School Board Meeting 212017 Part 3

I would like to welcome Director Pinkham who has joined us and Director Pinkham would like to say a few words with our new mics.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ I just want to say good evening and apologize for my light arrival and and I'm sure everything went splendidly with my other colleagues here and were able to handle business while I was away.

But I just want to quickly announce that I think I'm having as much trouble as other directors up here finding a place for a community meeting.

I even went to go look at the shoreline library up in King County or across the city boundaries and that too was booked almost all the way through March.

So I still will once I get a place I will let you know when my next committee meeting will be so just bear with me and glad to be here now so just thank you Director Peters for the time to allow me to say my piece.

Director Harris wanted another moment.

I haven't read it yet but apparently it's posted in the Washington Post.

that none other than Eli Broad has been encouraging senators to vote against the Department of Education designee.

What very very strange times we live in.

All right and with that let us now move to the action portion of our meeting.

Okay so the first item we have is the kids in the middle grant from the National Family Foundation and that came to the Audit and Finance Committee.

and we moved it out on January 12 for approval.

I move that the board authorize the superintendent to accept the kids in the middle grant funds from the Nesholm family foundation in the amount of five hundred fifty four thousand five hundred thirty four dollars.

Pinkham I second the motion.

Peters Michael Stone did you want to come forth and take any questions or comments about this particular item?

Does anybody have any questions or comments about it?

Director Harris has a comment.

During introduction we talked about the fact that the three schools that have received really terrific assistance from the Nesholm foundation, Denny, Aki and Mercer are doing great things and that we can try and replicate some of those practices.

Do you still agree with that proposition?

Yes I do agree with that proposition but there is the funding that goes with it.

Blanford.

Blanford I'm just wondering if you had any comments that you wanted to make?

No I did not.

Okay.

Dr. Nyland.

If there are no further questions or comments Director Patu did you want to say?

Ms. Ritchie the roll call please.

Ritchie Director Blanford aye Director Burke aye Director Geary aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters aye this motion passed unanimously.

All right thank you.

So item number two on our action items is the K5 English language arts adoption.

May I hear from the committee chair on that item?

We will do the motion in the meantime.

I move that the Seattle school board approve the K5 English language arts adoption committee's recommendation to adopt center for the collaborative classroom for instructional materials for all K5 Seattle public schools classrooms.

I further move that the Seattle school board authorize the superintendent to purchase center for the collaborative classrooms as core instructional materials for all K5 Seattle Public Schools classrooms in the amount of $5,600,000.

In Perren's $4,800,000 out of the fiscal year 2017 and $800,000 out of fiscal year 2018 budget in Perren.

If the state legislature does not address current funding concerns including relief of levy loss and additional funding to mitigate staff layoffs the district is authorized to fund A phased in purchase and implementation within the funding limitations according to a restoration plan developed for the 2017 18 budget which would identify when expenditures for this adoption can proceed as a part of the 2016 17 and or 2017 18 school years.

Pinkham I second the motion.

All right now we will go to the chair of C&I.

This came through C&I January 9 was moved forward for consideration after multiple times coming through C&I as part of status updates.

Good evening Michael Tolley associate superintendent for teaching and learning.

There has not been any changes to this particular item between introduction and action.

I do want to note again as was read into the record the motion has been divided into two parts.

The first part asking that the board adopt the instructional materials But as was discussed at the budget meeting last week, Wednesday we would recommend with the second motion that the purchase of materials would be dependent on funding availability and the restoration plan moving forward.

Peters Any questions or comments?

Director Burke.

Good evening I have a couple of questions regarding the funding and the timing of the funding.

Has it been established what is date certain that funding would be required by to be able to correctly or properly adopt this in full?

Is there a time

It was my we did look into that and I was under this understanding from our purchasing office that it would be around the May timeframe that we would need to move forward with the purchase in order to meet the requirements for implement having all the materials in place for the start of the 2017-18 school year.

Burke.

Thank you and as part of the discussion that was had I want to be really sort of respectful of the balance between building needs, building wants, and our budget.

And I think it was covered in much greater depth the idea of using capital dollars for capital eligible schools to fund materials and using title I or lap dollars for those eligible schools Is it going to be a requirement for those capital or title eligible schools that they adopt or is that something which is going to be more discretionary?

About a year ago we made revisions to the school board policies governing instructional materials adoptions and in that we made it very clear that a year prior to and then a year after adoption we would not recognize any consideration or consider any consideration for a waiver of the adopted instructional materials.

I say that to answer your question, yes there would be a strong expectation that all schools implement the newly purchased and adopted materials.

I would go on to say that of course staff is recommending that we do a districtwide case a K2 implementation.

Rather than having it broken out among individual schools like title and those schools with capital dollars.

So we would make every effort to try to make sure it went in that format of a grade level implementation rather than distributed unevenly across the system.

Burke.

Thank you for that and then this was also mentioned previously but I just wanted to be consistent in messaging around it.

For schools that would be where we would be potentially applying capital or title or lap dollars for that these are my understanding is that these are amounts which are not will not limit the discretionary ability of building leaders So basically we're not pulling money that building leaders have allocated to other things.

This is district controlled.

It is.

These are funds that are part of a percentage of the actual opening of a new facility or for that purpose.

Purchasing of instructional materials.

Yes.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

Director Burke's last question, I heard your response that these funds are directed by the district by central office as opposed to individual schools so there will be no financial implication to individual schools is that correct?

It is in terms of the fact that I might have to have my colleague Flip Herndon assist with this part of it but my understanding is that within the capital eligible funding yes schools do have a process that they would go through to make sure that we are purchasing instructional materials but for the purposes of this purchase it would be purchasing instructional materials that have been recently adopted.

And so in that light then it would be the district being more directive in terms of what would be used by the school for K-5 English language arts.

Blanford And thank you for that response.

It brings to mind a prior adoption that we did, namely math, that there were a lot of issues that popped up primarily around the fact that individual school communities were asking for waivers because they wanted to continue to use the current materials they had as opposed to new materials that the district was encouraging them to use.

And as a result there was a huge number of waiver requests that came in all at once.

Do you have a sense that that, I understand your directive comment that we are not going to allow that to happen this time.

What I'm more concerned about is had we allowed it would there be a number of waivers?

Do you believe that we would have a lot of requests for waivers from our schools?

I do not believe we would primarily because our schools are in strong need of instruction materials for K5 literacy instruction.

And so this is something that is a need within our schools and they would be grateful to receive them.

With the math adoption we really didn't honor any new waivers but we did have a number of existing waivers in place and we allow for those to continue and we actually for those schools that had the need for additional materials under the existing waiver we did provide funding for those materials.

But that we would be consistent in that expectation with this adoption as well.

So I understand your response to be there is a pent-up need for new materials that would that folks would be very eager to bring on new materials as opposed to our past adoptions.

That's correct.

Okay thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments on this item?

Okay well I would just like to say again I'd like to appreciate all the work that went into this process.

I've heard nothing but good things about it.

People are very enthusiastic about the end result and I understand there was unanimity around what was finally selected.

We've talked before about when was the last time we did language arts adoption for K5 and whether it was 2002 or 1997 it was between 15 and 20 years ago.

So to be able to bring some new materials to our schools that are starved for materials is a very exciting.

exciting moment.

I understand that the extent to which we can do this will depend on the amount of funding we have but I appreciate the creativity and resourcefulness that's going into this sort of rollout from with the help of JoLynn Berge and others.

I just finally I'll just say that again I think we really need to make instructional materials a priority in the district.

It has to be a fundamental focus because If we did nothing else but have good teachers and good materials that would be something you know that we could start with.

And we're not even doing that exactly and so this whole budget crisis has given us a chance to really study where we allocate our resources and see what's fundamental and I think we can keep coming back to this question about how can we justify not investing in instructional materials for our schools.

And one last point, this is not an either or.

This is not a choice instead of investing in our teachers.

It's in addition to.

I just want to make that clear.

So I'm very excited to be able to support this.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

Whereas it's not an either or I think it's important for those who may not have heard the many conversations that we've had on this subject to realize that the second part of this of this amendment or resolution has more to do with how it's sequenced and what conditions need to be in place.

Originally we were talking about an adoption that would take place regardless of the funding crisis that we are currently facing and as a result of many conversations we've gotten to a place now where it is contingent on funding actually coming to us.

