School Board Meeting April 17, 2019 Part 1

Welcome to today's April 17th 2019 legislative Seattle school board meeting.

As we began the board wants to recognize and honor the first peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on the land of the coastal Salish tribes.

I would also like to.

Acknowledge and welcome Sophie Rotter — Aboyan who is joining us on the dais this evening from Ingram High School.

Ms. Rotter — Aboyan will be having an opportunity to give comments and.

You will be part of the school board this evening.

You don't get to vote but you get to ask questions if you stick around and we hope you do until the bitter bitter end.

Roll call please.

Director Burke.

Present.

Director DeWolf.

Present.

Director Geary.

Present.

Director Mack.

Here.

Director Patu.

Here.

Director Pinkham.

Here.

Director Harris.

Here.

And if those that choose to stand would like to do so let's have 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.

Thank you.

We have here in our audience and soon to come to the front students from Kimball Elementary School.

We would like the directors to come sit in the front row so that we can enjoy the performance.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Board of Directors.

We're really glad to be here today.

The first song that our students are going to present to you is called Green Apple Tree.

All around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet.

Miss Isler, Miss Isler, please turn back your back We wrote you a letter to turn back your back.

So all around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet, Mr. Spot, please turn back your back.

We wrote you a letter to turn back your back.

So all around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet.

Mr. Max, Mr. Max, please turn back your back.

We wrote you a letter to turn back your back.

So all around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet.

Mr. Mack.

Mr. Mack, Mr. Mack, Mr. Mack, you're back.

Snowdin wrote you a letter.

Mr. Mack, you're back.

So all around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet.

Mr. Shabbat, Mr. Shabbat, please turn back your back.

We wrote you a letter to turn back your back.

So all around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet.

Miss Maya, Miss Maya, please turn back your back.

We wrote you a letter to turn back your back.

So all around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet.

Miss Isler, Miss Isler, please turn back your back.

So we wrote you a letter to turn back your back.

So all around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet.

Miss Penny, Miss Penny, please turn back your back.

We wrote you a letter to turn back your back.

So all around the green apple tree, where the grass grows so sweet.

Miss Claire, Miss Claire, please turn back your back.

♪ We wrote you a letter to turn back your back ♪ ♪ So all around the green house ♪ ♪ Hati patata ♪ ♪ Hati patata ♪ ♪ Hati patata ♪ ♪ Hati patata ♪ ♪ Hati patata ♪

Om Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Om Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nidhiya Nid

That was awesome.

We're going to start with your teacher.

Ask her to introduce herself.

Tell us how long she's been teaching and tell us how long you've been at Kimball.

And then we're going to pass the microphone down and you're going to tell us your first name.

OK.

Thank you.

My name is Katie.

I've been a music teacher at Kimball for two years now and I've been teaching in Seattle for 12 years.

My name is Sabat and I'm in first grade.

My name is Madison and I'm in first grade.

My name is Penny and I am in first grade.

My name is Aida and I'm in first grade.

My name is Maya and I'm in first grade.

My name is Josie and I'm in first grade.

My name is Claire and I'm in first grade.

My name is Mack and I'm in first grade.

And you all are rock stars.

Thank you so much.

Madam Superintendent the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Kimball Elementary.

That was awesome.

Appreciate you being here.

Just first like to welcome everybody back from spring break.

I'm hopeful everyone is rested and ready for the rest of the school year.

As many of you know we had our state of the district event last night and I just want to thank everybody for attending.

It was a really phenomenal event.

I just want to really give a special thank you to Kerry Campbell and the communications team for organizing everything.

They were really awesome.

I'd also like to thank Seattle Colleges and in particular Dr. Edwards Lange for hosting us City Year and the Alliance for Education for their partnership and the students of course who stepped up to share their stories speak their truths and perform for all of us.

If you were there it was really nice to see a student centered event with student voices and things that are really great that are happening across our district and I couldn't be more proud.

I also just want to take a moment to introduce Ronald Boy, who is going to be Acting Chief Legal Counsel while Noel is taking a new position, and I look forward to working with you, so thanks for stepping up into that role.

