School Board Meeting Date June 1st, 2016 Pt. 1

I want to welcome everyone to the June 1 regular board meeting.

Welcome to our student representative Cornelius Campernero.

Did I pronounce your name right?

From Cleveland STEM high school.

Mr. Campernero will have an opportunity to provide comments regarding his school later in the meeting.

Director Peter will be arriving a little late tonight, also Director Pinkham will also be leaving We will be leaving our meeting early tonight.

Ms. Ritchie the roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Here.

Director Burke.

Here.

Director Geary.

Here.

Director Harris.

Here.

Director Pinkham.

Here.

Director Patu.

Here.

If everyone would please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

At this time we would like to recognize those students who will be receiving the seal of biliteracy this year.

To speak more on these tremendous accomplishments I would like to invite Michelle Oki, international education administrator up to the podium.

Thank you very much.

Superintendent, Directors, all of my colleagues here at the district, parents and students and the wonderful orchestra that we will be getting to hear from soon.

My name is Michelle Ancio-Aoki, I am the International Education Administrator and it is with great pride that I have the opportunity to present to you some representatives from over 299 students who will be earning the seal of biliteracy this year in Seattle Public Schools.

The seal of biliteracy is something new it was a process that began in 2011 in California and has been spreading like wildfire but Washington was about fourth state I think that adopted it and last year we had the opportunity to award the seal for the very first time.

The seal is really unusual because it recognizes the important role of parents in maintaining their home language with their students so we have a number of students here tonight that are speakers of Amharic, Somali, Spanish and Tagalog who all earned credits for those languages and now the seal of biliteracy.

There are many more that aren't here as well for Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, French, Korean, Mandarin, Roma, Polish, Russian, Swahili, Tigrinya, Urdu and Vietnamese.

But in addition the SEAL recognizes the students who have really made a long commitment along with their families to language study through high school in international baccalaureate and advanced placement programs so they have passed those exams and they are here tonight to celebrate as I mentioned I think we have over 299 that we have already identified this year and there will be more because students who completed Their AP and IB exams as seniors will get their results in July and they'll still get the designation on their diploma and their transcript at that time.

So I'd like the students to stand so you can see who they are.

Let's give them applause and then come forward and we'll be taking a picture with the school board.

So come on forward and I think what we usually do is kind of stand by the stairs, go line up by the stairs, we'll get a picture with the school board it's a great opportunity and then do remember students and families to come back upstairs at 27 to room 2750. This, these kinds of programs are possible because our district is really making a commitment to our English language learner students.

We do this in many ways, one is through our dual language immersion programs but also by sending the message and I've left some brochures from the roadmap project, the speak your language campaign about how important it is to speak your language.

This actually helps with the successful development of English and academic achievement.

Thank you again.

Now I will turn to Dr. Nyland to provide recognition of staff for their outstanding achievements.

All right we do this a couple of times a year.

We've got a lot of staff that have been recognized for a lot of different reasons.

We recognized at our last board meeting our student athletes who had been recognized at the state level.

And these are our teachers and our staff and some community members that have been recognized widely in our region, in our state, in our nation.

So I think what we're going to do tonight is I'm going to call up a variety of people to do the introductions and then as we introduce the teachers and staff I'll ask them to line up right along here.

until we get all of them introduced and at that time I'll invite the board to come down and we'll do a receiving line and let you shake everybody's hand and then we'll do a group photo up front.

So otherwise it's come down, go back, come down, go back.

We'll see if this works.

So first of all I'd like to invite Gail Morris or Bernardo did you decide, okay Gail.

Hello I am Gail Morris I'm Native American education services manager and I was asked to speak on behalf of Shanna Brown.

Shanna Brown was recently recognized as an exceptional educator at the White House which was really exciting.

She flew out two weeks ago and just had the time of her life.

Shanna Brown is a middle school teacher at Broadview Thompson.

She teaches ELA and history.

And she also was selected by the U.S.

Department of Education and was among several honorees in attendance at the national teacher of the year ceremony.

She is a full-time social studies teacher and English language arts teacher at Broadview Thompson.

And Shanna also serves as a teacher leader in the integration of native history curriculum into K-12 social studies.

She is the principal author of Washington State's newly acquired curriculum since time immemorial.

It's about the 29 federally recognized tribes in the state of Washington.

And Jenna and I have conducted many trainings on behalf of Seattle Public Schools, the office of the superintendent of public instruction and the National Indian Education Association the organization that honored her for this award for this honor.

Currently she is working with the Smithsonian Institutional National Museum of the American Indian on their new online initiative Native Knowledge 360 and I also have the honor of working with her on that.

So she is the chief author of that curriculum as well.

And we are writing curriculum on the Fish Wars and the Bolt decision so it has been really exciting.

We are working in Washington DC and we are now doing interviews that she has put together so I'm very proud of her.

She's not only a colleague but she's a great friend of mine and I've known her since 2003 since this was just an idea in Quelceta with Senator McCoy and the rest of the staff up there so on behalf of Shanna.

Not here, okay.

All right Kim Whitworth.

Good evening I'm Kim Whitworth executive director of schools and I serve the Northeast.

In 1995 I began teaching in the Lake Washington school district.

That same year we had a very young bright energetic student teacher and her name was Kristen Bailey.

Kristen Bailey taught at Englewood for another six years after that.

After that she was an LA teacher at Ingraham High School, an academic specialist at Eckstein Middle School, house administrator at Eckstein Middle School where she is currently still.

Between that time and her first internship at Englewood.

She got married to Joe Fogarty.

She had two lovely daughters Ruth and Iris.

She also teaches classes at Seattle University and has gotten her certificate of administration.

She has also served as an SEA building rep for the Seattle Public Schools.

There are two things that have come from this life experience and this work experience.

One is a love and passion for students and she is well loved by her students.

She is also very respected by her colleagues.

All of this has enabled her to serve well on the mayor's education summit planning committee.

We expect to see more leadership and opportunities from Kristen in the future and we are glad to offer her this award.

Recognition.

All right don't see her.

Director Patu and I have the opportunity to represent the district along with I think three of our principals and Kristen serves as one of the co-chairs for that work.

Brent.

Brent Jones.

Thank you Dr. Nyland, Board of Directors, Brent Jones, Chief of Strategy and Partnerships and today I would like to recognize Bernardo Ruiz, Director of School and Family Partnerships, Equity and Race Relations.

He and his team have received a prestigious Johns Hopkins University of network partnership schools award.

This was Seattle schools fourth national partnership award which indicates that the district has a strong commitment to improving school, family and community partnerships to more effectively support our students and their families.

Bernardo are you here with your team?

Thank you Dr. Jones.

I would like to introduce the team that is really worthy of this award, Deborah Alonso.

We have Chris Ray Meriwether, she is the coordinator for the family university.

The two things they looked very closely in the award was the family University.

We are one of the only school districts in the nation that offer the family University in four languages in Somali, Chinese, Spanish, and English.

And I am very glad to inform you that we strengthened our partnership with North Seattle College to offer advanced leadership development courses that will be credit bearing for the University.

And I would also like to recognize the leadership of Deborah Alonso.

She is one of the She is actually the coordinator for the Spanish speaking cohort and the team that is not here because they are at schools is Anita Coyier-Mwamba, Jesse Johnson, Mohamed Roble and Addy Simmons.

And our true goal is to strengthen meaningful school family partnerships to accelerate student learning in Seattle Public Schools.

So if you could please give them a hand.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Bernardo Ruiz, Director of School-Family Partnerships and Equity in Racial Relations.

It is my true pleasure and honor to introduce Erin Okuno who is the Executive Director of the Southeast Education Coalition.

The Southeast Education Coalition is one of the strongest partners we have in the district that is helping us further racial equity.

Erin just recently received the Washington Association of School Administrators Community Recognition Award.

But what she really wanted me to say today is that the work that she is focusing on is to build a movement.

to build a legacy, to build sustainability, and to build a coalition of equity leaders that looks for the benefit of every single child that comes into our care.

She, her goal is to bring the community together for the success of each and every one of our children.

And so it is my pleasure and honor to introduce Aina Kuno.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you Erin.

I get to introduce Cassandra Johnson.

Not only has she served admirably as Seattle Council PTSA president this last year but she came in with this drive and determination and singular focus to increase food security for our students and she figured out the numbers.

Most of us like myself we look at the numbers and we see something like 34% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch and Cassandra did the math and said wow that is 15,000 students and what do they do on the weekend when school is not in session and they don't have food.

She came to SLI, the summer leadership Institute and put the arm on our principals.

Worked with food banks, I don't know how many there are, a dozen or more across the city.

Got them enlisted, went to leadership tomorrow, got them to figure out how to help.

Went to the city of Seattle, got them to figure out how they could help.

And I don't know the exact number but I'd say that it's about 5,000 additional students that are enjoying at least some food, food backpacks that they get on Friday for food over the weekend.

So I'd like to recognize Cassandra and thank her for her great leadership.

It's been a pleasure to do this role and to help our students and families and we just are not finished with it.

It's a three-year commitment really to try to eliminate student weekend food insecurity for every student in the city of Seattle.

And we have made great progress and we hope to continue in the next couple of years.

And I'd like to introduce Flip Herndon associate superintendent for facilities.

Good evening Flip Herndon associate superintendent of facilities and operations.

Tonight we will be honoring Cleveland as an award winner for the STEM lighthouse presentation so if we have Mr. CJ Dancer here from OSPI, I'm hoping if not Okay then I do see some other folks from Cleveland that could come up here and speak about this.

The STEM lighthouse award is just a fantastic award to receive.

I know there is a lot of hard work involved so we have principal George Breland here and it looks like he is holding the award in his hands.

Good evening esteemed board members.

I wasn't prepared to speak but we have a banner here Ms. Lois Brewer and my assistant principal Ray Morales.