It is an important consideration given the fact that we have this large budget deficit that we are dealing with and we have some responsibility to our staff and more responsibility to good education operations to make sure that we have staff in place in our schools.

to use these new books and actually produce results for our students.

So I'm glad that we've gotten to this point but I think particularly for those who may not have seen the entire sausage making operation for us to get to this place a little background is necessary.

Okay if there are no other questions or comments or are there?

No?

Okay.

Ms. Ritchie the roll call please.

Ritchie Director Burke aye Director Geary aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Blanford, aye.

Director Peters, aye.

This motion passed unanimously.

All right let's move on to item 3 that's the BTA resolution 2016-17-4 racial imbalance analysis for Magnolia Elementary renovation and addition project.

Let's go to Vice President Harris.

I move.

that the school board approve resolution 2016 slash 17-4 certifying that the proposed Magnolia elementary school renovation and addition project will not create but will minimize racial imbalance as defined by WAC 392-342-025 as attached to the board action report.

Pinkham I second the motion.

Okay may I hear from the committee chair?

This item was heard by the operations committee on August 16 and moved forward for approval.

Okay does anybody have any questions or comments about this item?

Director Harris.

I'm wondering if associate superintendent Herndon can speak to some of the constituent testimony earlier this evening please.

Associate superintendent Flip Herndon for operations and capital.

I'm actually going to have Richard Best address most of the questions that came up.

He's been working directly with OSPI on this.

So yes Director Harris I did hear the earlier testimony.

We have been in conversations with OSPI if you remember at the time we introduced this Director Pinkham asked for some idea of what the boundaries would potentially look like.

Working with enrollment planning we developed four boundaries.

Enrollment planning worked with the building principals at Coe, Lawton and Catherine Blaine K8 to make sure that the boundaries made sense.

from a geographical standpoint, from a school capacity standpoint, and then also to try to minimize disruption to our families that currently attend those schools.

We presented those boundaries to OSPI, we noted that we would not be creating a Magnolia elementary school that was racially imbalanced and the three existing elementary schools Lawton, Coe and Blaine K8 are all currently defined as racially imbalanced.

From a district perspective Lawton elementary school will go from a racially imbalanced school to a racially balanced school in all four of the scenarios that we reviewed with OSPI.

At this time we have been engaged in no community conversations, those community conversations are scheduled to begin in March of 2017. We also need to open our bids to construct this project in March of 2017. and completion of our D form process is a requirement by OSPI or we will end up forfeiting their funds and for this project the funds are $2.3 million.

So we need to go through, we need to submit D5 and we need to submit D7 prior to March when we open bids.

The language that you are being asked to approve was developed with OSPI, they made some edits to this language.

I know anecdotally, I do not know, I was not engaged in first-hand conversations but I do know anecdotally that they reached out to the state of Washington Attorney General's office so I can add that as well.

So this language has been vetted by OSPI and we are asking you to approve it and they will then continue on in our deform process.

Director Harris.

Could you say in a few short sentences what D5 and D7 and D form processes mean for folks please?

OSPI has a D form process when you receive state construction assistance dollars and there's a requirement of about 10 to 15 items in each D form submittal we the school district submit the odd number D forms, OSPI when they get our D form submittal will return a D form noting that your D form submittal is complete and that's an even number D form.

So we need to submit D forms D5 receive D6 submit D form D7 receive D8 and then we have OSPI's permission to open bids and our bid submittal then goes in as D form 9 so.

And at the risk of putting our audience to sleep I know that you have given us because I've heard the conversation a couple or three times a quick but powerful description of what it means to be racially balanced or racially imbalanced.

I'm wondering if you can do that again.

Yes I can give that.

Best.

We are a district that has a greater than 50% minority population.

Current enrollment has a 53% minority population.

To be a racially imbalanced school you would have a difference of 25% from district minorities.

So in the Magnolia and Queen Anne neighborhoods we have predominantly white community and it's greater than the 25% greater than the 53% minority population that we have in Seattle Public Schools.

Peters So one of our so one of the speaker mentioned something about that he had asked to see whether you can rebate this projects for lower price and I noticed that he had also said here that if that you couldn't rebate because it would go prices will go up.

So Magnolia elementary school director Patu we requested a budget increase.

at the last school board meeting we have not yet bid that project.

That project goes out to bid middle of February with bids opening the middle of March.

We requested a budget increase because we anticipate from working with our cost estimators that we will get higher bids than anticipated so we wanted to draw that to the board's attention.

We did a construction cost, construction document cost estimate at the end of that design phase.

Now we are ready to go out to bid and then hopefully award that project within the revised budget that you approved at the last school board meeting.

So he said something here that if no school district rebids then all district will overpay.

Can you explain what that means?

Best Well his comment was surrounding the budget increase I believe that you approved at the last school board meeting but we have not bid the project and I think there was a misunderstanding on his part.

Loyal Heights we did bid we came in over budget, we had anticipated that project to bid at budget and so we recommended approval of that because if we were not to approve that we would be going back to redesign that project and we would then end up postponing Bagley and Queen Anne and we would have added costs associated with those projects as well so that's why we recommended going forward.

We do rebid projects on occasion when we come in over budget.

We have to look at what the sequences of our projects and what the potential impact is when we delay a project.

We would have delayed with loyal heights if we had rebid that project we would have delayed Queen Anne elementary schools additions and Bagley elementary schools additions by one year.

We need the capacity in those schools and those areas plus the added costs associated with delaying those projects for a year would have erased any savings we would have had by rebidding Loyal Heights and so that's why we recommended at Loyal Heights that you increase the budget and accept the bid.

Director Blanford.

Mr. Best a couple times in your response to Director Patu's question you said we came in over budget but my understanding is we didn't come in over budget the bidders came in over budget right?

Correct.

I think that's an important distinction because it to the average person that doesn't attend operations committee meetings on a regular basis it might appear that we intentionally are coming in over budget and that's not the case.

It's a recognition of the fact that in the construction community currently there's lots of work and so prices go up and there's limited Blanford bitters and limited amount of steel and all the other things we need in order to construct a building so am I correct?

Correct.

Tell me if I'm wrong on any part of that.

You're correct.

Okay thank you.

One of the things that sort of has resonated with me for a while and maybe I'm reading into it a little bit but the comments around the racial imbalance, we have a fundamental contradiction with a neighborhood assignment plan in a racially imbalanced city.

Is there guidance from the state or OSPI or models that can help us work towards balance when we are inherently unbalanced to start with?

It's a good question and a challenge certainly because if you start to draw boundaries that would then equate to the balance that you might have there is no doubt that you would probably not have neighborhood schools because the neighborhoods themselves kind of sort out and you might end up with boundaries that look very much gerrymandered to someone from the outside thinking not boundaries of inclusion but boundaries of exclusion during a different timeframe is what you could end up with.

But it is a challenge there's no doubt.

I don't think there's a great solution in the conversations that I've been in briefly with OSPI, they recognize it's a challenge too, not every district has to face this same challenge either.

There are some districts that pursue capital projects without state construction assistance dollars so if you don't have to go through that process and the D forms then you never have to go through that.

There are other districts that just don't pass bonds or levies so they are not even in the position to do that.

And then there are other districts that don't meet the criteria of being over 50% minority either.

So we definitely face some unique challenges on top of that clearly is our growing city and the changing demographics and if you look at some of the attachments you can also see that The diversity of our district is also changing in a way to not be more diverse but in many ways less diverse.

Be that as it may we are still a major metropolitan city and we have some challenges to meet the needs of all of our students and I think it's a great conversation to continue with our city leaders as well and how we look at how we interact with the city.

neighborhoods, housing policies, we don't have an impact on that but we can certainly have conversations about what our schools look like based on our housing policies throughout the city.

Thanks for that comment I really appreciate you bringing it back to conversations with the city and especially indicating that to our city leaders that there is this process that we have to go through to approve our construction projects and there are inherent things in our city demographics that make that more difficult.

Director Harris.

Not so fast.

Associate Superintendent Herndon you gave us a great segue.

At some point hopefully in the near future can you discuss what rating we have with the city and the mayor's task force and density.

Do we have a seat at the table on the HALA advisory committee?

Or do we want one if we don't?

I'm not aware of that, I can tell you in the past I have had conversations with some of the folks around the city's comprehensive plan which does include housing and they did seek our comment and input at least on housing and how that might impact us.