One of the board's action items this evening is the approval of the families education preschool and promise levy partnership agreement.

And I'm really just so thankful for the voters of Seattle for supporting this work.

The partnership with the city and Seattle colleges and the Seattle Public School team of Ronna Boy Caleb Perkins Wyatt Jesse Cashel Toner.

James Bush and Diane DeBacker for their hours and hours and hours of work with the city to get this agreement together.

So thank you so much to our staff who worked really hard on getting it done.

Seattle Public Schools are so lucky to have you on their team.

My usual comments.

We held our third student advisory board meeting at Roosevelt High School.

The students heard from experts in the fields of special education health education native education and PBIS from SPS staff who sat with them and talked about some of the issues that they were concerned about and wanted to learn more about.

Very powerful day of learning and planning for their projects.

I visited with the very inquisitive Cedar Park Kindergarteners.

They had prepared for my visit with interview questions, and so that was fun to hear what they might be interested in learning about.

These Decatur students and their principal showed me around the school.

They spoke mostly about the social emotional learning that's going on.

Very powerful stuff.

They're working really hard to create a welcoming environment in their school.

These West Woodland learners showed me the Iditarod wall.

They were tracking all the racers and the dogs and learning more about what that race might be.

And so that was pretty fascinating a lot of women racers which was kind of fun to see.

Whittier Elementary kindergartners reviewed their classroom rules before circle time.

We each because it was International Women's Month shared an important woman in our life.

We sat around in a circle and I learned it's very very hard to get up from when you're sitting on the carpet for me now.

That was my learning of the day.

This Daniel Bagley student explained his math lesson to me and what was going on.

Very articulate young learner.

I just want to thank Gail Brennan Lisa Christine Ryan and Gordon for sharing their Saturday with the student advisory board.

These students and I were so lucky to have you there participating and helping them learn more about what we're doing as a district how they might be players in those respective areas and.

just to learn from each other.

We learned a lot I think as staff from the students and the students of course learned a lot about what was going on currently.

Sacajawea principal shared all of the work she and her team are doing to provide an inclusive environment for all students.

Principal Thaxton and her PTA co-chairs showed me around West Woodland.

They're working hard to build a longer table by holding affinity group family meetings.

After we got up from circle time with kindergartners Principal Clark showed me around Whittier.

The wall behind us is highlighting the important women for International Women's Month and the women that they were studying.

Hazel Wolf K-8 Principal Nelson flew me to the tropics for our school visit.

This is actually this is an e-STEM school and they have an amazing living wall that students tend to a lot of garden stuff.

It's really neat.

Decatur Principal Gohagan has some cool stuff happening as well.

And if you visit this school you'll find out that the cafeteria set up like the cafeteria at Hogsworth.

And so all kinds of Harry Potter things going on.

Principal Olet showed off the artwork at Cedar Park that's left.

This was actually their school was an artist commune that rented the site before Seattle Public Schools needed the space.

And so there's a few remnants still around that are pretty interesting and he said he was going to try to figure out what those were and why they're there and what what's the story behind.

This is at.

Yes Cedar Park.

So there's still was an artist commune.

So there's still those things around.

And so he's trying to figure out what was happening.

Principal Jaska is working hard to ensure all students have a safe inclusive learning space.

They were the dragons.

Principal Holmes and assistant principal Silver are proud of the work happening at Daniel Bagley.

They're very excited to get a new building.

So thank you again Seattle voters for voting for the levees.

Principal Bowers works hard at Green Lake to find space for everyone.

This is one of our open concept schools and it is over capacity but she and her team are making it work.

And all the spaces that are filled to the brim but there's still a lot of great learning going on.

Teachers are learning to team and share space and figure out how great learning can still occur.

Just a shout out to our partners Seattle libraries and Seattle housing.

This is a picture from the second Somali families book release at New Holly Gathering Hall.

Just a really fun event.

These books are all across our district now created by families and so really a significant event.

I got to meet with King County council member Larry Gossett.

