Seattle School Board Work Session - November 30, 2020

Could we please hold comments while SPS-TV takes us live.

After a 5-second pause I Director Hampson will call us to order.

This is Director Hampson.

I am now calling the board special meeting to order at 4 p.m.

For the record I'll call the roll.

Director DeWolf.

Director DeWolf.

Okay we'll come back to him.

Director Harris.

Present.

Director Hersey.

Here.

Director Mack.

Here.

Director Rankin.

Here.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

Director DeWolf have you joined us.

Okay if anyone notices he's joined us please let me know.

And this is Director Hampson.

The Superintendent is also present as well as staff who will be presenting as we move through the agenda.

This meeting is being held remotely consistent with the governor's proclamation prohibiting meetings such as this one from being held in person.

The public is being provided remote access today by phone and through SPS-TV by broadcast and streaming on YouTube.

To facilitate this remote meeting I will ask all participants to ensure you are muted when you are not speaking.

There will not be a public comment opportunity.

Staff will be working to administer the meeting and may be muting participants to address feedback and ensure we can hear from directors and staff.

Today's work session is on in-person learning and Director Rankin and I will be facilitating this session.

We'll begin with a staff presentation today and then we will have additional time for directors questions and discussion on this topic during our December 5th school board retreat.

I will hand it over to Superintendent Juneau now to begin the presentation.

Thank you Director Hampson and good to virtually kind of see all of you.

Just want to welcome everybody and of course thank staff who put this information together.

I think we are hoping to at least present for an hour and maybe get into some questions and then talk about next steps at the end.

So next slide.

This is just our agenda that we'll kind of run through today.

Talk about today's outcomes.

Go review again.

I know that you can all hearken back to the engagement teams that we had going and talk about our values and our strategic plan priorities.

We always like to begin that way to ground ourselves in what our district's been working on and trying to implement over the past couple of years.

Talk about the current state of affairs of remote learning.

Give a COVID-19 update about where we currently are with all of that.

And then visit with the board a bit about options and considerations and then finally touch on sample timeline and potential next steps.

Next slide please.

Our hopeful outcomes from the session and as you foreshadowed on Saturday's retreat.

In other words these are the big questions that are going to need to be answered.

What direction are we taking for the rest of the school year 2020-21.

Should we stay with our current remote learning model or should we commit to resourcing a hybrid model of sort of early grades in-person and what does that look like.

If so what grade bands and if not what steps can we take to uphold our values and objectives.

And all of us know that there are no easy answers to these questions and school districts all across the country are grappling with these same questions.

We started remote learning last March before any other urban district in the country.

We didn't know of course then that it would last through fall and now winter heading into the holidays.

Our system has done a good job of making a shift that none of us planned for or that we were prepared to carry out.

If you remember back to last March and into the summer we have had a plan.

We were actually in buildings preparing them for socially distanced early grade in-building learning.

We had storage units on playgrounds and we're making that move.

And then the infection rate kept climbing and we had to shift to be fully remote.

We had a summer school that taught 15,000 students with 400 educators that we were able to learn from.

We engaged the community with about 120 members being part of these engagement teams to line out our values and outline themes that we should pay attention to.

We surveyed our community.

We have a great remote learning playbook that is guiding our current context.

We've had lots and lots and lots of meetings on so many different challenges.

We've developed strong partnerships with philanthropy and business like Amazon Alaska Air Microsoft C-City the Alliance for Education and so many more.

We've made sure every student had a device and some sort of Internet access.

We continue to provide basic needs like food.

We're now serving right around 30,000 meals per day.

We worked with staff and community partners to carry out priorities and all the while we have maintained our focus on our strategic plan.

We've also made sure our young people and particularly the Kings are leading the conversation and are at the center of our decision making.

And I just want to also thank the board for making sure that we continue to keep our focus throughout while also making sure we follow public health advice and guidance.

And as we look to the future I believe that working together we will find a direction that provides mutual understanding and agreement on the supports resources and in-person services plan for students furthest from educational justice.

You're going to hear a lot of information today to sort through.

I'm glad we have a follow up on Saturday as well and with that Director Hampson and board I'm going to turn it over to Chief of Staff Cox.

Thank you Superintendent Juneau.

I just wanted to note that President DeWolf joined us at 4 0 4 0 3 p.m.

Thank you.

Go ahead Chief Kokx.

Thank you Director Hampson and thank you Superintendent Juneau.

I just want to call us back as Superintendent Juneau mentioned to our strategic plan Seattle Excellence which is remains at the core of our work here in Seattle Public Schools.

Even in our remote setting we are committed to the strategic plan under high-quality instruction and learning experiences.

We've never lost sight that African-American boys and teens are our central focus.

Their safety and welcoming in our schools is top priority as well as maintaining our 3rd grade reading goals for African-American boys and teens.

The 5th and 7th grade math goals.

the 9th grade on-track and graduation goal as well as the graduation from high schools ready for college career and community.

We are trying to maintain the best of our ability predictable and consistent operational systems which in an ever-changing context is is tough but we are committed to for example providing meals across the city regardless of remote learning or an in-person stance.

Dr. Codd and her team are committed to the culturally responsive workforce goals which you're going to hear more about especially on Saturday.

And then Dr. Scarlett and her team are working hard to ensure that we have an inclusive and authentic engagement with our African-American boys and teens at the center of that as well as their families.

This plan is also informed by our foundational beliefs for supporting student learning.

And you can see here that teaching this this work comes from our June engagement.

Teaching is intellectually complex.

We believe that by collaborating with families in authentic partnerships we can create a pathway to reach our students even in a remote stance.

We know that intelligence is not a fixed inborn trait that children come to school with cultural capital and intelligence and have the raw materials to learn rigorous academic material at high standards.

And we recognize that by cultivating the gifts and strengths of every student we can remove barriers and implicit bias that impede student self-actualization fostering environments where students transcend racial stereotypes and thrive in our Seattle Public Schools.

And then lastly here racism in our society exerts a downward force on the experiences and achievement of our students of color that must be met with active countermeasures.

And so we have never lost sight of this even in our remote learning stance.

As Superintendent Juneau mentioned in June we had pulled together 150 plus community members.

And what came out of that work are these thematic values.

And I'm not going to read all of these to us but I do want to call out that the prioritization of students furthest from educational justice particularly our African-American val — males was a value that came out of that community work.

And then I want to pull you all the way over to the right-hand side where the face-to-face in-person priority grade levels.

Those teams told us that what was most important to them as community students families and staff was that K-3 was a top priority as well as perhaps looking at looking at the transition grades of 6th grade and 9th grade and that they believe that some in-person is necessary for as many students as possible.

And that the instruction must be culturally responsive.

The one thing that's not on this slide but that we know we have prioritized is providing in-person instruction for our students receiving special education services that have a goal that requires in-person services in order for them to meet that goal.

And then this last slide that I'll be talking with you about today is this is the engagement teams the model agreements and design principles that came out of this work.

And we were trying to model our work at that time to align with the phases that the governor had put out for us.

And what you can see in regardless of if we are in the online or remote option versus a full in-person option the number one priority was the need for anti-racist practices.

And so regardless to how we are delivering instruction that is a commitment that came out of that work.

And that the next thing that is in there is around the strong community and family partnerships.

There is a preference in those work groups that we pulled together for an in-person education at some level.

And then opportunities to develop multiple models and flexibility to support students furthest from educational justice.

An explicit consideration for English language learners.

and families including translation services across community.

So with that I am going to hand it over to Dr. DeBacker.

Thank you Sherri.

Diane DeBacker Chief Academic Officer.

The next few slides I'll visit with you about the current state and all of the board directors are very aware of the current state.

You've you've had to vote on policies around the current state and many of you have children of your own who are experiencing education in Seattle Public Schools.

So next slide please.

This slide will look familiar to you.

You've seen it many times.

It's from the Remote Learning Playbook.

And as you recall we worked on our playbook for several months before it was it was implemented back in September.

And we have these 5 design principles that we have stayed true to during this first semester of learning.

Our design principle of being racially equitable.

Having health and wellness first.

Being community responsive actionable and adaptable.

So this is again what our remote learning model is based off of.

Next slide.

This slide is as a collage of all of the things that are happening right now.

You've seen all of these.

We've talked about all of these on many occasions but I'll just start in the upper left-hand corner of this screen.

