School Board Meeting Date May 4th, 2016 Pt.2

You guys did a wonderful job.

We really enjoyed that.

I feel like I was already in Wizard of Oz.

So I'm going to have you say your name, what grade you are and then just pass the mic all the way down to the next person.

I'm Mari and I'm in first grade.

I'm Kai and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Finnegan and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Asher and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Hanako and I'm in fifth grade.

I'm Naomi and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Chloe and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Peyton and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Lucy and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Lily and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Jill and I'm in fifth grade.

I'm Clementine and I'm in fifth grade.

I'm Cameron and I'm in fourth grade.

I'm Benjamin and I'm in fifth grade.

Let's give them all another applause.

I want to thank you.

You guys did a wonderful job.

You're going to have to come and watch it.

Have a great day.

I also want to thank you though for the staff that came and brought the students here.

We want to thank you so much also for a wonderful job.

I want to thank Lawyer Heights for that wonderful performance.

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

Thank you and also thank you to Loyal Heights.

Well May 11 has been proclaimed as school nurse day and we want to join in honoring all of our health services staff including 70 certificated registered nurses, eight classified nurses, two nurse administrators and our office support staff.

We have a great professional team, 100% are certificated nurses, hold a bachelor of science in nursing degree, 40% are nationally board certified in school nursing.

In 25 of our schools they work collaboratively with our school-based health center staff and they do Incredible things to make sure that students are cared for on a daily basis.

Immunizations, mandated screenings, setting up health care and medication plans, illness and injury and basically have a really high level of responsibility to figure out what's the care plan for students that have those special needs that need to be taken care of on a daily basis.

So, again we want to honor and thank all of our Seattle Public Schools nurses and at this point I'd like to invite Pat Sanders up to make some recognition announcements for us.

I'm Pat Sander, Executive Director of Coordinated School Health.

We have nurses in the house today because we have a wonderful recognition.

I would also like to recognize their hard work.

Our nurses ensure the physical safety and well-being of our students and allow our most fragile students to attend and participate in school each and every day.

As a result of their efforts this current year on immunizations 9,000 students have been brought into compliance and we have a districtwide immunization rate of 93.9%.

Seattle is truly lucky to have nurses that consistently improve the delivery of healthcare and support the health and educational success of each of our students.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to specifically recognize Katie Johnson who is our district manager of health services.

Not only has Katie worked tirelessly the last three years to make sure our district has enough high-quality nurses, she's recently been named a fellow of the National Academy of School Nursing.

The honor of fellow is the most prestigious recognition that members can receive from the National Association of School Nurses.

It is a symbol of superior achievement in the school nursing profession and exceptional contributions to the NASN and the profession of school nursing.

The depth and breadth of the fellows imprint on the field is extraordinary.

Their contributions have had significant and enduring impact and their exemplary leadership qualities and achievements are recognized by many.

Katie will be inducted into the National Academy on Saturday, July 2, 2016 during their annual meeting.

She is one of three fellows from Washington State and will take her place as one of about 90 fellows nationwide.

Seattle is lucky to have such an accomplished leader working towards ensuring every student can be in class every day.

Please join me in recognizing Katie Johnson.

Can we have all the board directors please go forward so we can take a picture of Katie?

Okay thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you Pat and thank you and you and Michael both for your support of our department.

We really appreciate it.

I'd like to use this opportunity to recognize as we do every year nurses who have achieved outstanding accomplishments.

Unfortunately Viadom is preventing them from being here But I'd like to recognize Joan McDonough who is the nurse at Cohen Whittier.

She was recently recognized as the March of Dimes pediatric nurse of the year for 2015. Sue Porter is the nurse at Cleveland and Meg Watson at Graham Hill.

They both achieved national board certification this year through a rigorous exam that exceeds the national standards in certification.

And then finally I'd like to recognize Bonnie Sandall Todd who is a very experienced nurse.

We are very lucky to have her.

She is the nurse at John Rogers and was recently inducted into the Washington State Nurses Hall of Fame.

I think about 18 people over the last 20 years have been recognized for this so we are really very fortunate to have someone of her caliber on our team.

So I'd like to thank my team who is here today.

Pat of course.

Terry Helm-Raymond at West Seattle.

Sammy Hogue I'm sorry at Roosevelt.

Fallon Kongsang who is our administrative assistant.

And Hillary Stevens who is our school nurse coordinator who has oriented about 25 new nurses this year.

And then of course Marie DeBell who is my thank heaven right hand who helps us evaluate all of our nurses.

So thank you all for your recognition.

Now I will invite the board down front and we will invite the nurses up front so we can do a picture together.

It's also educator appreciation week and we want to recognize and call out the great work that our teachers and our educators do across the district.

So I will read a proclamation on behalf of our educators.

It says that Seattle Public Schools recognizes May 2-6 as National Educator Appreciation Week.

During National Educator Appreciation Week we honor our outstanding educators and the vital role they play in the lives of our students and the success of our community.

Educators mold future citizens through guidance and education.

Educators are role models who show our students how to work hard and pursue a brighter tomorrow.

Educators encourage our children's passions, inspire their imaginations, and help them realize the best versions of themselves.

Educators spend countless hours preparing lessons, evaluating progress, counseling and coaching students, and performing community service.

And educators lift up the next generation and enrich our community.

They deserve our gratitude and thanks.

In our district our students as we've commented many times outperform the state and outperform districts with similar demographics.

And I think that's largely due to our highly trained and committed educators.

We celebrate National Educator Appreciation Week and encourage our students families and broader community to take time to thank our amazing colleagues.

So congratulations to our teachers and our educators.

Continuing on that theme, we were delighted yesterday to have the University of Washington Dean of the School of Education, College of Education, Nia Tuan at Aki Kurose.

to recognize the outstanding work that our teachers, our educators and our administrative staff there do for kids.

So we've recognized Mia as middle school principal of the year but as she's quick to point out it takes a team to make that happen and teachers there and across the district do an outstanding job of educating kids.

I also had the opportunity to meet recently with the Nesholm family to personally say thank you for the role that they've had in kind of launching our middle school success.

So I heard their story that they started with an arts effort 20 years ago and then kind of rechanneled that and refocused that around a I guess we would call it today a PLC a professional learning community for I think at that time four of our middle schools, Mercer, Danny, Aki and what am I missing?

Our school that will just reopen here soon.

So they've had an important part of that again teachers and educators have had a major role and then the city has come alongside with their funding as well.

And then also yesterday one of our own, Shannana Brown was recognized at the White House for her work as designated as a 2016 great educator.

So she was there being recognized along with Teachers of the Year.

And she was recognized specifically for her work as being the principal author of our Washington state curriculum called Since Time Immemorial.

Telling the story about tribal sovereignty in the state of Washington.

She's had the opportunity to provide professional development in Seattle and across the state and currently working with the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian on their new online initiative native knowledge 360 degrees.

So we'll bring her to be recognized at a future meeting.

Also on Tuesday, a big day yesterday, Mark Perry principal at Nova was named as winner of the Thomas B. Foster award for excellence by the alliance for education and presented with $50,000 support for Nova.

NOVA is an alternative high school committed to student-centered education.

They work tirelessly to promote social justice and support their students with that promise of making education work for each and every student.

So proud of Mark and the work that they do.

Moving to current issues, the viaduct closure is underway and I think we all held our breath on that.

So far it's been manageable and I know I've had to find an alternate route and I guess if I wait long enough in the evening it works just fine.

Actually we were worried about our buses.

We thought that we might have several of our bus routes that were impacted.

And in the end there was only about 24 of them that needed to be altered somewhat for delays and we were still able to maintain whatever 96, 97, 98% on time delivery for students.

The other issue that we continue to hear about is with regard to enrollment and staffing.

We are continuing through that process where we made early enrollment projections and we did open enrollment then we rebalanced enrollments based on the requests that were made.

As I recall I think about 27% of the families who requested assignment through open enrollment were granted that request.

And that's kind of where we are now.

So schools are trying to figure out how to staff schools with the staff that we have allocated.

And I guess there's two or three things that are different this year.

One of those is that we have more K-3 teachers but we also have more strings attached to that money because that's how the money comes from the state.

So that's making it very challenging for all of our elementary schools and particularly for I think dual language schools.

The second factor that plays into this is that we have tried to hold mitigation funding to provide a safety net for the fall so that we would not have to take teachers back if enrollment projections didn't materialize in each of our schools.

And then the third factor is that the legislature did not fund the per-pupil inflator at the same level as they had in the past.

And what that means to us is that $6 million in local levy funds that have already been approved by the voters were withheld from us.

And so that $6 million is not available to us.

So that means that we've heard most recently from center school, we've heard about the IB programs, we've heard from a variety of our elementary schools with regard to K-3.

So we continue to try to work through those issues but also recognizing that as we've said before we have only so much funding in the McCleary decision and action can't come soon enough.

Water quality has also been in the news with regard to some of our neighboring districts and that's an issue that Seattle has been working on for some time.

So I'd invite Dr. Flip Herndon to come up and talk just briefly about some of the things that we do in order to make sure that our water is safe for our students.

Good evening.

Flip Herndon associate superintendent facilities and operations.

Beginning in 2004 Seattle Public Schools adopted and implemented a set of rigorous requirements that have set nationally recognized standards for drinking water quality in public schools.

The program was mandated by the school board and adopted a drinking water policy 6896 in 2004 that is available on our website.

The policy prescribes periodic testing of each drinking water source in each school and other buildings operated by the district.

Coupled with reporting of results, remediation and such criteria requiring that bottled water be provided if necessary to assure students and staff have ready access to drinking water.

An overview of our policy, of how our policy exceeds what other districts are doing.