I know all of you know he is a very cool guy.

He shared his history as an equity warrior for Seattle Public Schools and the city.

Very impressive.

So it was really just an honor getting to know him and what he's up to and his work.

And as you know I've been holding transportation think tank meetings.

We've had meetings now with some educators some bus companies some taxis.

Some of our internal groups are coming up and they've been pretty positive.

We've met with King County Seattle City so government entities as well that are involved in transportation.

And so know that these aren't just conversations about.

buses and taxis and ride shares.

These are also conversations about walk zones and sidewalks and bike routes and all of the things that encompass how students get to school.

And so they've been pretty powerful learnings.

This is the picture from our technology experts so a sure ride which is a local group that really does.

help I think rent in school district right now with some of their special education student delivery.

We also had Amazon in the room hop skip drive which is a California company that really works started out with moms at home sort of doing ride share and sort of developed into this company now that is still women focused bringing women drivers on developing relationships with families and just sort of like a ride share but all family oriented.

We also had Uber and Lyft in the room.

Line bike.

I'm just talking through some big issues and just want to thank them for sharing their ideas with us.

And as you as I said we had taxis at an earlier meeting government entities educators and so talking about all of these things have been pretty interesting.

And then the breakfast group as you know is a great partner to Seattle Public Schools.

They invited me to their breakfast meeting where I shared our new strategic plan.

I answered their questions and so I'm really excited to continue our partnership as we move into this new phase of really focusing on African-American males.

They've been a great partner in that effort and just look forward to continuing our partnership with them and the many others who help us out.

So thank you Madam President.

Okay next up is committee reports.

Who would like to go first.

Director Pinkham Audit and Finance Chair.

It's like you only hear people.

I don't want to go.

So I'll go first.

No I'll pass it off to Jill.

I guess that's not that's good.

Good evening.

I'm Scott Pinkham chair of Audit and Finance.

Just want to give an update of our upcoming meeting on Monday April 22nd.

I spoke with Jillian Berge on what we're going to be doing on that day.

We have five items coming up on Monday including the amending board policy 5 0 5 employment that deals with our volunteers that may be in our schools.

A gift.

from the Smith Brooks estate.

We'll discuss that because it actually is something of over almost 700 K in value.

The kids in the middle grant the National Foundation again they're continuing to give us money.

We appreciate their support.

So that bar hopefully will come flying through this committee.

Also have a.

Bar for a PTSA actually gift that exceeded the two hundred fifty K.

So good to see our PTAs are able to raise that much money but it still brings up the issue.

How can we make sure it's equitable for all our schools.

What can be raised.

The League of Education voters also continue in a renewal of a grant for us so that will come forward to us in the future.

executive board meeting here special attention items just information about some contracts that exceed 250 K getting ready for unfortunate with our current budget that we are ready for any rifts that may occur.

We did add another item.

We will for information purposes talk about PTSA and other types of grants that schools may get for information so we are aware of money that schools are bringing in that might necessarily come to our attention.

Also discussing our minimum balance per policy 602 and our big sheet as we call it as we have a work plan for our audit and finance.

So encourage people to come out there because I think this meeting will definitely have some stuff that you'd want to hear the discussion about and enjoy the hopefully meeting.

I find them enjoyable.

Checking out my other notes make sure.

But again that next meeting will be this coming Monday 430 630 in the board conference room.

Hope to see you there.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.

Director Geary.

OK for C&I our next meeting will be April 23rd.

Also in the board office 430 to 630. We have a packed agenda with a hard stop at 630 for non-committee member board members that want to attend.

We'll be looking at the highly capable.

I'm I'm I'm just letting you know up front it's going to be I'm going to be keeping it to schedule.

But we've I've made changes to the overall agenda to allow for discussion all the same.

Okay so we look at the highly capable annual report and I'll remind everybody that this is the report that we send to OSPI as a matter of routine and it is we have seen it over and over and it always brings up a lot of issues around our highly capable cohort placement and.

within the district but this is just an annual report that we send to OSPI and is not a reworking of the HCC program.