And this is an illustrative model of a 3rd grade in our Monday Tuesdays Thursdays and Friday schedules.

So as you know it's a blend of synchronous and asynchronous lessons throughout the day and you can see how this particular schedule looks and again it will seem very familiar to many of you since you have students within the school system.

As you move across the page to the right you'll also see the mindful moment reminders.

And this is just a slight glimpse into our social-emotional learning.

As we start each day whether we're in our K-8's or in our high school setting We start off with an advisory or a community meeting community building and we really do concentrate and our teachers concentrate about the social emotional learning of our kids.

Because we all know that if our kids are not ready to learn in terms of emotionally the academics won't come nearly as easily.

As you move down to the lower right-hand corner of this slide.

This is something that we've talked about.

You've asked us about.

Others have asked us about throughout the remote learning is how's our daily attendance and how are how do we know if students are actually logging on.

Chief Jessee sent you some information back in I believe the November 20th Friday memo that showed you every school and it showed you the average daily attendance.

It showed you the different platforms that each school had available to them.

And as you can see from both the district level and the school level we are about it the same no matter if we're talking about it being an individual school or being at the district.

So again this is just an illustrative example.

If you're wondering about a certain school you can go back to that November 20th Friday memo and and look into that.

And then finally in the lower left right hand corner of this page.

It's just a reminder that this district you as a board our community members that Superintendent Juneau mentioned at the beginning of her introduction we have a lot of technology resources out there and we have the technology resource centers and thus far at the time that this presentation was put together there have been over 6,100 visits to the technology centers.

Next slide please.

So even with all of that.

There are strengths and there are challenges within this remote learning model that we have right now.

We've talked about all these before but it's some of our strengths.

Our students schedules are rigorous.

They support the grade level content and they support social emotional learning.

We know that our students schedules represent a balance between the synchronous and asynchronous instruction.

We know that our schedules meet the basic requirements for Washington State.

We know it allows our students to meet graduation requirements.

We know that our recently adopted instructional materials have proven to be very beneficial for our teachers and our students.

And we know that the digital tools that we have have facilitated increased educator collaboration particularly in those areas where we have recently adopted instructional materials.

But even given that we have challenges and you've heard about those challenges.

You get emails about those challenges.

You get stopped in the grocery stores.

People want to talk to you about some of the challenges.

We know that our our Wednesdays are heavy for our K-5 teachers and that there needs to be a balancing of instruction and education or planning time during Wednesdays.

We know that coming up with assessments in remote learning has been a challenge for us.

The absence of the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments in the spring required us to look at different ways to make sure that we knew where students were at and that we could plan our instruction accordingly.

We know that ensuring that students get access to instruction in all the required content areas on a consistent basis is a challenge.

We also know that prioritizing our standards meant that we really had to put some things aside and say not yet.

We can't do it all this year as long as we're in remote learning.

So we had to prioritize our standards.

We know that keeping our students engaged with the classroom community is difficult and we know that it's it's a challenge to have authentic opportunities for our students to socialize.

Next slide please.

But here is some good news.

As we are finalizing the Pulse surveys and the results of the Pulse surveys and just a reminder that we surveyed students families and school staff.

We had some positive feedback and some feedback that said here's where we could work a little bit harder.

Our students told us in a positive vein is that the school work was at their level.

So prioritizing those standards has paid off.

They also told us that the positivity and the warmth from our school staff has been very important.

They said we could use more opportunities to be social during the school day.

And again we've heard that time and time again.

And they said clear expectations or directions directions for how to do schoolwork outside of live class time.

We'd like more instruction there.

Our families also told us that the positivity and the warmth from our school staff has been beneficial.

They appreciate the support by educators to help their own children learn.

But again they want more opportunities for their students to be to connect with other kids and they themselves want to connect with other families in the school community.

From our own school staff they said support for communicating and building relationships with students has been helpful to them.

So think back to those social emotional lessons that we provided teachers at the strong start at the beginning of the school year has been beneficial.

Not surprising our school staff is saying better technology school tools especially related to Microsoft Teams and that they would like more access to useful curricular materials for remote learning and especially in those areas that we do not have a recently adopted curriculum materials.

Next slide please.

And this one I am handing over to Dr. Perdoza to talk about our re-entry for in-person services.

Thank you so much.

Good evening everybody.

So this is the current state for the re-entry process for in-person services.

And we've been communicating this a lot over the last few months.

But I'll reiterate that in-person services is requested for an individual student through the IEP process or a group of students.

And that is the initial phase for determining academic programming for students and then Central teams began phase re-entry operational checklists and evaluation of student requirements including health staffing transportation facility and operational requirements.

We have sent to you previously the list of all of the protocols and you have access to all of that information.

The completion of required staff training and health and safety protocols and the fittings for PPE communication and education provided to families district family agreements daily health screenings updating contact information and then students can then begin receiving in-person services once all of the pieces are confirmed to be in place.

I'm going to hand this to Wyeth Chief Jess Chief Wyeth Jessee.

Good evening.

So health and safety is our top priority.

Due to the staff's efforts we've been paving the way for lower transmission rates especially compared to other places in the United States.

With that we've also had to do a number of steps in partnership with other agencies and community partners as well as of course our families in to ensure that we have lower transmission rates.

Next slide please.

So partnering with other state agencies such as the Department of Health they have provided guidance regarding in-person learning.

Here in front of you is the decision-making tree as well as the implementation model that has been provided by the Department of Health that came out this past summer.

This this particular guidance helps us understand that on the all the way on that left column where it says COVID-19 activity level It really talks about the transmission rates for the cases that we would confirm cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 community members over a 14-day period.

And then in the next column it talks about the educational modality or what is the particular model that we would be probably trying to implement.

Again when we're at high it's recommending that we do remote learning.

When we're at moderate.

It'd be a phased-in in-person model starting with elementary and then in the low category meaning that we would have less than 25 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day period.

Then there would be a recommendation for full-time in-person learning for all elementary students in a hybrid model for our secondary students.

And then over on the right which I will be highlighting in coming slides is what what does that look like.

How do you implement these recommendations and then what are the steps that are being asked of school districts and specific schools to make sure that we can uphold the health and safety guidance that is coming from our public health agencies.

But before I turn the next slide I would just also recommend that while we have this guidance we also needed to contextualize it to here in Seattle Public Schools recognize that there are things at play such as resources capacity and readiness.

And so when we think of those things coupled with our values that Chief Cox went over we want to make sure that we're making sure we're matching that and taking the appropriate steps measured steps as we've gone along the way and we've done that again.

And I think because of that we haven't had these huge spikes or outbreaks.

right here at any of our school sites.

And so we have to keep those transmission rates low for our staff our students and our family.

Next slide please.

So on this slide it's a go ahead and peering in or scoping in specifically to what what it does look like when we make decisions.

Right here for example is the activity level if it is high which it is right now.

when there's over 75 cases per 100,000 residents over 14 days.

We want to really think about other considerations such as trending cases.

Are we trending up.

Are we flattening that curve or is it going down.

Hospitalizations.

Who's testing positive or how many tests are we able to actually provide to the community knowing whether that data is really representative of the overall community because you do need a high end size or again number.

And then other health and safety risks including where which parts of the population.

And so we take those things into considerations.

Where do we need to pivot and what do we need to act on.

And we've been in ongoing conversation again with not only the Department of Health obviously Seattle King County Public Health other agencies and our own community-based partners.

Next slide please.

So here is a snapshot of King County's dashboard containing some of the key indicators of COVID-19 activity.

This was this is a particular snapshot was taken on November 16th in preparation for this presentation.

But I have the numbers for today and so I'd like to just quickly give you an update on that.

So when we think about where is again that activity per 100,000 residents over the last 14 days here in King County we're at 383 per 100,000.

So you can see the trend line there.

It's continuing to trend on the green line as it goes up quite precipitously.

And so that would be indicate that we are at the higher level when we're talking about different things on the decision tree.

So we would want to right now would support a in-person instruction.

And then we think about also just what is our ability to calculate where is the outbreak.

Is it growing.

Is it shrinking.

And that also has been staying fairly steady but it is exceeds our best estimate of trying to be below 1. So we've been at 1.2 here for around the last month.

So those are just two of the snapshots.

There's other indicators on the dashboard provided by King County.