And we are definitely excited about the STEM Lighthouse award and the work that's been done actually to students.

have done in science, technology, engineering and math so we are just excited where we are going, where we came from and we continue to work hard and I am just a figurehead so it is all these people right here who make me look good and these people.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

I'd like to invite all of our recipients to come up front and I'd like to invite the board members to come down and maybe we'll go through a receiving line and then we'll all gather on the front steps here as we did for the last photo.

So thank you again to all of our recognized individuals.

Okay our student presentation tonight is, tonight we have Cleveland High School symphonic orchestra performing for us.

The Cleveland High School music program is in the process of rebuilding and has a long way in just one short year.

The symphonic orchestra is the school's premier ensemble comprised of 21 student grades 9-12 and is projected to double in size for the 2016-17 school year.

Tonight they will be performing music that is advanced even for high school ensembles.

The director Ms. Malarkey has noted that this group has worked extremely hard this year and has shown phenomenal progress.

Please join me in welcoming the Cleveland high symphonic orchestra.

Can all directors please sit in the audience.

God Bless.

you Oh So, you

Thank you very much.

We would like to thank the school board members and the members of the district who invited us down here to perform for you all.

That was one of the pieces from our very first concert this year.

Next we are going to play one of the pieces from our upcoming concert.

We would love to invite all of you there and we want you to hear some new music so this will be the only one we are going to perform from that concert so that you can be surprised for the next concert if you come which I hope you all do.

next Thursday at 6.30.

Oh ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Ž Ž

So again we are the Cleveland STEM high school symphonic orchestra.

This is our premier group.

There are 21 students involved in this group.

Next year there is scheduled to be over 40. It's going to be tough fitting them all in our room but we are going to do our best.

They have worked extremely hard this year and I cannot be more proud of their progress and their performance.

They are an exemplar of student work at its finest.

We will be playing one more piece for you tonight, The Barber of Seville.

I'm sure many of you will recognize it if nothing else from Bugs Bunny.

It is Bugs Bunny opera.

So here we go, this is our last piece for you this evening.

We hope you enjoy.

♪ ♪ ♪ Yeah.

That was an amazing performance.

Let's give Cleveland High Symposium Orchestra another great hand.

Thank you so much.

I also want to thank our director Ms. Malarkey for doing a great job and what I want to do is actually give you the mic and say your name and grade and then pass it on to the next student.

I'm Carly I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Anisha I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Zainab I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Alanda I'm in 9th grade.

I'm Akeem and I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Leona I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Diana I'm in 11th grade.

I'm Christine I'm in 11th grade.

My name is Christensen I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Nina I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Catalina I'm in 9th grade.

I'm Anna and I'm in 9th grade.

I'm Mia and I'm in 9th grade.

I'm Alex I'm in 12th grade.

I'm Justin I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Malik I'm in 11th grade.

I'm Oscar I'm in 9th grade.

I'm Gina I'm in 11th grade.

I'm Shine I'm in 9th grade.

I'm Jenny and I'm in 9th grade.

I'm Jonathan and I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Hannah and I'm in 10th grade.

I'm Nicholas and I'm in 11th grade.

And I'm Carolyn and I'm in 11th grade.

Let's give them another great round of applause.

Thank you so much.

That was a really amazing performance.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

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

Well again our thanks to Cleveland high school symphonic orchestra.

Their story has got a back story to it that they didn't have an orchestra in 2008 with the implementation of the neighborhood assignment program in the district the board authorized a building out of the district music program across the district.

And over the last several years the visual and performing arts department has worked with music teachers to develop 20 K-12 programs.

Cleveland was one of those programs.

They received funding for band and orchestra instruments under the leadership of Ms. Mori the previous music director and a passionate dedicated student Robert Babs who is now a graduate of the University of Washington.

And the orchestra was launched during lunch and advisory hours.

Numerous community partners Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra and others supported the enhanced lessons.

And eventually turned the program into a thriving example that we saw here tonight and it sounds like it's still on the grow.

So on behalf of the district and our board I want to thank Pam Vizek from our district staff for her vision to build out the music courses.

for the dedication and determination to get started.

Our former student Robert Babbs and our director here tonight Ms. Malarkey for continuing to grow a strong orchestra program.

I certainly never played the violin anywhere near that well in my career so congratulations to our students.

Current issues underway.

Kindergarten is ready to launch for a lot of changes this fall.

For the first time under state support we will be able to offer free kindergarten all-day kindergarten to all of our students across the district and across the state which is very exciting and at the same time I want to say that Washington is something like 36th in the nation to get on board with all-day kindergarten.

So certainly an idea whose time has come.

A lot of things will be underway for kindergarten students this fall.

I think starting with a jumpstart opportunity for kindergarten students to come see what school might be like when they actually start school in the fall.

The actual start of the kindergarten daily instruction will be three days delayed from other students across the district.

That will give our teachers an opportunity to meet with the students and their families to get acquainted and to get off to a strong start when school does open.

And then as part of the state funding something called Wa Kids goes with it which is a fairly detailed inventory assessment of student skills.

Academic as well as social emotional.

And that will take place during the first eight weeks of school.

So it will be an exciting time for our kindergarten students and certainly part of a stronger pipeline to have kindergarten students have that extra boost to get ready for first grade.

Our bell times task force operated out of last year and worked through a process to make a later start possible for our high schools and that meant an earlier start for many of our elementary schools.

They did come forward with a, I don't know what we would call it, maybe a two and a half tier plan.

We could not fully get to a two-tier plan due to the cost but the team continued to work and what we said is the board finalized the assignment of bell times a few weeks ago was that we would to accommodate as many of the tier 3 schools as possible to move them into either tier 1 or tier 2. That really depended on the number of buses that were involved and then we also looked at the free and reduced lunch count for those schools.

The staff was here working over our three-day weekend and they were able to move two of the schools, Gatzert and Lafayette into one of the other tiers.

I think that we still have about a dozen maybe 11 schools remaining in tier 3. So a lot of work to come as those routes get put together for the fall.

We do have a communication plan.

being rolled out to notify parents that right now the excitement is on the end of the school year and then we will go into summer vacation and then it will be oh school is starting.

And we want families to know and remember over the summer that there will be different start times as we start the year in the fall.

Meanwhile we've had a task force working on 24 credits.

Right now our students can take only 24 credits in a regular schedule, six periods per day for a four-year high school career.

Meaning that in order to earn the now required 24 credits for high school graduation they could not miss a single course.

The task force considered several options, 7 period day, 8 period day, 8 period block schedule which would be 4 periods per day, 5 period day on a trimester.

And that was where they ended up with their recommendation.

That's kind of the beginning of the process so over the coming not too many months we'll need to bargain that with SEA and we'll need to continue to work on the cost factors involved.

that the five-period trimester is kind of in the middle of the cost considerations in the $2 to $5 million range which is at one hand very reasonable, at another hand moving into a year when McCleary is uncertain and we are already scheduled to be short on funding.

that is a concern.

So a lot of work to be done over the next several weeks and months on 24 credits.

The good news is it will provide more opportunity in student schedules both to graduate on time and to take more of the electives or STEM or CTE courses that students have had less opportunity to do with a really tight schedule.

Smarter balanced assessments are wrapping up.

The end of the window is June 3. Today is June 1 so just about done.

I've been surprised as I have been doing my school visits that about half of the schools in the last week or so have already been sharing with me their preliminary results.

So I was skeptical a year ago when they said they were going to get results back to us in three weeks and that didn't happen last year.

But this year it looks like that's happening on a much quicker basis and we're gearing up trying to get at least preliminary information to parents before school is out.

So with however many, I guess that's about half of our students, 25,000 students, we'll see how well we can do at getting that information out before school ends.

Meanwhile, we did have to impose on principals, we had let them know a couple of weeks or months ago that we would need a plan from them on increasing participation rates and then in the intervening weeks OSPI was placed on their high risk status.

And then OSPI sent us an urgent memo saying that we had to get that information into them much more quickly than the initial communication had said.

So it was at the time it was about six weeks that they gave us to get that information in.

A couple of issues under capital and capacity management.

Cedar Park, Cedar Park currently is housing Olympic Hills while their school is being rebuilt and then Cedar Park will remain open and boundaries will shift.

As we've gone through the last year or so there's been I think two issues.

One issue is what about the diversity and how is that going to play out for Cedar Park and the surrounding schools.

And secondly is there enough room at Cedar Park for the students who now live in that attendance area.

We now know that there's not enough room at Cedar Park for the students assigned there so there will need to be a boundary redraft and Dr. Herndon and the staff is working through that process to consider those alternatives.

Likewise under Loyal Heights there's been a pretty steady interest on the part of parents to see if there's something else that we can do there.

And at this point in time we are implementing the plan that the board put in place I think in 2013 with regard to the size of the school, the attendance area and basically recognizing that we are building out virtually all of our properties in the district to make room for the students that we have.

Changing that design at this point in time would be costly, it would delay the project and I think it would save a floor but it wouldn't save on the footprint for the building.

Meanwhile enrollment projections continue to be refined for the coming year and we will be rolling out those updates in the next few days and looking at what that means for staffing.

We have also been looking at the issue of K3 staffing and it's not quite right to call it McCleary but the staffing guidelines that the legislature has given to us.

We think that there will be a little bit more wiggle room for us than what we had once feared.

We will need to ensure that kindergarten classes are smaller than grades 1-3 and grades 1-3 are smaller than grades 4 and 5. We are hopeful that that won't have quite the impact on combination or split classrooms that we once were worried about.

We are moving into negotiation season.

We did bargain last year with SEA and we agreed on a three-year contract.

Part of that contract called for re-openers for the 24 credits and the 20 minute longer school day.

So we will be talking about those issues with SEA.

PASS, our principals association, their three-year contract expires this year and so we are in conversations with them about renewing their contract.

And then trades and carpenters are open for negotiation this summer and 609 has a re-opener for the $15 minimum wage and any work changes associated with the change in bill times.

Part of the enrollment and staffing issue is every year we try to get creative about how we utilize staff.

Part of our concern last year was that we pulled back 25 staff from school, from students, from schools after school started.