I remind everybody of that because it always generates a lot of discussion but we do have a task force around that issue now that is resolving and working on those issues for us so that we don't necessarily need to do that around the annual report.

We're going to see the return of the Satterberg Foundation.

So that's always welcome and a bright spot in our day.

We're going to be moving forward on 2024 out of district credits and credit recovery.

Again a thank you to Director Mack for her input and hopefully she's had a chance to look at those things and we'll get back to me if there's anything further further concern.

Okay we'll take a look at it because your edits have been considered and adopted.

Then we're going to be.

Discussing moving forward on our science adoption.

So we've had a lot of we've had a lot of discussion around that and I know we're getting a lot of.

Correspondence as well.

So if we are moving it forward and so that is one of the the discussion points and I know it will be one that will generate a lot of discussion again under our special attention items we'll be talking about since time immemorial which we know because we have not moved forward on policy 2015 and amending our.

policy around the adoption of instructional material.

There'll be some discussion about whether or not we will make sure that that is in place for next school year through a resolution process.

We know that that's not the desired methodology for curriculum adoption but we're an attention point of making sure that this important curriculum is implemented as quickly as possible and also that we.

produce a really good result on a very important policy.

So then in terms of standing agenda items we'll be taking some.

I did find some time there.

We're going to get a brief update on 24 credit and secondary revisioning as well as the Spanish instructional material update.

And board policy and procedures, again, we'll be looking at student rights and responsibilities.

This is something that comes up pretty much annually and we always look to make small changes that for better but not a major overhaul at this point.

We'll talk again about 2015, instructional materials, how to move forward on that and then more regular least scheduled things equitable access quarterly report and our tech plan will be a brief introduction with more to follow.

So to the extent that the tech plan that you'll want a more lengthy discussion there will be opportunities in future meetings.

So that's what we got for C&I and I'm going to let Director Mack talk about the legislative updates.

Director Mack chair of operations and legislative liaison and FEPP rep. Can I ask a question first.

Of course you may ask a question.

I would just just ask a question of the C&I committee I know that with the resolution of the STI and there was a our Indian Parent Advisory Council asked for a meeting is that I mean part of the engagement.

OK great.

Just want to check.

Thanks.

Since we're asking questions I've got one for C&I as well.

So can I back up on that.

And Director Burke could you make a little bit more because I put this on the agenda for discussion.

Could you make your response more clear to the audience so it's a little more transparent about what your response meant.

Yeah absolutely.

I think that there's the Native Native American Parent Advisory Committee has raised concerns about adopting or implementing a resolution.

They're interested in making sure that the program is adopted.

Excuse me.

So the ongoing communication is how are we aligning language so that this is a resolution that supports common goals and doesn't actually take us.

in a different direction from where you know I think the legislative intent and the community desire is for this program.

While we're on C&I still student rights and responsibilities I understand that there's been a great deal of work done on student dress codes and that the student advisory group has been discussing that as well.

Are we going to be ready.

to present that for student rights and responsibilities before the next year and would acting general counsel soon to be or are you now acting cool.

OK, so Ronald Boy, what we're going to do is we're going to do a policy for the dress code.

So it won't be part of student rights and responsibilities, because that is really more of a discipline-focused document.

And we want to not treat dress as a discipline.

So what the plan is is that is that policy is ready to go.

We're going to get it on committee so that the timing of it is that it's a fresh policy for the coming school year.

I thought it didn't really seem to make sense to do the last like a new policy that would be implemented for like the last month of school.

So we'll start fresh for the next school year with a policy that's fair and reflective of the needs of our students.

in training at STI in August about it for our leaders.

Hopefully if I can get time.

Yeah.

Director Mack.

Just out of curiosity we've been hearing from various schools around bathroom policies and I'm wondering if that fits into this policy or somewhere else.

It would be somewhere else.

But I think that's a good discussion to have.

So it does not fit into the student rights and responsibilities or where in policy would it.

So would not fit into student rights and responsibilities.