And again these are some of the things that we do take into consideration again as well as what what is it we're trying to provide.

What is our resources and our capacity to do so.

Next slide please.

So here we're going to give you a little snapshot of what does it mean for us to have an implementation or recommendations for health and safety managers.

How do we take those and implement those right here for Seattle Public Schools.

We take things like PPE.

How much do we have.

How what is the training that we've been able to provide staff.

We know that when we do train staff seems to ease their ability to understand how they can work with students in in-person learning that Chief Pedroza was talking about.

So we have our kids with IEP's.

Doing that work and then also of course the support staff that we have at our sites.

So having those indicators really making sure that we're able to measure those.

Are we providing transportation or that look like physical distancing.

What is the setup of chairs in locations.

Our schools are different.

Classrooms configurations are different.

Face coverings how can we do that.

And then we have our cleaning and sanitization schedule.

I was just monitoring some things around ventilation.

Then moving forward to the right column really is our ability to make sure that we can carry those things through at our sites and then we have protocols.

So we have well over 15 separate health and safety protocols for the district.

We are constantly looking at those protocols and measuring them.

We're on a we have a continuous improvement cycle as we get information at our individual school sites and also from our central office staff who are out there.

So much so that we are in a position now to ensure that we are going out and this next two months and going out to all 104 schools and making sure that our protocols are are being implemented.

That kind of information again helps feed us just to ensure that we understand specifically Are we ready.

What's our readiness level.

How are folks doing in adapting to new habits of working on site with all of the things that have been asked of them.

And again of course how is that impacting our ability to lower the transmission rate for our staff and our students and our families.

Next slide please.

So really in summary we're really Trying to again be in a place where we work with different agencies.

We work collectively.

Where are we at specifically to the transmission rate even within the schools itself with staff.

We have a desiccated line we've had always since past March.

Other districts ask us for our own health and safety protocols.

And we because we know that we've exceeded the standard that's been asked for from us.

from state agencies including public health.

The trainings for staff have been really helpful.

And then we also recognize whenever we have moves or things happen like we are now and an increased transmission rate we need to pivot.

And that's why we're going out to all our school sites to ensure not only that we have a station going on and that we have folks following our health and safety protocols but that is there any further additional shifts in our training in our protocols that we need to make.

And I have highlighted here just things that other school districts like New York City or Boston some other school districts on the East Coast have had to have opened and closed and opened back again and closed or stayed closed.

And then seems to be a lot of larger urban school districts on the West Coast have remained in remote learning such as in San Francisco and L.A.

So we have a lot of number of things in front of us.

Things that I would definitely want us to consideration is also just vaccinations.

As we look to vaccinate have vaccinations this next spring we'll that will definitely be one of the things that we will want to really closely monitor and making sure that we have that information as it informs also our ability to make further shifts.

this spring and into the summer.

And then additional any additional ways or further outbreaks that may cause us to have to make some specific moves whether that's in a classroom at a school site or at the district level.

So that will conclude that and I'll hand it over to Chief Codd.

Great.

Good evening everyone.

Thank you.

Options and considerations.

What options do we as a district really have before us and what are some of the things that we need to consider before making any changes or recommendations that staff might make to the board and then obviously the board would have the final decision-making authority to change our model.

So next slide please.

So there are really three main instructional models that are going on throughout the country right now or the world essentially.

So on-site where students are in school safely utilizing health and safety protocols as in very limited cases that is going on throughout our country and in other countries.

There is on the right-hand side where most people are is a comprehensive distance learning or remote learning program where almost all of our students are learning remotely.

They are not in the school buildings.

The only exception to this model right now is our students who have IEP teams who have made a determination that students can only access that parts of their education if they are doing so in-person.

But most of our students or almost all are in this distance learning model.

So what's the hybrid model.

A hybrid model does not imply automatically a type of schedule.

It simply means that students are doing some of their learning in-school brick-and-mortar and some students are doing distance learning in order to create a comprehensive educational program in order to meet all of the instructional needs that the state has asked that we still continue to meet.

So a hybrid could mean for us as a district that some groups of students do have access to in-person learning.

It could mean a staggered schedule.

It could mean that we are prioritizing certain grades or courses or certain programs.

We would still have to meet the public health requirements for safety health and safety.

But these decisions could be made by the district and we would want them to be based in our values as was shared earlier on in the presentation.

And also taking into consideration our resources capacity our our readiness and then of course health and safety guidance that may come in the future.

Next slide please.

So what are some of the assumptions of expanding our in-person model or selecting some form of a hybrid model.

What might we be thinking about.

So we do believe that in-person services provide a greater opportunity for student learning to ensure they're meeting the priority standards.

We know that some parents regardless of the model that we choose as a district will want an alternative to on-campus instruction.

So a.k.a. they will want some form of a remote curriculum for their students to access until we are through this pandemic.

Providing in-person services done sleep safely will require a realignment of some perhaps our student enrollment based on the limited building capacity.

We cannot fit all of the students in the classrooms at the same time.

So you have to re-rack some of that.

Mid-year changes to student and staff assignments would be required.

Not all of our staff will be able to be in-person providing in-person instruction.

Some will request accommodations due to a variety of reasons due to COVID-related reasons.

We will have to offer the lower class size and the reason for that is we need to make sure we're still maintaining that 6 feet of social distancing.

This will shift working conditions and responsibilities of our staff and we will need to bargain the impacts.

of the decisions that we make.

So just to remind everybody the district makes the decision about the model that we're going to implement and then we are asked to bargain the impacts of the working conditions.

So we don't bargain the model.

We bargain the impact on the working conditions of staff.

This will take lead time in order to successfully implement any changes that should the board determine moving forward.

And I know later on in the presentation we'll talk about timelines.

Next slide please.

So we will want to be thinking about perhaps some of the non-core district functions that may need to be curtailed or postponed or even eliminated this year.

We are going to have to re-rack resources to make sure that we can reopen schools safely.

There is a cost not just in dollars but there's also a cost in time supplies and then the operational friction that it will take in order to reduce the risk of transmission.

Right now I believe about 50 of our schools have child care sites within them.

If we were to reopen schools in some way shape or form it would likely result in some of those child care sites being displaced if they don't already have a dedicated space in our building.

We are certain that we will continue to see more outbreaks in COVID-19.

We know that we are not even through the cold and flu season so we expect there to be some more spikes.

I've been hearing you've probably been seeing that on the news.

And schools are going to need to be prepared to quickly pivot between that brick and mortar in-person perhaps to a remote model based on transmission rates or perhaps even outbreak or transmission rates within a school or classroom.

Next slide please.

So just some things for us to think about some essential questions that I won't read through all of them because obviously you can read them yourselves.

But we do need to make sure that we've got a sufficient number of educators in each building while also maintaining physical distancing amongst the staff and amongst the students.

That does require us to think about how do we staff for a hybrid model should we choose to move in that direction.

We we do know that some of our staff will not be able to do that.

We will need to do a survey of our staff to find out who is able to provide in-person versus remote.

We will go through a process in HR to do that.

We will also need to be thinking not just about our educators and their roles but what does this mean for 609 trades principles et cetera.

We want to make sure that we have enough resource to ensure that we are doing our proper sanitizing making sure we've got the technology in place that the transportation routes are all done.

I believe Fred will talk about that in a moment.

And that we've got all the staffing needed to sustain the change for a portion of the school year.

We will need to be thinking about these things for the 21-22 school year as well.

But I know the topic of today is you know what do we do for the rest of this school year.

And then I think really most importantly we have got to ensure that all of our staff are maintaining the safety standards that we've put in place that people are following.

the health and safety protocols and we need to be able to ensure that everybody is held accountable to those measures.

Next slide please.

Oh that is the end of my part of the presentation and I believe I'm now handing it over to Dr. Scarlett.

All right.

Good evening everyone.

Thank you for being here.

So I'm going to transition and can you move back to the previous slide just really quickly.

The one about questions.

Just as we look at this slide and transition to the other part I'm just marveling about the level coordination across so many different divisions and departments.

So as we're thinking about all of the essential questions and what we're grappling with across these that Dr. Codd laid out here it just I'm marveling a little bit about just the level of coordination that is required across these and all the ways that we're working together.

So thank you Dr. Codd for that.

So we'll move to the next slide.

Thank you.

All right.