As far as the greater committee or the kind of specific committee on HALA I'm not aware of a seat that we have there but I'm not aware of lots of seats we may have somewhere else.

Director Harris.

Can you take a look at that and see whether we can have some consistent representation and horse trade if need be with the city so that our voice and the needs we have are heard?

I can certainly have that conversation with some of our city counterparts.

Thanks.

Director Pinkham.

I guess the question gets into the point of again this requirement that it will not trade or aggravate racial imbalance and then you vetted this with OSPI and they said it's okay to use the term minimize They accepted that?

They've accepted that.

They've reviewed this resolution and Director Pinkham I would just say as one of our arguments was when you look at it the district from a whole we're actually reducing one of our schools will become racially balanced that is currently racially imbalanced and the school that we are creating is racially balanced.

So from a district perspective we are actually have a gain there and so that was one of the arguments that we were putting forth with OSPI.

And the language that you are being asked to approve has been vetted and approved by OSPI for the resolution.

Yeah because this is for accepting dollars for Magnolia.

So but then we're including because I did ask about how the other boundaries change and what the impact that would have so I appreciate your effort doing there.

So wouldn't this since it's dealing with Magnolia and that will be a racially balanced school isn't it just better to say yes we are going to build a school that won't be racially imbalanced versus trying to pull in all this other language?

The other language is required by the state statute and so that's why it's included.

I just want to speak to something that Mr. Best that you said I really appreciate the fact that when you're drawing the boundaries to for this new school or this well I guess it's new and that we're reopening it you're making boundaries that make sense because as you can imagine there are families that are already anxiously watching this project and they want to know how that's going to impact them specifically families who live on the West Queen Anne Hill.

So I would be very interested in being apprised of that development and I know the families who are already coming to my meetings are asking about that.

I also appreciate your comment that you want to minimize disruption and I would be interested to know what the plan is for doing that.

And again I'll ask that grandfathering be a consideration wherever possible.

Okay thank you I will share that with Ashley Davies.

Peters All right thank you.

If there are no other questions or comments Ms. Ritchie the roll call please.

Ritchie Director Geary aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Blanford aye Director Burke aye Director Peters aye this motion passed unanimously.

Thank you so we now move on to the introduction portion of our agenda.

We do have quite a few items today, this evening we have 16 items.

A few of them are going to be presented by the same staffer and beginning with the first two so in the interest of expediting the process a little bit I'm going to ask JoLynn Berge to introduce both of them and have our committee chair also speak to both of them and then we can have discussions about both of them.

So the first one is the adoption of policy 6101 federal cash and financial management.

May I have the motion and the second on that please?

I'm sorry it's intro and then the second one thank you very much for the reminder.

Adoption of policy number 6201 allowable costs of federal programs.

Both of these came through A&F on January 12 and they were moved out with a recommendation for approval.

Okay thank you.

Assistant superintendent of business and finance JoLynn Berge.

Both of these policies are technical in nature.

They're being introduced to comply with new requirements under the new uniform grant guidance where new federal regulations are requiring us to put into actual policy practices that the district has had for a long time.

So both of these the first one being cash management.

The federal cash management policy is whereby Districts have to have a method to track how many dollars are drawn down from the federal government.

We do that on a reimbursement basis so we spend the money and then we ask for reimbursement.

If you have a different procedure than that there's a limitation on how many interest dollars, interest earnings you can have on those dollars that you draw down.

So this policy actually formalizes the process that we've had in place for many years and it's a requirement by the new uniform grant guidance.

The second policy was written regarding allowable costs for federal programs.

This simply complies with all the legal requirements saying that we are only going to charge allowable costs to our federal programs.

Again something that we've been doing all along but now required by the feds to have a policy.

These policies were WASDA policies that were drafted and with very few changes we are introducing them tonight for board approval.

New federal policies.

We've heard a great deal on the front page of our newspapers in the last two weeks that we are going to get rid of two sets of regulations for every one.

We've heard a great deal from several designees and federal departments that we're going to scrap what potentially has been working.

And then we heard today from the Seattle City Council drafting a resolution to change their banks with Wells Fargo given their consumer protection violations and their support of the pipeline project.

Do we bank with Wells Fargo?

I would have to check but not I don't know of any.

I believe we bank with U.S. bank.

Peters are there any other questions or comments?

I have one question, will either of these policies mandate any change in practice?

No.

So it's just formalizing something that we already do?

Yes.

Okay thank you very much.

So the next item is item 3 approval of contract RFP 09614 2017-2020 bus transportation services.

This went through operations committee.

Blanford which heard it on December 15 and moved it forward for consideration.

Pegi McEvoy, excuse me assistant superintendent for operations.

As you know over the fall and over the winter we have been working on our transportation service standards to make sure that as we had a request for proposal process that we would be able to ensure that we had as many bidders as possible however we were not successful in that.

I want to acknowledge Kathy Katterhagen and the transportation department as well as the contracts department because they worked very hard to try to actually encourage as many bidders as they possibly could.

With that the contract that is coming before you will be allowing for the support of either the two-tier or the three-tiers.

that you have identified for the transportation service standards so what you will see is a contract that will identify up to a certain number of buses so that if in fact we are able to find the external funding we can go ahead and ensure that our vendor can provide that services for our students.

So I would like to introduce the director of logistics who did the negotiations on the contract, Kathy Katterhagen to give you some details.

Good evening school board members and Dr. Nyland, Kathy Katterhagen director of logistics and the item before you is the recommended RFP 09614 contract.

This is the result of a competitive solicitation and it's for to and from transportation to schools, it's for field trips, athletics and special programs.

The contract is for a period of performance of three years with two optional one year renewal periods.

In the RFP the district sought a contractor with high-level quality bus drivers, driver training and experience, a solid safety record, strong bus and maintenance program and excellent service at a fair and reasonable cost.

Previously the board had made clear a desire for a bus company that could attract and retain the best drivers and in negotiations first student has raised the bus driver wages and next year's drivers that currently make $16.50 today will make $18 an hour to start.

the more experienced drivers will make up to 2440 an hour and that's over 50% of the drivers.

The drivers also participate in a performance plus bonus program that recognizes safety attendance and performance.

They receive ongoing safety training and annual student management training to ensure they know how to work with their students and issues that do occur on buses in addition to meeting all the requirements for their state license.

And as Peggy said this is an up to contract the district will only pay for the buses that we do put into service.

Currently we pay approximately $67,121 per bus per year and that will increase to $74,514 per bus next year.

And I don't know if Jolene wanted to speak to this or Jolene Berge wanted to speak to this or not but I'd be happy to answer any of your questions.

Director Pinkham.

Do we have an idea of like how many of their drivers will be putting in 30 hours or more and then how many are in that 20 to 30 that won't be getting health benefits?

I don't have that information in front of me but I do have that information and I'd be happy to send it to you.

Dr. Burke.

Thank you for the work and presenting it to us.

You had mentioned that this is a three year contract initial year with two options to renew.

We heard constituent comments asking about potentially considering a one year contract.

What is the process should our circumstances change.

For example if we can't do a three or two tier this year.

What is our flexibility for next year or the year following to either change the tiers change the provider change.

What is our flexibility under this agreement?

We have a lot of flexibility in the agreement as far as the terms and conditions.

We are pretty well set in that area.

Thanks to our legal department.

Because this is an up to contract we have a lot of flexibility like if we were to run 366 buses next year with the full three tiers we would just pay for those 366 buses.

If we ran less it were not impacted or penalized if we ran less.

If we went to the two tier and ran 398 buses we would not be penalized.

We just need to towards the end of this year after we do our routing advise the bus company how many buses we'd like to schedule in in the following year.

Peters

Blanford.

In the operations committee when we were looking considering this issue or this item we had lots of conversation about the fact that there are not a huge number of providers of transportation services in our region.

We spent a fair amount of time I'm trying to dissect why that is and the primary reason my understanding the primary reason for that is there is a huge threshold cost to get involved in this community around being able to purchase land because you've got to park buses and if you can't get access to land which is at a premium these days then it's difficult for people to actually come into the market.

That question came up primarily because you know we are believers in competition and want to see lots of bidders for our work and have been troubled by the fact that we consistently get one provider and particularly hearing the fact that from some of the employees of that provider that they don't feel adequately compensated.