One, we test 100% of drinking water sources while other tests, other districts test a statistical sample as low as 25%.

Two, we test every three years.

So while the State Department of Health's new rules would only call for testing every five years, we test more frequently.

Three, our standard for lead is 10 parts per billion or lower compared to the EPA's 20. And lastly we make all test results available for the public to see by year and by fixture.

So the most important testing criterion is testing for lead.

School boards set that maximum allowable level at 10 parts per billion which is one half the allowable level set by the US Environmental Protection Agency for schools.

Tests were also conducted on all drinking water sources for cadmium and copper and again all test results are published and available on the district website.

All right thanks.

ESSA is our new No Child Left Behind law.

It's called Every Student Succeeds.

It's 1,000 pages and recently came out with the negotiated regulations with still more regulations to follow.

I've heard several updates and keep thinking I've heard all that.

But since there's 1,000 pages every time I hear it I hear different or new things.

I don't hear different things I hear many of them consistently.

This is a short list of a few of the things that I learned at the superintendent's meeting earlier in the week.

One, our state test is now required to be given in Spanish for us because that is our second most prominent language in Washington.

Second, we have to disaggregate the results, the state will, on many additional categories in addition to race and free and reduced lunch which we do now.

Military and foster children are two of those categories that will be singled out in the future.

Much to the interest of our work in Seattle, local high school testing alternatives may be available if they are approved by the state given districtwide and include accommodations.

So that was written into the negotiated rules a little bit more specifically even since our last board meeting.

We no longer have to send out the letters every fall saying that our schools are failing.

Washington will have to come up with a plan to continue to identify the bottom 5% schools and provide technical assistance.

For right now they plan to freeze in place the schools that have already been identified over the next to keep those in place for the next three years unless they qualify to get off of that list.

And then they will start again in 2018 using the three years of the smarter balance work.

And then one of the ones that I reported on before was something called supplant.

I said it was possible and then I said it was off the table.

It's evidently, I don't want to say this, It's evidently written into the law but not specifically.

It's written in a way that says that we are supposed to make sure that we are protecting students in low-income schools to ensure that they don't have the lowest experienced teachers.

Although there are no rules yet that go with it, regulations that go with it, the concept is similar to what we talked about before is how do we make sure that all of our schools have an equitable distribution of teachers based on their seniority and their certificates.

Several school visits since the last board meeting.

West Woodland was celebrating Earth Day when I was there and they had lots of students out doing all kinds of crazy things with acrylic paints and dressed accordingly and parents had been notified and kids were having a great time.

Adams Elementary is an arts focused school so as they continue to do the work to make sure that we meet college and career standards and prepare students for life they continue to find ways to keep that arts focus alive.

So, one of their grantors, Laird Norton, provided a grant to help them write grants.

So, they're busily writing about a half dozen grants to continue the good work that they've been doing in art.

Salmon Bay is one of our few K-8's that has a bigger middle school.

I think that had to do with combining two schools at some point in time so that means that you have students that go K-5 in the building and then in 6th grade they get an influx of students who have not previously been in that building.

So it's kind of like starting to rebuild their culture each year when they get that bump of new 6th graders.

They also go camping every year for every class so that's a great opportunity for the students and fits their environmental theme.

Aki Kurose, obviously obvious when you walk into the building why they've been recognized a lot.

There's great big signs in the foyer saying we are raising the rigor roof and encouraging students in many many ways.

Positive growth mindset, charts, data charts, pictures and faces of each of the teachers And then as I go into the principal's office she's got this gigantic, she changed offices so that she could have a gigantic data wall in a place where it wasn't in order to maintain privacy of students but then proudly pointed out to me how the students had been moving from 6th grade to 7th grade to 8th grade to reduce the number of students that were at risk of not being proficient.

Martin Luther King Jr. has been doing a lot of work around growth mindset and building the idea for each and every student that they are capable of doing great things.

And I had the opportunity to see the building secretary at work as I walked into the building a little guy came in and his backpack was just chattering away and he was headed off to class and she politely stopped him and asked him about it and he said well he wasn't sure about that so she checked his backpack and found that he had a little robot transformer that was chattering away and she figured out how to turn it off for him and then suggested, you know, I should probably keep this for you for the day.

You'd be glad to come back and pick that up at the end of the day.

And then at Wing Luke and I sign out front saying that Wing Luke supports Muslim families and then as I walk into the office they've got four years, the last four years in a row as a school of distinction and then saw a nice modeling strategy where ELL staff were combining efforts with the regular classroom teachers to promote ELL strategies around Learning about earthworms and how earthworms breed.

Kind of like I did not know that.

That's why they crawl out on the sidewalk after a big rainstorm.

Thank you to all of our board members.

I think almost all of you were there for at least part of the day on Saturday at the mayor's city summit.

They announced that they had had 20 focus groups and 1300 participants and then they were sold out for the event at Garfield on Saturday.

More than 500 people attended for that day and heard lots of good information from a wide variety of sources from brain research from the University of Washington, Oakland's work around closing the opportunity gap.

Mia Williams had a great panel with students that challenged us to work together city and schools and got us to repeat it's not about you and it's not about me it's about the children.

And then Michael Talley did a nice job of promoting the work that we have underway and the areas where we still have gaps that we need support in.

Also last week Puget Sound ESD sponsored I think it was the third of their regional meetings on achieving educational and racial equity.

Bernardo Ruiz who heads up our equity work here in Seattle was one of the co-facilitators for that event and that event featured the work that Seattle is doing along with Minneapolis, St. Paul and Portland.

Coming up, some public engagement opportunities.

The Naramore art exhibit is underway at the Seattle Art Museum and we will be recognizing students on Friday evening.

In addition to that, I think tomorrow night is the Ripples of Hope gala for city year.

They operate in 10 of our schools.

I'll have an opportunity on Friday to speak at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce about some of the work that we have underway.

On Saturday El Centro de la Raza is holding their Cinco de Mayo celebration and on May 10 the state is holding their word ceremony and they must have gotten some concerns.

I hadn't given much thought to this, I should since I've spent a good chunk of my life on the other side of the mountains.

I just took it for granted that all of those sessions that we've had on this side of the mountains were the way life should be.

This one's going to be in Union Gap on May 10th, which is, you go to Yakima and you keep going a little bit farther.

We are delighted to have a number, a high number of our students, schools, I believe it's 16 of our schools that will be recognized at that event.

And then the Seattle Public Schools scholarship fund annual award ceremony will be held on May 19. So we are kind of right on the edge of moving into the end of the year opportunity to celebrate with lots of our students and our families and our community partners.

Good news, I guess also on Tuesday at the alliance breakfast the alliance announced that they had secured a funder for supporting Rainier Beach IB program.

at the rate of $50,000 per year for the next three years.

So we had talked to the alliance about all three of our IB programs and they had sufficient funds and went for the program that had the greatest need.

We certainly would welcome additional funding for our other IB programs.

And finally in terms of staffing changes Shawna Heath has been with the district since 2013 is our executive director of curriculum assessment and instruction.

And she has an opportunity to go to an American school in Brazil and in a note to staff today she said well You don't want to kind of live life and say what might have been if I had taken that opportunity.

So she's looking forward to taking that opportunity and we certainly will miss her skills.

Under her leadership the district has trained our teaching staff in the new state learning standards, supported teachers as we've done the curriculum alignment work.

been involved in some of our many of our adoptions.

has been an integral part of trying to figure out how do we work with teachers to do interim assessments, ideally teacher made, that would inform the work that teachers do in the classroom and help us close those gaps earlier each year.

So we will greatly miss Shawna's services.

She will be leaving us in the middle of June.

We've asked Cashel Toner to step up and fill that role on an interim basis until we are able to fill that role.

That concludes my comments.

Again we welcome Lauren Peterson from Central School.

Lauren Peterson is a junior from the center school.

He is the chief ASB treasurer and has a younger sister at center who is also on student senate.

While Lauren is not an artist he chose center because of its small community based learning atmosphere and since then center has challenged Lauren to expand his artistic talents.

Thank you very much.

First of all I'd like to thank the board for inviting me here today.

It's a great honor.

I attend the center school which is a very small art school with social justice aspect as well.

A few weeks ago we were informed that due to low enrollment numbers next year several of our arts programs were being cut and therefore our only art teacher would be forced to leave because he can't teach only one class I have not directly contributed to the organization that has gone into the walkout which occurred yesterday.

170 out of the 280 students at the center school came down to the John Stanford Center.

There are some very talented students from our school that are here to talk about the organization that they put into that.

and I urge you to listen closely to what they have to say during the public testimony.

Thank you.

Thank you Lauren for being here with us and we welcome you.

We have 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.

Excuse me I was going to move to take the personnel report off the consent agenda?

I second your motion.

Okay.

Discussion?

Okay do we have any questions or is it time for discussions?

Yes I move that we take the personnel report off of the consent agenda.

Okay I second it.

So we would now have a motion as amended for the remaining portion of the consent agenda and then we can address the requested item.

I move approval of the consent agenda as amended.

I second the motion as amended.

Do we have this?

All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed?

Okay the consent agenda has passed.

Director Peters now reads the motion for the personnel report.

Okay I'm sorry it's a very short motion I didn't recognize it.

I move approval of the human resources personnel report.

I second the motion.

All those in favor?

Leslie can you go ahead and

I move this off the consent agenda because I have significant concerns about the reduction in force at page four of six.

It would appear to me that we are losing a great many family support workers and other wraparound service providers and I understand from assistant superintendent for HR Dr. Codd who is in Texas today that Pat Sander might address that issue.

Pat Sander executive director coordinated school health.

I prepared some notes so I'm going to go ahead and read them and then if there's further questions.

