to remain Magnolia's neighborhood high school.

No doubt you've heard from some of us maybe even more than once.

I'm here to support amendment one to the 2018 student assignment transition plan which eliminates the 2019 2020 HC pathway language and is supported I believe by directors Burke and Harris.

Furthermore I'm here.

I'm here to view my voice my opposition to the current and seemingly favored boundary scenario H2 which is the most disruptive of any scenario considered.

Speaking specifically to the impact this plan will have on Magnolia students I urge you to insist the high school boundary task force who I believe has underserved this board and the community to go back to the drawing board and outline clear and unchanging guiding principles conduct a thorough transportation study that considers total driving distance and travel time given the realities of commuting in Seattle.

So not only before and after school but throughout the evening after school activities, sporting events and other such activities.

as well as consider the additional travel times and distance for the disparate sports field locations that are inevitable to the Lincoln High School.

This transportation study should also take into consideration availability of Metro buses, number of possible transfers in a single route, total bus travel time including transfer wait times and should also include the understanding of bus transfer options locations and safety access aspects.

Additionally I urge this board to consider making Lincoln high school an HCC DLI school.

Lastly both the student proposed assignment transition plan and the boundary changes are commingled and both affect school capacity issues and I urge you to consider both.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Lynn Anderson and I'm also a Magnolia resident and a parent of a daughter at Ballard High School.

It's my understanding that this amendment this proposed amendment 1 to the 2018 19 student assignment transition plan it's my understanding that that amendment is proposed and will eliminate the language regarding the HC pathways and I support this amendment.

The HCC pathways is a separate issue and reference to it should be removed from the 2018 19 transition plan.

I would also like to write input on the high school boundary recommendation.

While that HCC pathway language has no place in the 2018 19 SAP transition plan it should definitely be addressed in conjunction with the 2019 2020 SAP transition plan and the high school boundary changes.

My original concern and the reason I first got involved with the Magnolia for BHS task force had to do with the grandfathering of students particularly students in their critical junior year of high school.

It's become clear that in addition to the juniors and seniors underclassmen should also remain in place at their current school until their graduation.

and that the district's own documents support this.

It's also crystal clear that transportation to and from Magnolia across town to Lincoln High School in Wallingford was not taken into consideration and I urge the school board to reject the recommended boundary revision map H2.

And as much as I appreciate the many emails and phone calls from the district we have yet to receive any sort of formal mailed communication that these boundary changes are being considered.

The task force has neglected its duties in terms of communication representation methodology and transparency.

The published guiding principles have shifted from May to October which indicates a lack of neutral master plan and policy.

Based on these concerns I'm requesting that the task force revisit their boundary map endorsement.

This request is based on the concerns of many Magnolia residents which include but are not limited to disproportionate access to transportation and insufficient representation for Magnolia students on the boundary task force.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Brad Halverson.

Rebecca Wynkoop.

Good evening.

My name is Rebecca Wynkoop and I'm the teacher librarian at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School.

Likely almost everyone in this room has had their hands on a smartphone tablet or computer in the last couple of hours.

Based on previous board comments I use this to illustrate the fatal flaw in the board's current understanding of how technology in our schools enhances the education of our students and prepares them for the world they will live in as adults.

When the world inside our schools looks so different from the world outside of our school what are we really preparing our students for?

A move to limit rather than enhance real-world technologies and applications leaves our students ill-equipped to know how to harness the power of technology for learning.

It leaves our students unprepared to develop a respectable digital footprint and it leaves them without adequate knowledge to safely navigate the greater digital social world we live and work in.

In my 17 years as a teacher librarian I always advocate for more access for my students to the resources they need to become productive global citizens.

Access has been in the form of student research blogs that served as digital portfolios of their work and growth in grades 6 through 8. After reading the Newberry award winning novel the one and only Ivan access was an online interactive discussion with zookeepers from Zoo Atlanta that allowed students to submit questions in real time.

Access is kindergarten students writing recording and publishing their own alphabet e-books.

Access to real world technology has been the research writing recording and publishing of student biographical videos monologues on influential people in their lives.

I fear the board has errantly equated gaming YouTubing and social media saturation with learning enhanced by technology in our classroom.

Our classrooms are places where mobile technology is used to enhance student learning, respond to student need, celebrate student voice and empower students to engage in a responsible and civic minded way when we use technology.

Please allow teachers to be the experts, visit our classrooms, ask questions, follow us on social media at Eagle Staff LIB and engage in the rich differentiated diverse teaching and learning that is happening in our schools.

Do not allow a decision tonight to delay or prevent student access to relevant developmentally appropriate pedagogically sound technology.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up for public testimony we have Amanda Olsen followed by Thomas Raymond Spear and Amanda Dayo Ogura.

Good evening.

I'm here representing my fifth grade daughter Mary.

Seattle Public Schools is failing her and she needs your help.

Mary enrolled in SPS in August 2016 and qualified for highly capable services in spring 2017. She attends her reference area school.

The SPS website states quote schools are required to have a plan in place to provide for the needs of all children including highly capable students.

It is important to note that by law a child who qualifies as highly capable is entitled to highly capable services as part of his or her basic education.