I think that we could talk about if we wanted to do a restroom policy against student rights and responsibilities as a focused on student behavior and restrooms would be separate from that.

Makes sense.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that we didn't give you notice.

Director Mack take it away.

Thank you.

I'm I'm going to not talk about my the FEPP LOC liaison role because we're going to be talking about the partnership agreement in a bit so.

Let's see starting off the legislative update.

There's less than two weeks before they're supposed to finish.

April 28th is when the legislature is supposed to finish their work and be done which means these last couple of weeks are actually a bit crazy.

Budget is the last thing to happen.

And unfortunately I don't think we're seeing that we're getting the budget that we're going to need.

But we did see that there is a few bills that passed.

1139 on educator workforce supply has passed.

High school graduation requirements and pathways 1599 has passed.

The questions around the SEB funding the employee health care is still ongoing.

The SPED funding is still not resolved and it's even what's on the table is not unfortunately it's not sufficient.

So that's not great news but there's some good news in there with the passage of those couple of things.

I want to let my colleagues know that WSSDA's new position position proposals are open now for the next for the 2020 legislative session.

That's the start the process of actually setting what the legislative agenda is for WSSDA.

now and they're due May 10th.

So there's some time.

So if there's any kind of position proposal that my colleagues feel like we should put forward or work on would love to know if we should do that or not.

Can I ask a question on WSSDA and positions.

Sure.

A letter was written to the superintendent of public instruction recently by WSSDA.

Not sure I agree with it quite frankly.

Where did that come from.

Did that come from a back room someplace.

Did that come from an executive committee.

Did that go out for a vote.

You can't have all the representatives pencil whipping and and editing one document.

But but I'm curious as to how WASDA which is a quasi governmental agency is speaking for us.

So are you referring to a press release related to.

Both WASA and WASDA joining together and writing a joint statement around putting guardrails around salary.

with the levy correct.

Is that the.

That's exactly what I'm that's the one you're talking to.

So that letter was not that didn't come to the legislative committee directly didn't come to me directly and ask whether or not I actually approved of that action or there was no as far as I know there's no vote.

I think we're informed that they were having conversation but I didn't didn't know about it ahead of time.

The there.

Hundreds of position statements and you can find them all online for WSSDA.

They've you know some of them have been there for a long time.

There are position statements that talk about you know one of them is that we have asked to have a salary schedule at the state because that went away.

And there is a position statement that does reference having you know some guardrails essentially around salaries but I don't I can't answer your question and I can say that I don't know that I fully agree with that personally myself that but I I don't know that they were acting outside of the purview of the entire organization's positions.

Please continue.

So related to that I mean if there were some sort of position that we wanted to try to put forward and have adopted by the full WSSDA we could we could do that and we need to submit by May 10th and that would be adopted over the next year.

So.

Moving on to operations.

We have our meeting coming up tomorrow and it's a packed agenda again as per normal.

On our standing agenda items we have our committee work plan and one thing that we've had conversations around is that we likely need to request a full work session around the student assignment plan and boundaries.

We have a work session coming up on May 8th around the capital program semi-annual report and capacity enrollment evaluation.

And I don't think in that one we're going to be able to get to the conversation of what proposed changes are on the table and what community engagement's been going on around.

the needed changes for the next cycle because come the fall we end up voting on the new student assignment transition plan and and that that those conversations with the communities around the boundaries and program movements and that kind of thing is kind of ongoing now.

So I think that it might be helpful for us to have a work session related to that in.

Early June or late May if that's possible.

So we're going to talk about that in committee and see what folks think and then offer that up to the executive committee.

For consideration.

Under special attention items we did move things around so we actually have special attention items coming underneath our standing items.

So we have the BEX BTA oversight committee semiannual report.

The chair John Palewicz is going to come and talk about the work that they do.

Mr. Richard Bass is going to talk about the portables plan that's ongoing and to Superintendent Juneau's point around the think tank work that's been going around the transportation.

Fred's kind of going to give us an update around what you know what's been talked about and you know where things are and what what's what's happening with that conversation at this point.