The family support program has been in existence for over 25 years and was one of the original programs funded by the city of Seattle families and education levy.

At one time the program served 71 elementary schools and employed over 51 family support program staff.

In 2013 the city changed their investment strategy at the elementary level and began to offer schools the opportunity to apply for elementary innovative grants which allowed school sites to develop and fund specific plans and determine continued funding of family support program staff.

Beginning in 2012-13 resources allocated to the family support program were reduced each year decreasing the number of centrally funded school sites and increasing the number of elementary innovative grant sites.

Since the change in strategy there has been a decline in the number of family support workers.

Of the 17 projected sites for 16-17, nine have and of the projected sites for the innovative staff nine have continued to fund family support program staff and eight have allocated resources differently.

As a result in the 2016-17 fiscal year three and a half family support worker positions were eliminated as well as reduction of a .5 office support staff due to the decrease of the levy funds that we received centrally from the city.

To continue to fund the 15-16 levy costs it would be an additional $260,750 for family support workers, $32,000 for the office support staff.

Additionally schools decreased one and a half family support specialist positions.

The decrease in those roles is due to the schools repurposing of grant resources at one high school and two elementary innovative grant sites.

The cost of these positions would be about $127,500 if they were reestablished.

The other positions that were in question were the truancy intervention specialists.

We funded eight middle and high school sites through the high school grant initiative.

The use of one time carryover funds supported those eight sites during this current school year.

To continue to fund those positions the cost of a truancy intervention specialist at those sites would be about $520,000.

Dr. Harris.

Thank you very much for that report and thank you to Assistant Superintendent for HR.

Dr. Codd as well.

I think part of our job as board members is to daylight information for the public about what the actuality of cutbacks and money are to each of the schools.

and a point of personal privilege I find it highly ironic that we spent Saturday talking about wraparound services yet we have this really significant reduction in force and I'll say it again and again and again McCleary, McCleary, McCleary.

This is harming each and every one of our schools and I would hope that those that are working on the summit task force and with the city, education levy, Director Burke if we could enhance any requests for those wraparound services.

Thank you.

So Pat when you refer to the grant that funded these are you talking about the family and education levy grant?

Yes.

Okay and so you are saying that the focus of the grant changed in 2013?

Yes instead of sending dollars centrally for family support workers schools were invited each year for up to four grants were awarded to elementary schools who made applications.

So through over the course of the five years there would have been about 20 grants.

In two of the years they didn't award for each of those times so that's why we have the 17 grant schools.

And then as the monies went to fund grants they reduced centrally what we had available to go out to schools.

So for instance we currently have eight buildings that we are serving.

And next year we would have four positions to fund those eight schools.

So we have decreased in the dollars that were received.

So are you saying that the funding usually used to come centrally and then it became competitive in the form of grants that schools had to apply for?

I find that a little bit troubling.

So this sounds like schools had to make choices about how they would allocate the funds that they received, is that correct?

That is correct.

So whenever that happens our schools are put in very difficult positions.

They have to make some very difficult choices.

You know as Director Harris said we had a conversation at the mayor's summit over the weekend about the importance of wraparound and support services.

This is a perfect example of where the city seriously could help the district in a very profound way.

And so I would be interested in having more of a conversation with the family and education team you know people who supervise that and the committee about advocating for such support workers as not something that is done by competition or by choice but by obligation.

So is there a possibility to have a conversation like that or is it at the discretion of the family and education levy committee?

Well currently it's at the discretion of the family and education oversight board I would think to the oversight committee to look at where the funding sources go and for what purpose.

And then just from a practical matter, so the personnel report in front of us here, Approving or not approving this personnel report doesn't really affect, I mean what would it do if we did not approve this report?

I mean these positions are not being funded is that correct?

That's correct the positions aren't being funded and I don't know I would have to defer to

You would defer to Deputy Superintendent Nielsen.

Good evening board.

What this would mean if it's not approved would require us going back in and making a budget adjustment to the value of whatever these cuts could represent and find somewhere else in the budget process to backfill behind.

It's a tradeoff between one area and another.

All the while obeying our CBA's etc.

Not to answer that question but I would like to take a point of privilege to thank our partners from the SEA at the mayor's summit on Saturday.

The new SEA president made it very clear that this is an important issue and we deeply appreciate that.

Director Blanford.

My understanding is that the schools could, a school principal or school community could make the decision to allocate funds from their families and Ed Levy to support a family support worker in school.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

And my daughter's school, my daughter's elementary school has made that choice.

Beacon Hill International yes.

And the funds that are supporting that family support worker at Beacon Hill Elementary are coming from the levy but a determination was made by the school community that a family support worker was essential to the function of the school.

And so they determined out of the funds that they had allocated from the levy that they would support a family support.

That is correct.

And to your knowledge have other schools made that same determination?

Yes, that is why of the 17 schools, eight have made that decision, nine have not.

Okay.

Which I think is an important piece to insert in this conversation.

Dr. Peters.

One last comment I just want to thank Director Harris for bringing this to our attention so we can have this discussion.

Obviously this is an ongoing discussion and this is an unfortunate situation at the moment but perhaps we can find a way to embed important members of our school community like family support workers in our budget.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

I would also like to thank Director Harris and the staff for their support in providing some additional clarity in this.

As the board's representative for the families and education levy but also five months new I appreciate the back story the data to support it and any sort of information that I can bring to that committee that can help us put the best resources into our schools.

Any more questions, comments?

Director Blanford.

I'd only add that as your predecessor in the work with the families and Ed Levy there was significant discussion about the family support workers and their value, some of what the principals were sharing about where they would choose to allocate resources or alternatives to allocate resources.

So I think there is a rich back story which I think would be very informative so I'd be happy to chat with you about that later on.

I also wanted just to let Director Harris know that during our educational summit meeting this was brought up more than once.

There is a lot of people that are actually really supportive of family support workers because it is very important to our schools.

They have been around forever and as we also move into our no suspension in elementary schools for next year.

they would be the perfect people to actually handle and be support of what's going to be happening in our schools.

Because they know these kids very well, they know the families and who better to serve our kids in the schools than family support workers.

So hopefully we can be able to look at that and figure out you know what do we need to do in order for us to keep our family support workers because they are very important to our schools.

Director Blanford.

I'd just add one more thing.

With many of the principals that I've had the opportunity to talk with about family support workers, many of them who are in some of our schools that are suffering from the largest achievement gaps, they talk about the value of family support worker in helping to triage some of the problems that some of our students are bringing to school.

and is an essential component of their gap closing strategy.

So there is some merit in having this conversation.

There is also some challenge around budget and decisions that city has made and all of that that we need to take into consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are we ready for a vote?

Okay we are calling for a vote.

Ms. Ritchie.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

Now we are into our board comments.

This is not 530 yet, this is a time we can actually do comments.

Don't all raise your hand at once.

Director Blanford.

I'll start off by congratulating the Lowell Heights players for a fantastic rendition of the Wizard of Oz.

Inspiring as always.

I don't know who is making the choice about which school performs for us but they are doing a really good job.

I want to thank the Lowell Heights players for a great presentation.

I also want to thank Kathy Johnson and the school nurses for Their leadership is someone who spent a lot of time in the school nurses office sometimes legitimately and more often illegitimately.

I know the value of school nurses and appreciate all of their work.

And given the fact that this is educator appreciation week I second the comments that the superintendent made about the value and critical importance of our educators.

I had the opportunity to attend the event last week at Nova school where Dr. Mark Perry was appreciated for his leadership of the school over many years and it was an inspiring event in that all of the students were evacuated from the school because there was a fire alarm that wasn't real in order to get him out to receive the praise and a number of community partners were there and a number of alumni of the school were also present to thank Mark for his leadership for his commitment to social justice and to liberatory education.

It was an awe-inspiring event and I was glad to be a part of it.

Dr. Berg.

I would also like to thank the Loyal Heights Elementary players for their sneak peek.

An exciting rendition of what's to come.

Very entertaining.

Thank you so much.

And I'm thrilled to be able to honor the school nurses this week.

Nurses in the house.

And also yesterday's national teacher appreciation day and all of this week.

We get together we talk about education topics.

A lot of words fly a lot of paper gets created and the teachers in the classrooms are doing the heavy lifting and I don't want you to ever feel like we haven't forgotten you.

So thank you so much for that work that you do and help us help you.

I want to thank Mr. Peterson for joining us today and to his community as well who I believe we are going to hear from later.

Some of the school visits, I had the pleasure of joining Dede Fauntleroy principal of John Stanford international school for a tour and visit with several community folks.

I learned a lot more about some of the challenges that face the international schools.

They generally try to put larger classes in the lower grades because There's some attrition as the kids go through the program that's harder to fill and that model is in direct opposition with the class size reductions that we're doing in the earlier grades and so our funding model doesn't fit that particularly well.

It creates some really interesting challenges for them that they're trying to work through.

I visited the Cascadia PTA meeting and heard, got an earful, a good earful from the highly capable families and understand their concerns about enrollment pathways, site stability and that's definitely a topic of ongoing conversation.

More recently I got to tour Maple Elementary with principal Elena Sanchez.

She took me up on my offer to learn more about MTSS and provided some information on the building-based student data collection and interventions that they are using that have been extremely successful so I thank her for that.

I'll mention I'm excited about the assessment aspects that Dr. Nyland spoke about on the Every Student Succeeds Act.

The implementation there is a really exciting synergy with the ongoing discussion our board is having around alternate assessments and I look forward to finding a good balance there.

On the city summit, the mayor's city summit, education summit, great attendance, exciting panelists, a really good citywide focus on equity.