So I want to talk to you a little bit about just some models or some models that we have considered and what are the strengths and challenges within.

So let's get started with this pre-K-2 model.

We know that there is a high level of desire for our very youngest learners to be in-person.

So there's some underlying assumptions within this that our 3-12 special education in-person services would be determined by IEP teams.

And then the P-12 special education intensive pathways would be in-person.

And please even understand within a hybrid model Dr. Pedroza really wants to reiterate that this P-12 special education intensive pathway would be in-person.

So here are the strengths and challenges.

So we know some of the different strengths.

For the P-2 in-person it would allow families of those age students to be able to you know work and have their students in school.

That the K-2 students we know P-2 are in the most need of in-person support and learning.

They really require having that you know connection with their with their teachers and educators.

It definitely supports our values of relationship and connections these core values that we have particularly as we talk about the work with our students but also with families as well.

It would lead to flexible expansion or these responses to COVID-19 without closing schools.

And we actually do have enough staff to implement this option.

So those are the strengths.

As we think about the challenges there are some challenges that come up for this model.

One is that not all students who are in need of in-person services would actually get the services that they need.

There would be some different expectations for our teachers whether it's they're working remote or on-site.

So different expectations for the educators.

Thinking about the educator teacher coverage of different cohorts it would require likely a reassignment of staff and students just as we talked about some of the challenges with the physical space and the need for reassignment.

Also there will be midstream maybe not mid-year but midstream disruptions to student schedules.

And so we're really trying to think about what this continuity look like in this.

And of course every decision we make has a ripple effect on our partners particularly our child care providers that particularly those who don't have dedicated space in the schools.

But there is a ripple effect on the entire child care community with this option.

Okay next slide.

So let's talk about the P-K-12-AB rotation.

So again those underlying assumptions in this case P-12 special education in-person of course determined by the IEP team and then the intensive pathways are in-person.

So a few strengths here.

A lot of a lot of challenges.

So all students get some in-person instruction.

So that is a strength in this model.

And it actually kind of sort of spreads out the instructional load across the different teachers and that everyone is going to have to fly to the ball and be on board for this.

The challenges is you know when we do move into these rotations that our flexibility to be able to respond to COVID-19 in case there's some type of uptick or outbreak of cases becomes we become less nimble in the flexible in flex in flexible with being able to respond to that.

We know that having less social distancing would be a challenge and it's not as safe as just having like a pure cohort model.

Ensuring effective sanitation of each classroom in between those A-B rotations how quickly can we pivot to create the sanitation necessary for us to feel comfortable with our students being in this model.

Our families particularly those that are non-remote workers those families who are just not able to work from home.

They're not able to go back to work consistently because of all the different changes in schedules that will impact them and have a ripple effect.

Us being able to sustain the teaching models like dual services model expectations within the remote and in-person.

Also the staffing.

becomes contingent on the number of families who are opting into in-person services.

So there might be some families that want to remain in distance or remote learning.

And so that does impact our staffing.

Of course the shift in student schedules to support a cohort model.

And then again that ripple effect on our child care providers without dedicated space.

We can move to the next slide.

So this is just for illustrative illustrative purposes.

So we but we wanted to sort of give a model of what a P-12 AB schedule might look like.

So there's some underpinnings that we're basing this AB schedule on.

A few of them is physical distancing and the safety requirements.

Capacity constraints.

Choice for in-person whether those families choose.

And also prioritizing in-person instruction for special education students furthest from educational justice and also pre-K.

So if you look you can see this model for grades pre-K.

You can see how it might rotate through as far as students you know being present all students actually not rotating but all students present Monday through Friday each day with the early release on Wednesday.

And then if you look at the K-5 which of course has some contingencies you can see what the in-school and remote option would look like.

So it's an A-B group on Monday and Tuesday and you can see what that might look like for them with the early release on Wednesday and all students being in remote learning instruction.

And then there's the 6-12 block schedule and you can see the difference between those in in-school and remote.

Okay next slide.

So we'll talk about just a moment about remote learning and just what are some strengths within that.

This is the thing that we've been aligning our system with but always preparing for coming back together and being in person in school.

So having this sort of dual focus on us making sure that we have high quality remote learning but also what would it look like for us to come back face-to-face in schools.

So the strengths that we continue to really focus on our attention and support on this remote learning that we are experiencing and keep working toward support and the continuity and the routines that students need to thrive that we know for them and that we're learning in this remote setting.

Of course it's the lowest risk of transmitting COVID-19 because the students wouldn't be face to face with each other.

And it commits actually less resources to other options.

with low or no control like the regional transmission rates what have you.

There are also some challenges within this as well.

So our families particularly those non-remote workers and their abilities to be able to go back to work consistently is impacted in remote learning.

The wellness and social needs of students and staff it's really hard to live through these life in boxes I'm always saying.

So how do we create more circles than lines.

And so we're in these boxes so it's really tough.

And then also how do we sustain this teaching model at the elementary level where our students are really more teacher-dependent than perhaps our older students.

So and then just a note about the in-person reopening leadership team is recommending this model at least until March 2021. Next slide.

So but what does this give opportunity to.

So if we were to stay with a primarily remote learning model there are alternative options that we can enhance and expand.

Our summer programming largely recognized through our data as a successful program for students staff and families creates that really created a seamless relational bridge for students between or could create a bridge between this school year 2021 and the 21-22 school year.

There is the opportunity to address additional priority standards within that.

We could expand that to serve more students in in the next summer.

Perhaps as we're thinking about just the information about vaccinations perhaps it would be favorable for supporting in-person services and also provides a targeted universal approach by design.

Additionally outdoor education just as the weather improves and warms up and we build more capacity in spring and summer there could be additional space for education.

Balance between our core academics and enrichment.

Also how do we integrate the targeted universalism approach within outdoor education.

Opportunity to engage in robust partnership with our amazing community partners.

And then also links to our child care providers and our different teen hubs that are provided by Seattle Parks.

So I'll end there and I'm going to pass over to Chief Podesta.

Thank you Dr. Scarlett.

And hello Directors.

Fred Podesta Chief Operations Officer.

I'm going to discuss a timeline for preparing for models and some specific tasks we would need to do so we can kind of understand the specifics.

If we could go to the next slide please.

And Dr. Codd set this up well describing that there is some lead time and also presenting to the board a range of options.

So I would like to point out that this timeline is a bit conceptual because It describes a sequence of things we need to do.

The actual duration and dates of milestones would be somewhat dependent on the type of in-person model that's selected.

But we can discuss at a high level some of the things that need to be done in what order and then I'll talk in the next slide a little bit more detail about some of these.

We would assume that at the Beginning of a plan of an implementation process we would engage families similar to what was done last spring when we were studying models before the start of school to understand the demand the needs of students and the preferences to understand the scale of what we're planning around.

Dr. Codd also alluded to that we would need to reach out again to labor partners while we have a very comprehensive memorandum of understanding with the Seattle Education Association.

There as the model is refined there may still be an issue or two or concern that needs to be addressed.

And there are of course other bargaining units particularly if we're talking about being more present in buildings.

We would have other labor partners whose work might be affected and those impacts would need to be addressed as well.

And then as we get into the actual work there are two large Staffing issues that would need to be addressed.

Custodial staffing in particular given the nature of the safety issues that we're addressing really adds work with regard to cleaning buildings and disinfecting spaces.

And so there will be staffing considerations to be thought through for that.

And then transportation is kind of the opposite problem.

The transportation workload probably regardless of the model stays roughly the same.

But since we've not been providing transportation since we've closed schools we need to kind of rebuild the program and and work with our partners to hire drivers who have been largely furloughed since October 1st.

So again depending on the scale of the program and the level of transportation we provide there will be a lead time to recruit and appoint drivers and train them and get them set up on a set of routes that will need to be finalized for to support again whatever model gets selected.

Some of this work can't be done until we get some very specific information.

We will then move into preparing facilities.

The big issue there is really to support physical distancing between students and staff in buildings and try to support cohort modeling that we don't have a lot of interactions between students or staff where it's not necessary.

And then make staffing assignments for school staff depending on how students are assigned to buildings to make the staffing model follow the student assignment.

As we get closer obviously there will be how curriculum is delivered.

in this model and also the transition between 100 percent remote learning that we're doing now and some form of in-person learning will be obviously a transition for each educator and student.