So I think it's important to share that piece of information and one other piece of information that I would share.

is quite accidentally I happened to walk into this room one afternoon while there was a safety training going on with the bus drivers and it was shortly after the terrible and tragic accident that happened in Tennessee where several children lost their lives because of a bus driver.

And so it was, I found it very serendipitous that I could walk in the room at that moment and actually see the types of trainings that our bus drivers are getting.

And it left me feeling very heartened that they are receiving adequate training both in how to navigate through our streets and how to run a bus but as well around how to manage kid to kid interaction which sometimes can be quite distracting on our buses.

And so I just wanted to appreciate your staff for providing those types of trainings and I assume that everyone that's coming on board gets those trainings and gets them in sufficient quantities that we can ensure a high level of confidence and security on our buses making sure that our children are safe.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

Along those lines of safety as probably regulations and stuff change I know there's also been talk about mandating seatbelts in school buses.

If that happens within the time period of this contract who would be responsible for that cost?

And I know there's also talk about getting the technology getting buses outfitted with touchscreens, computers to help with the transportation those costs as well.

Again just going through this are those kind of costs included in this contract?

We have optional costs for the tablets if in the future we decide to add tablets to the buses.

That is not included in our cost today.

That technology is not as developed as we would like to see it.

before implementation and we don't want to be putting bad information out there we'd rather use the tools that we currently have and provide the best information to the parents and the schools at this point in time.

As far as the seatbelts I just spoke with first student about that and they are going to investigate that law and if it is required of course we will have to comply and we will cross that bridge with them when we have a full understanding of it.

Director Blanford.

Do you have any understanding about potential cost increase for that?

not at this time.

In our first read of that legislation it is if in fact a new bus is bought then we would have to have seatbelts on that new bus so right now they are talking about when a district buys a bus and so there's a little bit of non-clarity out there about districts who actually have vendors who provide the service whether or not they will be encumbered by that loss.

So those are some of the things that we are looking at right now but it's certainly part of our process as we are talking with first student.

So I appreciate the context that Director Blanford gave us about why we only ended up with one bidder here.

It's still though a troubling situation to be in and obviously not ideal.

So thinking back to a comment that was made during public commentary about well why wouldn't we then just do a one year contract rather than three in the hopes that maybe there would be more competition in a year.

Can you speak to the pros and cons or feasibility of that?

Based on the information that we have today from the current vendors that we've been in contact with My personal opinion is that we wouldn't get any better results a year from now than what we have today based on the fact of the cost that's involved for starting up a new bus company in the city of Seattle.

We could look at it again a year from now and see if that's a possibility and the flexibility in our contracts with the terms and conditions we could move that way but I wouldn't recommend it at this time.

One of the discussions that we've been having related to capital is is there a way for us to look at actually owning our own property that other people could use to put buses on?

And so that's part of the conversations that we are having in order to try and solve that problem.

We don't have a final answer for the board and if in fact we were going to be able to purchase any property it probably wouldn't happen in a year because remember we have to start the bid in November.

So, I think it would be a couple year process for us.

But do know that it is a problem that has been identified and we are looking for solutions so that we can increase the number of bidders that we do have.

Peters Thank you.

There's no further questions or comments?

Thank you.

We'll move on to the next item.

It's item number four approval of three 2016-17 international union of operating engineers IUOE local 609 unit A salary schedule effective September 1, 2016 and that went to operations committee.

The operations committee heard this item on January 19 and moved it forward for approval.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Stan Damas executive director of labor and employee relations.

The proposal here is to approve three amended salary schedules in the local 609 contract.

The current agreement has a provision that calls for a joint comprehensive compensation study prior to the 16-17 school year.

Work began on this project last summer and the contract also called for an analysis to be done of the data obtained through the salary survey and state law required us to participate in negotiations with the international union of operating engineers.

That process carried on through the fall and we worked carefully with local 609 and we found a number of positions that were below market based on the study.

We found others where we were at market so we tentatively agreed to an arrangement where Many of the positions that were below when they are identified in the bar, dealing with gardeners, landscape, assistant and apprentice custodian positions for example, we would move toward the market rate by 3%.

doesn't get us all the way there but it gets us a fair piece toward it.

There is one position which is the resource conservation specialist which had a significant change in job duties over a period of time and we were at significant risk of losing employees because we were substantially below market.

That one, the schedule calls for about a 10.6% increase for the employees.

The bar includes an equity analysis which notably points out that 74% of the persons covered in this bargaining unit are persons of color.

So that gives you some indication of where the dollars are going.

We are recommending approval of these new rates to be effective retroactive to September 1, 2016 as negotiated.

Any questions or comments?

Director Peters Apparently there are none.

Director Blanford Well thank you I appreciate your time.

So next item is item number five approval of capacity management actions for the 2017-18 school years.

May I hear from the chair of operations committee please?

The operations committee was particularly busy on January 19. I'd like to thank my fellow committee members directors Gary and Pinkham.

There are several items that will be moving forward many for approval but you should know that hopefully I'm not redundant.

This item was moved forward for approval on January 19. Oops I'm sorry they did not get it wrong it's for consideration.

Best Director of capital projects and planning.

This is our bar that we present before the board every year to allow us to do our annual enrollment growth planning and to meet the needs of kids who we are projecting to show up at schools in the fall of 2017. We work closely with our enrollment planning group to look at what our enrollment trends are.

You can note that at K5 and K8 schools we are looking at adding approximately 1%.

We are anticipating approximately 1% growth.

At our middle schools we are anticipating approximately 3% growth and at our high schools we are anticipating approximately 4% growth.

With several elementary schools coming online, Cascadia, Olympic Hills, Cedar Park and Decatur and with Robert Eagle Staff middle school and Meany middle school coming online we are able to address a significant portion of those elementary and middle school enrollment growth you can see that we have our largest needs at the high school level.

Lincoln high school will come online in 2019 but we are looking to place four single portables or two double portables at Ballard.

We are also looking to place four additional single portables or two double portables at Roosevelt.

And we have a problem that we need to continue to work on at Garfield high school.

When we look at the enrollment there we look at a need for eight classrooms and we are continuing to explore that at this moment in time.

The cost of adding these portables from an annual capacity standpoint is $1,685,000 and then added on with the program placement of relocating bridges to Ingram high school of $640,000 the total is $2,325,000 and so we are coming before you tonight introducing this in two weeks we will be seeking your approval.

It's important to get your approval so that we can begin spending money on design fees to note where these portables are going to be located on site and begin our efforts for permitting with the city of Seattle so we are in a position to begin this work as soon as school lets out in June.

So I'd open it up to questions or comments.

Good evening.

Two questions.

The first one I see that the challenge at Garfield and I noticed that it has a cost impact of zero.

So how does that work with.

Do you anticipate coming back with something in two weeks that has a different cost or.

No I anticipate coming back probably after open enrollment includes in February.

Director Burke with some revised numbers.

We just at this moment in time don't have a solution for Garfield and we're still working on that.

Okay so to clarify that would come back in a separate bar just administratively it will come in a separate process?

Correct.

Thank you and then the other question is what is the class size numbers that were used to generate these projections?

They were the projections.

Are we using contract maximums or are we using reduced class sizes?

We are using the revised budget I believe that you approved in January and it should be noted in here it was a change I know that we are using the revised budget projections that you approved in January.

Burke I guess I want to drill into a specific thing if we, should we somehow through wonderful legislative work of Director Geary and other folks that are pulling hard on this find some money that gets us back towards class sizes is that going to further impact beyond this?

Best that will have a significant impact because we need to begin this work now in order to get through our permitting process.

It is a significant concern it is one that we have highlighted to the office of teaching and learning that we need to move based upon these revised class sizes.

Thank you.

I guess we are not in public.

We want to remain very optimistic about all of our gap that we need the legislature to recognize and I'd like to be optimistic about that.

But if we are going to handicap this I'd say that the odds of getting the funding for our staffing is pretty good.

So, I do understand the dilemma that you know do we go forward and spend a bunch of money when we might not need the space versus if we do have the staff and we don't have the space then that's a challenge as well.

if there is a happy radical middle in there but we are under court order and I believe that we will get something from the legislature.

so we will develop also a plan B and review with staff and maybe try to get that before you prior to when you take action on this.

I have one question so under the student benefit and equity analysis and probably elsewhere it says that Garfield will receive relief from the reopening of Lincoln high school in fall 2019. Can you explain how that why that would be so?