Services may be provided at the reference area of school however the child has the option and opportunity to enroll at an HC site end quote.

So first Mary is legally entitled to highly capable services as part of her education and second her school is required to have a plan in place to meet her needs.

Mary is not receiving the highly capable services she is legally entitled to receive.

Firstly there is disparity in the highly capable services Mary currently receives and those available at an HC site.

For example the math curriculum for a fifth grade highly capable program is seventh grade math.

In contrast Mary's teacher confirmed she receives a sixth grade math curriculum.

This difference is significant.

Her teacher's solution is to give her worksheets without teaching her their concepts.

These worksheets are the required plan for highly capable learning at her reference school worksheets.

Secondly because of the student programs assigned to Mary's reference area school the highly capable services it offers will never be comparable to what she would receive at an HC site.

There are students in Mary's grade assigned to her school because of their significant challenges.

They deserve the resources they receive.

In reality however there are insufficient resources left over for Mary.

The enrollment office denied Mary's transfer appeal request because her situation quote does not meet the requirements of an extreme or unique extenuating circumstance.

To conclude that Mary is not receiving the education she is legally entitled to is in fact an extreme and unique extenuating circumstance that the education is available but SPS is borrowing her from it is an extreme and unique extenuating circumstance.

Please help Mary.

Please approve her transfer.

Please hold SPS to its legal responsibility to highly capable students.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Shek Thomas.

Amandaño.

Good evening my name is Tom Spear.

I'm a elder on the Elders Advisory Council for Urban Native Education Alliance UNEA and our programs Seattle Clear Sky Youth Council and Native Warrior Athletics.

We're here to advocate for the restoration of the Indian Heritage High School.

And there are two points I'd like to make.

It's come up in recent weeks at previous meetings that asking for a native focused school was a form of segregation.

That's the most laughable and absurd accusation we've ever had hurled at us.

Everyone would be welcome under our proposal to the Indian Heritage High School regardless of ethnicity.

So I want to clear that up right away.

The second thing is we believe that a native focus education is not only desirable but it's absolutely necessary based on the record of failure by the Seattle Public Schools.

These charts which I asked to be distributed to you are from your own Web site and there are litany of failure for our kids.

They have a birthright as American citizens to a quality education not second class because they're First Nations Alaska Native American Indian or whatever.

Appellation you prefer.

But as human beings and as the children of taxpayers and we want Indian Heritage High School restored.

And like we say no more excuses.

Thank you.

My name is Omedanio Joseph Oguara but I have to say that it's absolutely important that we restore Indian Heritage High School.

I've listened to many adults that I look up to who are helping out our native community and contributing who are alumni of that school under Robert Eagle Staff before it ended.

The crucial support they received from the school helped them get to where they are today.

Education is critical for a future of opportunities.

Our indigenous people mostly learn differently from what the system has structured.

We need a native focused school with support to different learning styles as many students are cast aside for having learning disabilities become demoralized and tend to fail.

We need a school where indigenous youth and their families are not afraid or ashamed to be native.

With an environment of more people who are like them who better understand and respect native history, culture, language and tradition.

Not only are those understandings important we also need those who can recognize and understand the importance of historical trauma and can strive to better support low-income families.

With what we have had for long without Indian heritage high school are dark roads into the future for a large percentage of our native youth going into high school.

Instead we should want and strive for our native youth and all of our youth to be supported into their futures of opportunity success and prosperity.

Indian heritage high school is not a program our city has never had before.

It helped in making a better future for many families.

Indian heritage is a vital resource for native education and what resources we have now are not enough to change a tragic statistics and reduce the number of youth and families hurt by our current education system.

We want this program not just to help ourselves but to help everyone our families our youth and native community all throughout Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Brandon May.

Brandon.

Jeff Clark.

Good evening school board directors.

My name is Jeff Clark.

I am a father of a Denny International Middle School 8th grader, Chief Sealth High School 10th grader, husband of an Aki Kurose Middle School teacher and very proud principal of Denny International Middle School.

Tonight I'm speaking to you as a representative of all of the principals and assistant principals in Seattle Public Schools and specifically as a board member of PASS.

It's a great pleasure and honor to tell you that we as an organization have decided to come up with our own award it's called the leadership for equity award.

This award is given to honor outstanding and sustained leadership in pursuit of our top priority which continues to be elimination of the opportunity gap.

This year it's a great honor to tell you we have selected director Stefan Blanford as the winner of this award.

Thank you director Blanford for your amazing dedication professionalism vision and leadership as a Seattle Public Schools school board director.

Thank you for the work you've done.

It's been an inspiration to all of us principals.

We appreciate the progress we've made.

Thanks to your leadership in gap elimination and moving towards social and racial and educational justice in all of our schools.

Congratulations.

Next up for public testimony we have Chester Weir followed by Vicki Pinkham and Aiden Carroll.

Good evening.

I am a proud Montlake parent of three children.

I have two students currently at the school a third grader a kindergartner and one on deck.

There are other parents tonight who have already spoken passionately about the condition of our facility.

Some of the life safety issues the accessibility issues.

I'd also like to advocate that Montlake be included on the next capital levy.