And so the request from the board and from the community was can we find a way to make that not happen.

So we tried diligently but part of the price for making that happen is that we have about a dozen schools, center school, quite a few of our K-8 schools who are reminding us that they get mitigation funds every year and that's the only way that they feel that they can operate their schedule.

So we are now in this dilemma about do we fund the schools at the level that they believe that they need to be at which is a little bit richer than other schools get.

And or do we continue with our attempt to protect schools from loss of enrollment after school starts in the fall.

We have noticed in the last few days that some of our school websites say that school ends on the 23rd and some say that school ends on the 24th.

Leftover from the change that we had to make after we resumed the start of school after the strike in the fall.

Sad to say school does end on the 24th not the 23rd.

So we will be getting that communication out and I believe that we are, if we haven't already done so, updating the websites for the schools and putting on those websites the bell times for them this coming fall.

We are also gearing up for summer learning, summer staircase.

Expanding the number of sites that we have this year.

We are always pleased to partner with the city and with a lot of our community partners to offer academics, AM, fun activities, PM and identify students that have the greatest need.

One of the research components says that schools do a pretty good job of making sure that every student gets a year's worth of learning during the year.

And then students that need the learning the most sometimes plateau over the summer or slide back a little bit over the summer because school is not in session and they don't have access to as many of those enrichment opportunities.

I would love to do even more but delighted to be able to offer more in the summer learning program.

school visits and related activities since the last board meeting.

Several of us had the opportunity to be here in this room for the Seattle schools scholarship funds.

Directors Patu and Harris were here and had the opportunity to recognize I think it was 27 of our seniors for scholarship awards.

Thanks so much for those who make the scholarship fund work and I think they are contributed and helped out by our Seattle school retirees association.

They increased the scholarships this year I think from 2000 to 2500 and they added a few more scholarships so every student had a compelling story to tell about some of the challenges and hardships that they had overcome.

Had the opportunity to be at the annual all-achiever awards at Rainier Beach.

Seattle breakfast group presented scholarships in recognition to about 40 of our African-American male students.

And again they just do a great job of providing tutors.

I think they operate in five of our high schools now.

Project Mr. provides a mentor for the students and then they gave out a lot of scholarship awards.

Also recently the showcase of success for many of our STEM teachers occurred at the Grand Hyatt sponsored by the Washington Alliance for education.

Some of our teachers were there showcasing their work and some of them were featured on television that night as they talked about their projects.

Rainier View was busy hanging one of their new recognition banners when I was there.

They have worked probably as well or better than any of our schools being just absolutely intentional about the quality of their instruction and the use of data and this belief that each and every student will do well.

South Shore which is our only pre-K through grade 8 school, they pioneered the preschool work and now has been picked up by the city of Seattle saw the idea and the voters voted for that.

They have been working on positive growth mindsets and cultural responsiveness.

Dunlap the principal there greeted virtually every student we came across in our visit by name.

They have been working with Page Ahead who have been providing books for each of our students.

And they as well as many of our other schools were busily working on young authors and they were one of the schools that had gotten their SBA data back and we are encouraged to see double-digit growth in many of their grades.

Green Lake Elementary is a multi-graded open concept school and wow kindergarten has space for two classrooms and they have three in there.

Their pods are designed for three and one of them has four classrooms now and another one will have four classrooms next year.

So they are squeezing in even more classrooms than the building was designed for and being very creative in reusing space everywhere.

Sandpoint Elementary I think gives, I don't know what to say, so we very much appreciate the partnership that we have with the city in many many many ways and most recently around closing the opportunity gap.

Visiting Sandpoint means that we need a little microcosm planning team from the city and the school district.

The staff and the PTA have been working diligently with the nearby public housing.

to try to figure out how to handle the increase in enrollment for public housing and for an international community of students that attend the University of Washington.

So between those two they've had a lot of challenges.

The PTA has stepped up to provide funding for some of the additional staff.

The staff that they do have is kind of picking up work that normally might have been done by the city or through some of the other social agencies that haven't quite moved that far out to catch up with the public housing at Sandpoint.

View Ridge Elementary working hard on aligning their curriculum and common formative assessments implementing ruler for the first year and it was, we are nearing the end of the school year so some of my visits were kind of cut short with pajama day or flash curriculum which is our sex ed curriculum or other events underway.

Seattle world school is just an amazing place.

310 students speaking 35 languages virtually all of them newly immigrated within maybe just at the beginning of their high school career.

and working hard to be ready to graduate.

This will be their second graduating class.

And McGilvra Elementary, as I walked into the building, I had been there before but it's kind of like hmm, those pine floors look familiar.

And then when I saw the cloakrooms it was kind of like hmm.

So I came back looked in the book and sure enough I think it was built in 14 or 15 and my elementary school Broadview was built in the opposite year 14 or 15 so as many of our schools in Seattle sister floor plans I felt right at home.

So they've been working on mindsets, MTSS interventions and some co-teaching with their coaches.

And tonight, Stephen Nielsen our deputy superintendent is representing us at a town meeting sponsored by the Seattle Times on McCleary and state funding.

Also there will be representatives from the Paramount duty coalition, league of education voters, legislators on both sides of the aisle and some of our neighboring school districts so we appreciate The Times and others who are beginning to draw attention to the fact that the clock really is ticking now on McCleary and the legislators commitment and promise, four times, to have their work done by April 1st now.

of 2017 and do what they promised to do back in I think it was 2009. So we will see.

In the news today I believe is a Kansas Supreme Court decision saying that the legislature has to get their funding right or school won't open.

So, they've reached the end of their judicial opportunities there and are saying you have to fix this and you have to fix this now.

A couple of final comments, good news recovery school.

MTV came and featured the interagency recovery school as part of a documentary that they are doing on promising practices to support young people who have struggled with addiction.

Wow so touring our school with Macklemore one of our former students and providing support for the school there will be shown, aired in August.

U.S. News Best High Schools recognized three of Seattle Public Schools high schools in their top of the 2016 U.S.

News Best High Schools report.

Roosevelt number 6, Garfield number 7, and Ingram number 9. White House invitation.

The White House under the President and the First Lady have been advocating as have many for the elimination of the opportunity gap.

A number of years ago he called a group together for something called my brother's keeper The Council of Great City Schools was involved in some of that early work and then not too long ago Mia Williams was at the White House representing Seattle as one of the first districts to support the work.

And on June 8 we've been invited to support the expansion of that effort to another 20 school districts across the nation.

And the global reading challenge we have a wonderful gift from the Seattle Public Libraries.

They are one of the few large city districts that continues to support the global reading challenge.

Under our head librarian they have built out the program so this year I believe that they were in all whatever it is 68 or 70 of our elementary and K-8 schools.

And they provided books for up to 10 teams from each school.

I think if I do my math right that's about 4,000 books that they provide to us.

Students compete and get recognized across the city of Seattle.

I had the opportunity along with the Deputy Mayor and the head of the Seattle libraries to go to Thornton Creek yesterday and recognize the book thieves which was the winning team from Thornton Creek.

And wow, the kids, you just could not get a word in edgewise.

They were talking about the competition, how many times they read the book, what was the best part of the book, who had the right answer, who didn't have the right answer, what they were going to do to compete for next year.

So it's just great to see that kind of enthusiasm for reading.

And finally some staffing changes.

Carmen Rahm, head of our technology department, his last day was yesterday.

He is moving to Kent which is closer to home so we will miss him.

For the time being the two directors that have been reporting to Carmen will be reporting to Steven Nielsen the deputy superintendent as we work through the process of replacing Carmen.

And, tonight we welcome Carrie Campbell in the role of chief engagement officer.

She's moving over from the partnership work that she's been doing in the district and so she knows us, she knows our system and we look forward to working with her to improve what we've been doing with regard to communications.

That concludes my remarks.

Thank you Superintendent.

Now it's our student comments.

Again welcome to Cornelius Campronero from Cleveland Stamp High School.

Mr. Campronero is the newly elected ASB president for the 2016-17 school year.

He is a member of the Black Student Union and plays on the Frisbee team, his goal for his reign as president is to have the senior class step into more leadership roles to make underclassmen feel welcome to share ideas.

Hi, good evening.

In the past three years at Cleveland high school there has been nothing but hard work and dedication from all staff, teachers and students who are on one simple mission.

Our mission at Cleveland is to give every student of all backgrounds the opportunity to succeed.

And as a student attending school in the south end of Seattle I've experienced struggles and seen my peers go through life changing events every single day.

At Cleveland we are not just a community we're a family.

We look out for each other and support each other every step of the way.

And as an upcoming senior I know the tradition will carry on for many more years to come.

and that Cleveland will remain to be an example for what a STEM school should be.

Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Campanaro.

Now we have reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

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

Director Harris.

Madam President I would like to move number three recommendation of the contract extension for first students for the 2016-17 school year off the consent agenda.

So now we will vote.

Now we will vote for the consent agenda.

As amended.

Yes it would be a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended.

I motion to approve the consent agenda as amended.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

And now Director Peters would read the motion for the first student contracted to the record.

Which one is it?

It's number three, first student.

Okay here it is.

Okay I move that the superintendent be authorized to execute a contract extension with first student with a 2.5% CPI increase accepting the proposed fee structure and extending the contract by one year in the form of the draft amendment dated May 18 2016 with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract extension.

Second the motion.

I'd like to call on the committee chair for the committee's recommendation on this item.

That's right.

I'm sorry about the delay.

This item was discussed by the operations committee on May 3 and was moved to the full board with a recommendation for approval.

Is there any questions or comments?

Director Harris.

Thank you Madam President.

As I indicated on the introduction at the last board meeting I have grave concerns about the benefits we pay our bus drivers through this contract with respect to their health benefits.

I'd much rather see us renegotiate and treat our folks that are a valuable part of our team with more respect as opposed to rolling it down the road for another year so I will therefore be voting no.

Thank you.

Any more questions or comments from any of the board directors?