I'm going to ask Associate Herndon, Superintendent Herndon to answer that question.

And by way of context I see that the same sentence is said for Ballard and Roosevelt and that makes more sense to me geographically but I'm not quite following the thinking here.

Yeah so I think part of that is the conversation around the high school boundaries that are related to Lincoln high school since we don't know what those are we don't know what the domino of of changes that might happen in boundaries are because the conversations around the high schools will evolve beyond just Lincoln high school.

There's conversations about Garfield area and Franklin and pretty much all areas of the city we are going to be talking about.

But as far as this particular bar goes this is just an interim capacity for next year.

So really the opening of Lincoln is not going to bring relief next year for Garfield clearly because it's not until 2019 that it comes online.

But the conversations about what the changes to high school boundaries might look like will be coming that's something that we are looking at to have for you by the fall of 2017 so that you'll know that's one of the pieces that we talked about for Lincoln high school.

So is there the possibility then that the Lincoln high school boundaries could extend down into the central district?

I don't know, probably, I don't know quite honestly.

When I look at a previous map of when there was a Lincoln high school there was also a Queen Anne high school and we don't have a Queen Anne high school which did have an impact on the boundary of Garfield.

I don't think that the Lincoln boundaries themselves may extend over that far but the Garfield boundary is quite large so it comes over quite a bit that in my opinion extends beyond the central area and gets into downtown which has quite a few folks as well.

So that's where I'm not quite sure you know if the westernmost boundary of Garfield might be modified with Lincoln.

I think there's just a lot of conversation to happen about that.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

So I recall an email that we got from someone that had this long list of all the schools and their capacities and their enrollments and the point of it was that it seems like they are saying well our high schools have the capacity it's just that we don't have the boundaries drawn correctly so Garfield is being over enrolled while another school is under enrolled so when Lincoln comes on will that be hopefully part of the process to help alleviate over enrollment and under enrollment at schools?

It will certainly help.

In addition to that we have the other capital projects which are the 500 seat addition at Ingram which certainly helps as well.

But again part of what was said in that particular email is true which is why we are looking at the high school boundaries all around.

There are some challenges that we know there is some under enrollment as far as size goes.

Rainier Beach has room for more students, Cleveland has room for more students and there are quite a few students in that particular area but the balance between those schools is not great.

So that's why we are going to take a look at that.

Garfield is large but part of that is programmatically related as well.

When we look at the schools and the boundaries we want to make sure we are examining not only the number of students that are within the attendance area boundary but the programs that are located within there as well and draw additional students from outside the particular boundary area.

So there's quite a bit that's involved in that but I would say right now there are not too many high schools that are under enrolled.

I think if you talk to the principals at Ballard and Roosevelt and Garfield, Ingram's filling up.

they all feel pretty full.

There's not a lot of room there.

So and the balance between you know South and West Seattle is getting closer but to draw a boundary that draws students all the way over to South and West Seattle can be a challenge as well.

We're trying to we're trying to look for the good balance.

Thank you and I just want to appreciate the work that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Peters did anyone else have any questions or comments?

Thank you.

So the next item is the purchase of projectors for new BEX IV schools and BTA III projects opening summer 2017. This is also an operations committee item.

Blanford which heard this item on the 19th of January and moved it forward for consideration.

Best So this is to purchase some interactive projectors for the new BEX IV schools that will be opening this summer and in addition to that to purchase interactive projectors for both Cedar Park elementary school and Decatur elementary school.

I will note that the purchase orders in the bar attachment add up to approximately $252,000 We are working on the purchase orders for both Cedar Park and Decatur.

We anticipate bringing to the operations committee in February a bar to create budgets for those two schools and then bringing that to the board in March.

We would like tonight to introduce that we will be seeking budget approval for this to include the interactive projectors for Cedar Park and Decatur and so that's why you see a request of $315,000 not to exceed $315,000 in lieu of the approximately 252,000 that the purchase orders add up to that are included with the attachment.

So I want to draw that to your attention.

Peters

So the 252,000 that's for two projectors, is that right?

That's for Cascadia, Robert Eagle Staff, Olympic Hills, Meany Middle School, and McGilvra, Licton Springs is included in the Robert Eagle Staff allotment.

So that's the 252,000 we are asking for approval up to 315,000 because we know we are going to need to provide interactive projectors also at Cedar Park and Decatur and we are working on that at this moment in time.

So how much is it for one project, projector?

Projector, just crystal projector costs?

approximately $1400.

For one projector?

For one projector.

Is that a cost?

I mean have you actually do comparison in other places?

We've installed these projectors at Genesee Hill, Harbor Heights, Thornton Creek, Hazel Wolf and Seattle World School last year, Director Patu, we bid this project so we have a competitive price we had two vendors submit bids on this.

And we are asking for your approval just to utilize the lower purchase price that we received on a unit price basis and we want to include Cedar Park and Decatur as well because we know we need to provide similar technology at those schools.

Are these projectors the same thing as smart boards?

Or is it different?

No this is newer technology.

Director Peters we are going away from smart boards and going to interactive projectors.

I only just caught up to smart boards.

Okay and could you just briefly tell us the advantages of this new technology?

They are very similar to smart boards and in lieu of being mounted to the wall like a marker board they are actually an overhead projector, they shine an image on a marker board and then you are able to interact with that image.

So very similar to the way you would do it with a smart board, they are also substantially cheaper.

So you are getting the same functional capability at less cost.

It's the way really technology is moving is towards interactive projectors in lieu of smart boards.

Peters Thank you.

Director Burke.

Burke So I see from the specifications this is a short throw projector so is that built into our design now that we are using a short throw projector and do we use that for retrofits as well?

Best.

Correct we've been all of the BEX IV schools have been using the short throw projectors.

The BTA IV capacity schools will also be using the short throw projectors We are in our annual capacity projects, you know with the bar that you just talked about we are adding one at a time, we are reusing existing projectors that we have.

We still have an inventory of projectors that we are continuing to use and as we move schools around we are continuing to draw upon them until they are useful life.

mostly I'm asking kind of in a geeky way do we get a lower cost of ownership or are there advantages to that technology versus a traditional like what we have here?

Or is it just what's available?

Best This is a standard from our department of technology services department and so we are providing this and we are providing it in all of our new schools it's the way they are moving in their technology plan.

All right I don't see any more questions or comments.

Thank you very much.

So now we go on to item number seven multiple capital levy funds award contract K 5 0 8 6 for general contractor construction management services GCCM to Cornerstone contractors for the Ingram high school classroom addition project.

This also went to the operations committee.

Which heard it on January the 19th and moved it forward for consideration.

Excuse me, operations chair can you speak to why it was moved forward just for consideration?

I cannot.

I'm not remembering exactly.

I would imagine that it is.

Was there something that was incomplete that was presented?

It was incomplete.

In almost all cases where the operations committee moved it forward but for consideration it is usually because of incomplete documents.

Best So we've gone through a GCCM approval process.

We were approved by the state of Washington capital projects alternative review board to utilize GCCM construction for Ingram high school.

That was approved I will say predominantly because we are going to have an active school when we are implementing this construction project.

There is risk associated with having an active school on site and the associated students and so to minimize those risks we thought it would be great to bring the contractor on board early so he could hear the conversations about the project and how to implement the project and he could share his insights into how we could best go about implementing the project.

Cornerstone general contracting is currently implementing Olympic Hills elementary school.

At Ingram high school they will be constructing the 20 classroom addition that was part of BTA 4. They will be also making seismic improvements and water line, seismic improvements that were part of BEX 4 and roofing improvements that were part of BEX 4. and then some waterline improvements that were part of BTA 3. So we are combining that into one project and recommending that Cornerstone general contracting be the contractor to help us during the design phase to implement this project through construction.

So open it up to questions or comments.

Is there a location online where we can look at some of the information on the project?

I'm looking on the BTA IV website or is more on the… concept plans or whatever has been created to date?

Best I can check with Tom Redman who is our communications person for capital projects and ask that we make sure we get this project loaded up because we do have a conceptual drawing, we are in schematic design right now, soon to have completed schematic design and so I'll make sure that we get that loaded up on our website Director Burke.

Thank you.

When you make that request could you also include Magnolia?

Thank you.

Director Geary.

Could you, I was interested during the operations committee to hear about the approval process that we have to go through to get to use a GCCM and I don't know if the rest of the board is familiar with that so if you could very briefly describe that I thought that was interesting.