Nutrition services will need you know any model we have will assume a certain amount of remote learning so we'll need to support the model we've developed since last March and support meal service in some number of buildings depending on what we do.

So we'll have to figure out how to support both and not use lunchrooms in the way we have in the past because we don't want gatherings of students in lunchrooms.

And then we assume that there would be an additional engagement with says survey here but however we communicate with families to confirm the information as we get closer and to make to finalize final planning with you know specific students that we would expect to participate in in-person learning and then adjust master schedules accordingly to how what the representation will actually be based on the model and who's actually planning on taking us up on the opportunity for in-person learning.

models and schedules will be need to be communicated in a great amount of detail particularly depending on how complex the model is.

Dr. Scarlett laid out several options.

The the A-B scheduling obviously introduces a high degree of complexity in terms of how student assignments are done and how a building is configured on any given day.

And then we have safety plans for all our buildings that are contingent dependent on who's actually in the building both the staff and the students and how the building is being operated.

Those would be updated to support how buildings are actually going to be occupied and operated in an in-person model.

And then finalizing whatever we're doing to the sites both inside the building pickup and drop-off areas transportation drop points just to make sure that the building each building is ready to support safe occupancy by staff student and visitors.

And then that would involve final inspections and walk-throughs to make sure everything is in place.

I mean this sounds like a lot and then and it is.

It's a lot.

There are a lot of aspects of this we know how to do.

We start school every year.

different this year.

It's it's just it's just work.

It's doable.

But it's it is complex and there are many many logistical details to work out and then obviously there's a sea change.

The ground has moved under our feet given how we would assign students and implement safety protocols that are different than anything we've ever dealt with.

So but we have I think we do have a plan in place.

We have thought through a lot of this.

on-site instruction that we've begun supporting daycares and other things we've we've learned a lot but there will still be a ton of activity along this timeline.

And if we could move to the next slide I will drill down into a few of these details.

And I think the level of planning that we've accomplished so far is helpful at the high level but we really can't be finalized until we know exactly how many students which students are going to be in which locations and that gets down to which student in which classroom over what schedule and you know what does that schedule look like.

The given that we can't really make plans about this with you know in a hypothetical situation operations we've been making some assumptions just So our technical staff can think through what the resources requirements are really being.

So we really been working on if we wanted to prepare all our elementary school buildings and K-8 buildings to be fully occupied either with let's say for the sake of argument K-2 every day or all elementary school grades on an A-B schedule is roughly the same number of people in the building every day what How would it long would it take and what are the specific tasks we need to do.

The additional workload associated with cleaning for those buildings because as directors are aware our practice in recent years has been to clean classrooms every third day.

If we were occupying the room every day whether that you know that would obviously be insufficient in our current situation.

The workload associated with cleaning every classroom in every elementary and in K-8 through school every day perhaps multiple times a day depending on or additional deep cleaning depending on an A-B type schedule is rough you know it's roughly an 80 FTE increase in workload.

We can certainly reprogram work.

in our existing buildings but we somehow we will need to make that up either through additional custodial staff or contracting for some ancillary custodial services.

There is also beyond just cleaning classrooms every day rather than every third day and offices every day rather than every third day.

There's extra tasks associated certainly with this pandemic that we if we are not serving meals in lunchrooms where the plan would be to serve them in classrooms.

So that's a different level of cleaning if we're going to provide food service in classrooms.

As we've talked to the board many times we're planning on cleaning high-touch common areas multiple times a day.

Cleaning bathrooms three times a day.

So there's additional tasks.

And then responding as we learned painfully last spring responding to Confirmed COVID cases in buildings requires a certain level of technology and response that's different than the basic cleaning that we would do even in this enhanced mode.

There would also be lead time to hire laborers to complete the reconfiguration of classrooms.

We did start this work last summer for the 74 buildings for elementary schools and K-8's.

We have completely reconfigured classrooms in 28 of those buildings to account for physical distancing.

When we spoke to the board last spring about planning for all this we used you know we modeled numbers of how many square feet per student we would need to maintain physical distancing as been as has been advised by public health experts.

And that's good kind of hypothetically but it really matters.

Each room is different and so Configuring each classroom is a bit of a project.

And so we think to we can complete the schools that are only partially done or haven't been reconfigured as far as furniture goes.

We would probably need 3 crews approximately 2 dozen laborers to complete that work.

And what they would be doing is moving furniture modeling the establishing the cohort spaces so for each building we've looked into how can we is it feasible to keep students and staff in in a cohort space in the building so there's not mingling of all school staff and students.

So if there is a confirmed case as we do contact tracing we can limit the impact and keep part of a building open not close the entire building as we were doing last spring.

And that means kind of modeling in building traffic patterns how people walk through the buildings which classrooms use which restrooms which classrooms and students go through which entrances and exits.

And that will be a different plan obviously for every building and staff will need to know how it works to support it.

We also learned when we were doing this with the working with buildings earlier in the year that we can't store all the furniture that we would move out of classrooms or other spaces in on the building itself.

So there are some buildings where we need to procure storage containers and move furniture into those.

And you know as a safety and practical matter it's good to get the furniture out of there.

It also creates less surface areas to be cleaned and maintained while we're trying to keep a safe environment.

And then the actual reconfiguring classrooms and other spaces again is moving furniture.

There are probably still some we've installed many plexiglass shields in administrative areas and others are probably some areas where we still need to do.

And then we as we've gone through and studied our HVAC systems which again are the ultimate performance of those depending on how many people are in the buildings but there are some older buildings or areas that the ventilation is not where we'd like it to be so we would probably install A few extra spot air filters in some offices not so much classrooms.

And then again transportation we depending on what the model is and how many students we're transporting we would need to rehire bus drivers.

The driver's market still seems we believe we can accomplish the recruiting.

in approximately 30 days working with our our vendors the commercial driver's license market is is heating up more not in the transportation space more in the delivery space but there is there is competition competition for drivers as the whole world is relying on goods and services being moved around by professional drivers.

And then we again we made assumptions going into this earlier this year and have built routes to support all elementary school and K-8 students which could potentially work depending that you know the existing routes we have might work for the model we go for.

If we have a more complex model and an A-B schedule those might need to be retooled.

So the amount of lead time and what this timeline looks like will will vary depending on the amount of complexity we introduce into this.

I think to be honest looking through this the you know the K-12 hybrid model where we're serving every student in all and we would have to prepare every classroom and every building and have transportation options for everyone that seems like you know that's at the extreme end of complexity for getting ready for this and it gives me pause.

But it you know it is a spectrum of options that the board has and we will try to figure out how to make whatever it is work.

But there the the more we vary from the way we operate buildings and these services now to something that's different will introduce some new steps and have us doing things We haven't done before.

So I again it just gives me a little bit of pause.

I think I turn it back to Superintendent Juneau to talk about next steps.

I think you're on mute Superintendent.

Yeah I got it.

Sorry I'll go back and forth.

Presenting I know that was a lot of information.

Some you have seen before some that's kind of new but just I think really explanatory about what it would take to get us back into in-person at some level and also just all the complexities that play out.

As far as next steps we are scheduled to continue this conversation at the board retreat this Saturday.

So thankful for that additional time to have conversation.

Questions that we don't get to in the short amount of time that's left you know we will gather those and we can start with questions that get I don't know we can talk about who's going to organize and how we'll collect those questions going forward and then hopefully have more of a discussion at Saturday's retreat about all the ins and outs of this complex situation.

And also you know when we do receive direction from the school board we can begin to implement the plan.

Keeping in mind that as you just heard we will need a minimum of about two and a half months to operationalize a return to in-person schooling.

Any return to in-building education will not be immediate.

And also once we start the implementation staff will have to focus energy and resources there so there may be a shift in timelines for other priorities.

As former Deputy Superintendent Steven Nielsen would say we can do anything we just can't do everything.

I know that we also want to communicate clearly and as early as possible to our students families and partners about what to expect for the remainder of this year trying to be as consistent and predictable as possible.

They need to know whether we are moving to implement some in-person education or will remain remote.

Our team's ready to begin communicating the direction the board would like us to take.

And also just a reminder that any changes to the earlier board resolution y'all passed outlining the learning plan will need to be approved and then submitted to OSPI.