I want to talk about equity.

I want to talk about some of the opportunities.

A few statistics which I got from a spreadsheet prepared by the district.

There are over 60 elementary schools in the district.

Montlake at 1.7 acres is the second from the bottom in terms of the site area.

And yet we make do and we make it work.

At 21,400 square feet it is the smallest elementary school in the district.

But again we make it work.

And then at 76 square feet per student.

So that takes into account the population and the area 76 square feet per student.

Montlake is second from the bottom and yet we continue to make it work.

For comparison the 76 square feet of the district average is 147 for elementary schools.

Some schools are as high as 295 and yet at 76 square feet per student Montlake makes it work.

My kindergartner is one of 28 students in a 780 square foot classroom.

But anyways those are the statistics.

Those are the objective information.

I think there's also a great opportunity.

It's a fantastic neighborhood community.

Thank you for the early bell.

I'm fortunate to be able to walk my kids to school every morning to greet other parents to know who my neighbors are.

I think that is a priceless asset that Montlake has and the site is full of opportunity to add classrooms to build up to invest in the school and continue to invest in this great neighborhood asset.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Vicki?

Vicki?

Aiden?

Aiden Carroll?

After Aiden we'll have Ramya Preston.

Hi so I'm Aiden and I work with the Urban Native Education Alliance which is the umbrella nonprofit for the Clear Sky Native Youth Council which is a student group that formed in the last years of Indian heritage high school in 2011, 12, 13 before It was closed because the students formed this group to save their school and it didn't happen.

The district closed it.

But at the time the district promised to reopen it.

Superintendent Jose Banda promised that it would be reopened in coming years.

Clear Sky and the Urban Native Education Alliance have worked tirelessly in the last years to fill that gap that Indian heritage disappearance has caused.

But we can't do it alone.

The elders and volunteer board that works so many of their evenings taken to to make this organization happen with this cultural programming.

Kids need a culturally focused school when they have families with trauma when they have when they have institutional and systemic racism they face in schools.

And the mental health is extremely important to consider.

But I just want to point to all the schools that currently exist that are perfectly considered important or worth funding by the districts that are alternative option schools.

Look at Nova, the center school, the world school, and other such option programs.

Think of this as immersion if that's what it takes to realize why this matters.

There are examples of successful programs like like Nia Bay is a particularly special effective example that this works to close achievement gap.

If you build this they will come.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ramya Preston.

After Ramya we'll have Jill Benson.

My name is Ramiah Preston I'm seven years old I am a second grader at Monlake Elementary.

Our school needs to be fixed.

The water in the bathroom is undrinkable.

The bathrooms are old.

They smell really bad even though they get clean.

There is graffiti.

There are no sinks in any classrooms.

So it is hard to wash your hands.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Jill Benson.

Margaret Johnson.

Good evening.

My name is Margaret Johnson I'm a second grade teacher at Montlake school and you have heard from three of my students so far.

I brought with me some letters that I wrote with my second grade class.

So these are their words.

Please make our school safer.

We know you can improve earthquake safety.

We are scared frightened and terrified because our building is old.

We know better building technology has been invented.

Stop our windows from shattering.

Keep our walls strong.

Put Montlake first on the building excellence program to do list.

Please make our school comply with the American with Disabilities Act.

Every person should have access to every part of our school.

It is unfair that people in wheelchairs cannot get into our main building.

Please build ramps or add an elevator or a large escalator because there is a law that says people in wheelchairs deserve access to public places.

People have a right to go to their neighborhood school.

This is our community.

If we get hurt we help each other.

Excluding people is incorrect.

If one of us.

This is my seven and eight year old students talking.

If one of us could no longer walk would we have to change schools.

How would you feel if you were in a wheelchair.

Put Montlake first on the building excellence programs to do list.

Please give our two distinct special education programs their own classrooms.

It is uncomfortable in the portable with so many students.

Tables are sometimes cramped and it is hard to hear when two or more classes are going on at the same time in one room.

How would you feel if you were a special education student squished in some old portable?

Can we build a new space with a ramp?

The special education department does important work and they deserve a better space to learn.

Make Montlake first on the building excellence programs to do list.

Peters I think it did.

Thank you.

I think we're out of time on that but thank you very much.

You can always email us any of those.

Shek This concludes the sign up list for public testimony this evening.

OK so let's see.

We can go to I guess you can go to board comments or we can go back to the consent agenda.

Should we quickly do the consent agenda and then we'll get on to board comments.

All right.

The consent agenda.

Let me get us there.

OK we've now reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

The agenda has been consent agenda has moved and seconded.

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

OK.

Seeing none.

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

All opposed.

OK.

The consent agenda has passed.

So now we move on to directors comments and I would ask for volunteers to speak.

I'll go first.

Director Patu.

Thank you.

First I want to say thank you to Gail and the Native American community for sharing their dances and cultures with us.

Really appreciated it.

And very amazing dances.

Also I would like to say to Stefan Planford thank you for your work that you've done here on the board.

I know that there's times that I screw your name up when it comes to pronouncing your name and you know I'm actually if you ask my kids I'm good at screwing up names.

But I want to say that.