So I appreciate that there has been work going on to look at our transportation issues and move some things forward.

We're going to hear from Mr. Skoura on water quality and what the district is doing to respond to some concerns around some of the faucets around the district.

There was an article in the paper a while ago and District has plans and is moving forward to make some improvements and so we're going to hear about what that is which is great.

We have several construction related board actions.

E.C.

Hughes Lincoln High School Blaine K-8 Roosevelt Ballard and West Seattle.

And then we're going to have some board policy discussion around Three WASDA model policies that have been suggested.

Mr. Boyd is going to present these.

One is on the notification of juvenile offenders.

So that will be an interesting conversation.

And then unmanned aircraft system and model aircraft.

This is kind of a curious one to come to us, but it's been, you know, strongly recommended that we need to adopt this.

And as well as surveillance cameras.

And I think that that's probably If we don't have something around surveillance cameras and what our policies are on privacy it's good that we get that in place.

So that's great.

And then we're at the end of the meeting and hopefully we don't run late and we might.

We will be talking again about the facilities planning policy 69 0 0 and 69 0 1 which is our 69 0 1 is our current.

planning policy around facilities but it's focused on just levies and 69 0 0 is more broad around facilities planning.

And so we're looking at adopting 69 0 1 and maintaining 69 I'm sorry adopting 69 0 0 and maintaining 69 0 1 but having it be focused on the levy planning portion and then the facilities master planning sorts of topics would fall under the 69 0 0. And in that same conversation, we're talking about how it would be really useful to get an advisory committee going around facilities master planning, because we have a $1.4 billion levy that we're going to be implementing.

There's a lot of boundary conversations and enrollment and over the past six years we've spun up I think six different task forces at different times on that topic on boundaries and enrollment planning and all of that and I know as a board member I would find it very helpful to have some additional support in the you know the decision making from an advisory committee.

So we're going to talk about that a little bit about whether or not it should be slotted into the policy or should be to stand alone.

But that's the meeting.

Any questions for me.

Okay.

Any other report outs from my colleagues.

Okay.

Executive Committee.

And we've been meeting more of your executive committee members Director Burke Director DeWolf Superintendent Juneau we've been focusing our conversations on board staff communication and if you'll recall these are ongoing conversations and terribly important.

We're revising reading and figuring out what the pragmatic real life boots on the ground consequences are of those policies and.

and trying to be collaborative and strategic and creative as to how we keep this ship going in the same direction and having everyone's needs met when everyone is overscheduled and overwhelmed.

The other issues that we are speaking about offline are the superintendent evaluation.

Very thoughtful thorough interesting conversations and of course given the fact that we passed a strategic plan five year strategic plan and very hard work in the making.

Expect that to be focused.

The other is having the conversations about whether there are board goals superintendent goals smart goals.

How do we how do we braid those together and how do we blow up the silos and work together and delegate and still maintain accountability and transparency.

We heard from Mike McBee representative of 609. We try and schedule a conference with our labor partners so we can have a conversation.

What's on your mind.

Here are some of the questions I have.

They don't have to do with collective bargaining but but it opens up an avenue of communication that I think is really healthy and I'm proud of our adding that to the agenda.

And also for the next meeting and thereafter I've added a standing item for public affairs and the comms team because with the restructuring they don't have a committee to report to.

So it's the executive committee and we keep looped in its transportation and collaboration.

I think we're doing good work.

Those meetings don't run over because.

When the minute hand hits the top of the hour everybody gets up and leaves.

But really good conversation a fair amount of give and take and we invite you down.

They are.

Public meetings.

Sophie you ready.

OK.

We're welcoming again Sophie Rota.

A boy in from Ingram high school.

She's a member of the Ingram gymnastics and track teams.

She enjoys singing in the treble choir and participating in school drama performances.

She is in the accelerated IB program at Ingraham and on track to receive her IB diploma in May.

And did you see that the legislature just passed equivalency credits to AP for Washington Public Universities and Colleges yesterday.

Yeah that's amazing.

It is good stuff.

It hasn't been signed by the governor yet but.