And in the midst of all of this conversation and as we think about the future we will continue to focus on successfully implementing remote learning and in-person special education services.

It has been a huge lift.

And I know that we are all super grateful for our students families our central administrators school leaders educators and staff for making such a huge shift learning new skills to provide education during a pandemic and providing supports to our students.

I will continue to work with the board and staff to determine the best path forward given the public health advice and guidance.

And with that Director Hampson I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you Superintendent Juneau.

So we have enough time for for 2 to 3 minutes for each person.

So I'm going to go through the the board members to ask your most pointed questions and then questions that that we can leave for later.

Feel free to go ahead and state those and then staff can get back to us.

I don't think we're going to have all staff people there on Saturday.

So but it will be more of an opportunity for us to discuss.

Obviously we're not decision making in these scenarios but let me just go straight to giving the opportunity to ask questions starting with President DeWolf.

Thank you Director Hampson.

I really appreciate this.

I think my only question is just if you can lay out quickly what you think are the the the punch list or the checklist of if you know let's say on January 1 the cases are great and so we can look at the decision and say okay we would like to think about returning.

What what do you see as as steps that would need to kind of trigger for us to even return back to in school.

And I ask that because I know folks have been asking you know how do you make this decision.

When are you going to make this decision.

What's it going to look like.

And so if I if I can get an understanding of what it would require of us in kind of working in collaboration and coordination on.

Okay so here's the 10 steps that it takes to get it back open.

Do you have a sense of that.

Director DeWolf this is Chief Kokx.

I'm going to ask.

I mean the whole presentation kind of revealed all of the steps that we would need to consider in this process.

But Chief Jessee do you want to start.

To talk.

Sure.

Let me pause.

I think you I wasn't clear.

I'm saying what are the literal steps that need to take place.

So the board needs to first do something then the staff.

Like I'm just trying to think about where we all are implicated in this because I know folks want to know just how many how many pieces it takes to come back to school.

Let me make sure I understand the question then.

So you're asking that should the viral rates fall into where the where the health department would say start returning or it's okay to return to more in-person instruction.

What are the steps the board would need to take.

I'm saying you as a district are going to go okay King County has given us the go-ahead.

Okay now what's triggered.

Are you going to first thing you know board's going to be in touch and we're going to have to work on a resolution.

Is it the buildings are going to start being cleaned.

I'm just trying to think about what does that look like once you get the good news about about the cases because I know a lot of families are interested.

All right I'll take the first part about the board process.

So what would happen is that we would work with you as the current president or the new president of the board to work through that OSPI checklist to look at what's what checks needed to be changed into a different box.

We would get the BAR process.

started to get that to you all as soon as possible for approval.

And then while that process is happening I don't know Fred do you want to kind of lay out and then I know Clover has some steps and Wyeth has some steps that we can just kind of give a high level.

Sure.

That's great.

That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Thank you Sherri.

So I think the if we could back up the slide deck one slide.

So.

Our questions would be you know how many students how many classrooms.

We we have a somewhat detailed plan for elementary in K-8 and we would revise the plan if middle school secondary schools are going to be occupied we need to revise that plan to include those.

But so our our question you know would be which students which grade bands going into which buildings and any assumptions about schedules.

whether it's some grade bands going every day or a split schedule so we can also start transportation.

But again we're ready to go with elementary schools to get the buildings ready.

And then the you know that would be on the operations side.

So there are steps on this timeline that relate to how that decision gets made depending on surveying families and others if the model is still if there's information that needs to be gathered to determine the model.

But first and foremost it's very hard to do this step by step until we decide which students where on what dates.

Those are the very first things we need to know.

Thank you Fred.

Clover do you want to just mention anything about the work with our labor partners.

Sure.

This is Clover Cobb Chief Human Resource Officer.

So what.

The board would vote on this new resolution.

They would indicate which model of hybrid perhaps we'd be moving forward with.

So the board would determine are we moving forward with say K-2 or K-2 plus some other programs based on our values.

At which point as soon as we know what's going to be in that board action report and which model the board is going to be approving We would go right away start re-bargaining with SEA the impacts of that decision in terms of working conditions.

At the same time we would be surveying staff from an HR perspective to determine which staff are available to actually provide in-person services each day versus which staff would be requesting accommodations for remote work.

And then we would as soon as we can determine which staff we have available we would then go through a process where we essentially re-staff and re kind of which students would be staying remote which students would be in-person what would the schedule be.

And then we'd be putting a staffing model together for each school based on that information.

Those are the the tactical steps that HR would be taking as soon as the board tells us okay we're moving forward with X Y and Z model.

Thank you Dr. Codd.

Go ahead Director Hampson.

I was just saying in the interest of time is that can I move on to the next board director.

That's totally fair.

I appreciate that.

That helps kind of set the logistical specifics.

Okay thanks.

Director Hersey I mean Director Harris.

Thank you.

I have a number of questions and I'm certainly happy to wait until Saturday for them.

So let me rip them off.

Are we saying that if parents do not wish to send their children back for in-person learning we will maintain an online option for them.

First question.

Second question.

Dr. Codd I've heard you say before that we didn't need to renegotiate the MOU but now I'm hearing something different and seeing emails from SBA presidents regarding impact.

And I'd like to know more about that as well.

Letter we got last week from the SEA President is worth taking into account.

Third IEPs and in-person learning.

We're certainly hearing a great many emails from folks saying Bellevue can figure it out.

Why can't we.

And additionally I believe we received an email either yesterday or today from the special ed PTSA Janice White who had very cogent questions.

I would like answers to those.

I'd like to know where the city is.

If we're going to close down potentially 50 child care centers where are they going to go.

Are we working in tandem.

Second question regarding city.

Are we doing SDAC light tests for Title 1 and if so I'd like to know the details about that.

Social media is exploding with conjecture and I've heard nothing about it.

With respect to 80 for FRED 80 FTE for additional cleaning do we have a financial number attached to those ADFTE's and it would be my sincere pleasure to see our schools cleaned more than every third day.

It's a damn shame it took a worldwide pandemic to even contemplate it.

I'm wondering about the reorganization of classrooms.

We've got 74 of them.

We've only done 28 of 74. Are we continuing.

to do those classroom readjustments presently.

HVAC systems huge concern and how do we address that.

I still haven't seen any systemic report on HVAC systems and that concerns me greatly especially in our older schools.

I'm wondering whether we in fact have expertise in contact tracing or whether we'll need to contract that out and whether we'll be using the new application that the Governor was talking about today.

I'm very concerned about transportation and sincerely hope that the First Avenue Bridge corking and the West Seattle Bridge and buses running through our neighborhoods are taken into account.

And again I'll wait for answers.

on Saturday.

Thank you.

Director Harris thank you.

I just want to be sure that I captured the topics that you would like to hear more about.

So the first question I think is an easy one for us.

Will we have online options.

Should we return to some in-person.

The answer is yes.

So that one I can cross off.

But then there's you have a question for Dr. Codd to talk more about what it means to bargain the work conditions.

You have a question around IEP for Dr. Pedroza and her team and specifically there's some questions that came via a email from the special education which I know Dr. Pedroza has seen.

You have questions about child care centers and how the city will partner with us in that process should we need to remove those.

You have a question about assessments during.

I think you have a question about assessment during remote learning.

that Dr. DeBacker and her team can address on Saturday.

You have questions about budget and Fred's additional FTE staffing.

So both Fred and Chief Berge can talk about that.

I'm not sure what you mean by the reorganization of classrooms 74 and 28. I don't know what that means.

So can you give me a little clarity on that.

Mr. Pedroza advised us that of 74 K-5 and K-8 schools 28 of them have had their classrooms reorganized for 6 feet apart safety distancing.

Have we continued to work on the backlog for the physical distancing of furniture etc. so we're ready to go.

Got it.

Okay.

So you want to hear more about which how many schools we have prepped to be socially distanced.

Correct.

Okay.

And then you want more information about HVAC reporting.

You want more information about contact tracing and you want more information about transportation.

I do.

I'd also like to know how many of our staff are in the over 60 or immunized who are at higher risk for COVID and whether or not they will be forced to return to in-person learning.

Okay.

I got that last one.

The number of staff.

You got all that.

Yep.

I think I got it all.

I did my best.

Okay.

And the First Avenue Bridge.

Director Hersey.

Thank you.