Okay Ms. Ritchie can you call the vote?

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

No.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion is passed 6 to 1.

Okay we've come to our board comments.

And I'm going to ask Scott to go ahead.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Táˀc kulé-wit.

Good evening.

For me I guess I first want to start off with definitely thanking the Cleveland symphonic orchestra for the performance and congratulations also on the high school receiving their award as a STEM school and it definitely sounds like they are on the way to be a STEAM school.

as well now that they've got this symphonic orchestra to include with their accomplishments.

Congratulations to all the staff that received recognition tonight.

I also want to give a shout out to Shanna Brown.

Sorry I wasn't able to be there when you were recognized I think a couple of weeks ago at your school but for myself I can't say enough about what you contributed as we look at the since time immemorial curriculum and where the schools are heading to recognize the indigenous people of this area.

For, let me see I just also want to quickly announce I will be having a community meeting this Saturday from 4 to 530 at Broadview library.

So for those that I don't think it made it to the agenda for this meeting.

school board but yeah I was kind of hemming and hawing if I'd be able to do it but I am going to go ahead and go with that community meeting this Saturday again from 4 to 530 at Broadview library and the reason I was kind of hemming and hawing on I have a niece that's graduating so she has a graduation party that day so I have to apologize to her.

I'm going to be there late but I will be there.

And right now for me that's the comments that I have and let's

Thank you.

We have Director Harris.

a whole lot better in academics and especially math.

So terrific that.

Congratulations to the staff that was called out this evening.

Congratulations to the more than 299 students that got their seal of bioliteracy.

It's a beautiful thing.

Also a shout out to Director Jill Geary, who delivered the keynote at Washington Paramount Duty's kickoff last week.

Remember that today, the Supreme Court has levied fines against the legislature that total $28.9 million.

To me, that's a profound number.

I will be voting yes for the Supreme Court program placements this evening but I do have major concerns about how we address and place our special ed populations.

Updates.

A huge amount of email on various topics and we see them and we hear you.

and would like to be more transparent in our responses but this is definitely the center of the law of unintended consequences.

If details aren't firmed up it would be irresponsible to daylight certain situations.

So it's very very much a trust exercise.

A trust exercise between board members and staff, board members and the community.

But please be assured that we hear you with respect to issues of Middle College high school and meetings have been had and will continue to be had so that we can get this very valuable program reset and working towards the future.

because our kids are not in fact widgets.

They are not in fact throwaways and we are committed to making that happen.

And special thanks to Associate Superintendent Tolley for taking your time and for having very candid and sometimes difficult conversations on that.

So stay tuned.

Schmitz Park.

We've known for three years that it would be a vacant school in September.

I am very pleased to tell you that we will with the assistance of partners be offering childcare there.

Probably expanded childcare.

That school will not be bordered up and subjected to vandalism and know that this issue has transpired over several different what we call silos here with folks working together.

So again stay tuned.

And for those of you all that remember Schmitz Park Elementary 630 Friday night party.

all of the alumni at Schmitz Park Elementary and the West Seattle community and anybody else that wants to come down and share their reminiscence is most invited and it will be a celebration of the good things that Seattle Public Schools do.

The Seattle preschool partnership task force met last week.

It's an awesome crew working very hard with a very gifted facilitator.

Notes and documents will be uploaded to the website I'm told by next week so that you can follow along.

They have a deadline of December.

They have.

subgroups that will start forming so we can talk about issues of equity and issues of financing and jurisdictional respect with the city of Seattle.

Those are all good things.

Other issues working on the Chinese pathway, Chinese language pathway at West Seattle high school and Madison middle school.

Very important because we've got feeder schools that are teaching Chinese but once they get to West Seattle high school there is not currently planned to be a Chinese teacher there.

So those pathways are real tricky and of course the weighted staffing standard formula as well as the lack of money.

I.B.

funding for all three schools not just Rainier Beach high school and working out the details of the alliance for education grant.

Some of the miscommunications and I'm sorry that Steven Nielsen is not here tonight because he could speak directly to that issue.

Stay tuned.

We're working hard.

We hear you loud and clear and keep those emails coming.

My next community meeting will be on Saturday June 11 from 3 to 430 at the High Point library that's 35th Avenue Southwest in Southwest Raymond.

The next meeting would be July 16 at the Southwest, excuse me the High Point library for the 11th.

July 16 will be at the Southwest library again from 3 to 430. the scholarship fund.

recognition was awe-inspiring.

We've got some photographs that we hope to have up on the web soon.

Next year we need to video it because after listening to these young people's stories and hearing from their counselors and their teachers and their principals it will give me enough juice to get through the next year's worth of frustrations.

It was that inspiring.

And these are young people that have gone well and above beyond and we need to celebrate and be proud of them.

Last two asks please fill out the web survey that's on our homepage.

We've heard lots about what you don't like we need to know what you do want.

And second please apply for the capacity task force.

Policy is made by people that show up and put themselves in a chair and this is an exciting thing to bring forward folks from all over to address the future because capacity is driving what we do now and for the next 15 years.

Thank you ever so much.

Thank you.

We are now into our public testimony.

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

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

I would also like to note that each speaker has a two-minute speaking time.

When the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

I will say the first three names.

Ronnie Estacue.

Savannah Jamieson and Chris Jenkins.

Hello, hi thank you for having me today to speak to you guys.

I'm a junior finishing up my year at Cleveland high school and I've enjoyed my opportunity here.

I've been attending since my freshman year and today I'm going to be talking about how I was displaced for the next school year.

So during the summer I moved to Berrien so that made it so that I couldn't attend or be enrolled in the school for next year.

So I'm currently in the process of reapplying for the school and I definitely love my experience at Cleveland.

I love the people, I love the staff, I love the administration and it's been a great opportunity for me.

Cleveland currently has room for 900 students and right now only 820 are enrolled.

If we were to fill Cleveland to capacity that means that we could have more teachers to offer more course load for students and have that opportunity available to our students.

Cleveland is an option school but some students don't have the opportunity to apply to the school because of their location.

And I've been at the school for three years and I believe that I should have the right to be attending next year for my senior year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Your proposal to amend policy in order to share responsibility for the fate of school programs returns to citizens the representative voice we entrusted in you.

Thank you for taking this action.

As a former teacher of the original middle college I have been struggling with other community members for over a year to defend the former middle college model.

Without school board oversight our voices have been rendered annoying complaints rather than experiential, insightful, collaborative viewpoints.

My support is not merely nostalgic.

It is rational and intellectual.

My recent graduate studies in multicultural education at the University of Washington repeatedly reaffirmed the social justice, anti-racist and critical praxis of former middle college model.

Consistent with Geneva Gay's theories, a culturally relevant learning culture of caring was marked by vigorous and college preparatory praxis, not pity.

This signaled to students that they were being taken with respect and seriousness for their potential.

It was a holistic approach, internalizing the discipline of habits of work and habits of mind needed to succeed beyond high school and in life.

Consistent with James Bank's highest approach to multicultural education, teaching and learning was guided by Paolo Fieri's education for critical consciousness.

In the process of critical thinking, students reflected on their own internalized thinking and became critically introspective and retrospective about self and the world.

Shifting from objects to subjects of their realities, students became transformed and many agents of change.

Without your oversight and input Middle College at High Point was abruptly closed and the Ida B. Wells school was reverted into more traditional approaches from which many students flee.

An equitable education opportunity for Seattle schools underserved high school students who feel disconnected from school no longer exists.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124 on amending school closure and other policies.

Thank you for addressing these issues.

Two points, number one in terms of state law school closures mean school site closures.

The courts established this meaning during appeals which I helped bring against past school closures.

The proposed policy incorrectly assigns a different process to site closures than to school closures.

Number two, the school board needs to actually fix things, reverse the closures of schools like Middle College at High Point, Indian Heritage, and African-American Academy.

On amending board procedure 1430, audience participation.

Three points, number one, the policy would give elected officials a special early speaking slot.

The general public might resent such special privileges.

Number two, student speakers would be grouped at the start of the agenda.

Similarly, segregating speakers by racial group might give some people pause.

Number three, the policy seeks to prohibit quote ridicule unquote.

Please define ridicule.

Please vote no on these changes.

On the concerns of the deaf and hard of hearing community, please have staff respond publicly to these concerns.

On the resolution on testing, a board member pointed out that the resolution cited incorrect racial percentages.

Please resume publication of the annual data profile report so the board can better address such issues.

On the Loyal Heights project, at least four board members have publicly stated concerns about this project.

Please take immediate action to halt and fix this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sally Soriano, Roslyn Schill, Erin Okuna.

Hi I'm Sally Soriano and I'd like to comment on the proposed policy amendments which would give this school board oversight of district educational programming.

It seems that this school district has been demonstrating to the Seattle community that what is legitimate is what comes from top-down autocratic decision-making but regards the experiences or growth that occurs in a classroom as having little value.

This has created incredible turmoil in the Indian Heritage community, the Middle College High Point community and the special ed at original Van Asselt community.

At the last board meeting one board member said he conducted an informal scientific poll with his former board colleagues.

He told us that they disagreed that there was any need for increased board oversight of district programming because it was not within the governing role of the board.

I think possibly a more scientific poll would be what Seattle constituents voted for in November 2015 when they overwhelmingly elected four new school board candidates who had all campaigned for increased collaborative school board decision-making, a resounding mandate for more transparency and accountability.

I also agree with the reasoning stated in the public testimony at the last meeting that special education programming must be included in these amendments as well.

In 2004 research psychologist and educator Gerald Bracey spoke right here in this room In his book published in 2003, The War Against America's Public Schools, Bracey wrote, public schools provide public forums for discussing the critical issues of how we prepare our children for the future.

Many of the experiments now underway remove parents from that discussion and reconvene in corporate boardrooms.

This is not a good path for democracy to take, unquote.

I urge you to amend these policies to increase board oversight of district educational programming.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening school board directors and Superintendent Nyland.