Y'all just moved up a notch.

In any event tell us what you like.

What doesn't work for you and what you think we should know.

Please.

Floor is yours.

Thank you.

My name is Sophie.

I'm a junior at Ingraham.

And thank you for having me.

I think that the last time I was here I was in elementary school singing in a choir at Whittier up on stage like the kids did earlier.

So it's great to be back here after all those years.

If you ask most students at Ingram what the best part of our school is, I believe that they would say the community, which starts by creating a welcoming environment for all incoming 9th graders.

And one of the programs we have at Ingram is called Link Crew which is active in other schools in the district I know too.

And I'm a leader for that.

And what we do is we help welcome students from the first day they walk in in ninth grade to feel as welcome as possible at Ingram in the great community.

And the first aspect of the school that I thought would be interesting to talk about is the International Baccalaureate Program because it's what grew the student population when it was first adopted, I think in 2002, which is when I was born.

So, it's as old as I am at Ingram.

That's still a driving factor for most students to attend.

And that was the case for me and my older sister when we were deciding where to go for high school because we live in the Ballard area.

And the IB program has shaped the school in both positive and negative ways that I will talk about.

Because on the positive side IB causes you a great job of preparing students in terms of time management and college workloads and it also emphasizes the critical learning which differs it I think a bit from AP and it brings in students all across Seattle so people can test in or if they're already in HCC it will bring them into the school.

But on the negative side of the IB program, Ingram does have a heavy segregation between people that do IB and those that don't.

And it also leads in to extreme racial divides with IB classes and IBX classes being predominantly white.

And if you were to go into one of those classes you would see very few people of color.

And in the cohort of students that I'm in for the full IB diploma there isn't even a single African-American student in it and I think that's out of around 70 people which is not a good representation of the school and this higher academic program doesn't reflect the diversity that Ingraham actually has.

And to further this point, the racial divisions exist in other areas as well.

I am a part of the theater program at Ingram, which is also predominantly white and predominantly female, which is, I know, common for most theater in high schools.

And actually in my freshman year, there was an extensive effort to try to diversify this because we did Hairspray for our spring musical, which was the first show I did there.

But since then, the class has basically returned to an almost white group of students, which obviously is not good at all.

And we want to bring in as many people as possible.

And Ingram's school motto is it's a matter of pride and that we have an acronym for that and the D in that acronym stands for diversity and diversifying the IB program is one of Ingram's goals for the future and for most programs in the school which I was talking to our front desk lady about today, actually.

One of the main ways that students in different academic programs can meet each other is through athletics, clubs, elective classes, other activities.

And I have loved getting to know new people through the activities I chose to do, which I said earlier, these are the same ones, gymnastics, track, choir, and theater.

And it may be generally thought among students at Ingram and other high school students that Ingram is not that good at sports, but we do have some of our own successes.

In fact, our boys' varsity ultimate team won state this year.

which is pretty cool.

And a girl from Ingham won the 100 meter hurdles in track last year.

And these accomplishments probably aren't known as well because they're not part of big sports such as football and basketball.

But of course they matter just as much as any sport.

And the less popular sports do receive less funding at the school.

and they also draw in less crowd attention, which I know is natural because people will want to go to the bigger sporting events.

And the main sport I focus on is gymnastics, which I have done since I was a very young child and continued into high school.

And for many years, our team had to drive to Nathan Hill every day after school for practices, which isn't that enjoyable when you have to do it five days a week.

because Ingram didn't have equipment of their own.

And our athletic coordinator had to push for many, many years to get the money for us to get our own gymnastics equipment.

And we got stuff delivered to the school at the end of the season.

And hopefully next year, we'll be able to practice in our own gym for the first time in a very long time.

I think they had equipment a long time ago, but then gave it away.

So that was great to get a grant for that.

And with very rigorous academic programs at Ingram, managing mental health issues are a big part for every student's experience, especially for those in the IB program, just because of the nature of the higher expectations in the classes.

And we do have counselors at the school we can speak with, but many students don't take advantage of that opportunity.