Also want to say thank you for reminding all of us and the staff that we're here to provide equity for all our kids here at Seattle Public Schools.

And we believe that as you get ready to leave we'll keep that in mind.

That's the real reason why we're here is to provide equity for our kids.

So thank you so much for your four years here on the board.

For Sue.

I wanted to say it is hard to say goodbye to a colleague who has been less of a coworker and more of a friend.

I will miss you and I am sad that the joyride of working with you has come to an end.

Having you as a partner on the board was one of the best professional experience.

You always corrected me when I pronounce a word wrong because I speak another language or confuse the meaning which I do sometimes.

I could call on you anytime and ask you questions of concerns and you always came up with an idea of how to look at it from a different perspective.

You are the best critic, honest friend, reliable teammate, dependable colleague but most of all you believed in me in who I am and what I bring to this board.

I will be forever your friend and know that I will still call on you when I need advice.

Thank you for all that you do for our students and families.

And wanted to say that good luck on your new venture also with Stefan.

Hopefully that we will probably see both of you out there working spending time with kids.

And I know that being on the board is actually it's a lesson learned because we're here because of the students that we represent.

And I know that we give our heart and soul to the work that we do here.

Sometimes public don't understand what we go through but most of the time we do what we can to be able to make the difference for all the students that we represent here at Seattle Public Schools and be able to work together not only with our staff but communities also our superintendent.

But knowing that within our hearts That our whole purpose of why we're sitting on up here is because we really care about what happens to our children and that the excellent education that we promised from Seattle Public Schools is something that we will continue on to work on and hopefully to be successful as we continue on this journey.

Thank you so much for all the work that you do and God bless.

Thank you Betty.

Anybody else want to make any comments?

Director Pinkham.

Thank you.

Thank you to all the community members who came out here and shared your thoughts about what's going on currently with the district and again keeping us on our toes and making sure that we're making good informed decisions and always appreciative of your input.

Again thank you to Stephan and Sue.

What are you guys going to do on your Wednesday nights from the rest?

We'll find something to do.

Thank you to Gail Morris and the Huchoosedah staff for sharing what they're doing and as well as the dancers that came out and performed the traditional dances.

We saw the chicken dance by Juan the jingle dress dance which is actually healing dance from the Ojibwe nation and the fancy shell dance which is actually became the first dance for women where they actually left the ground because many of our traditional dances the women stay in touch with the ground because they are providers of life just like the earth.

And the women eventually saw hey we want to have a dance to express ourselves as well and that somewhat is what the origin of the fancy dance that you saw tonight as well.

I definitely appreciate their powwow squad and how it's helping address bullying in their schools and it's something that hopefully we can spread to others that look at the value that we can have from different cultures and their perspectives on how people should be treated.

And this I see the powwow squad I didn't have a chance to ask what I doubt if it's just native students it's probably other students I feel yes.

We need to fight against bullying to make sure that our concerns are met.

So thank you to the initiative of those students at that school and helping to address that.

And I also want to comment on the state of the district some accomplishments that came out on the handout.

Kind of notice lacking what was done to address the since time immemorial and the training that went on to the schools.

I thought that was a good accomplishment that the schools and principals were receiving their retraining on the since time immemorial curriculum.

Want to thank the family and friends of Tracy Libros for sharing her with the school district so that she can spread her knowledge and caring and compassion for education for students here.

To Principal Talbert with ORCA thank you for what you're doing to close the achievement gap.

Yes students feeling that they're safe at their school and feeling that the teachers staff administration know who they are know their story and encourage everyone to tell their story.

Because as she said if you don't tell their story someone's going to tell it for you.

And unfortunately that happened a lot for the native community.

Someone else was telling the story.

And now we're seeing our youth and the current American Indian population telling their story.

I mentioned this one other night actually not here in the district but another meeting that they talked about the seventh generation during the 1800s and signing of treaties when the American Indians were on the verge of vanishing for America.

But they said we will persist and the seventh generation will be the one that will bring back the native culture and we actually are in that seventh generation.

To parents that expressed concerns about shrinking playgrounds.

It seems like deja vu for me unfortunately with Loyal Heights and we were fighting that issue as well, shrinking playgrounds.

And that's one thing I hope that we can try to see how can we address that.

We don't want to reduce playground space especially for elementary school students where they need that space to get out and stretch their legs and release some of this energy.

And unfortunately at Montlake we're hearing from students oops we're getting hurt.

That's unfortunate so I'd like to see what we can do to address those.

And I want to thank the youth from Montlake Elementary coming and sharing their views.

It probably takes some encouragement for them to come up to a board and say that.

So to the parents, the teachers there at the school, thank you for allowing your students to come up and share their voices.

To the advanced learning HCC community as far as making sure we have equity in our HCC pathways.

I wanted to share an editorial from a magazine that was published back in May 2017. So hopefully it won't take too long.

It's a short editorial.

It's about genius takes many forms.

Who is a genius?

This question has fascinated humankind for centuries and has bedeviled us in putting together the cover story for this monthly issue.

Excuse me I have to zoom in on this.

Let's stipulate Einstein was a genius, his face, his hair is virtually the international symbol for geniuses.