Director Harris do you want to go ahead and finish that last question.

I don't think we heard you.

It was about the bridge.

She was talking about the First Avenue Bridge.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Director Harris actually covered like 9 out of my 11 questions.

So the only question that I have remaining number one given that we've heard some rumblings of the cases per 100,000 number changing from I believe it is now 75 to 200 have has leadership i.e. the superintendent heard any further conversation around that.

I Superintendent Juneau I I'm not sure of your question Director Hersey.

So are you asking us if the decision-making tree has changed.

No no no no no.

So the Seattle Times reported last week that there is a potential that there could be a change essentially making our case our cases per 100,000 lowering the threshold in which we would need to come back to school.

So what it's looking like is that we haven't heard any further information on the potential of that change being made.

Would that be correct.

Go ahead Wyeth.

Yeah no.

Sorry about that Superintendent Juneau.

Yeah that is correct.

As of today we have not heard any any changes.

And yeah.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

The next question is I'm wondering have superintendents in King County been having any cross-collaboration or conversations around potential returns to school post-holiday break.

Again that's a question directly for Superintendent Juneau.

Yeah so I sit in there's these PSCSD meetings so the region sits in meetings.

Actually we didn't meet because of the holidays last week and so we haven't caught up but It's always a continuing conversation about what what it would take to get us back.

There's you know a lot of concern similar concerns as we have at Seattle Public Schools around staffing the spike in infections.

And so there hasn't been any I I guess I haven't we haven't caught up for the last week or two on that particular conversation.

But we'll be circling around back this week I believe.

That's really helpful.

And so I guess the last thing that I will say is that I am really looking forward to those answers to Director Harris's questions and would love to hear you know because we only have the vantage point of working with a few other board directors that we might have.

personal relationships with.

So getting any indication from other school districts directly from the top would be of great interest to me.

If we could get kind of a report out when those conversations you know pick back up that would be greatly appreciated.

That's it for me.

I'll save the rest of my questions for Saturday.

Thank you.

Director Hersey so just to be sure I didn't I don't have anything else to follow up on on Saturday but I just heard you say you have other questions for Saturday.

So I don't know.

So the similar questions that I had to Director Harris's so as long as you've got Director Harris's covered you've got me.

If I have any other things I will get them to you per when we know what the process looks like for getting you additional questions.

Awesome.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Yeah of course.

Thanks Director Hersey.

Absolutely.

Director Mack.

Yeah hi.

Can you hear me okay.

Yes.

Hello.

Okay good.

Thank you.

I will third the comment that Director Harris's questions all of them were really really on point.

I've had many of those on my list as well so I don't have to repeat them and I really appreciate that.

I also appreciate Director Hersey asking the question about the surveying the local districts about what they're doing and their current state as was referenced before local districts.

have managed to get special ed students back in buildings successfully and we're not there yet.

So to that point one of the one of the questions that I think we I'm not sure if you provided this information somewhere.

I know we asked it before and if I missed it please point me in the right direction and or bring it to the retreat.

But I'm curious to know about how many Students with IPs are being served in our buildings by our educators but also how many are being served by external contract partners for in-person services.

Because I understand there's a mix of that going on and I think it'd be really helpful for us to understand where we're at and what you know how many more students need to get in-person services and how that might play out.

I know that's not all happening at this time but really important to get the numbers on both in-person with our educators and IEP teams that have already identified the need as well as quantifying how many are in the contracted services.

And additionally the information I think drilling down a little bit on the question that Director Harris was asking about understanding you know at what level or where our buildings are prepped now to transition.

As was discussed at length by Chief Podesta and his you know his his presentation around the complexity of the operations and and and pulling this all off it is not a tiny process project.

It is it's a massive puzzle to put together to match the capacity of the buildings to the educators to the students.

And that puzzle is going to be a really really challenging one.

And I think that in order for us to make informed decisions around that around what model makes sense.

We need better information specifically around the capacity of our buildings that are what what what's the current capacity number of classrooms number of students per classrooms.

What's that current state of possibility for each of our buildings.

And I would say that.

we should be looking at that number in the context of the childcare sites and assuming that those childcare sites would continue.

The idea that was brought up multiple times over has me frankly pretty concerned about the construct that we would move to a hybrid model and then remove that the students that are in childcare that are there full-time from our buildings thereby disrupting the the you know the entire family and the students that likely those are families that have parents that need their students to be in full-time child care.

So I the kind of specific follow-up request to Director Harris's question about you know how ready our buildings is that I think we need to see the actual spreadsheet that clarifies the capacity by building of what's the building usage now.

What does that leave over and what what does that actually mean for capacity in each of our buildings.

The other thing that I I think that we need to be aware of and and have open conversation about is that you know that puzzle of matching capacity to teachers to schools as was stated a couple of times in this presentation is going to require reassigning teachers and students and essentially you know potentially having students enroll in a different school because of capacity reasons.

And those all become very complex.

questions and it's kind of a chicken or egg question of how to work that out.

So I'm strongly advocating that we have the information around capacity and what what's the real picture we're looking at before we try to decide what the model is.

Okay.

So that that last So that's your your request is for more specific detail about capacity in buildings.

Did you get that.

There's.

Like you said there's chicken or egg thing in terms of whether you have because you don't need and if we're not if we're not going to go back except for K-2 you don't need the whole model for example right.

So.

Right.

And and and the complexity for example like let's take an elementary school and let's say for example it's a 300 student on a normal day elementary school.

At this time it's got 100 students in daycare.

So are there extra classrooms left over or not.

I think we need to have an understanding of what the actual map is given what we're how we're using our buildings.

And a plan for ensuring we have the special ed Yeah you understand my question.

Thank you.

I think I understand your questions Director Mapa.

Dr. Pedroza will be bringing specifics around special education in-person numbers both by us and the non-public agencies.

Maybe how many more and I don't think we'll have a very conclusive answer because as you know IEP's are happening all the time but how many more we should try to get into in-person who have already qualified for those services and then you want some specifics around the current capacity in buildings without us kicking out child care.

And just in without any additional.

Special Ed services that need to be brought in.

So that's the other piece that you know they may not.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anything additional for anybody who's gone already or will go.

You can email your additional questions by Wednesday to Chief Kokx and myself so that we can get those answered by Saturday.

Director Rankin.

Yeah.

I.

Okay I am starting to wonder if maybe I died in May or June and nobody can see or hear me.

I want to suggest or or somebody tell me how to have this conversation in a different way because I feel like I've been having the same conversation for months and I don't understand why we're still stuck on this kind of wide wide swath hybrid model when it is so complicated and it's going to require so many shifts instead of going on the priorities that were laid out in the engagement teams and figuring out how to serve those students.

So I'm just going to throw out and then I'm not going to ask any more questions right now.

But like we have said over and over and the engagement teams like and I think everybody on the call probably agrees the priority is early is pre-K through that second or third grade.

Special education intensive pathways meaning more more intervention than than resource room.

So access focus you know all these those different programs.

And then transitional years.

So here here's what I'm wondering is so we say those things and then we have this model that to me is not connected at all.

So I would just like to throw out Thinking about in a way that wouldn't require everybody to shift I honestly I do not have faith in our capacity as a system to make a wholesale shift in instructional model.

Meaning like like teachers that have been busting their are we is this I don't want to get a public whatever fine for cursing.

Working really hard.

working really hard to do to make remote work and have finally kind of gotten some kind of a groove together.

And I just I think if we then say now this group is going to go back to you know regular school the way we had it before which we all know was not good for a lot of kids.

We're we're missing the opportunity.

We're missing we're totally missing the opportunity to say Our priorities are early childhood.

So K-3 kids like 7 and under there are major developmental milestones and major things that happen in their brains that that don't happen as they get older.

Like the brain is super this is you know well-researched.

There's super-elasticity flexibility neural pathways being built in those ages that then become more less fluid and flexible.

They open up again around puberty and then they become less flexible again.

So we have got to address early childhood.

Like that's that's pretty I think pretty universally agreed.

Then we have special education particularly for more intensive service pathways.

I'm worried about seniors.

I am worried about those transitional years 6th and 9th grade.

And I'm really worried about our students who have particularly two or more incompletes or D's and E's or at or at risk of having more than that.

And I think that in alignment with what our values are we should be talking about groups of students in that way not necessarily by grade level but by need because we know that no matter what we have to keep numbers down.