And I think that better educating the students at our school on the various roles of adults within the counseling department could help us avoid mental health problems for some people.

And Ingram's Teen Health Center is a great resource for students when they need to talk to a trusted adult.

in confidentiality and I want to further encourage students to utilize this.

This also goes for myself.

And in terms of other big news for the school Ingram is opening a new building next year in the fall of 2019 which can which will increase capacity by up to 500 students.

And I think the building is going well.

The construction is very loud during our classes especially the ones that are closer to it.

But we look forward to seeing that next year.

Yeah that's all I had planned to talk about.

So if anyone has questions feel free to ask me.

And do we have some questions from our colleagues this evening.

Director Pinkham.

Actually asked you this question before you started but what are your plans.

You mentioned something about early childhood education and.

Trying to see if you're going to become a teacher but you share your plans after high school.

Yes.

I plan on going to college and.

Hopefully majoring in psychology or something in the neuroscience field because that's what I'm interested in.

And the reason why is because.

I want to work with young children when I'm older, like in early childhood development or education.

And I even have a job now at The Little Gym, which works on developing gymnastics skills and social emotional learning of young kids.

So I want to keep working on that when I'm older, maybe become a teacher.

Can make sure you stick around for our first business action item because we'll have the folks from Seattle Department of Early Learning and Education here.

The Seattle Pre-K nationally renowned program and you can probably hire yourself a mentor and we'll back you up back you up and point you over.

Thank you so very much.

Jill Gary please.

Well thank you for coming and speaking and I wanted to thank you for recognizing in your school some of the issues around the lack of diversity in the programming.

That's something that we're very we're taking very seriously and I'm going to ask you this and it's OK if you don't know but I'm just going to ask you to create a little bit of awareness around it.

And that is in attempting.

As students to increase the diversity and something you do have control over maybe the club level.

Is there anybody in your school or is there anywhere for you to go in your school to get help on how to do that effectively.

Because I think you know being given the task to bridge a divide when clearly what it is that you're involved in is not already enticing people in can be a really hard thing to do.

And so.

Where would you go in your school for that kind of help?

Or do you not know?

And would you like that kind of help to be available?

I guess I don't know.

I've never.

I've talked to teachers sometimes just in casual conversations about lack of diversity in programs but I've never gone to the school administration and asked about it.

But that would be interesting to do.

Yeah.

It's really hard and I'm just going to acknowledge how hard it is because we can make our best effort but unless.

We ask the people we want to invite what it is that's missing from what we're doing that would welcome them.

You're probably not going to be able to come up with the answers on your own but that's a really hard thing for a high schooler to grapple with because it's a really hard thing for adults to grapple with.

So I just maybe you can go back to your administration and raise that question.

How are we supposed to do it without some training and help and facilitating.

But thank you so much for coming.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you President Harris.

I have two questions.

So my first question is probably a simple one.

How do you get to school.

I drive.

OK cool.

How long does it take you to get to school.

Um, about 15 minutes maybe.

It depends on if I pick other people up or not.

That's great.

Careful.

That's great.

My second question is about your, you said you're in the IB program?

Yes.

So how much homework do you have?

Like what's your, what's a day in the life of, I mean, do you still get to have any semblance of enjoying your, you know, your youth?

What do you, what's your homework rigor like?

Um, it very much depends on the day.

But I would say I do over an hour every day and then some days are a lot longer and I try to get a lot done on the weekends just for time management purposes.

I would say I have some life outside of school.

It is definitely hard and it gets very stressful with the course load.

But I think that once everything's done like you're glad you did it.

And then my last question is how do you how do you do self-care given that you just described you do a lot of homework and then you make sure to do homework on the weekends.

How are you you know making sure to take care of your mental health and your emotional health.

I try to set aside time to do.

anything else that's not school related or if I'm getting super stretched with an assignment, I will just put it down, walk away, like go, I don't know, go walk outside or watch TV or something just to clear my mind, I guess.

Now we need to take a break because of the video system needs to be reset and we will be back here at 530 for public testimony.

Thank you.