So revered is he as an intellectual titan but for our story we wanted to go beyond one man and explore the nature of genius itself.

Why is it that some people are so more intelligent or creative than the rest of us?

And who are they?

That's where the trouble begins.

When editors here first gathered portraits to create a gallery of geniuses past, because it's hard to tell who among the living truly is a genius, the uniformity was obvious and unsettling.

In the sciences and arts, state craft and literature, philosophy and industry, those hailed as geniuses were most often white men of European origin.

Perhaps this is not a surprise it is said that history is written by the victors and those victors the ruling class the dominant culture set the standards for admission to the exclusive genius club.

When contributions were made by geniuses outside the club women are people of a different color creed.

They were unacknowledged rejected even misappropriated and claimed by others.

Their stereotypes endure a study recently published by the science found that as young as age six Girls are less likely than boys to say that their members of their gender are really really smart.

Even worse the study found that girls act on that belief.

Around age 6 they start to avoid activities said to be for children who are really really smart.

Can our planet afford to have any great thinkers become discouraged or intimidated and give up?

It doesn't take a genius to know the answer.

Absolutely not.

Here's the good news.

In the wired world with constant global communication we're all positioned to see flashes of genius wherever they may appear.

And the more we look and the more we will see that social factors like gender race and class neither ensure genius nor preclude it.

In other words as Claudia Klab writes in our cover story future geniuses may reside wherever there are individuals with intelligence creativity perseverance and a simple good fortune capable of changing the world.

Susan Goldberg editor in chief National Geographic magazine.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.

Peters Thank you.

Director Blanford.

I'll start off my remarks by thanking the Benton courts who gave us a fabulous presentation today and I love the fact that they were tying that the remarks that followed tied identity safety.

That is one of the key tenets of any kind of equitable work that you do is that you recognize that students need to have identity safety they need to recognize and be appreciated for who they are before they can become strong leaders.

And so I was pleased to see that we are prioritizing and allowing our students to demonstrate their identity safety.

Hopefully that can spread out and it can be infused in all of our schools and our central office.

I'd also like to thank Tony Talbert who from ORCA K8 who shared with us a lot about identity safety as well as the strategies that she and her staff are using to make all of her students feel welcome.

I think that's critically important and as she was talking and talking particularly about her African-American boys I was thinking about my own experience in school and having a similar a similar kind of set of expectations that were imposed on me back when I was little and you know was just one of many kids and no one particularly cared.

But there were teachers that I encountered throughout who did care and made me know that I belonged there that I was a scholar and that I was capable of great work academic work and so I I want to congratulate the work that they're doing in that school and hopefully it can serve as a model for all of our schools.

Blanford.

Last week on Tuesday I was having a conversation and someone asked me if I'd heard the news about Tracy Libros and though it was a celebratory event it immediately became clouded by the fact that or by the news of her passing.

For those of us who have worked and spent time in the district Tracy was one of those rock star staff people that very unassuming very modest but a powerhouse of knowledge And even better than knowing a lot about a lot of issues, just a good, kind, warm, kind-hearted person.

A kind-hearted woman.

And so her loss is a tremendous loss for those of us on the board.

and for the staff who had the opportunity to work with her over a number of years.

And I think for our community as a whole which benefited from her deep knowledge and tireless work to provide information to us on the board so that we could make good decisions.

And so I just want to appreciate her and share my condolences with her family.

I want to take a moment to thank the staff who participated who had any role to play in the event last night.

The state of the district talk though the room wasn't as full as we would have wanted it given the fact that we were sharing important information.

I believe that it was a an opportunity for us to hear the progress that's been made in the district the challenges that still stand before us.

and a great offering to our partners and our families and rallying cry for our staff to stay engaged in the work.

And I was so proud to be able to sit in the audience and get a chance to participate for a little bit.

But I want to thank all the staff for any role that you played in delivering a spectacular event.

I usually end my comments with a list of community meetings and unfortunately because this is my last school board meeting I don't have any community meetings.

Being as I held those on Saturday you would think that I would not like to attend those but I really will miss my community meetings because In almost every case I remember when I first became a school board director and I dreaded going into those meetings because I knew that there would be parents who were very upset for one reason or another and usually they were pointing to their school board director to solve the problem.

And I knew the stance that I frequently would take with those parents was to try to explain why the decision was made in the way that it was made and frequently to try to elevate the conversation to say we all are in this together and maybe the solution that you're asking for works to the benefit of your student or family but it works to the detriment of someone else's family.

So giving them the opportunity to understand that complexity and then to propose solutions that could work for both their family and other families.

And frequently maybe not as frequently as I would like but frequently those conversations would be positive where the staff person or the parent would thank me for learning a little bit more.

Sometimes they didn't necessarily come away with a different perspective but at least they learned a little bit about the other side of the coin.

And so I'll miss those because I think that is a type of dialogue that we too infrequently have in our civic life and one that is having a hugely detrimental impact on our local community and our country as a whole.

And then finally I will close my remarks by just sharing with the principals association my deep profound appreciation for the leadership for equity award that was just given.

Director Geary asked me as I was sitting down if I knew that that was coming and I did not know that that was coming.