The information on the work that's done in Oakland California on reducing the gap for African-American males was very inspirational and I believe that it's going to be a good vehicle for our ongoing discussions on how the city can leverage its resources and how the district can leverage our resources.

I especially appreciate the student comments from the mouths of babes.

I think maybe we should let them run the district.

Their suggestion was that we all just be adults.

My next community meeting is May 28, 10 a.m.

to 12 p.m.

at Greenwood Public Library.

Thank you very much.

Director Harris.

Thank you so much.

Thanks to the Loyal Heights folks that was outstanding and if you look at the program 230 community members, parents and other folks helped make that endeavor happen.

And that's a beautiful thing.

It's an absolutely beautiful thing.

Mr. Peterson thanks for being here and thank you to your community for the calls and the emails and the advocacy for standing up for what you believe in.

a fabulous thing to see social justice coming back our way and I hope that we can help you with your arts focus.

Those of you that know me well know that I am a very strong believer in alternative education and in the arts.

It's about money though so let's make sure we have more than three people testify at our budget hearing.

The room is full, everybody needs and wants money, but when it comes down to it, we usually have three to four people that testify at the annual budget meeting.

Additionally, if you go on the website, the gold book for the data nerds out there is where the line item budgets are.

So since we are not printing more money in the basement, since the legislature kicked the can down the road and did not fund McCleary, every dollar that we move around comes from someplace else.

But your creativity and your ideas are most welcome.

For my thank yous, Highland Park principal Chris Cronus for presenting with me last week at the Highland Park action committee.

The school and the community are working together.

It's about many hands and light work.

It is a very high need school so that is hugely appreciated.

To assistant superintendent Peggy McEvoy and the lunch and recess folks.

We met last week on the lunch and food services consultant results and Lunch and recess has a Facebook page poll out for the schools the elementary schools to talk about whether or not they have best practices recess before lunch.

That together with what we hope will be polling through the executive directors will help us move this concept forward and again it's a great example of the community and the district working together to affect positive change for our kids.

To Vicki Schmitz who is a spokesperson for the Schmitz family, Schmitz Park Elementary and to city council member Tom Rasmussen to discuss the next steps for Schmitz Park Elementary.

Schmitz Park Elementary will be moving to the new Genesee Hill school next September and we need to find creative ways to use that space that the land has been deeded with restrictions to the Seattle Public School District and we need to be good neighbors and they are willing to work with us and I'm excited about that partnership.

Additionally which some folks might not know the Schmitz family has given a very healthy chunk of change to the Seattle public school scholarship fund and they will be honored as well on May 19 and that scholarship award ceremony will be quite wonderful.

To Erin Bennett, Carrie Campbell and Stephen Nielsen for the work that we've been doing on planning for the June 4 retreat community engagement and it's going to be fun and it's going to be rich and it's going to be deep and the conversations thus far have been terrific.

To Principal Robert Gary, Jr. at Madison Middle School, my phone, my Facebook, and my email blew up a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about whether young women were adhering to the dress code and how those issues were being addressed.

Dr. Gary was very open and we had a rich and thoughtful discussion.

about body shaming, about gender issues, and they are well on their way with their PTSA and their ASB to doing a more sensitive job of dealing with very, very sensitive and critically important issues.

And I appreciate his openness for that conversation.

they're not easy conversations to have but when folks are willing to as Dr. Nyland say fly to the ball to fix it and move on it's a beautiful thing.

The staff support in working in committee and in groups on two resolutions I'm hugely in favor of on the testing and the program site placement.

The staff has really come to the table with great ideas and to advise the board of the unintended consequences.

because there is no way that we sitting up here can understand those effects unless we have open and rich communication and it's hugely appreciated.

Tashana Heath.

Congratulations on your new life.

It sounds really exciting.

And most importantly, thank you for everything you've done down here.

And I hope I make it to Brazil to visit with you there.

My next community meetings will be this Saturday from 3 to 4.30 at the Southwest Public Library.

on June 11th at the High Point Public Library and on July 16th at the Southwest Public Library.

And that will all be from 3 to 4.30 p.m.

Come on down.

We serve you food and we have a good time.

Thank you so much.

Since it's after 530 we want to hold our board comments to continue on after we finish our public testimony.

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

I would note that the board does not take public comments on issues 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.

So I will call three names at a time and Please come forward, say your name so we know who you are.

Rochelle Boyer, Chris Jenkins and Carlina Brown Banks.

I'm Rochelle Boyer.

I'm here representing the center school and asking for adequate funding for our arts program.

Our voice is in every stroke of a painting, in every line of a drawing, and in every curve of a sculpture.

Thank you.

But our voice is now being cut.

Cut just like our funding.

I understand the lack of funding is caused by a declining number of students choosing the center school but poor funding is the reason that students and parents see the center school as unappealing.

With less funding we are unable to offer an array of classes which overall puts us, puts small schools at a disadvantage.

This inadequate funding is the start of an epidemic, a slow painful decline of small schools.

The center school is simply patient zero.

Fine arts hope tightens the community and makes us stronger.

Our creativity and artistic inspiration is a weapon to possibly impact the world.

The center school community is like no other.

Our sports are competitions such as film festivals like Nifty.

Our visual arts competitions are narrow more.

Or varsity coats or punk vests filled with patches of artwork and passions we have made for each other.

The center school doesn't ask for much.

We don't have a library, we don't have sports, and we don't even have hot lunches.

All we ask for is the funding to make us a powerful art focused high school.

So we are able to paint the world in a million shades with our creativity.

I remember the day the rumor spread that arts was being cut.

I saw students breaking into sobs and hands filled with tears.

Tears because they knew that their outlet of emotion was being robbed from them.

They knew that painting and drawing and sculpture wouldn't be there for them.

School board without your funding you're not taking you're taking away your voices and numbing your creative minds.

So don't make us patients here.

Instead keep us alive.

Thank you.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124. On the school calendar please remove commercial advertising from the calendar.

Such advertising is an abuse of trust.

On the contract to Bassetti Architects for Lincoln High School three points.

Number one the district already approved a $233,000 interim contract with a follow-up amount of $49,000.

This total goes beyond the $250,000 limit which requires board action.

Does staff bring these contracts to the board?

Number two, were landmarks issues considered?

Bassetti got a prior Roosevelt contract despite an appearance of a conflict of interest.

The district was seeking an exemption from city landmarks regulations for the project at the same time that the project architect was the chair of the landmarks board.

Number three, Lincoln does not address a high school for Queen Anne and Magnolia.

Please buy back Queen Anne high school instead.

When the district sold Queen Anne it broke state law.

The Lincoln contract is estimated at $54 million, more than enough to cover the $38 million assessed value of Queen Anne.

On Loyal Heights, two points.

Number one, the school board required that the interior courtyard would not be used as a play space.

The city permit for the project requires play use.

The fact that district staff chose to not appeal the city condition amounts to district staff overturning board policy.

Number two, the playground would shrink by 30%.

Please vote to halt this rogue destructive project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening school board, Director Patu, good to see you again.

Superintendent Nyland, good to see you.

Director Blanford, good to see you.

Everyone else, I want to say I'm Carlina Brown Banks.

I'm here as a mother of an alum from Rainier Beach and an honorary alum.

noted for Rainier Beach High School.

I want to say thank you.

Thank you for taking the initiative and the first steps and making sure that the IB program is secure for some more time for Rainier Beach to continue the growth and to prove that you change the narrative of a school it can become a very positive source for a neighborhood such as Rainier Beach.

We are very proud of what Rainier Beach is doing.

We are very proud of the students of Rainier Beach as you saw them at the Ed Summit how they spoke very loud and was very proud of their school.

If you remember our Director Patu that was not where we were seven years ago.

So this has been a great great movement to show that just given some very targeted work Some very intentional, authentic partnership can make that happen.

I also want to uplift the other two IB schools, Chief Sealth and Ingram.

We really need to talk about some central funding sources for all three schools.

Ingram has been around for quite some time, Chief Sealth has been doing a lot of work.

One of the things I would like to mention that Chief Sealth's Hispanic IB program or students in the IB program has grown up to 70% this last school or last graduation of 2015. In 2014 they were at 57%.

So, they're also doing some targeted work.

They're learning a lot from what Rainier Beach has been doing, targeting students, making sure they're getting in there, talking to their parents, talking to the community.

And I just want to say that kind of work is big time positive reinforcement to these students.

They go and they perform well.

They received the rigor well, they felt great about themselves.

If you remember the KPLU radio report how well those kids were receiving those and how well they did and how good they felt about themselves.

I cried through the whole thing.

But I just want to say again thank you and please remember that there are still two other IB schools.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Maureen Germany, Bruce Butterfield, Carol Butterfield.

Hello I'm Maureen Germani I'm ceding my time to Harrison Roble from Chief Sealth High School.

Hello I'm Harrison Roble I'm a junior at Chief Sealth High School and I'm part of the full IB Diploma candidate program.

And I'm taking very challenging rigorous courses at Chief Sealth International High School right now.

They're definitely preparing me a huge amount for college.

I have my brother about to finish his freshman year at Gonzaga.

He's wondering what he's doing wrong because the classes are too easy because how prepared he is from the full IB diploma program.

And I have a, the diploma program is like really small right now because I have friends who keep dropping out because they don't have enough funding for the IB tests.

They just, they're too poor and they simply just can't afford to take the test and they fear that if they pay all this money for the test they may fail and just waste all the money without getting the credit.

It's definitely a fantastic program.

We're definitely really small.

I have a great IB coordinator.

prepare for college immensely.

I take IB biology and IB psychology which I'm learning awesome stuff and I have so many more skills than I had last year or the year before.

This year has been by far the most challenging out of all my years of schooling.