My name is Roslyn Shea and I am a parent of a student in Seattle Public Schools as well as an employee of the district.

I am also a proud constituent of District 6. Under current policy site and program placement and closure decisions don't come before the board for approval.

Therefore the board has no oversight of these decisions.

Yet we the public expect the board to weigh in on them and we come to the board requesting oversight, sometimes screaming at them.

On June 19, 2015, Middle College at High Point, a successful school that helped students most in need of support and a positive learning environment was closed.

The Ida B. Wells School for Social Justice at the University of Washington was the next target and it has been hollowed out and dismantled.

Both of these schools provided a transformative education for our disenfranchised students.

Had the board, particularly this current board, had oversight, I doubt that the closure of Middle College at High Point or the dismantling of the Ida B. Wells school would have occurred.

Amending policy numbers H01, F21, and 2200 will add greater school board oversight to program, site, and service placement and closure recommendation from staff or the superintendent.

We need to grow our successful schools and celebrate the wonderful community building that occurs within their walls as well as the dedication of the teachers, staff and most importantly the students.

They are not throwaways.

Please vote yes to amend policy numbers H01, F21 and 2200. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening my name is Erin Okuno and I am the executive director of the Southeast Seattle education coalition.

We are a coalition of over 70 CBOs, CBO schools and partners.

I am here tonight to ask for your support for the opening of the Dearborn Park international school preschool.

I would also like to briefly ask for your continued support of the Rainier Beach high school international baccalaureate program and we are hopeful that we can find a way to continue funding this important I am yielding the rest of my time to my colleague Emijah.

Good day my name is Emijah Smith I am a parent at Dearborn Park Elementary School I am president of our PTA.

And I am echoing Erin's comments as well as others to please vote yes for the Dearborn Park international school preschool program.

In addition to the school having a preschool program that space will also be utilized for afterschool care and this past year getting feedback from the school and families that is like the leading issue that is needed at the school is afterschool care.

That's due to lack of transportation that has been reduced from the district as well as the early start time next year.

So our families are really depending on this opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Frank Sword.

Jeffrey Clark.

Brian Cedeno.

Hello I'm Frank Swart and I'd like to begin by quoting President Patu's remarks four years ago when she gave her conditional approval of the BEX IV levy for ballot.

I don't support turning our schools into 650 capacity.

Our schools here in Seattle were built so that we could have neighborhood schools.

This district voted on a neighborhood school plan.

President Patu I want to thank you for your comments because they indicate your heart is in the right place and I believe the board is ready to support you.

So amazingly we are sitting here right now with a plan for a 660 school at Loyal Heights which could easily enroll 825 with all the extra flex classrooms.

Currently the enrollment in the current boundary is 425 and shrinking.

So the issue is can a mega school at Loyal Heights ever be considered a neighborhood school?

Well let's start with at opening in two years.

You can tell from the gerrymandered boundary here that it has to stretch quite a bit to even just get the 640 kids you need at opening and that would be moving kids up to 1.8 miles to their local school past three other closer schools.

Let's talk in the near five-year term.

The school district's website has shown, is predicting that there will be enrollment shrinkage in this boundary and also in this extended boundary by 25 and by 50 over the next five years.

Finally there is a long-term plan.

Seattle has a comprehensive plan and it calls for most of the growth to be off this map to the south in downtown Ballard with very little growth in Loyal Heights.

Finally, the real clincher is that staff has admitted that they did not consider this school right here Whittier Elementary being opened two years after the remodel here.

So now you've got 660 capacity here, you've got 450 that's 1110. That is just too much.

So full steam ahead because we can't afford to stop?

I don't think so.

I think au contraire.

We need to stop because there's $44 million building a school that we cannot fill up without busing kids there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon school board members Superintendent Nyland.

My name is Jeff Clark.

And I am a very proud citizen of the city of Seattle, a city that supports things like the families and education levy.

I'm a very proud parent of Seattle Public Schools and I'm thrilled to have seen my sons go through Concord, Denny and now on to Chief Sealth.

I'm extremely proud to be a principal in our district for the last 16 years, the last 11 at my dream job being the principal of Denny International Middle School.

And I'm also really proud to be an employee of Seattle Public Schools, a district that puts equity and gap closure not just on strategic plans, not just on the wall and fancy letters but into policy.

Into policies like ensuring educational and racial equity policy number 0030. I'm proud to be part of a district that has a racial equity analysis tool that we developed as board approved to guide us all in the work that we do.

I'm also here today to tell you that I'm concerned.

And I'm concerned because I do not see a unified focus on equity and gap elimination.

And I say elimination.

We don't have time for closure.

It's time to eliminate the achievement gap.

I do not see a unified focus on that amongst our board, amongst our central office staff, amongst our principal core, amongst our teachers, amongst our community.

I do not see policy number 0030 guiding us as we support one strategic plan to accomplish that goal.

I do not see us using the board approved racial equity analysis tool to guide us in all of the decisions we make, small and large.

I'd like to close by saying in order to deliver on our strategic plan we must focus on equity now.

In order to eliminate the gap we must focus on equity now.

In order to give our children what they need and they deserve we must focus on equity now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi my name is Brian I am a current University of Washington senior, graduating senior in the School of Public Health and I am here to talk about minority youth's high school dropout rates.

To piggyback off what he was saying I wouldn't be here today had it not been because of Proyecto Saber's program and I do not need to tell you that 7 out of 20 black students and 9 out of 20 Latino students do not graduate from high school.

That is the people that I am advocating for here today.

regarding crime if we nationwide if we were to increase male graduation rate by 5% we would see a savings of $4.9 billion crime related cost.

Relating to health and life expectancy a study in 2008 found that African-American males with education levels higher than a college degree live about 9.7 years more than African-American males without a college degree.

The numbers are there and I'm pretty sure you all know that.

Like I said I'm here, there's many things that I could talk about today and I have a policy brief for you all that I would give at the end of me talking but where I highlight the benefits of increasing the funding and resources to Proyecto Saber and its teachers.

Just to name a few reading scores in Proyecto for Proyecto students were 11% higher from previous years to Latino students.

A good way to think about this would be through a community-based approach where we involve everybody in the community, where we involve every stakeholder, project teachers, regular teachers, parents, high school students, administrators, probation officers, academic counselors, the whole community, even the Seattle schools district equity and race relations department and have them be the key drive in this movement.

Finally, like I said I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't because of the project program.

So please take a look at this policy brief, not now because I know you are all busy but later on when you are at home with patients because I worked really hard on this as my graduation project.

So please take a look at that and thank you.

Thank you.

John Ellison.

Mary Ann Ferber.

Jim Bristow.

Good evening.

Thank you for listening.

My name is John Ellison.

I'm a close neighbor to the Loyal Heights Elementary as my family and I live half a block south on 26th Avenue.

I'm also a father to a three-year-old who potentially attend Loyal Heights.

The Loyal Heights remodel design is way too big for the lot and much too big for the neighborhood's needs.

It destroys the vitality of the school and the neighborhood.

To be frank I'm appalled by the lack of outdoor space being proposed.

The design does not balance the vital need for outdoor space that the school children and the neighborhood require.

The 30% reduction in play space combined with an enrollment increase to 660 students means too many kids in too small a space.

This leaves roughly 64 square feet per child drastically smaller than Daniel Bagley at 160 square feet, Salmon Bay at 303 square feet and North Beach at 420 square feet per child.

Where will the children safely play?

Will this crowding mean parents won't hang out before and after school to let their children play while invaluable networking and community building take place?

Furthermore there are numerous studies that speak to the impacts of physical exercise on better learning and cognition to drastically reduce the outdoor play space flies in the face of this research.

The school will be too big for the neighborhood's needs.

Demographic forecasts indicate declining enrollment at Loyal Heights.

To meet the school's capacity the proposed boundary map can only be described as gerrymandered.

A school this big is a waste of precious money.

What about capacity at Webster?

What about the capacity that Webster could contribute?

Won't there be additional capacity when North Beach gets remodeled?

Dear board members please we expect and demand better of the Seattle Public Schools.

Please don't make this mistake.

The burden of that mistake falls on the children and the neighborhood.

A burden that will last decades.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Mary Ann Furpo I am from the Loyal Heights neighborhood.

I have been a Loyal Heights resident for 25 years.

I am here again to urge you to help us.

As you've heard from previous testimony the school proposed, the proposed plan is too big for the site and it doesn't make any sense to put the same size school regardless of the lot size.

I recently read something from the district's site that talked a little bit about how the four classroom model specification and the three classroom model specification should not be used to that they should not be used to just push a project through.

You need to consider the appropriateness of those plans for the site.

I got here a little bit late today but I understand that there was already an announcement that nothing was going to change at Loyal Heights.

I'm just going to urge you again that something needs to change at Loyal Heights.

I want to tell you about what happened at Loyal Heights today where the principal took a sign-up sheet and tried to get parents on the playground to sign in support of this remodel and it didn't happen.

The neighborhood, the parents, the PTA even has been very clear and strong in their opposition to this size plan.

Not a modernization and remodel of Loyal Heights.

and a modest expansion of Loyal Heights.

Everybody wants that.

Just not this plan.

This is not the right plan for this neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Jim Bristow.

I'm going to give my time to Steve Nesich who is on the design committee for Loyal Heights.

Hi I want to I appreciate this opportunity to address the board members and the superintendent and I want to acknowledge my fellow Loyal Heights resident for allowing me to do that.

I'm Steve Nessage I was the legislative chair of the Loyal Heights PTA last year.

My son finished six terrific years at this wonderful school and I have a very deep and sincere emotional commitment to Loyal Heights Elementary and I'll always think of it as our school.

I've communicated with some of you about this before but I was also on the building design committee, I'm officially still on the building design committee and received a communication from Stephen Moore in the school district today to his credit.

While I hold absolutely no personal antipathy towards anyone within the Seattle Public Schools who has been charged with overseeing this project or the firm that they hired to carry these plans out I am absolutely so strongly opposed to the current plans For two reasons, one the sheer size of this expansion is so out of scale with this neighborhood.