And so This has already been a robust conversation today and it is a nice way to go out to have the recognition as a leader for equity.

It is something that I truly aspire to do when I came into this role.

And lots of times I've felt like I'm not sure if anybody heard me but so it is nice to receive that type of recognition and know particularly from our principals who I feel very strongly are key drivers around the equity in this district to get that kind of recognition and I hope that Other board members will receive it in the future because we are doing the important work of leading for equity in this district.

So thank you.

Peters.

Good evening everybody thank you for coming out and speaking with us tonight.

There were a lot of different comments a lot of great information shared so I appreciate that very much.

I would just basically second Director Pinkham and Director Blanford's comments about The presentation from our Native Americans and how much I appreciated not only just the beauty of that performance but again getting back to the identity safety and how important it is for our kids to feel that they can share that and we see how rich it is for all of us to experience that freedom and that generosity when we get to come up with it come up against it.

And so I.

It's one of the favorite parts of being on the board for sure.

Certainly can take all the lifting up that we can get up here and the message of anti-bullying.

Well we know that that's one that we need every day in every single corner of our life.

So have to just say thank you for that.

And Tony Talbert you know.

Everything you said is so right on and the way you said it.

The energy the love the enthusiasm.

We need to bring that to every single child every day because that would tell any child that they are believed in and that we know they can learn and we have that expectation for them.

So thank you for your dedication and your love to your school.

To my schools in District 3 Montlake and McGilvra let's keep talking.

I'm surprised to hear that Montlake still does not have ADA accessible accessibility.

I know at one point that they had a parent in a wheelchair and who was not able to enter her own child's school.

And so that's unacceptable.

And we need to make that change immediately.

And I know that that is something that I have asked in the past and I ask it again because that is not right.

No parents should have to stay outside their child's building.

And.

The message that that gives to the student is students is not lost on them.

So we need to change that right away.

We received news today that the Supreme Court made a ruling in McCleary and it was determined that our state is underfunding education by one billion dollars.

So the good news is that they're going to have to come up with the money.

So that's great.

I guess the difficulty for us is that it means another year of uncertainty in terms of the planning.

We spent a great deal of time last year trying to anticipate trying to plan around what was going to happen to our budget and the Supreme Court has ordered that they now have until April to come up with another funding plan.

And while the fact that they've said that it is short a billion dollars we have no real guidance at this point what that means for Seattle Public Schools.

So how they determine that where that money is going to flow how that's going to affect our ability to create smaller class sizes staff our schools.

It's going to be once again another hard year for us.

And the other thing it means is the penalties are still running and so I hope while we thought once once the budget came down perhaps Director Harris stopped keeping her calculation but maybe not and maybe when it's time she will have the total of what that is or she will have it for us next time I'm sure because I always appreciated hearing it and now it's going to be astronomical.

and how they're going to come up with that money and where that money is going to go will be very interesting.

But I just put everybody on notice that I guess a billion dollars is great that we see that coming what that's going to mean to our state and our budgets is going to be interesting.

Last night I did not attend the state of the district.

I took the opportunity to go to the renewal series that was being put on by the Atlantic monthly downtown with some of our leaders.

And what was interesting to me in attending that is because clearly in those conversations education becomes a big cornerstone in what a city is doing to address its problems.

And we continue to need to work on our relationships because clearly there were very few people from the district there because everybody was at the state of the district.

So the timing of that was a little off.

And what was said about our school district seems continues to feel several years behind in terms of where our priorities are what we're working on doing what we hope to achieve.

The continual public message when we're not included is not one of hope.

It is not what I see when we have people like Principal Talbert come and talk to us.

So we need to continue to get out there and while I'm not making any excuses for the fact we have so much work to do.

When I hear that defeatist attitude from people who purport to be civic leaders.

I don't feel that that's good for.

our families and our students and it doesn't create the hope that we need to raise expectations for our kids.

So I will continue to do that work and hopefully build those bridges.

I hate to say this especially after Director Blanford's eloquent words but my meeting this weekend is canceled.

I planned it without realizing that was the weekend before the Thanksgiving break.

And so I won't be here and will work very Diligently to get another meeting scheduled as quickly as possible.

Next week I will not be able to have my Tuesday meeting but I will resume them the following week.

And so if people want to come and speak to me after the break or after the long weekend on that Tuesday morning I will be sure to be there and they can speak with me.

Thank you again everybody for your comments and your care and your concern for our kids.

Harris.

I so very much wanted to open with the fine total.

But I couldn't determine where we left off.

But I guarantee you I'll be back and I'll open with that.

And to Becker Ritchie extraordinary badass teachers.

hero and Renton teacher who does an extraordinary job of keeping up with those tallies.

I hope to hear from her tonight because I want to double check my math.

I want to ditto what my colleagues have said about Hedushia, Gail Morris, the Betancourt family.

Principal Talbot is she's just a rock star.

on any level and she's an inspiration and we have some incredibly gifted and talented people in this district and we need to celebrate them as much as we possibly can and to say again thank you.

On the thank you list Carrie Campbell the rest of the crew that put last night's event together.

Way to go.

You hit it out of the park.