I developed so much as a person, I have great friends and it sucks to see when they just can't afford and their families are struggling to even pay for one test much less six which we need for the diploma so I would ask that we get more direct funding for the IB program for all three schools not just Chief Sealth but we definitely need it and it would go a long way to help so many kids down the future to create a better future for everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I am Bruce Butterfield and I yield my time to my lovely wife Carol.

No, women gave up his time.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

So the wait list should go up.

Good evening.

Thank you for hearing us.

I am here tonight to encourage Seattle Public Schools and the school board to find a way to permanently fund the international baccalaureate programs at all three of the campuses where the IB curriculum is currently in place.

Dedicated and adequate funding has been a persistent problem at Ingram, Chief Sealth and Rainier Beach high schools leading to larger class sizes, uncertainty and pitting programs within individual schools against one another.

Why should the higher costs of an IB program impinge upon the academic interests of vocational or other programs within the same school?

Students are unique individuals whose needs should not be mutually exclusive to one another.

IB programs have demonstrated ability to create college ready graduates which is a stated priority of our district and the state.

They have demonstrated the ability to close the achievement gap enabling every student to succeed.

They've helped the district balance school capacity within the district.

They have raised the test scores and they've provided access to an advanced learning curriculum quite successfully.

So again I urge you I think it's a really important program that all three of the schools deserve to be fully funded and my final comment is we were hoping to have more IB students here testifying they are happy to do that but right now is the IB testing window.

And coming down here during Viadume was kind of not in the plan.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi my name is Susie Tennant and I'm going to cede my time to center school parent, playwright and actor Lori Utterback.

Thank you my name is Lori Otterback and I'm a center school parent and I know for a fact that Seattle Public Schools values arts education not only because what we heard earlier from Director Harris but also because I was the project manager at Arts Ed Washington when SPS contracted with our organization to adapt our principals arts leadership program to be implemented at a district level as part of the creative advantage which is set to be used in every pathway in the district in the coming years.

Arts Ed Washington designed the principal's arts leadership to mobilize the stakeholders in each school to focus on a commitment to providing high-quality arts education to every student during the school day as an integral part of the curriculum.

I went to the Creative Advantage website and I found a little conundrum which I will now describe.

Under why the Creative Advantage I quote, we want our young people to have the tools to express themselves and their ideas and creative outlets to share their viewpoints with the world.

Our city to be filled with creative and critical thinkers who can collaborate to solve problems and are engaged in their communities.

Arts education teaches all of these skills.

Learning through the arts is a vital part of a well-rounded education.

Scroll down, how is the creative advantage changing arts education in Seattle?

Among the answers I found these words, I quote, connecting high school seniors with arts careers.

Now yes, schools are underfunded but an option school that focuses on high-quality arts provision is being forced to cut from the very subject the district believes will make these students succeed in school and in life.

And my question is why is the district not insisting that these classes be kept in the curriculum?

And why does the school have to choose between college prep and the arts when the arts are college prep according to Seattle Public Schools?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi I'm Isabel Dunaway and I'm advocating for the center school.

The unique thing about the center school is that no one is assigned to it.

Every student who chooses center cares enough about their education to take some initiative and make an active choice.

And it's working.

The center school has the highest test scores in the district I believe as well as impressive GPAs and graduation rates.

All that despite the fact that a significant percent of our students have an IEP or 504 accommodation for diagnosed learning disabilities.

I myself have a 504 for dyslexia and ADHD, issues I've worked hard to overcome since grade school.

I chose the center school because it offered a safe learning environment where people's academic challenges are understood and respected.

When I was in eighth grade I didn't know if I would be able to be successful in any high school, especially a big high school where standing up and advocating for myself seemed intimidating.

Thankfully I was able to choose center and have it be a responsible academic choice because it offered classes that would set me up for my future.

The center school offers a strong college prep curriculum and the courses I wanted to take like AP art.

I'm sure everyone here sees the value in a safe learning environment and would want that for anyone who might need it.

Being under enrolled and the drop in funding that goes with it is devastating to small schools.

They end up having to cut from their already limited number of electives.

Unfortunately fewer electives means fewer students will choose the school and without help it is almost impossible to recover.

I love my school and if it was to go down this downward spiral I and many others would be devastated.

As a dyslexic person the center school has allowed me to become a more successful more academically confident version of myself.

Please support the center school so it can remain a viable choice for the future students like me.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Patricia Bailey a teacher and I'm here to speak about the failure of district officials to process a legitimate complaint under the school board's adult anti-bullying policy.

Despite the policy saying all incidents will be taken seriously and investigated within 60 days it has been over 100 days and as you will see has not been taken seriously.

On January 11 I filed a complaint against my principal citing several incidents of bullying and intimidation that occurred between May and December 2015. I did not receive acknowledgments so two weeks later I contacted the superintendent.

Again, there was no response.

On February 15 I emailed HR about another bullying incident that occurred in the meantime asking to add it to my complaint.

Again, no response.

On March 29 I again contacted HR and was then informed that my complaint had been misplaced.

On April 1 I sent email evidence to support my allegations of intimidation and bullying and still heard nothing.

Three weeks later I emailed another allegation of retaliation and again included the superintendent.

Again, silence.

It does not take much of an imagination to see what is going on here.

Institutional corruption is not unusual but it should not be tolerated.

I believe that you want your policies enforced and for teachers to not have to work in toxic situations.

I urge you to appoint an independent investigator to find out how many other teachers have been shabbily treated.

I know several and just how representative my experience is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Matthew Harbison, Laura Gramer and Frank Hillary.

Laura Kramer.

Hello and good evening.

I'm here because I'd like to talk about many things about the deaf and hard of hearing program.

There are some things that are changing and I still have many things I want to talk to you about tonight but I just picked three things I want to bring up.

There are people that are working in the deaf and hard of hearing department that are not on board with change.

I had meetings with them and interactions with them and I feel that there will be a problem while we are trying to rebuild the program.

And it is pretty frustrating to work with people who are not open to change.

And most of those people were at the big community meeting that we had about almost a year and a half ago with the rest of the plan for it attended.

Over 200 people attended.

And then we get to the change by asking Dr. Nyland to please tell the people under you to tell the people to please shape up, get on board, or move on.

We really need a change.

Speaking about the big community meeting that we had in the past, parents and children have said that they wanted critical mass but Seattle does not address this issue.

Seattle keeps pushing to mainstream the kids into their neighborhood schools.

People have spoken at the community meeting and they have said this over and over, they want critical mass.

It is very isolated when you go to a school and you are the only child, only kid with a hearing loss.

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a business town through the student achievement with deaf children from all over the state of Washington attending.

Some of those kids don't have, they might be the only deaf child in the school.

This is like the only time they get to interact with other deaf children.

And they also met with role models.

And it was also amazing for them to see me because they got to meet someone like me who worked in the health field, my husband who worked at Amazon, people that worked at Boeing.

They just like they actually saw they had a real chance at a future.

Last week I went to a deaf hard of hearing family camp where families with deaf children attending the camp from all over Washington.

I also had an opportunity to meet with with a deaf-blind girl who actually goes to school by herself in her school.

She was having a great time at the camp.

She doesn't sign but she had a great time because she was interacting with her peers.

But when I asked her about school her face changed.

She said she doesn't really have that many friends in that school because she doesn't have peers.

She has friends but she doesn't have anybody that she can identify with.

So I'm going to really put this issue please Seattle please address the critical math issue.

Make it easier for parents to be able to send their children to go to school with their other children.

I know that the program is changing next year.

I would really like to have three teachers in depth.

1 for K through 2, 3 to 5 and 6 to 8. And I'll be happy to talk to you more about this later but please keep fixing the deaf and hard of hearing program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Frank Hillary.

Hi.

I hope you're not tired of hearing about the center school yet.

I am Frank Hillary, I am the coordinator of action for the committee for students concerned about funding, the leader of my school's GSA, I am the former vice president of our student Senate and most importantly I am a student at the center school.

Center is small, we have a capacity of 300 kids and we are only at 280. We are arts focused, we are also focused on college prep and we are in the center of the arts community in Seattle.

There are three theaters within walking distance from our school.

The SIF Cinema is about five minutes away, the Chihuly Glass Museum is less than a minute away, and of course the Seattle Center itself is a host of dozens of artistic events and festivals.

Our school has some of the best test scores in the district and a very politically active artistic student body as I'm sure anyone who was in the building yesterday noticed in the morning.

But we've run into some trouble recently.

Our projected enrollment has dropped for next year and as a result the district has had to make some cuts to our funding.

Center doesn't have a hugely diverse section of classes in the first place.

We don't have a gym, we don't have a greenhouse, we don't have a wood shop.

All we have are three language classes and they are all for Spanish and the arts.

But because of these cuts the school has had to make some tough choices and cut several of the arts programs and in turn one of our most beloved art teachers.

Students at the school staged a walkout yesterday creating a petition signed by a majority of the student body and now we're here to plead our case to you, the school board.

I have heard dozens of students say they came to Center for the Arts and I've heard a huge number of them say that they will leave without them, myself included.

With the current budget structure our school is being set up for failure.

If our funding is cut less students will enroll the following year causing more cuts and even less students after that and on it goes.

Eventually the school will simply have to close and the unique culture of center will be lost.

This school gave me hope for the district.

This school gave hundreds of students an outlet for their creativity so please help us maintain that hope and that outlet.

Thank you.

David Posner, John Chapman and Kristen Arvidsson.

Good evening.

Well, I am still David Posner.

Most of you have heard me more than several times.

I'm going to start off with a quote that is attributed to Albert Einstein that may or may not actually be attributable to him, which is that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity.