You are taking a community school that is in many ways a model for what we want all Seattle public elementary schools to be.

and you are turning it from a community school that works so well into an urban education compound that is essentially giving our children and our families the message that we do not want our kids to be at recess.

We do not want our kids to be physically active.

We do not want a balance between the focus within the classroom, the academic diligence, and the thing that all children need, the space to be free and to run and to experience the fun of physical activity.

The other reason that I am against this is that we have been so neglected in this process.

We have essentially seen a school.

Please conclude your remark.

Essentially, they've been treating us in a perfunctory way, in a way where we're basically, you know, they have to rubber stamp the fact that they had these meetings.

Please conclude your remark.

At no point were we consulted, we the community, on what we want and what would be appropriate.

Please alter this project.

Not stop it, but alter it considerably to reflect the values of this community of parents and residents.

Thank you.

Richard Warner, Justin Adam Com, Laura Cramer.

My name is Richard Werner I am a resident of Seattle right across the street from Loyal Heights Elementary and my wife and I have lived there since 1984. So we are old folks in the neighborhood.

We support improvements to the Loyal Heights Elementary school but we do not support the size of the proposed remodel.

It is far too large for the size of the property and I think most of the people involved in it know it.

because we had hearings where it was called the Departures Advisory Committee which I I guess euphemistically it is used to say we are violating city zoning rules and we want permission to do it.

And one of these things was that they couldn't have setbacks because the school had to come up to the edge of the sidewalk.

And after apparently some complaining and other impacts they were able to make changes.

And we discovered that there was a parking study done that said there would be no impact on parking or traffic in the area by doubling the number of people at the school.

And pure logic would say it doesn't matter what the numbers say that doesn't make sense and it doesn't work.

You know we also heard about the play area being cut back considerably in size and I think that's really wrong and it's used a lot by our neighborhood and by a lot of the kids and the parents and I think that's a real loss.

And one of the other things that my wife pointed out, she was wondering if there's a potential of 800 to 900 people in this school building, if there's an evacuation where are you going to put all of them safely to keep track of them if there is an evacuation?

There are apparently many school plans available and I would really encourage you to reevaluate this.

I ask that you instruct the people responsible for this project to go back to the drawing board and come up with a reasonable plan for a school that is suitable for the size of the property.

We heard that there might be extra expense if the plan was revisited but I think it would be better to spend the money now and create a project that everybody can be proud of rather than being an example of poor planning and misuse of taxpayer money.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Justin Calm, ORCA K-8 PTSA legislative chair.

Our school's enrollment has been falling so the district has cut our budget.

All our mitigation requests have been denied.

Assistant Superintendent Tolley told us that if after open enrollment it turns out we have higher enrollment than projected we might get some of our budget restored.

This makes sense as long as you look at things with a very limited perspective.

The problem with this perspective is that it pretends that the budget process itself has no effect on enrollment.

In truth it has had a devastating effect at Orca.

The school's precarious budget situation has caused an exodus of staff and students.

Our assistant principal, fed up with the yearly question of whether her position at ORCA will be funded, has accepted a position at another school.

And she's just one of many staff who have or will leave.

As their beloved teachers have left, students have left the school too.

At a recent PTSA meeting I learned that none of our 5th grade families plan to return next year.

I don't blame them.

For them to have stayed the district would have had to have made it clear that it saw ORCA as a good long-term investment.

Instead the district decided to take a wait-and-see approach.

This dire uncertainty has created a fight-or-flight response in the ORCA community.

Those of us who remain are ready to fight.

We are having an all-school meeting with Kelly Aramaki on June 8 and I am here to give you a preview of what to expect if that meeting doesn't go well.

We are ready to stage a walkout and a demonstration here at the Stanford Center.

We are not asking for special treatment.

Our library gets no funding for books.

Our middle school grades have no foreign language classes.

Our younger grades get no music education.

Our pleas to be included in the district creative advantage program have been denied.

But we're not asking for those things right now, we're just asking to get a full-time counselor, a full-time assistant principal, a full-time librarian, and a half-time teacher for enrichment classes.

If the district can't provide these basics, how can it possibly expect ORCA to survive?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Laura Gramer and I'm giving my slap to Daphna's desire.

Hi I am Daphna Steyer and I am speaking today on behalf of hard of hearing students and that education is quite different than what these parents will be talking about.

But hard of hearing students are very technology dependent and so if you can imagine sitting in this room today and Hearing through your earbuds let's say that you aren't able to take out conversations in other rooms or a football game or something like that.

with the outdated technology that we've had that's what kids have to listen to is not the football game but the conversations that are happening in the lobby and so on.

And I've been talking about this issue for four years and I'm at the tail end of this but this is outdated technology.

Likewise last year I had two months where my daughter was sitting in a classroom where the FM was working but the pass-around mic didn't exist so she could hear You can again imagine you could hear people that are a couple feet away from you but not farther away and so we have a good audiologist now and I can even when she does put in a request so that's a few weeks so and I know the budget issues are complicated but we are talking about IEP violations our kids need to hear every day so thank you.

Thank you.

Hello.

I'm here today to have concerns about the DSA program.

The DSA program is a piece of history in that language and way.

It's the third year of the so-called change.

So I feel like we're taking back step one.

At this point our DSA program.

OK.

OK.

At this point the DSA program is basically starting over with a new teacher.

I do not have my son's breath to go to kindergarten at TAPS for several reasons.

There is a lack of language peers and critical math.

There are over 600 deaf and hard of hearing students.

Some who are lost in the system within Seattle Public Schools.

Where are they?

The current therapist has had resistance to the ASL and English bilingual approach and does not support the language acquisition path that we've chosen for our children.

Is she not deaf friendly?

Who do not want to work with her because her bias and lack of understanding about deaf culture need to be taken into consideration when we make scores and recommendations.

Instead we need more speech language pathologists and educational audiologists who work with the whole child and not just the ear.

A new teacher and program started moving in the fall.

Building on top of what?

I will not let him be used as a game pig again like in his first year with the disaster.

That not until you invest in a program that you have infrastructure that has value.

If you keep hiring teachers and hoping that they'll make it work and not invest in fleshing out the program you will lose value as soon as the teacher leaves.

Please conclude your remark.

And we still do not have a foundation to show.

OK.

Lastly my last point.

Partners with Wilson is a great step to build a preschool program.

The people at Wilson get it and have a qualified team and infrastructure in place.

Please conclude your remarks.

Thank you.

Brenda Rossler, Molly Sano and Wendy Cruz.

Alright as you may recall from my previous testimony I am a school psychologist and have a depth of professional understanding related to special education.

Our oldest daughter Linden is three and deaf.

So far she has been denied anything but surface level listening supports.

This is grossly negligent and denies her full access to communication and language.

She is being required to conform to a hearing system and shoulder the entire burden of communication access and social engagement.

Lyndon deserves full access to the classroom.

Amplification alone is not enough.

She needs ASL.

She has a right to access the complete learning environment so that she can meet her full potential and not just catch bits and pieces.

Just making it through is not good enough.

Lyndon is surrounded by hearing family members.

She is the only one who is deaf.

She has made statements such as sisters don't have hearing aids and she said to a deaf visitor you have ears like mine.

Will she develop a positive self-image and love this aspect of herself?

How can she learn to value her deafness if she is segregated from others with similar communication needs?

DHH students should not need to fall behind and struggle before appropriate tools are provided.

Providing language early in development is much more appropriate and effective than attempting to teach language later.

At that point grade level instruction will stop while language is acquired.

The way that students are being found eligible for ASL programs is seriously flawed.

Students that do not demonstrate delays are being excluded.

Being deaf or hard of hearing does not mean that you cannot also be developing typically or even be advanced.

But being a high achiever does not negate the fact that DHH students are not hearing children.

Please assemble proper evaluation teams.

Get knowledgeable and experienced personnel to the table and have teams value the input and listen to those professionals.

Comprehensively support each child including social emotional well-being.

Many GHH students need to have access to peers with similar communication needs.

This means bringing large groups of GHH children together to access high quality education that is meeting state standards.

We are prescriptively confined to assimilating our deaf child to a hearing world.

DHH children need a school where they can access instruction in ASL with a classroom of same grade peers.

Thank you.

Good evening board.

My name is Molly Sano.

My son is profoundly deaf, also profoundly cute.

When he lived in an orphanage in China he wasn't given access to language.

Instead of visual communication he was expected to understand and use speech.

But you know if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

When we met him he could only express joy and anger through smiling or screaming.

But within three months of becoming fully immersed in American Sign Language his language was completely caught up to age level.

Now having just turned four he can express complex abstract thoughts and emotions in the language that is most natural to his brain.

Now he can tell me exactly how disappointed he was when his sister stole the last cookie.

This year he's absolutely thrived at Rosen preschool.

He's surrounded by same-aged peers, strong teachers who are all using the same language.

This isn't a radical concept for hearing students but for deaf students in the city of Seattle it's a luxury.

Unless Seattle drastically changes its deaf and hard of hearing program preschool is tragically going to be the last time he has full access to education and peers who use his language.

There are approximately 600 deaf and hard of hearing students in our district very few of whom have full access to their education and social environment.

If Seattle built a strong magnet program all of them could be in classrooms that meet their communication and social emotional needs.

All of them.

Likely at a lower cost to the district than the current services being provided.

These students need critical mass to thrive.

Seattle can breed the future generation of deaf doctors, lawyers and engineers but to be able to do that all DHH students must first be able to access their basic right to communication.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My son along with many of the other parents here, I have a child he is four years old and he is also deaf.

He attends the Rosen preschool and sorry I just Okay and sorry I just threw together my testimony.

As many of the other parents in this room with deaf and hard of hearing children I am here to address the lack of quality deaf education in the Seattle school district.

The fact that my son is not going to have or receive the same education as his hearing counterparts is a violation of his rights as an American.