Thank you very much.

Boo Balkan Foster the the Ingram choir.

Last night will keep me going for another six months.

Easy when things get depressing and we start talking about budgets and we start talking about giving up the ever shrinking pie.

and trying to balance and do our moral duties here.

So again thank you for that.

I needed that shot in the arm and I will remember that forever and I hope we've got the video so we can look it up and get another shot of the good energy and and frankly just the beauty.

of what our students can and do do.

Three o'clock Delridge library and we know now I'm serving lasagna.

So be there.

And for those retiring.

Board directors you are always welcome and it's always rowdy and it's always interesting in West Seattle and South Park and would love to see you there.

Had the opportunity to meet with Caleb Perkins director Burke a number of our CTE and STEM teachers.

And we had a brainstorming session and a roundtable and we learned so many things and the ideas were just shooting off of everyone.

And Rick and I hope to be able to have more of those kind of meetings where we bring in the folks with the boots on the ground and leave it good and loose and see where it takes us as a learning opportunity.

Concord.

Went to Concord and South Park last week.

Concord has had significant issues with respect to the dual language immersion program.

It is not dead.

The Seattle Public Schools have not cut it off.

There has been a reformatting of that program and this has been going on since the beginning of school.

And it again emphasizes the fact that we start programs in this district that are not necessarily sustainable and we make promises we can't keep.

And I think we're doing a better job than we have in a long time.

Being straightforward and candid about that.

But the consequences are very sad when you have a community that.

is hurting because of decisions made in this building and because of the lack of money.

Is it getting better.

Yes.

Kelly Aramaki executive director principal Norma Zavella did an outstanding job.

The community is working together with its teachers and including one of the most talented.

E-L-L-I-A's I have ever seen.

She gave me the chills and we're looking for emergency certification for her.

She was a special ed teacher in Puerto Rico but she had over 100 fairly stressed out people eating out of her hands and did it with a grace I have never seen before.

So I. I'll be talking to a number of the folks over there on the wall because it was it was beyond impressive.

Congratulations to Boren Pre K 8 who has been doing a fundraiser for families with needs and are sharing that fundraiser with Roxhill.

Congratulations to Roxhill who snagged one hundred thousand dollar grant to address their high needs.

It is difficult challenging work up here but it's really an honor and a privilege to do this.

Thank you very much.

Peters.

I just forgot to mention that I will have a community meeting this Saturday as well at Broadview library.

I was lonely at the last one so Stephan, Sue please show up so I won't be lonely.

And my community meeting will be again 4 to 5 30 Broadview library.

Director Patu.

Also want to announce my community meeting which is also this Saturday at Rockham tour at nine o'clock in the morning.

Hope to see you there.

Okay I guess that leaves me.

So first of all I want to also extend my thanks to everybody who organized last night's State of the District.

I suspect that Carrie Campbell had a hand in that and I'm assuming there are other people involved.

You did an excellent job.

Honestly it's the best one I've ever been to and that includes ones that were run by the Alliance for Education.

It was classy and there were students involved.

It had both an organic relevant aspect to it and it was something really worth attending.

So I'm glad it was filmed.

There was also a really nice speech by Ron Sims which I strongly recommend people people watch.

And Dr. Nyland was fantastic and so it was it was a really good good presentation.

So thank you very much.

To all the public who came out tonight again thank you so much for you know patiently waiting for your turn to speak and sharing with us the many myriad of issues that confront the district and bringing them to our attention.

I'll try to address some of them.

I would like to also know why we would have a school that's not ADA compliant.

So there must be some reason behind that.

This is regarding Montlake Elementary.

I would assume we have ramps at every school or maybe that's on our list.

I'm not sure.

So I just want to flag that one is one that I think we would all be interested in having a follow up explanation on that.

And when we get to talking about the BEX V wish list or to do list Montlake is certainly one that we should be considering.

Let's see.

I also wanted to thank the dancers that were here earlier and all the students who spoke tonight.

We had quite a few and we had quite a few young ones.

It takes a lot of courage and a bit of stretching to reach the microphone so so good job to all of you.

Let's see you know regarding civic leaders that Director Geary mentioned who might not speak well of the district as I mentioned before it's a bit of a sport in this town to make fun of the school board make fun of the school district and I don't think it's helpful because as an institution yes we have some flaws but you know criticizing us in ignorance is not helpful and I do worry about the agenda of some people.

There are some people in this town who do not support public education.

They believe privatizing is the way to go.

They believe mayoral control is the way to go.

So it's in their interest to make us look bad and to not promote anything we do well.

So we need to keep that in mind.

And it's always dangerous to live in a one paper newspaper and one paper town.

So there's that.

Now there is the community does have valid concerns about the district as many things we could be doing better.

And again that's on display tonight with a lot of the points that were brought forth.

So I'm not trying to gloss over that.

I'm just saying that we.

It would be good to have more objective analysis of what the district is and isn't doing well because only then can we truly grow and only then can we develop the support that we need to move forward.

Because you know as Dr. Nyland presented last night you know in many respects this district is leading the state in terms of achievement in some places.

On a national level we're doing some things that are leading the nation in terms of for example changing our bell times.