The lunch and recess movement, lunch and recess matters movement which is a parent child organization has addressed the board and senior staff members numerous times about the issues about lunch and recess with very little progress.

A little progress in the recess but I'm here today to talk primarily about or exclusively if I can about lunch because time is running short.

Schedules are being set for next year.

I want to step back for a moment and say that I'm always impressed when I come to these serious big-time big-ticket items you all have to deal with.

$50 million here, $35 million there.

I'm a math guy so I did a little bit of math myself while I was sitting.

We have over 20,000 elementary students in Seattle.

If half of them don't get adequate time to eat lunch, that's 10,000 meals a day, 180 times a year.

that students are not getting an adequate amount of time to eat their lunch and that adequate amount of time of at least 20 minutes is established by pediatricians, by nutritionists, by educational experts across the board.

Minimum 20 minutes.

That amounts to 1,800,000 meals a year and we've been talking to you for two years now so that's close to 3.5 million meals if it's 10,000 students a day.

Let's cut it down to 5,000 students so it's 2 million meals have been short.

Here goes my time, so I am going to read a question to you.

Considering that the current board policy and procedure calls for longer than 20 minute scheduled lunches and schedules are being planned soon for the coming year, what is preventing the school district from telling executive directors and principals now that they must schedule at least 25 minute lunches for all students for the coming year?

If it doesn't happen in the next month, it's another year off, it's another million lunches that will be too short for our students.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi my name is John Chapman.

I have a daughter who is a sophomore in the center school and a son who is a seventh grader in Licton Springs K-8.

I want to thank the speakers who've come before me, and especially the students.

who have eloquently addressed the importance of arts education at the center school.

I'm hoping that a solution can be found that can preserve this program and that can prevent the downward spiral that you've heard about.

But I think that one of the things this highlights is the need for us particularly with option schools to focus budgeting on the educational needs and the educational mission of the school.

And I think too often we find these other factors are sort of this tale of capacity and enrollment and a bunch of other things are wagging the dog of our educational missions.

If we are going to have this diverse portfolio of option schools to serve the diverse needs of our students they need to be supported and they need to be able to set what their educational purpose is and stick to it.

So the center school shouldn't have to face cutting of its arts program which is the core of its school.

Warren STEM should never have to face cutting of some of its key technology and science.

Hazel Wolf shouldn't have its environmental classes ever at risk.

These are the things that allow schools to define themselves.

At Licton Springs we are having kind of something of a different problem.

Our enrollment has grown considerably and because of the current K-8 model we are really well budgeted for next year in terms of teaching staff.

Very generously, I am not complaining but we could really use a full-time counselor and because of sort of the way that the rigidity is in the system we can't reallocate that to some of the things that our students really need.

And because of capacity constraints we are being restricted to 150 students and it is being applied in weird ways like our kindergarten is being restricted to 14 or 15 rather than balancing it throughout the school.

So we need to have, stop having these sort of things, these tails wagging our educational mission.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Kristen Arvidson.

I'm ceding my time to Colin Pierce from Rainier Beach.

Hello directors.

I was not actually planning on speaking.

We had three students planning on coming.

Some of them you may be familiar with.

Ifrah Abshir, Alam Ibrahim and Deja Sofer Frazier.

All three full IB diploma students who are in the midst of exams and one had emergency babysitting duties the other had emergency upward bound meeting.

And so I actually one of the one of them offered to do a FaceTime public testimony and I said no I think I'm just going to read what you guys gave me so I'm going to just read this and then be out.

This is Ifrah writing this.

First of all we are very thankful for the district's partnership with the Alliance for Education to fully fund the $230,000 annual cost of Rainier Beach's IB program.

Our school needs the stability that your commitment will bring.

It is a great first step towards making sure all three schools in the district receive full and equitable funding.

We stand with the students at Chief Sealth and Ingram in the hopes that in the future no school needs to choose between providing necessary basic services or providing programs that hold students like us to high expectations.

We used to hear about the students in Federal Way and Bellevue and Edmonds receiving lots of district support for their schools IB programs and wonder why we couldn't have the same thing.

We really hope yesterday's announcement means our district is committing to providing the same support as the rest of the districts around us and we are grateful you chose to start with us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bianca Davis, Deborah Steinberg and Phyllis Capano.

Hello my name is Bianca Davis I'm a junior at the center school and I'm here to ask the board for support for our community.

The fine arts program at the center school offers students instruction in sculpture, drawing and painting and advanced placement art.

A class for students who are seriously considering art after high school which many of our students are.

And from my own experience and the experiences of others I can say that the presence of a professional artist in our school has had a lasting effect on how our students approach art.

However, our new budget proposed for next year cannot support him and we have lost his instruction on all of the classes he offered that made the school so special to so many students.

Projected enrollment has been proven disproportionate for smaller schools.

The center school is small and unique and part of what draws our students is our arts focus.

If the school is devalued now by the elimination of the fine arts program how are we supposed to recruit new students later when the Seattle schools overall enrollment increases as it is expected to do in the next five years.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We can't be held to the same standard as larger schools.

Our mission and our model is unique and we deserve so much more support than we are getting.

This cut to the budget is not the direction we need to be moving in because we know that youth need arts in schools to build strong relationships with their learning environments, their peers and their own self-expression.

And as a concerned student who has seen the impact that arts have in schools I urge the board to support small schools, the artistic development of Seattle students and specifically the unique arts focus perspective of the center school.

The center school is a huge asset to the fine arts culture rich community of Seattle and we need your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Deborah Steinberg.

Hi my name is Deborah Steinberg I'm a center school parent and actually also an Ingram IB parent.

I have twins and I've been a veteran parent of the Seattle Public Schools for the last 12 years and I've seen a lot.

And I came here to speak about the center school, a school that you can see our students who are so passionate about.

And we also have dedicated staff that you haven't met, staff that given my experience in schools from Lowell to Lakeside to IB to Center School these are Seattle's finest teachers hands down.

They are the most creative people, they are problem solvers, they are preparing our kids for the future, they are great thinkers and they are inspirational.

What just happened at the center school is a travesty.

I think you are all familiar with the scenario of what happened to Middle College where programs were being cut due to budgets which causes attrition which causes further cuts ending in dissolution of the school.

Because of this district's funding model which disproportionately punishes small schools our staff was forced to choose between a college prep program or the arts.

basically gutting the arts program and letting go of a much-loved teacher.

Not only do these cuts affect our arts program but the lack of electives force our upperclassmen to go to running start which many as you know who have IEPs or 504 plans they are not really prepared to do that.

and they have trouble navigating that.

Our students want to have the opportunity to stay at the center school and graduate with their peers.

The center school is not like other high schools.

It doesn't have any of the sports fields, gyms, anything.

What we do have is an arts program.

We have one thing and you may ask why I am asking for your funds and why we deserve it more than anybody else here.

It is because we are not asking to Fix our library or fix any, we have one thing, we have an arts program and we are asking you to continue to fund our arts program.

It will make a difference.

Now don't be status quo, be the board that people remember that made a difference and saved our arts program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Phyllis Capano, Eric Plumhagen and Emma Christman.

Good evening Superintendent Nyland and school board directors.

My name is Phyllis Campano and I'm a special education teacher and the president-elect of the Seattle Education Association.

So administrative leaves overall have been a huge concern for SEA and the school communities.

We have far too many educators on administrative leave for extended periods of time.

Administrative leaves not only cost the district thousands of dollars but it also costs the students instruction and their education.

When a paraprofessional is placed on administrative leave they often do not have a replacement for the classroom and again the education of our students is affected.

We are glad to see in the past couple of weeks the HR department is moving aggressively to bring educators back to work from administrative leave.

We are working together to bring educators back to our classrooms.

which is why it is so surprising that Carol Burton has been placed on administrative leave.

It is just beyond thinking of how this could happen when we are working so hard to do the opposite.

Excuse me, we do not take testimony with personnel names.

Okay so I will stop using the name.

The choir program at Garfield High School, is that okay?

is suffering greatly.

The students at Garfield need their teacher to return.

Their spring musical is weeks behind in the schedule.

To be a part of school music productions gives students a sense of belonging and a sense of self-confidence.

The music program at Garfield motivates students to stay in school and be successful.

Let's make things right for the students and the school community at Garfield high school and bring their teacher back tomorrow.

Hello my name is Eric Blumhagen and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today.

We've heard some really inspirational things from IB students and from the center school students tonight and I want to talk to you about cold hard numbers.

We absolutely cannot afford a single empty high school seat in the school district.

Let me repeat that.

We cannot afford a single empty high school seat in this district.

We have too many students coming up the pipeline.

We need, the cost of funding a teacher is peanuts compared to the cost of adding capacity.

I ask you to please fully fund IB and fully fund the center school.

And I would like to yield the remainder of my time to Keira Blumhagen.

Hello I am Kyra Blumhagen I am a seventh grade student at Hamilton international middle school which is up in Wallingford but yeah.

I would like to join the IB program at Ingram when I graduate Hamilton.

And I was really happy to hear about the grant to Beach, it was Beach, yeah.

This highlights the need for funding in the other two high schools, Ingram and Chief Sealth.

And my peers and I deserve to have a complete high school experience which includes fine arts and other hands-on experience like woodshop or auto shop that you don't get unless it's funded.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Emma Chrisman.

So Emma will be our last speaker.

I believe there's two spots open on the waitlist that will be opened up to.

Hi my name is Emma Christman and I am a senior at Garfield High School.

For too much of the past year I have been one of the teachers of the Garfield choir program.

I have conducted class, planned lessons, given notes and tried my best to keep the choir program together along with my fellow peers especially fellow senior Julie Furukawa.

I know that personnel issues are to be avoided at this meeting so I want to clarify that these are issues surrounding a Garfield program and students education every single day.