I encourage you to continue to develop the program that is being pieced together at TOPS I recently toured the space.

The rooms are down in a lower level.

It is something similar to a basement.

There are no windows.

There are no technological assistive devices like smart screens which are standard in other deaf education programs in other cities and in other states.

The kindergartners share a classroom with fifth graders.

I mean the current program is completely subpar with what they presented to us is what they are building.

And I feel like our children are guinea pigs being tossed into this unknown program that is being thrown together at the 11th hour.

Many of us parents are facing the reality of having to fight with the school district to send our kids to other districts, other cities.

Many of us are being forced to move away just to get a quality education for our children but we shouldn't have to do that.

We should be able to stay here, send our children to a local school with a quality rich ASL program, quality deaf education just like all the other children.

So I'm asking you all to take a look into what's happening with the deaf and hard of hearing program.

take a look at the program that's being built I'm sure that you won't be satisfied as the rest of us aren't.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our last speaker Anthony Salazar.

Anthony Salazar here.

Okay Daphna Steiner.

Oh, okay.

Donna Alexander.

Alicia Egger.

Camille Peterson.

Chandra Benita.

Celeste Gilman.

Uh, let's see.

Can we?

I'm sorry, I.

Can I pick it up?

Alright.

Hello I'm Celeste Gilman this is my daughter Paella Garrison and she is a hopeful second-generation early applicant to kindergarten.

We both have the misfortune of being born just barely too late.

Paella you want to tell them about kindergarten practice?

Yes.

I love doing it.

Do you have fun?

and what did you like?

I just loved that it was fun.

She is very excited about entering kindergarten.

We have not been excited at all about the process of figuring out how to make this happen for her.

There has been very little information provided.

It has been at the last minute.

We have had maybe one or two people who have been friendly and everyone else has been very unfortunately very hostile.

It's been a very burdensome process and we have, we have the privilege to try and go through that process but we have yet another step now after the application and the testing We now have to also submit an appeal with very little time provided for any of this with just the arbitrariness of when she happened to be born.

Don't think that this is a process that serves families or kids well and we hope that we can navigate through it and she's very excited to start kindergarten next year at Kimball and that we hope that that's what will happen and hope that others, that this process can be revisited so that it's a better process for other families and families who may not have as the resources that we have to figure out how to get the best education for their children.

Thank you.

That is the end of our public testimony and we now come to the board comment section of our agenda.

Director Burke.

Thank you.

I would like to thank Cornelius our student guest on the board.

Unfortunately he had to leave a little bit early but it was a pleasure serving with him in a short time.

I also want to acknowledge my gratitude for our amazing staff.

that were received awards and commendations earlier today.

It makes me proud to serve on a board with high-quality staff and leaders that are demonstrating their achievement, their leadership and their innovation.

It's a role model for all of us.

I really appreciated our musical guests this evening, Cleveland high school symphonic orchestra.

I learned something.

I learned that Larry Nyland played violin.

And I was going to also let folks know anybody who is in the audience or watching on TV that if you are thinking of quitting don't because I quit after middle school and I regret it as well.

Maybe we should get together and do a duet sometimes.

It would be terrible.

I want to congratulate the 299 plus 299 and growing students with the state seal of biliteracy.

That's a you know it's a great honor for Seattle to be able to put that feather in their cap as our students are demonstrating their multilingual strength and we are showing the value of that as well.

I wanted to give a quick thanks to Carmen Rom who also isn't here to hear it.

I learned a lot from him around some of the technology pieces that the district has in place and I really appreciated some of his comments that he shared with me.

The candor and he didn't always say politically correct things but he was a really interesting person and I think he brought a lot to the district he absolutely will be missed.

I had a couple of great educational experiences in the last couple of weeks.

I had the pleasure of visiting center school and I want to thank Principal Bracova for that.

Her enthusiasm and dedication was contagious.

They have about 250 students tucked away in a funky little place that for us old Seattleites is in the center house and for folks that are more contemporary know it as the armory.

really neat little program and I got to see the arts you know they've got a really great arts focus I got to go upstairs and observe their humanities classes and the rigor that was in that where they were actually they were They were definitely teaching at a level which I would say is beyond common core standards.

And then I had the pleasure of also passing through an AP biology course where I know when I was going to school I never got to dissect a fetal pig and that was pretty cool.

I also was honored to be a science fair judge at the Louisa Boren K-8 science fair and I thank principal Ben Ostrom and teacher Craig Parsley.

There was a great write-up in GeekWire around that.

A couple of some of the students projects the Mars lander forward deployed parabolic something or other was pretty impressive.

Fertilizer Homemade fertilizer using urine and fireplace ash.

So some of these projects that the kids are coming up with are super impressive so I wish them and all of Seattle Public students a fun and rewarding experience at the middle school science fair which is taking place tomorrow at the Museum of Flight and I recommend anybody who is interested in science goes and attends that.

From my email and community meetings a couple of trending issues that I wanted to share some comments on.

The 24 credit requirement and revised high school schedule.

I'm hearing a lot of thoughts concerns around that.

Significant challenges of the three by five schedule for AP and IB classes.

This is a situation where we have a lot of unintended consequences that we have to figure out and manage.

So please keep your comments coming.

The more clarity that you can provide on what works well and what doesn't work well for specific high school plans.

the better able we are to make decisions.

We are also making forward progress on Lincoln High School.

I walked the site today and will be meeting with the school design advisory team later this week.

to learn more about how the building plans are shaping up and the academic programs that will be housed within.

Following up some public testimony comments I would like to ask our enrollment services to reach out to a couple of our people at public testimony, our student guest and the last speaker.

Whenever I hear the word hostile used in conjunction with our customer service It gives me pause and I want to make sure that we are putting our best foot forward and really being open and inviting to our families because they truly are what makes our district.

Comment on the resolution 2015-16-15 on alternate assessments.

There was a numerical error on one of the statistics regarding ethnic breakdown that has been corrected and the revised resolution is going to be reposted.

And I want to thank my colleague for pointing that out.

And then I appreciate the comments from the Loyal Heights community and the deaf and hard of hearing community as well that helps us better make our decisions when we are looking at funding, when we are looking at how to manage capacity.

These have been ongoing issues and the fact that folks continue to raise them tells me that we are not there yet.

So thank you for your feedback.

Director Geary.

We really appreciate the strong showing from Cleveland high school today.

And I guess what I heard from the musical performance from the symphonic performance which really warmed me was that I think there was only one senior in that whole group of kids.

so that they will return and be part of the 40 that, of that growing program.

And how exciting in a city known for its strong music programs that we have yet another one that is coming up and growing.

So that is, that's wonderful.

To President, ASB President Cornelius, our guest, I'm glad to see him here as well, our first speaker.

And you know It's no surprise that they won the STEM lighthouse and so congratulations as well to principal George Breland.

Also wonderful to hear all the awards that our staff is winning.

As I work with many of you and see you throughout the community I too am very honored to work with you and see your enthusiasm and the hard work that's going into what we're trying to accomplish in the education of our students.

A couple points to that end.

I appreciate the special education staff and Kim Whitworth coming out to Laurelhurst Elementary to work with the parents.

That is a school that is under a lot of pressure right now in almost every realm.

All of the different problems that you hear throughout the district be it capacity, be it test scores, be it many different programs, be it Playground coverage, all of these things are coming into head in one small school and I appreciate Seattle Public Schools continuing to come out, talk with the parents there, try to find a path that will allow that community to mend maybe some hard feelings and come together and move forward for the betterment of the children because I know that is what is at everybody's heart.

I did my monthly meeting at the Brettler house, I did it at sort of a different location and that is in the Sandpoint Magnuson Park and that is what Superintendent Nyland was talking about a community that is growing, many housing projects going in there, the UW housing, a lot of pressure there and so I thank PTA President Chandra Hampson for arranging an opportunity for me to have a community meeting right within that area and I hope to have more of those opportunities and I think it goes back to the ideas that we as a board of trying to break out of sort of the typical paths that we've been on in order to make ourselves more accessible.

And so to that extent if there are other communities within my district that would like for me to come and have my meeting that makes it more convenient for those families please reach out to me I'm happy to do that.

I attended a workshop put on by the roadmap project to discuss the new federal change the SSA.

And a couple of interesting things happy to see among several of our employees Pat Sanders and Gail Morris there.

Awesome to have them there learning about these changes in law.

I guess one of the things that was most interesting to me in attending that is that our regional partners are not in step with us and not in line with us in terms of how we view the assessments and the burdensome of assessments.

And that they see that Seattle Public Schools may be moving in a way that jeopardizes the funding for our state as a whole in terms of the opt-out rate.

And I think it's important that we are sensitive to that and that we are all reaching out to discuss what this issue means to all the different groups within our region so that we can act in a way that is consistent because if we are going to reexamine assessments And we're going to be sincere about moving towards the legislature and talking with Olympia.

We also need to be sure that we are listening to the concerns in our region and throughout our state with regard to assessments so that we come out with an assessment that's going to be meaningful to everybody, that will address the issues of equity, provide us meaningful feedback in a timely manner.

So I just wanted to let people know that I did hear that and I'm sensitive to that.

I attended today a gala luncheon for a group called financial beginnings and they emphasize and provide financial literacy for free.

And they indicated that this is something that is really a great thing to tap into at this time of year when maybe curriculum or sort of the kids are losing interest in some of the things and And they say that this is where they get a lot of calls to come in and do a financial literacy course within the schools at all different levels so I just raised that as an option out there that is a growing group.

It sounded very exciting and as the keynote speaker and Joan said.

We can do a lot to prepare our kids for college and we can get them college ready, but if they don't understand how to pay for that college, if they don't understand student loans, if they don't understand how money and grants and scholarships are all going to play together, they may get to the door and not be able to make that next step.

So I thought that was a really neat program that we need to look at tapping into especially because at this point free of cost is you know music to all of our ears.