And I understand that our student assessment policy that we that we passed recently was also groundbreaking.

We're doing a lot of innovative important work and we really deserve to have some coverage for that as well.

Let's see so while I'm on sticky subjects I'll go on to advanced learning in HCC.

You know as people were talking tonight there's lots of interesting recommendations on what to do but the one if we were to have HCC programming available in every single school I'm wondering if that would suddenly become more like spectrum.

And what is it that happened to spectrum?

Spectrum is basically gone.

Because when something is so small, what is that expression about drowning it in the bathtub?

You know, make something small enough?

That appears to be what happens when we make our programs so small that they're not really sustainable or it seems like something that only a small group of kids is benefiting from.

So what we need to do is to make sure we have meaningful challenging opportunities for every student at every school.

But we also need to have a critical mass in certain programs whether it's HCC whether it's dual language immersion whether it's STEM we need to have a critical mass of students so we can invest in the program and we can have the resources and the teachers and everything that the students need.

And so.

Having this in every single school might not be possible.

I think of you know having a space needle in every neighborhood.

We couldn't do that we wouldn't do that.

But we don't have the resources and so that's why we sometimes have like option schools in other cities it's referred to as magnet schools and students can opt in or are drawn to these schools and we can heavily invest resources there and it would be I think it was the goal of the student assignment plan of 2009 to make every single school have something worthwhile so that every student would feel every parent would feel confident in sending their students to their assignment school.

So we still have a ways to go for that.

But I guess it's an ongoing it's an ongoing conversation.

Let's see I also wanted to offer my condolences to the family of Tracy Libros.

You know it's ironic because her name has come up often in the last year or so as we've talked about the student assignment plan and she's remembered well with great affection and respect from both the community and those of us currently sort of inside the district and outside the district.

And that doesn't often happen that a staff member is known outside of the community and respected that way.

So it is a great loss.

I think some of us are even hoping we could we could tap her expertise on the student assignment plan.

And so obviously she's not available to us anymore.

And that is a great loss.

Let's see.

I would like to know from from staff at some point about what sort of analysis has been done with regards to transportation and the student assignment plan and the high school pathways because what I'm hearing is the transportation was not factored in for the initial recommendations.

And so clearly that has to be you know we've heard from families in Magnolia who are trying to calculate what it would mean to travel from Magnolia to Wallingford.

And a school bus can do something but when you talk about city buses I'm understanding I've been told that the kids would have to transfer downtown.

And so there'd be a very non-direct way to get our students home at night.

And so I would like to know I think we all would like to know whether there's been a transportation analysis for all the recommendations that have come forth from staff.

And if there hasn't would an analysis change the recommendations.

The Stevens Elementary I would be interested in knowing more about that.

What exactly happened there.

I also have concerns about the language that says space available based on staffing capacity.

I do think we end up having a bit of a circle there where staffing capacity can be determined by the number of students which is determined by the number of staff and I don't understand where it begins or ends and who has the decision final decision on that sort of thing.

And then a parent mentioned a law regarding moving students out of high school during their four years.

I would like to know more about that so perhaps our legal department could give us a response on that perhaps in a Friday memo because obviously if there's any laws that mandate we can't move students out of high school then we obviously have to be following those laws.

But aside from that I think we have expressed an interest in not destabilizing our students and I think there's been talk, I mean I've been a proponent of not moving 12th graders out, not moving 8th graders out, we should not let matriculating students have to leave their school in their final year.

And then 11th grade is a crucial year for high school so it would not be good to move the 11th graders and so I think what I'm understanding is we've been talking about a 9th and 10th grade roll up for Lincoln.

So I think parents are asking for more clarity on that and the sooner we can put their minds to rest on that the better.

I think I guess I'll finish on just a sort of general point and that is you know I got into this position Because I care about public education.

I got involved with Seattle Public Schools when the district announced they were going to close my student my son's school and that made an education activist out of me.

I firmly believe that public education is incredibly important.

especially now in these times when people are having trouble discerning fact from fiction.

And we have policy being made at the national level based on a lack of knowledge based on fiction rather than facts.

Public education is a great equalizer.

It's the great opportunity we have as a nation to make sure we have an informed citizenry.

We also have to start teaching them our students how to understand what is and isn't real on the Internet.

And especially as we rely more and more on technology.

And so I feel we have to maintain our commitment to public education and the fact that in this nation we expect all of our students to be educated.

It's not true of every single nation in the world.

And when we talk about some of the international tests or the United States doesn't fare as well as some other countries that's partly because we have all our kids in public education.

We expect all our kids to be educated.

That's not necessarily true of every single country.

So I stand by my commitment to public education.

I think all of you who are in this room because I I presume you all share this this commitment and it's really important and we need to stay stay vigilant.

that we're able to offer this to every every child.

One last thing.

I invite everybody to join us on November 28th at 6 p.m.

for the swearing in of our board directors our two new board directors Ian Mack and Zachary DeWolf and our continuing board director Betty Patu and our special guest will be state superintendent Chris Reykdal.

And there will be cake.

So thank you all very much.

And the board is now going to take a 15 minute break and then continue with with our meeting.

Thank you.