Best.

We are required to put together a submission package for the state of Washington capital projects alternative review board.

GCCM projects need to be approved by the alternative review board for a public agency to use that construction unless the agency has approval.

Seattle Public Schools does not have approval to move forward with GCCM construction without this oversight committee's approval at this moment in time.

One of the things that the oversight committee talked to us the last time we made this presentation in front of them was Seattle should consider becoming an agency in which we approve our GCCM projects.

I do appreciate the fact that we have an outside committee that reviews our projects but I'm also cognizant that school districts are moving more and more to GCCM construction so they can get that contractor input early.

and their plate is becoming more full with more and more school districts requesting GCCM approval and so but there's five criteria that we need to look at the five criteria concern complexity of the project.

Obviously when you are doing a historic renovation or as Webster historic renovation without drawings that's a very complex project.

When you are remodeling a school and keeping kids on site that's a very complex project.

A large project like Wilson Pacific approximately $75 million in construction is a complex project and to keep that compressed to a short two-year timeframe.

Olympic Hills had a complexity because of the groundwater table at that site.

So there are varying factors that this agency will look at and then will either approve or deny your application to use GCCM.

Concerning Ingraham high school they were unanimous that this should be a GCCM project.

All right thank you.

So the next item is item number eight.

BEX IV program contingency transfer to the proposed fourth phase Jane Addams middle school repurposing and seismic improvements project budget.

I hear from the chair of operations committee please.

This item was heard by the operations committee on January the 19th and moved forward for approval.

So we are requesting.

$2,175,000 being moved from the program contingency for BEX IV into Jane Adams middle school to complete phase IV construction activities.

phase four construction activities were identified in the original capital levy that went before the voters.

There are primarily seismic improvements in our classroom, some low voltage and electrical improvements and some security camera improvements and so we are just recommending that we shift $2,175,000 from the program contingency into the Jane Addams middle school.

And it's what those dollars were set aside for.

The program contingency dollars were set aside for.

Open that up to questions.

Peters Any questions or comments?

All right move on to the next item.

Item 9 BEX IV certifying resolution 2016 17-11 five year use 30 year building life for the loyal heights elementary school modernization and addition project.

This also went to the operations committee.

Maybe I can save some time.

All the remaining items that are on the agenda were all were all heard by the operations committee on January the 19th and move forward for approval.

Thank you.

So this is a document that we need to submit to OSPI to certify that Seattle Public Schools after making a significant investment at Loyal Heights Elementary School will use that facility for five years for instructional purposes and will continue to utilize that facility for the next 30 years.

I imagine for the next 30 years it will be utilized for instructional purposes so the boards asked to certify that that's how you'll use the building.

Why is it necessary for us to say that?

It's a requirement of OSPI and I'm going to guess it's a requirement because there have been school districts across the state of Washington who have represented that they are going to use a building for instructional purposes and then prior to this requirement two or three years down after it was built utilized it for another purpose Director Peters.

That's a guess on my part but it's usually what generates these types of requirements.

there's a significant investment that OSPI makes more so with other districts than with Seattle.

My prior district Central Kitsap school district 70% of SCAP you know we received 70% of a project from OSPI.

So it's significant for smaller districts without as large a tax base.

So that's why I'm sure that they have this requirement.

Peters Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Director Pinkham.

Pinkham Can't get used to this new technology and my Netscape browser is really slow here.

Glad some of you laughed okay.

I'm just curious as you know when we do we have to tell the state that yes we are going to plan to use this building for five years as a school.

Do we also then make any kind of commitment with our communities when they decide to, because unfortunately I'm bringing up Loyal Heights here again, they put in money for new playground equipment or new resources Is there any agreement that we make with them that okay yes this will be used as a playground or whatever resources for X number of years?

Because their investment in it too.

Best The self-help program doesn't report to me but it's a great question I'll ask Gretchen DeDecker and give you a response back in a Friday memo to the board.

I'm uncertain.

So just very quickly if we know that there is a pending major capital project and there's a self-help project lined up as well we try and say try and figure out what the scope of the major capital project is so that someone isn't raising money only to have it then wiped out by a major capital project.

We do try and do that.

However, over the past few years clearly the speed with which we have capital projects coming on trying to respond to our capacity issues it has unfortunately impacted some of the neighborhood investments and it's surprising though sometimes too because I think sometimes the sense of time goes quickly.

So myself included you know didn't I just do that last year and now it's been already a decade since something happened.

But it doesn't negate the major investment.

We appreciate all the self-help projects all the money that community put into our schools to make them great learning environments for our students.

So we want to be very sensitive to that but we do also want to make sure that they are not putting in a project that then is going to get wiped out soon.

Peters Any other questions or comments on this item?

All right next item is item 10 BEX IV BTA IV resolution 2016 17-8 racial imbalance analysis for the Daniel Bagley elementary school modernization and addition project.

Best So this is a much simpler racial analysis resolution than Magnolia elementary school.

Daniel Bagley is currently a racially balanced school as defined by the RCW.

We are not revising its boundaries when we complete the project in 2020 so we anticipate it will remain a racially balanced school when we open up the addition.

The addition is primarily replacing existing portables that are on site today so we don't see a significant change in the population with the completion of this project.

It seemed pretty straightforward.

Any questions or comments on that item?

Thank you.

So then the next item, items 11, 12 and 13 well I guess there is some similarity there.

These are all related to the E.C.

Hughes project.

So the first one BTA IV E.C. Hughes elementary school modernization project constructability report and implementation plan.

And then the next one is the BTA IV EC Hughes elementary school modernization project resolution 2016-17-9 of intent to construct project.

And then the third one is BTA IV certifying resolution 2016-17-10 EC Hughes elementary school modernization project five-year use 30-year building life.

And these are all required for OSPI form D9 approval.

All three of these documents so your approval is required for us to open bids.

Or actually after we open bids we have to submit these with our bid documents to OSPI.

Peters Any questions or comments about these?

All right thank you.

Then we go right on to item 14. Now we're moving on to some other schools.

BTA IV approval of budget increase for the Ballard Garfield and West Seattle high schools roof replacement projects.

Yes and these are projects in which we are actually increasing requesting the board to approve a budget increase.

We have not bid these projects.

Two of these projects we are anticipating utilizing a purchasing cooperative that would be the Ballard high school and the West Seattle high school because they are very complex roofing projects.

At Ballard high school we are replacing the entire roof that was anticipated as part of BTA IV.

What we learned as we did the investigation which was also part of BTA IV is the parapet walls that surround Ballard high school also create a lot of moisture to intrude into that building and so we are recommending that we increase this budget.

to address the parapet walls that surround that roof and in addition we are recommending that we also look at the standing seam metal roof on the gymnasium.

So that is the scope of work that we are adding at Ballard high school.

We tried to give you a drawing as one of the attachments articulating what was originally part of the cost defined for BTA IV we knew we needed to do investigations at these roofs and so we've implemented the investigations and we are coming back and asking for budget adjustments based upon our architect and envelope consultants recommendations.

And so at Garfield high school we learned that underneath the roofing system there are all kinds of openings that need to be filled.

We are also asking that we replace an existing skylight and then the city of Seattle landmarks board has requested that we use a fluid applied flashing at the coping parapet so at the terra cotta We use a fluid applied flashing in lieu of what would normally be today a sheet metal flashing.

That too has added approximately $30,000 worth of costs to the Garfield high school roofing project.

At West Seattle we have we had included a BTA for the north portion of the historic roof it's a tile roof we also have learned that we need to come back and make repairs to the south portion of that historic roof and there's it's generally called kind of a widow's walk at the very top it's about eight feet wide there's some cupolas there we need to repair those cupolas and also replace the roofing on that widow's walk and so that's what those added costs are for West Seattle high school.

So this is what those budget increases the added scopes of work at all three of those projects.

I'm happy to open it up to questions.

Director Geary.

The other use of contingency funds was it also from BTA IV?

It was from BTA IV for Magnolia elementary school, it was from BEX IV for Jane Adams middle school.

There are two different program contingencies based upon what levy the projects were approved in Director Geary.

and I was trying to go back through our budget so I could answer this myself but it wasn't in the one that was provided at the committee meeting.

How much do we have in the BTA contingency fund?

Best this would represent about 15% and Magnolia elementary school represented about 15%.

And are we feeling comfortable then with the remainder?