So I honestly don't understand this whole this model of talking about shifting teachers around.

Just to wrap up really quickly.

You know if we were to actually plan around here are the priorities.

Here are our goals.

Here's the students we know that need to be served.

Knowing that everyone wants to be in person if they can.

That every kid deserves some of that.

But the reality and the way to approach that equitably is not to find a way to bring back huge swaths of students just because but to actually target the students that need the support the most.

That's that's equitable thinking.

What would it look like to bring back just the youngest kids that some special education services and the students who need like what would it look like to instead of talk about bringing back you know secondary students for in-person instruction and reorganizing all the staffing.

What if the instruction remains essentially remote but the in-person service is support with IA's or other instructional needs that we don't have to shift people around.

We can still have some you know some kids receiving support in person but it's all still accessing the same you know the instructional model that we're that the teaching doesn't change.

Because I just I honestly I mean I just can't fathom all of the work that it would take to reorganize everybody.

And then what happens if cases go up again and we have to shut down again.

Then do we just flip back to remote.

Like it just sounds like a nightmare and not serving the kids in person that we have all said are the priority.

So I'm just I'm starting to feel crazy.

And if anybody knows so I can have this conversation with more to understand like what where this barrier is to thinking about this in a slightly different way in a way that I think is actually more feasible.

Somebody tell me who to talk to.

And and if not then I guess I'll see you at the retreat on Saturday.

If there's somebody has a quick response to Director Rankin.

I was just going to say Director Rankin I'm happy to talk more on just with you tomorrow to try to figure out because I'm also looking at the bulleted list that you sent me the other day and I feel like we hit every single one of those bullets and so I want to understand better so that I can make sure that the right person gets the question that you're asking and can make sure that we dig in deeper.

Okay.

Okay Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

I'm so sorry you're at the end.

Hey no I think you are actually so it's cool I'll try to hurry.

Well technically yeah but.

But I appreciate Director Rankin's comments because I want to have that conversation with you Director Rankin.

I may not be the staff person you're talking about because I'm not staff but I've been listening this whole presentation and I've I've kind of tripped on the same the same things I think you are that We haven't talked a whole lot I mean about the equity components of this and I appreciate the recap.

It's actually been a really awesome refresher course and all the information that we've been given over the summer and the fall.

And I'm glad that we've got it all here packaged and we're all reminded of it and especially I'm glad that we could show the public that it's been there and that it's a plan that was in the works that we have never lost sight of.

We just had to pivot into the fully remote option or remote model and that's been our focus And I and I but I so I appreciate everything that's been shared tonight.

And I that I have been looking for those elements that we did do the engagement teams for and that and that you know the pandemic has revealed these new layers of inequity that are you know setting our already underserved students even farther behind.

And so what I what I was going to ask too is you know where are we with with where they are now because I'm wondering have any of our prioritized student populations are there any of them doing better in remote learning than they were in brick-and-mortar because I think that's kind of a we don't assume anybody is but are they.

I mean that's kind of a question to know because there is some components of remote learning that have worked well for some families because we know that our brick-and-mortar was nowhere near perfect to begin with.

There was many places it was failing students not just academically but culturally and emotionally.

So as we look towards going back in.

And one of the options is of course still to stay remote.

We kind of want to we need to look at all sides of it.

And I agree that you know we have these prioritized populations.

We want to make sure that are still prioritized.

I mean and.

I appreciate your comments there.

I have some questions I guess Sherri just if you want to jot them down because I know we don't have time to answer them all right now.

But if.

Or Director Rivera-Smith I'm also happy to have you email them to me whichever works best.

Okay sure.

You know that I understand that.

And let me get one question in there right now because I think maybe have a lot of people listening tonight who are who might have caught this and are wondering what the discrepancy might be.

But on slide slide 28. At the bottom it says that in-person the in-person reopening leadership team is recommending this model the remote learning until at least March 2021. I thought we had previously communicated to families that we were only staying we were only for sure at least staying in through January 28th.

Yep that is correct Director Rivera-Smith.

But remember that the leadership team has been reconvened per Director Hampson DeWolf and Rankin's request.

And so they've been meeting with the Superintendent and Director Rankin Director Hampson and other leaders and they are recommending to you all as a board that we push out that date to March 2021. That's just what they're at.

They're recommending.

Their job is to make recommendations to you all and that's exactly what they're doing here.

I see.

Is this the first time that's been like noticed.

This is the first time that's been communicated.

I was wondering if I missed something.

Okay.

Well that's something we definitely if I can see how it's not.

final so we don't want to necessarily announce it to people.

If it's on the radar I think it's good to definitely let the public know.

We will talk more about this I'm sure on Saturday.

But yeah no thank you.

And I will email you just my questions from this presentation.

I think I want to give kudos to staff for putting this all together.

I think my favorite slide is page 31. With that with that kind of the big question people have been asking us about how will we get back going.

And this one shows the steps and gives us a nice visual.

So I'm loving this slide here and I thank you everybody for their time and work.

I will pass on now.

Thank you Director Rivera-Smith.

I my primary question is the on slide 12 This is one area that I was hoping to get more data about both the the Pulse survey.

There's no demographics here and I would I think we need to look at demographics.

I mean I know we need to look at demographics so I don't know if that's going to be available to us.

And I'm also really concerned about the data presented on the incompletes.

Because what I know to be happening I think that there's a lot of miscommunication.

No ill intent.

No just philosophically and in the category of unintended consequences where we have that incomplete data is just too good to be true.

And what I believe is happening is that we have students that are getting were passed with C-minuses in most of their classes rather than getting incompletes.

Meaning rather than investing in the students and making sure that they got the work done that they're that they're in fact just sort of being passed along which is the not which is the opposite of what we wanted to to have happen.

And so I think that there's some deeper data that we need to look at and we probably do need to be looking at those C-minuses and demographics on those C-minuses.

at the different grade levels.

I don't think that that top top-level data is going to give us sufficient information in terms of how our kids are doing.

And I had one other question but I also will email it by Wednesday as we're already over time.

So any other I don't know if staff wants to say anything any last comments or questions.

Director Hampson I just want to make sure I have what you asked.

So you want the demographic data from the Pulse Survey and we'll get the you will have the full scope of data from the Pulse Survey mid-December but we will get the day the demographic data to date by Saturday.

And then you you there was nothing in here about incompletes but are you asking us to bring the incomplete data on Saturday.

I'm not necessarily asking.

I mean it is something that I had talked about and I know that that that staff were trying to get to get some deeper data but when I look at those incomplete it's kind of like some of the things that I heard nationally when MAP tests were used.

to to check in on students.

They were coming back you know 1st and 2nd graders were testing at 5th grade levels.

Meaning they weren't really there wasn't a lot of veracity to the to those tests and because there's a lot of other facets of the scenario that are not being taken into consideration.

And with the incompletes I know that there's there's a lot of that the teachers are doing a lot to support their students and keep them engaged and I think probably giving them an incomplete is maybe feels like something that is going to not keep them engaged or not or not keep them motivated.

And I believe that we have a lot of C-minuses out there in lieu of of incompletes.

And so I don't know what it looks like to look at that data.

But I would like to have more of a conversation about that a deeper conversation about that.

We probably won't have time on Saturday but I just wanted to state that for the record and hope that we can have that conversation as part of a broader remote learning conversation.

Great.

Thank you for clarifying that.

That is it for staff.

And I will look forward to any additional questions by Wednesday so that we can ensure we have the right answers.

And then Directors Hampson and Rankin staff was not planning to bring besides what you've just asked for we were not putting together another deck per se.

And so the deck that you see today is the deck that we may depending on you know Fred Wyeth Clover some of the people that you've asked for additional information we may throw a quick slideshow together but to date there is nothing put together.

Unless board directors tell us differently I would think that more of a Friday memo summary style would probably be sufficient.

Great.

In terms of answering these questions.

That would that would be great for staff too.

Thank you.

Yeah I agree.

Same.

Great.

Okay.

As there is no further business on the agenda this meeting stands adjourned at 7 50 p.m.

Thank you all so much and have a good evening.

5 50.

What did I say.

Seven fifty.

Oh I'm sorry.

That's because I have my military.

Yes.

Thank you.

Five fifty.

Thanks everyone.

Thank you everybody.

Night.