It is bad enough that there hasn't been a music certified substitute since March in the Garfield choir teacher position.

But now there is a teacher who is a role model to me and countless other students who has been reinstated by a judge to return to her position where we desperately need her.

Since her departure the Garfield vocal program has dwindled from over 100 students to less than 40 in the last year.

While we have done our best to keep the program afloat we need a real qualified certified teacher now more than ever to ensure that the Garfield choir program can continue in future years enriching lives and providing a safe and comfortable community for many students to come.

As the Seattle school board we rely on you to support our education.

Right now we're sitting in class every single day teaching ourselves but there's a simple fix.

I'd like to extend an invitation to any of you who would like to stop by and see what it's like every single day sitting there without a teacher as we try and figure out what to do for ourselves.

Please, please give us our teacher back.

We need it so much.

Thank you so much.

Riley Calcagno and Julia Furukawa.

Hi I'm Riley Calcagno, I'm a senior at Garfield high school and I'm here to talk about the Garfield choir program.

For almost a year now a group of Garfield students have come together during and after school singing music and working to keep the tattered threads of a program together.

This is a program that last year was thriving and changing lives every day with the pursuit of music and an incredible teacher providing a safe space for students of all backgrounds.

Less than a year later our only teachers are our peers and we've had a decrease of more than 60 members.

Just last week the person who has the ability and passion to sew this program back together and continue changing lives won her job back.

in a court case and we thought that joy and learning would return to room 217. But still when we walk into our classroom in the morning the burden looms of students teaching one another instead of having an adequate music certified teacher to lead us.

We need our teacher at Garfield High School where her simple return would restore our program and validate our year of work to keep it together.

I urge you the Seattle school board to pressure staff to restore our teacher to the Garfield classroom immediately.

There is no reasonable excuse that should prevent her from serving students and changing lives tomorrow morning.

Every day counts.

It would be so meaningful and poignant to have one of my most important role models return to class for these last weeks of my senior year.

We know that our hard work, we would know that our hard work, sacrifice and literal sleepless nights have paid off.

Many times during the past year we have wondered what happened to every student, every classroom and every day.

Many times it has felt as if this philosophy has been thrown down the drain and that the most important goal of a school to learn has been forgotten.

I implore you please don't let that happen.

This is for now and this is for the future.

Thank you.

Hi my name is Julia Furukawa and I'm also going to speak about the choir program at Garfield.

So I had something powerful written up but I just decided to give you guys a rundown of what my day at Garfield high school looks like instead.

So I arrive, go to my first period class, And during that class I finish the homework that I probably should have done the night before and start pulling out music for soprano and alto arrangements for the Garfield girls tribal choir that has no teacher.

Then once I finish that class I go to my second period check in with my teacher so that he marks me present and then I go back down to the second floor to teach 55 minutes of Garfield's tribal choir because there's no teacher there.

I play piano, I know music theory, not well enough to be a teacher though I didn't go to school for that.

I don't get a prep period.

But I teach it anyways because I can't stand the thought of 20 girls sitting down in a room for 55 minutes who signed up because they wanted to sing and learn music not doing anything at all.

I go to my third period and I check in with my teacher and then I go back up to the second floor to go teach the men's choir because they don't have a teacher.

I don't even like play instruments that are in bass clef but I've been watching like YouTube tutorials trying to figure it out instead of doing my homework because I can't stand the thought of guys who signed up to want to sing not having a teacher doing anything for 55 minutes.

Then during my fourth period I go back to the choir room where I teach the concert choir pulling music for them preparing for our next concert which is coming up in June if you want to come.

And I'll be conducting it like I did at the last one.

I just guess I wanted to say I want the chance to be a student again and not a teacher and there's a very clear way to fix that.

Thank you.

I want to thank everyone for coming and letting us know your issues.

Now is the end of our testimony and we are now going into board comments for those who have not spoken.

Director Geary.

Welcome Lauren Peterson.

Thank you for joining us tonight.

And thank you everybody from the center school.

My thoughts around that.

And I would have to go back and check but if we have a school with a lot of kids with disabilities and many of you are going on and doing very well academically it seems that this is an issue not only of an option school but potentially of an equity issue and if we are truly sincere about closing the achievement gap for kids with disabilities which we do have an issue with then perhaps we should be looking at other ways to get resources to make sure that this option school continues to do the good job of closing the gap.

Now I'm relying on your information so you know this is what I heard and these are my thoughts and I hope we can do that because we have seen And we have I have learned about how really valuable programs for small groups of kids end up disappearing to everybody's regret and we have to look at a way to stem that from happening so I will continue to work likely with Director Harris because I know these types of issues are also dear to her heart as many of us.

So thank you for coming and thank you for standing up for your school and sharing that information so that we can be educated and be creative in terms of how we can say that maybe not with just one label but maybe looking at the other labels that we tend to do here.

Thank you to the Loyal Heights Wizard of Oz crew that was lovely and again I wish everybody could see this brochure and the creativity in terms of the costumes and the number of children that went into this production.

Just really fabulous that that's going on.

Once again a great example of the arts in our schools.

Thank you to our nurses, Katie Johnson, thank you to all of our educators and thank you to our family support workers because I know within a school each one of those people plays a role and if you have them all they are so valuable and it is felt throughout the school.

And I know you guys see each other as a team within your school and I know it would be lovely to make sure that every building was able to have such a network and we'll just have to continue to work towards that and it goes back to funding and so please everybody take the time to contact the people who are in charge of our purse strings.

I had a great community meeting again the same things are coming up.

It was middle college but talking about an alternative college prep high school.

So again center school another way to get to the same issue.

Special education enrollment we will continue to look at.

Heard from the international baccalaureate group.

And all of these are important to us I know they are and we have to look at student assignment and making sure that we're keeping thriving programs throughout our city and funding them and then funneling kids to them so they can stay healthy.

And I heard on the Olympic Hills boundary issue and I know that's one that we continue to look at so I assure you that.

My next meeting will be Saturday May 28 at the Northeast branch library.

I too attended the race and equity conference and was very proud to see our own director Bernardo Ruiz heading that program.

And the purpose as I saw it was in a lot of ways to encourage other school districts in the surrounding area to adopt a racial equity policy as we have.

And so it was great to see Seattle Public Schools be a leader, stand up and show by example and make ourselves available to do that good work.

Portland raised an issue that I thought was really interesting and they have reworked their volunteer policies to make sure that they are not excluding parents who could be incredibly valuable volunteers because of indiscretions that cause them to perhaps have a criminal record in their far past.

You know of course we always want to balance safety for our kids but we should be looking at ways of making sure that we are including people that our kids need to see in our schools and so often we have men of color who are now fathers who want to participate in their kids education and because of a criminal past perhaps they're not allowed to.

So I would like us to continue to reach out to Portland and find out what they've done to see if we can look at a similar policy change so we can get these valuable parents into our schools and creating showing by example and leading by example for our kids.

I visited Wedgwood Elementary and thank you to Principal Doug Goulet for leading me on a tour there.

I'm always just so thrilled to see the things that are happening in the ground and they have a lovely garden program run by a volunteer Mr. Murphy who's been there forever.

He took me through the garden made me taste all sorts of things that he does with the kids you know spicy and sweet and so it's just it's a really great program.

Thank you to Laura Gramer and Miranda Ressler for meeting me from the deaf and hard of hearing community.

What I really appreciated you've heard from Laura tonight and they brought the positive, the negative and solutions to our meeting and so I would like to go over those with our district staff but I appreciated that approach that there is acknowledgment that good things have happened and that's encouraging.

I want to thank Councilman Rob Johnson and State Representative Jessen Farrell for their We've set up quarterly meetings to talk about the issues in Northeast Seattle which I love and one of them is you know Representative Farrell was very interested to hear how the state's policies on reducing class sizes were kind of having a negative impact on our language immersion programs in terms of the building of those programs.

So it's really great to know that she recognizes that there is work for them to do in terms of being careful.

You know the best intentions sometimes have unintended consequences.

But both of them came to the table knowing that they are in charge of purse strings and asking how can they help and how can we be creative to meet the needs.

So I thank them and we all need to look for ways to continue to reach out because people want to do things for Seattle Public Schools and we have to make sure we are taking advantage of it.

So those are my comments.

Thank you everybody and thank you all of the students who have come and testified today.

It is such a testament to the education that you are being given and your willingness to come and speak before us so eloquently so well prepared and yes it's lovely.

Thank you all of you I hope to see you come back on all the issues that are meaningful and I invite students all over the district to do the same.

It taught me that.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ, Táˀc kulé-wit.

Thank you and good evening.

Definitely want to thank Loyal Heights to start off.

I'm sorry I arrived late this evening relying on light rail myself to get here from the U district but I was kind of hoping I'd see the part of that Wizard of Oz scene where Scarecrow recites the Pythagorean theorem but they cut it short.

So again Kudos to the schools, all the schools that are actually here representing themselves, Garfield, the center school.

The need for arts in our schools is vital.

We can't just be a a school that's going to downplay the arts as being, that isn't being college ready or career ready.

As we look at things, learn the history of the arts, it's through looming and creating designs with rugs is where we got our computers.

The first programming came from that area where they had to figure out how do we, make these materials and patterns through the stitching and stuff and it was basically a kind of a punch card computer style that then leads to what we use in technology today.

So there are those ties we need to emphasize that and let students know the rich history of that.

Congratulations to the nurses, I know they say May 11 but we recognize them today.

Thank you Kathy Johnson for what you are doing and supporting all of your other staff.

And to all of the educators, teacher day was yesterday but we have educators filling this room, parents, students as well seeing that they are teaching.