I am because I sat in a meeting yesterday on Lincoln high school and we believe we are going to be able to bring that project in within budget and so I feel very comfortable with where we are at right now at this moment in time.

So that is a huge project on BTA IV.

Director Harris.

Ballard Garfield and West Seattle roof replacements and again time flies I don't recall when we did these construction projects but is there any way to take a look at clawing back under any of those roofing warranties whatsoever?

we do look at that on those types of projects.

Ballard I'm going to give you approximate timeframes opened in 2000, West Seattle we didn't touch the north portion of the historic roof so we always knew we had to come back and work on the north portion that would be the same with Garfield we just have learned a substantial amount more information that we knew at the time we went to the lab with the levy because we've done a fairly thorough investigation of those roofing systems.

Harris So when I buy a new roof for my little house they give me a 20-year or a 30-year depending on how much I want to spend warranty.

What were our warranties for these projects?

Best I can tell you the warranties would not be, they would be for materials only and for Ballard high school we looked at whether we could make a claim against that warranty and that insurance company and it was determined it would not be money or effort well spent.

Director Patu and then Director Pinkham.

On that note I know that there's warranty for other one of our roofing and I was told that one of the roofing that we have actually what the school has, we've been having a hard time trying to get them to come out and honor the warranties.

So how long do we actually wait before you know like this school has a hole on the roof and it's been a while since we you know complained about it so what do we do in that case?

If we are aware of a warranty and we have a very good electronic data system that a custodian can put in a work order it will either flag that it's a warranty or it will flag that it's a maintenance repair and if we become aware that it's a warranty we let the contractor know right away.

That hasn't been an issue that I'm aware of, I did invite Frank Griffin the maintenance program manager.

I can let him speak to that but I'm not aware of any issues where we are not reaching out to contractors and they are roofing subcontractors to get roofs.

Well this particular school has actually been waiting for almost a year to get their hole fixed.

Which school?

This is actually John Muir.

a hole in the roof on the gym and I was told it's been a year now since they've been waiting to get it fixed through the warranty and for some reason or other the warranty is not being guaranteed right now.

I'm aware of that issue, it's an issue where the contractor believes it was an existing issue but we didn't have a leak there prior.

It's coming down through the louvers is what they are claiming and so we are struggling with them to respond.

Best.

So I'm learning about this tonight and I will work with Frank and I'll find out who the project manager was and we'll reach out to that contractor.

But I think Seattle Public Schools has a very good warranty process in place.

I can share an example about Laurelhurst elementary school where we had some window issues that came to our attention last year.

We had the contractor come back this is four or five years ago in which this project was implemented and he came back and replaced them you know repaired them to our maintenance foreman's satisfaction that oversees all of our window installations.

So I wasn't aware of this and I'll follow up with Frank.

I really would appreciate if you can do that.

Thank you.

In regards to Ballard and saying that in addition to sheet metal wall panel cladding system has no weather resistant barrier as required by code and must be removed and I believe I brought this up in the operations meeting are there other buildings that may also have been built by the same contractor that we need to check out to see if those are also up to code and possibly have other costs?

When were these codes that no longer meet?

Are these fairly new codes?

So this building was built in 2000 or moved in?

So do we have any issues that we need to look in there?

Best Weather barriers have been required for a long time.

Director Pinkham underneath by code.

I know that there is no weather barrier underneath that exterior metal cladding on that parapet wall it's on the inside you can't see it from the street.

I also know we are getting moisture intrusion into the building from that parapet.

Our latent defect we would have had to know about it within six years of accepting that, that is well beyond.

So we have no claim against that contractor.

I have not gone back to look to see if that contractor constructed any other schools which is a second part of your question there and I will make a note to do that.

I have a few questions.

So what you're asking us here is to approve an increase in the budget for these projects?

Correct.

Have these projects gone out to bid yet?

No they have not gone out to bid.

Is there any risk in us upping the budget before it goes out to bid?

Are we sending a signal that oh we've got more money to spend?

We need to have your approval before we go out to bid because if we were to receive high bids Director Peters and then come back to you and you say no we are not going to increase the budget we have had a lot of contractors spend a lot of time bidding a project in which we would have a lot of egg on our face with the construction community.

And so generally it's good practice to go and get the boards approval prior to bidding a project if you know the project is going to come in over the approved budget, get the boards approval to increase that budget then go out and bid your project.

We are not acting in good faith when we know Ballard is going to come in approximately $4 million over what the boards approved and then come back to you after the fact and request a budget increase.

What kind of analysis went into your estimate here that it will go over the previous budget?

We have a detailed cost breakdown of these requests that we are seeking your approval on.

Best from the architect and from his envelope consultant.

They have looked at it, they are bidding roofing projects all the time and so they are very familiar, it's a niche market that they specialize in, they are very familiar with what roofing systems cost.

Okay and then you mentioned an example where we would change the kind of flashing that we use instead of metal we would use a fluid applied, fluid applied I'm imagining some sort of tar like material is that?

Best That would be correct.

It is an asphalt emulsion fluid applied product.

It is to retain the profile that you see on the street so that it has a similar profile as to what it would have historically.

In this case we are talking three quarters of an inch.

So actually don't worry where I'm going with this is so if this is the new approved way of doing flashing are we learning something from these projects that we can use towards future projects so we don't have to replace things?

The new approved way would be to use this the metal coping flashing.

Oh this is an old way that has been used there's wind uplift codes involved in this that do not allow us to use the method that we would really like to use because the wind uplift codes require a three-quarter inch increase in the height of that parapet terracotta it will visually have a three-quarter inch increase and we have been directed by the landmarks committee not to use that.

We have been asked to use the historically accurate methodology.

Peters All right okay.

All right so we are being historically accurate.

Best At a greater cost.

Peters At a greater cost.

All right.

Thank you and that answers my question nicely.

All right any other, Director Pinkham.

Yes sorry something just came to mind too here about Ballard High School and that it's not required by code.

Shouldn't have that been caught at some inspection point that hey here's something that isn't up to code when we accepted the final construction for Ballard High School and why it took us then 15 years to find out?

I would agree with you that should have been caught when it was constructed.

I will note that school district construction has come a long way from envelope consultants.

We now utilize envelope consultants and we watch them and have them inspect the work of contractors who are performing that work at that time frame that was not common at all to use an envelope consultant.

I think we as project managers in the construction industry in the 2000 timeframe probably didn't understand the complexities of roofing systems, the expansions, contractions and so we didn't use envelope consultants as an industry.

Today it's standard to have an envelope consultant on your design team to prevent problems just like this.

Pinkham Okay yeah so then I was kind of my follow up question that whoever approved this or accepted this bill as being up to code would we have any ways to go after them saying hey you approved this but even though we're beyond that six years or whatever but it was still approved to be up to code but it's because we didn't have the proper people in place at the time to do that envelope.

Best 6 years is the normal latent deficiency period that you can go back and make a claim.

Pinkham.

Well I'm not talking about the construction and the construction in a sense being faulty or whatever but whoever approved it gave it the stamp of approval.

Yes this meets the code.

Would we have any venue to go after them?

Hey you said this was up to code and but we find out X number of years later even though it's beyond the construction builder six year warranty or whatever they have whoever approved it are certified it seems like would we have any repercussions there?

I'll explore that with Noel and put that in a Friday memo to the board.

Director Harris.

Could you explain in layman's term what an envelope consultant is?

And is this a system to help spread the risk and have an independent party sign off?

Am I tracking?

An envelope consultant helps guide you on your building exterior and your both the walls which we refer to normally as cladding and the roofing systems.

And they help guide you because there are lots of different materials are now utilized and they all have different expansion contraction coefficients based upon temperature and so They help to make sure that the system that's being proposed works well together and then they also look at you know if you are proposing materials that are all 30 years duration, are you proposing materials that are all 20 years duration so you have a system that's going to last all this, you don't want a component to fail that's yeah exactly.

10-year component and a 30-year component or if you are using a 10-year component you want to recognize that and then budget accordingly to repair that 10-year component so you get the longevity out of that roofing system but that's what envelope consultants do and then they work with the architects during the design phase and then they observe the work that the contractor is doing to make sure that the work that he is performing is being constructed as was intended in the contract documents.

And so for using Director Pinkham's example they would have made sure that that waterproof barrier was there underneath that cladding.

Okay thank you.