Going to seeing directors Harris and directors Burke at the Washington Paramount duty launch happy to stand up for them happy to thank them for the work that they are doing.

to bring awareness to the funding issues in our state and so we all need to continue to raise our voice up to Olympia to let them know all the struggles that we are seeing.

We want to do so much for our district and we are again meeting time and time again the limitations of finances and where to put them.

And then finally I also want to make a note to Carmen Rom thank him in absentia for all that he has done.

And I guess not only the technology piece but just the infectious enthusiasm and positive energy that he brought to his job every day.

I think it was just a pleasure to be in the room with him and that was just, I will miss that very much but I wish him well in Kent where he now has a two minute commute rather than a 42 minute commute.

My next meeting is going to be different.

It turns out we have a Wednesday afternoon with no board meetings and so I'm going to take that as an opportunity to sort of switch up my community meeting time up in Northeast Seattle so that will be Wednesday June 22 from 4 to 6 PM at the Northeast branch library.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I would just like to begin my remarks by thanking all of the people who came and provided testimony today, particularly those who brought their children along with them.

It was a wonderful experience to see kids here, a bunch of kiddos.

They make sure that we know up on the dais how important the work that we do is and ultimately who the end users of it are.

So thank you for that.

I also want to thank and appreciate the students who were here earlier, I don't think any of them stayed but who earned the seal of biliteracy.

I know that's a lot of hard work and I know that because I aspire to have my daughter who is a 7th grader actually earn that same award sometime in the not too distant future so I appreciate all the hard work that they put in to receive that seal of biliteracy.

Shanna Brown and her impressive work along with Gail Morris on the since time immemorial curriculum is critically important as we try to address our issues of equity.

And Bernardo Ruiz also receiving awards lets us know that we are moving fast.

I don't think there is anyone who would say we are moving fast enough but we appreciate the fact that he and his team are providing leadership.

To Aaron Acuno, community partner of longstanding who received the award from the Washington State school administrators.

Congratulations on your leadership and it is an award well earned.

And to Cassandra Johnson who I don't see, I don't see her, yeah but when I heard about the work that she is doing and the fact that she was able to enlist lots of various folks to make sure that we provide meals to our families on Saturdays and Sundays I know that that is critically important work and that her serving as a catalyst is awe-inspiring.

Equally awe-inspiring was the Cleveland symphonic orchestra.

It's wonderful to hear how well they are doing and how they are anticipating great things in the future.

And then finally I will end with my community meetings.

I have one scheduled for the 18th of June and one also scheduled on the 16th of July and both of those.

are at the Douglas Truth library at 23rd and Yesler in the central district.

They start at 10 and go until 1130.

Director Peters.

Thank you.

Well first of all I'd like to recognize the members of the deaf and hard of hearing community who came out in force tonight reminding us that we still have work to do on the program and services that we offer their children.

And the question I have tonight is for staff that could be answered in a Friday memo and that is have we looked at other districts to see what they offer and is there something that we can learn Because when I hear families talk about leaving our district to find better services for their children that troubles me.

So I'm sure the answer is yes but I would like to know more about that so if someone could provide that information to us in a Friday memo that we could also provide to the community I think that would be very helpful.

Surely there is something that we can learn so we can improve what we are doing.

I'm also troubled to hear that we may have some technical problems with some of the apparatus that our children need and that not all of our children are getting the ASL instruction that they need and so I would like to know more about what it would take to provide more for these children.

I mean we have said before that if we if we provide for specific groups what they need that can benefit all of our children if we do it right, if we have the right approach.

Let's see, on the issue of Loyal Heights I, it was my understanding that there might be some possibility to do some kind of adjustment to the playground space and if so I very much would support that because it seems to me that that's one of the crucial issues here is that families very much want to be sure that the children have the space outdoors to be kids.

And that this project does not overwhelm the space that it is on.

I will say though that we are Thank you.

We are in a difficult situation as a district because we are growing at a rate of about 1,000 students a year.

We are one of the fastest growing cities in the nation.

And here we are as a district trying to respond to that.

And when I first got involved in public education advocacy it was because the Seattle school district was trying to close my child's school and other schools back in 2008. And those of us in the parent communities were desperately trying to tell the district not to do that.

We said enrollment is growing, we see people with babies, don't do this.

And so here's the district trying to do the right thing and that is provide enough space and yet it's being chided for maybe going too far in making decisions that are going to create very large schools.

So the question is how do we find the right balance for that?

And so I would like to know more about what it means to have a school that has a capacity for 600. Does that necessarily mean we put 600 kids in there?

And some parents said tonight that there actually could be as many as 800 in there.

I have not heard that before so I would like some clarity on that.

Because I certainly don't think any of us support completely packing a school to the gills but there might be a benefit to having some extra space especially now that we have a K-3 smaller class size mandate which is in everyone's interest to meet.

So I would like to know a little bit more about that and that could be again a question for staff.

And also you know when the district uses portables nobody is happy with that either.

So we have to find some kind of balance where we provide enough proper space for our students without taking out the playground space and without creating structures that are beyond beyond proportion.

I will say though as somebody who frequently goes to Ballard I do see an awful lot of development and the zoning there does allow for a lot of condensed development.

So I don't know if it's wise to err on the side that we are not expecting a lot of families in that area.

So if we have to have buildings that are not completely full That's probably better than not having enough buildings.

But again I'm going to ask for staff for some clarity on some of the questions that are brought up tonight.

I just wanted you all to know that I definitely hear your concerns.

A couple other issues, something that's been on my radar from the community concerns high school graduation requirements and how they differ from school to school.

And that is something that I'm not able to offer a clear explanation of and again I'm going to ask staff that might be Michael Tully I'm not sure to explain why that is.

A specific example that has come up is the requirement that students take a health class.

and how they take it, whether they can take it online and which online providers are considered acceptable and which ones are not.

Apparently there is not uniformity throughout our district and I've been asked why is that?

So if you could shed some light on that in the Friday memo that would be fantastic.

I'm concerned about testimony that talks about some of our alternative schools that seem to not be getting the resources they need.

Specifically tonight we had somebody from Orca, K-8.

We've had families from center school tell us that they are losing their art teacher And I'm worried about the trend of not supporting our alternative schools.

And then when we don't provide the resources then the enrollment goes down and then it becomes a spiral.

Enrollment goes down, school doesn't have enough money, not enough resources.

I think we have to establish a commitment as a district to our alternative schools.

and do everything we can to show this commitment so enrollment won't go down and so the schools are not depleted and so they have the resources that they need to offer what the parents are looking for when they choose a school such as these.

So I just want to keep that on everyone's radar and to say that I believe we have a lot of support on this board for alternative education in various forms because as we often say our children are not all the same, they need different approaches, different services, different philosophies and we as a district should be committed to approaching their needs any way we can.

Two more items.

I had the opportunity to read the nutrition services report the other day.

And it was very interesting because a lot of the recommendations that came out of that mirror what has been brought to the board in the last year or so from the lunch and recess families from the UW report.

Specifically having to do with how much time our children need to eat.

The recommendation that they have recess before lunch.

And so the use of local kitchens instead of central kitchen was even mentioned.

So I'm very interested to see what our response is going to be as a district to these recommendations because a lot of the recommendations resonated with what we've been hearing from the community, from what some of us know as parents who have been to the schools and watching our kids rushing through lunch, not really having a whole lot of time.

Not a short report but it's an interesting read I recommend it.

And I think finally I want to just update on my latest, my next community meeting will be Saturday June 11 from 11 to 1245 at the Queen Anne library.

Thank you.

I would also like to recognize the Cleveland Symphonic Orchestra for their amazing performance.

I also tried to play the violin many years ago but didn't do too well so I would change the piano.

I also wanted to say thank you to each person who actually took time to come and let us know about your issues.

We may not resolve your issue on a timely manner but I would like to say that we hear you loud and clear and we will do what we can to resolve some of the issues that are ongoing that you have come up and brought to our attention.

I also would like to say thank you to Cornelius from Cleveland for being a part of our board today.

It's always great to have a student be a part of our board and be able to.

comment on what's in their heart and what they're doing that's exciting within their own schools and what direction they're going.

I would also like to congratulate all the students and staff who received recognition tonight for a job well done.

We can never say enough thank you enough to staff that gives their above and beyond for our kids in each of our individual schools and also I would like to Also congratulate Cleveland for their Stam Lighthouse award.

Job well done and also the 299 students of the seal by literacy for their success.

I realize how important that is because I too when I came here I learned how to, I didn't speak any English, but learned how to speak English and be able to write and speak my own language so I can be able to understand, continue to understand my language and being able to write and read is amazing and I think it's amazing that we're actually encouraging our kids to do that within our schools.

So congratulations to all the students that were actually here tonight.

And I actually would really like to see us, you know I'm also kind of a little concerned about our parents coming in and talking about the deaf and hearing program.

You know what are we doing and what direction are we going in terms of actually resolving some of these problems.

When we hear about kids not getting the kind of services they need these are kids who are in need and I think that you know we as a district should really look into these programs to provide the most ultimate opportunity for these children so they can get the best care that they can.

So hopefully we can actually be able to see what's going on with the deaf and hearing program and hopefully that we can actually be able to look at it and see what we need to do to move it up and make sure that we provide ample opportunities for all our kids that are in this program.

For Orca we hear you loud and clear and I think it's really said that we cannot fully fund our programs in order for our children to get the best education that they can in our school to really move forward.

It is sad for us to see not being able to fund a lot of the various programs in our schools and that is something that we are hoping that we can really work at and be able to look at what we need to do to really utilize fundings to be able to so we can be able to fund a lot of the programs that are ongoing in our schools and be able to see our schools thriving instead of going downhill.

So we hear you loud and clear and we are hoping that we can come together as a board and also staff and looking at what can we do to be able to provide those opportunities for all our kids.

And my community meeting will be on June 25. at Cafe Vita from 10 to 1130. It's on Seward Park and Wilson same place.

And that is all my comment tonight.

Thank you.

And now the board is going to take a 10-minute break.