We have educators all across here and kudos to everyone there again congratulations on being part of the education system.

I was pleased to be at the college of education at the University of Washington, the circle luncheon yesterday and got to see some of the presentations and what the college of education is doing at the University of Washington and hopefully the city of Seattle school district can tie into that.

where they're talking about one thing that I tied with is that how rich culture is in education.

We can't downplay any student's culture and seeing that it makes them less than.

It needs to be seen as a strength.

That they're bringing something to the school and teachers, administrators, board directors, superintendents, everyone again involved in education needs to acknowledge that strength of the culture.

And with that I do want to let people know that the University of Washington does have a native education certification program.

deadline to apply is May 30. I'll share the information with the school send that out shortly.

Did appreciate being at the mayor's education summit this past weekend as well.

Great turnout, good dialogue because you know we do need to be a team here and it's going to take all of us to make sure because as the person said it's not about me it's not about you it's about the kids.

Making sure they get through and get their education.

I also want to congratulate Shawna Brown on what she's done for the Since Time Immemorial curriculum and her recognition that she's getting.

The Nova principal Mark Perry congratulations.

Shawna Heath thank you kind of quickly going through these congratulations here.

Lauren thank you for being up here and sharing your words about again students you have a voice too keep on talking and letting us know what your needs are.

Chris Jackins I also have to give you a thank you for keeping us on our toes.

Thank you to make sure that we are always crossing our I's dotting our T's and lowercase j's.

One thing we are looking at this new budget issue a lot of the things that are being brought up today are about you know fund us make sure you don't cut that.

I want to take the approach when we look at our budget that seems like often times the budget drives our programs.

But I want to see that our priorities drive our programs and drive our budget the other way around.

I currently have an attentive community meeting on June 4 I do need to reschedule due to graduation events as well and I still have to figure out some time for that.

I have let people know to invite me to their meetings but unfortunately I get invited to them during school board meetings so keep on trying and thank you all for coming here and sharing your voice.

I too would like to thank Lauren for joining us here tonight and the Loyal Heights theater group for their engaging excerpts from the Wizard of Oz performance, very compelling.

It's fitting that we have such an enthusiastic, passionate, eloquent crowd come tonight to talk to us about programs and teachers that they love during educator week.

I certainly can vouch for the importance of educators in my own life and it's really a testament to our district when we have students who feel compelled to come and testify to us in this manner.

And so it was very compelling to hear about the Garfield choir program and the state it's in right now.

And I'm hopeful that we can restore it to its strength and we can restore our students to their classrooms where they can be students again.

And for the center school community, you know I feel very strongly about center school.

It was a school that was created partly because we don't have a high school in the Queen Anne Magnolia area.

And so it was created to serve a purpose and the heart of it is the arts focus.

That's not the only part of it but that is the heart of it.

And as one of the students mentioned it's located right in the heart of our theatrical district and it just has so many great facilities near it.

So when I heard there was this possibility of the art department being cut I was shocked.

I mean how could it possibly come to this?

I'm also very biased because I come from a family that has been steeped in the arts.

I come from a family of actors, performers, musicians, artists.

I myself have been involved with those activities and I know how important they are.

I also know that as a district we care about graduation, we care about not letting our kids drop out of school.

And there are various things that can keep kids in school and it's not the same for each one.

For some it's heavy-duty academics but for others it's music, it's theater, it's fine arts, it's sports.

We have to keep all those options available to our kids so that we can hold on to every kid possible.

We are confronting basic budgetary problems but as one of our speakers tonight said it does seem like our funding model disproportionately punishes our smaller schools.

And that may well be the consequence and so we have to be more creative with our funding if we value these schools and we value these programs and I believe we do.

So I asked staff and I asked the superintendent if we cannot find a creative solution so that center school can maintain its art department and its art teacher and retain the students because there is a very real risk.

of losing students if there is no art department and then as has been mentioned we have a downward spiral where the school gets smaller, loses funds and then will lose even other elements of its curriculum.

And so that is my request and my mission is to see what we can do to maintain the art department.

You know on the subject of students bringing their perspective to us at the mayor's summit over the weekend the highlight for me was the panel of students who spoke.

They were juniors, seniors and some middle school students.

And they really cut through all the jargon and got to the heart of the matter.

And I was really struck by the main theme I heard and that is for them a school is a community, it is a family.

And when schools are functioning well students feel, they actually feel loved.

And that was a word that some of the students used at this summit.

In fact here's a quote from one of the students he said schools should have a culture to show love and compassion towards me and care about me.

And I think that is why it's important for us to advocate as board directors and also as a district for initiatives and programs that support our students and why I believe we shouldn't be supporting tests that students are likely to fail or a large number of kids are likely to fail.

We need to sustain programs that we begin.

And we need to provide current and engaging curricular materials as often as we can.

So this comes back to what we've been talking about I think as a group and that has to do with priorities.

We know we have a limited budget so we have to look at our priorities and see what can we put first, where can we find the funding for that, that's always going to be the challenge.

But I think we have to really have a clear sense of our priorities because it sounds like We are not necessarily always on the same page in how we budget things and we need to have another look at that.

So I also want to take this opportunity to give a shout out to center school because my understanding is some of your film students just recently won some awards.

And it was at the NFTY film festival.

I understand you guys came in third out of 14 statewide.

So congratulations.

And I understand that Ballard high school also won at this festival.

So we have some wonderful arts programs throughout the district and center school showing that even a small school can produce some winning work and winning students.

So a couple of other things I just want to affirm and that is the importance of lunch times and allowing enough time for lunch and this is an ongoing conversation.

It troubles me to hear that we are still only allowing 20 minutes for students and I would like to know what we can do to embed a longer lunch time in our schedule.

And I want to thank Dr. Herndon for giving us an update about the water quality in the district.

It's very reassuring.

I'm really pleased to hear that we're going above and beyond the standards and I want to thank the school board of 2004 that initiated those changes and those standards.

The testimony we had from our teacher Patricia Bailey I found very troubling and I would like to know more about those circumstances and I hope that can be resolved.

And then just make sure I got everything on my list.

I recently had a community meeting where the topics of interest were the waitlist and how the waitlist is going to function this year and so I have asked staff to please answer some of those questions and then post them.

to the Friday memo so the public can know those answers as well.

And IB funding has been a hot topic and I think that's another one of the priorities where there's a lot of will to fund it we just have to find the means.

And then the Loyal Heights school building there's a lot of interest in making sure we allow enough space for the kids to play on that site.

I think that is pretty much what I have for you tonight.

Again I thank you all for coming out tonight and sharing with us these very important issues.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

I'd just like to reiterate how proud I am to be going to the center school and have so many students and teachers that came out today to represent us.

Along the lines of awards there was talk of the Naramore art show at Sam and there are several center students including Thea Whitney and Lily Foss who have I believe Thea won for drawing you got first place in the Naramore art show.

and best in show.

We have some really high performing, I have no doubt that these students will have careers in the arts in the future.

I'd like to thank you again for having me.

I have to go now but thank you so much for listening to the center school.

Thank you.

Thank you Lauren appreciate it.

Just a couple of quick comments following up the testimony as always it's absolutely critical for us to hear the true needs the pulse of what's going on in our schools throughout the district.

So I want to touch on just three of the major themes that I heard here.

Initially center school I'm really grateful for the clarity that you've provided around the DNA that makes up your school.

This has been really informative for me.

Great signage and I want to I want to call out Ms. Dunaway for standing up and advocating.

You nailed it.

On the IB funding the language that one of the people giving testimony brought up was dedicated adequate funding and to not have competition between programs.

And I love that as a vision.

And I think we're going to have to keep striving towards that.

I understand the costs.

I understand the value and the rigor as well.

My son just took his IB bio exam today so fingers crossed we don't know how it went.

And then I also wanted to thank all of the Garfield community for turning out, for the letters you've shared, the passionate testimony and the emails and the video.

It's definitely been noted.

Thank you again.

I would like to say thank you to Lauren again for joining us and enlightening us with what's happening at his school.

Thank you to Laura Heights for students for an amazing performance.

I thought that was pretty very fun way of actually showing the Wizard of Oz.

I also wanted to congratulate all the nurses and Kathy Johnson's for a job well done because your job is on ending and serving our students daily.

Also I want to thank you all to all the educators for the work that you do for our students daily and knowing that You are not getting the support as you normally should because without you we will not be able to educate our children as you are doing right now.

It is our job as a district to make sure that our students receive the best education that we can as educators.

When we eliminate programs like the arts at the center school, middle college where our kids are able to have the atmosphere of going to college.

we are telling our kids that they are not worth a lot of the things that they are doing.

So I believe that any programs that belong to Seattle Public Schools we as a district should find a way to make sure that all those programs are kept and continue to enhance so that all our students who attend those programs would have the opportunity to be able to thrive and be able to do the things of the reason why they went to those schools in the first place.

I can't believe that we continue on to cut programs that actually serve the needs of every student in Seattle Public Schools.

So I believe that as board directors and staff and our superintendent it is our job to look beyond what we have right now and figure out what is it that we need to do as a district to fully fund IB programs and the stamp programs and also center school arts programs that we may never be able to cut any more of those programs because they belong to our students.

If we want a great education for our children it is our responsibility as a district to find whatever way we can to be creative to make sure that these programs were no longer not only not be funded but be able to let our children and our students be able to have those programs so they can continue to thrive and be able to ready for the next level of their life in terms of college.

So we hope that we as a district can be able to come together and really look at that and really be creative in how we can be able to save all our programs.

Thank you very much for coming and hopefully We will see you at the next meeting.

Now we are going to go on to the next phase of our program.

Let's take a break right now.

I'm sorry.

10 minutes break.