So the next item is item 15 that is BTA IV approval, approve amendment number two for contract P5034 with Leida construction incorporated for Robert Eagle Staff middle school synthetic turf athletic field.

was an issue that the school board asked us to go back and look at.

What is the infill material that we should be utilizing on our synthetic turf?

We did that and we formed a committee to analyze those types of materials.

The committee recommended that the board consider cork which is a natural product but they also recommended that we consider TPE which is a thermal polymer elastomizer, thermoplastic elastomer And the reason that those two products were recommended for consideration was they have similar maintenance characteristics as SPR crumb rubbers so we wouldn't have to train our staff for the different materials that we would potentially be proposing.

They are all similar from a maintenance characteristic.

They are similar price points both are slightly more expensive than SBR crumb rubber, cork is approximately 50 cents a square foot more expensive, TPE is approximately a dollar more expensive and so this we think addresses the health concerns surrounding SPR we are going to continue to bid TPE and cork against one another so because we have concerns on our committee that cork will become a more popular product and could potentially either be hard to get a hold of or not available.

Hard to get a hold of meaning that there are so many, there's approximately 1000 synthetic turf fields replaced across the United States every year and if this material becomes more popular we are concerned about its availability.

And then we are also concerned that lack of availability will increase the price of cork having TPE as a competitive second alternative.

Hopefully will put us in a good bid position so.

Director Blanford and then Director Harris.

when you were discussing chrome rubber and the two alternatives that we are considering, when we were first talking about that I think there was some conversation about the health concerns that are associated with chrome rubber.

Can you describe where we are in that conversation?

It seemed to be there were many that felt that it wasn't an issue, some that felt very strongly that it was.

Has that evolved since the last time we talked?

Best It has evolved since the last time we talked.

EPA did issue an update in December of 2016 but their update also concluded with the remarks further study is required.

State of Washington has also issued a document that indicates that they do not believe there are health concerns associated with crumb rubber.

We know from the work we've done on this committee that the state of California is doing a very in-depth study of crumb rubber.

We anticipate that report will be issued in 2019 and that will become the definitive report that people will point to.

And so we heard the board, we formed a committee, we recognize there are community members that do have health concerns associated with crumb rubber and so we think Cork which is a natural product and then the thermoplastic elastomer which is the product utilized in the manufacture of IV tubes are two good alternatives and we looked at it also from the maintenance aspect as well.

So that's where we are and we are thinking 2019 hopefully state of California's report will be definitive.

Director Harris.

First of all thank you for the efforts that you all made this last year and the efforts of your committee.

Hugely hugely appreciated that was extraordinarily responsive.

It's also true isn't it that the Los Angeles unified school district has not been using crumb rubber for I think five years because of those concerns?

Best that is true, I don't know the duration, I know Los Angeles Unified does not use it.

There their concern is because of the temperature, the heat gain and then it off-gassing.

That's the concern there.

We don't have the same problems as for the heat gain and the potential breakdown of the crumb rubber and it volatizing that because our temperatures just aren't as hot for the extended duration.

But that's the concern there.

Okay and then I would again point out the volatility if you will of scientific study in my world Dalbert and Fry motions and whether or not it's quote junk science and we had concerns last year about whether EPA and CDC were over mandated and underfunded and given the choice of the appointee for the EPA by our current president whose name I can't say out loud I'm not holding my breath I guess.

But most importantly thank you ever so much for hearing us and putting forth all this good work.

Director Burke.

I want to concur with that and one of the things that resonates for me that cork is a naturally occurring material as compared to crumb rubber.

Is that truly ground up tires?

Is it a waste product?

Crumb rubber yes it is.

And then TPE is petroleum based.

So that there is a natural draw of the three to a cork based product.

Director Patu.

A lot of curiosity how many of our schools are actually still has that foam rubber that actually that we've been talking about that might be dangerous to the health

All of our schools currently have crumb rubber.

I believe we are going to be bidding six schools this year and will be for replacement this summer and that those schools will either have cork or TPE and I hear what Director Burke just said.

So you know.

How do you choose which school actually gets it?

They're on a replacement schedule right now and As we are moving forward and replacing those synthetic turf we are replacing them with cork or TPE was the recommendation.

To replace them with either cork or TPE.

So do you base your school choosing by actually how long they've actually had those in their fields?

We base them on some testing that we do, we know that synthetic turf has a duration of approximately 10 years, we also do testing and it's called a G max test to see what the resiliency is of that synthetic turf to see if we need to replace it so we maximize the use of the field and get you know the biggest bang for the buck that we spent and so right now all of our fields have a replacement schedule but as we end, as they come near the end of their useful life we are testing them more to see when we need to replace those Director Patu.

Director Peters Okay thank you.

Director Peters Just a couple of questions.

What does the University of Washington use on its fields?

Crumb rubber.

Because I remember they were concerned about this and they were looking into this issue as well.

And then you mentioned earlier that you're concerned about the cost of cork might go up because of its popularity and so there's like a scarcity argument.

you are making but couldn't you also make the argument conversely that through economies of scale if there is a bigger market for it and there is greater production it could benefit the district because the price could go down?

It's a limited resource and so the concern is that it potentially will go up because it is a limited resource.

the trees need to grow in order to extract the cork from.

So that's the concern.

Director Peters now you could argue that suppliers will see an economic opportunity and more trees will be planted.

Yes that would be, but right now the concern is it's future availability if other districts make this choice as well.

Peters Okay but you're looking at both options right now.

Great thank you.

Any other questions or comments about this item?

Director Pinkham.

So then the total cost the 1.8 plus million or whatever for this cork field at Eagle Staff is that then the total cost to put in this cork or is that in addition to if we would have went with crumb rubbers and that now costs another 1.8?

So I just want to get clarification on the cost.

looks like one of the presenters was talking about well if it's 50 cents more per square foot and you're saying 1.8 million that's a lot of square feet.

Best the crumb rubber was like 1.7 million I think we have the bid tab yes we do have the bid tab.

For the I don't have the markups on top of this but the difference in the subcontractor price was crumb rubber was 1,372,000 and cork was 1,457,000.

So and then the contractors overhead markup are put on top of that.

So you can see from a bid standpoint it was a difference of approximately $75,000.

Pinkham So then what you're asking for us to prove isn't the 75,000 additional cost?

Best I'm asking you to approve the $1,884,608 which is the subcontractors class plus the general contractors overhead markup and coordination efforts of installing that field.

It's a change order to Leidig's contract, Leidig will provide the construction coordination for this project, they will be working with the subcontractor to make sure they get the product on site, on time, installed on time, there's a drainage system that goes underneath this, they are responsible for overseeing all of that but this is the different, this is the amount for delivering a cork synthetic turf.

Pinkham So then the $0.50 more is just the infill is $0.50 more?

Best Correct.

Pinkham Not the total maintenance and whatever else that's included?

Best Correct.

The difference between the two is approximately $75,000 between cork.

Just the fill?

Yep.

Cork requires as you say more irrigation or whatever and that's driving up the cost as well?

Nope none of these require irrigation.

But there are additional costs with the cork?

There are additional costs yep.

Okay so just wanted that clarification as far as what that 50 cents per square foot was.

All right that leaves one more item on the agenda tonight.

Item 16 BTA IV award contract K 5 0 7 3 for general contractor construction manager services GCCM to BN builders for the Daniel Webster school modernization and addition project.

Best So similar to Ingram high school we also went before the capital projects advisory review board to seek GCCM approval for Daniel Webster elementary school.

The rationale there was this is a historic building and this historic building has no drawings that so we wanted to have a general contractor on board to go and document what the existing conditions are that they could anticipate they would encounter when they constructed this building.

We went out to the construction market soliciting for GCCM contractors, we got two responses.

One from Graham and one from B&B builders.

We went through our qualifications and the ranking and B and B builders was clearly the better firm.

good experience working with historic structures.

They had completed a project both for the University of Washington and the Seattle art museum on historic structures and we have the same proposed team.

And so we are recommending to you well we are recommending that B&B builders be approved as the GCCM contractor for Daniel Webster elementary school.

Peters are there any questions or comments about this item?

Director Blanford did you have a question?

Okay Dr. Nyland.

I just want to let you know I'll be out of the district Monday Tuesday Wednesday on vacation and I should be back in time for the work session on the 8th might be a few minutes late.

If there are no more questions or comments I call this meeting adjourned at 814. Thank you everyone.