School Board Meeting Date Jan. 06 2016, Pt1

Ms. Fodey the roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Here.

Director Burke.

Here.

Director Geary.

Here.

Director Harris.

Here.

Director Peters.

Here.

Director Patu.

Here.

Thank you.

If everyone would please stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Director Pinkham will be delayed and expect to be here by 6 o'clock, hopefully.

I now hand it over to our Superintendent Nyland to recognize the schools of distinction.

All right we have quite a few of our principals here.

I'd like to invite them to come up and gather around the podium while I say a few embarrassing things about their schools.

And then we'll invite them to come forward and have a picture taken with the board.

So come on up and stand around the podium.

We won't make you say anything I don't think.

So each year the state recognizes schools that are in the top 5% statewide either for reading or for math or for graduation and they do that over a number of years.

So you can't just kind of be a flash in the pan and work real hard and push your data for one year.

You have to have a really good plan and you have to have good staff and parent support and great leadership.

Last year we had 11 banners along the wall over here.

This year we have 12. So statewide see 5% and 12 out of 100 schools is really good.

So we are really proud of our principals and our teachers and our parents that made that possible.

So I won't get them, well I guess they are, no they are not alphabetical up there.

BF Day Elementary, Louisa Boren STEM K-8, Broadview Thompson K-8, Cleveland High repeat, Helen Wolf K-8, Olympic Hills repeat, Rainier Beach, Rainier View, Thurgood Marshall, Viewlands Elementary, West Seattle Elementary, and Wing Luke Elementary.

So again congratulations.

And I invite the board down in front so that we can have our picture taken with our principal.

Thank you.

I'll make one more comment as we kind of close off that recognition piece to say that Olympic Hills principal Helen Young is a recipient of 2016 AASA American Association of School Administrators scholarship award and should be recognized Tough Duty in Phoenix in February and given this kind of, I think there's only two or three of these given each year and so very pleased with her work.

Olympic Hills is on the list and I believe that we heard recently that Olympic Hills had the greatest value added of any school in the state.

So again congratulations to all of our winners.

We do not have student comments this evening.

This portion is set aside for when we have a student representative sitting at the dais with the board.

As we do not have one in this evening there is no student to give comment.

The students present for public testimony will have the first spot doing the public testimony portion of the agenda.

As we have now reached the action portion of the agenda, oh I'm sorry.

Superintendent Nyland provides his comments.

And it's been a long time since a board meeting, a month.

So we did have the holidays in there so I have lengthy comments for the board members who have a comment here in front of you.

I probably will skip a few parts of that and then it will all be posted.

Mia Williams, Aki Kurosa principal has been invited to the White House as part of My Brother's Keeper piece.

Are we missing?

The board directors don't appear to have copies of your comments in front of us.

Okay.

Thanks.

We will get those for you here in a minute.

So anyway we are proud of Mia Williams and her invitation to the White House to participate in the My Brother's Keeper event which is part of our work around closing the opportunity gap.

Bonnie Sandahl nurse at John Rogers Elementary is being inducted into the Washington State Nurses Association Hall of Fame on March 17 so congratulations to her.

Two long-time employees here at the district have retired.

Kathy Technow manager of accounting services retired.

in December after 15 years so nobody is irreplaceable we keep telling ourselves that but she has provided great service and how to for a number of years here.

And then Dwayne Young Sr. has been resource conservation specialist and former custodian and he retired in December after 40 years with Seattle Public Schools.

Some current updates with regard to personnel changes at the district level.

Today I announced that my choice for Deputy Superintendent was Steve Nielsen.

He will be replacing Charles Wright who has been of great help to me in my transition time here in the district.

Steve comes with a lot of experience and some former experience here in Seattle Public Schools.

Look forward to working with him.

Two other moves are being made internally.

Dr. Brent Jones has been assistant superintendent for HR and Dr. Clover Codd has been chief partnership officer.

They will be trading positions.

So Dr. Clover Codd will become assistant superintendent for HR and that will combine with the work that she has been doing around evaluation work.

She's been at the bargaining table, she's done a variety of other things in support of HR.

And Dr. Brent Jones will become chief strategy and partnerships officer and assume Clover's duties and be kind of our external facing.

partner with regard to closing the opportunity gap.

So he has like me is a graduate of Seattle Public Schools and he has a lot of community contacts that we will look forward to applying in that sense.

ORCA cards we will have coming up here in a minute we are trying our best to try to get ORCA cards in the hands of more of our students so that it's easier for them to get to school.

Thank you to President Patu for her support of the efforts to get more metro passes, more metro access for our students and thank you to the city.

and our voters for the Prop 1 transportation levy that will help in this regard.

So coming up in a few minutes I'll be asking to tweak the agenda tonight so that we can expedite accepting some funds on behalf of getting more Metro cards in the hands or more Orca cards in the hands of students.

We will be Starting up a Native American program at Chief Sealth and Denny International.

So pleased that Boo Balkan Foster has been hired to do that.

Those are our two schools with the highest percentage of Native American students and we'll be starting a program similar to Proyecto Saber which is a program that supports Latino, Latina students in a few locations across the district.

We've been doing a lot of partnership work.

We've got I think hundreds of community partnerships and then we have several partnerships that are huge that put maybe as much as a million dollars in in-kind support and services into our schools.

So our community partnership office has been working with those partners and doing workshops with them so that we are more collaborative and aligned around what it is that we are trying to do in our schools and how they can help us.

I'm not explaining that really well but it's huge.

I mean we've just got millions of dollars in partnership support and as a result of our community offices will be more aligned with the work that we have been doing.

Likewise the finance office has been working with the Seattle Council of PTSA on the school budget process.

They'll be having a meeting here on Monday January 25. to explain how the budgeting process works and to encourage greater parent understanding and involvement in that process.

One of the things that we do each year is to make annual school reports available.

Those are now up on the SPS website and can be seen there to see some of the examples of good work that are 199, 98, whatever it is, schools.

have underway.

First education fair for the year will be January 30 so we are off and running on the start of hiring for 2016-17.

Opportunity gap, we are short on time tonight so I won't take as much time as I would like on this issue but this is one of our huge goals for the district.

We continue to outperform the state.

We have now had an opportunity to look at some of the smarter balance results from other cities like ours and other states across the district.

I suppose the western part of the United States where smarter balance is being used and Seattle outperforms the state and Washington outperforms most of the other states in terms of the smarter balance.

So our teachers continue to do good work along with community support and good leadership.

However we still have too many students that are not proficient and so our major, one of our major goals has been how do we close that gap and right now we are working on three strategies.

Positive beliefs about every student being able to become proficient, positive behavior and discipline, boards leadership in terms of moratorium on elementary student suspensions.

and positive learning opportunities with individual schools setting goals to close their opportunity gaps.

Our new civil rights office is open and operating and moving toward full strength to provide greater opportunities to protect the safety and learning environment for all of our students.

I won't go into all of the details tonight.

But I appreciate our new hires that are moving us forward in that area.

Met recently with Mayor Ed Murray.

and talked about a few issues.

They are starting their process for preschool for this coming year and they have asked us to give them a timeline on when we will be proposing what we might be able to do with regard to preschool for the coming year.

including both programs and space.

So I'll touch on the space issue coming up here in a minute.

The school board did ask as we made that decision last year to come up with a priority system which basically says that our classroom needs have to come first and then preschool and then our before and after school care.

The city is also planning a summit sometime this spring and so we'll look forward to learning more about what that entails and what that looks like and how to coordinate schedules.

We did meet just before the break with our legislators and kind of the headline news that came out of that session has to do with something known as the levy cliff.

In 2009 the legislature gave local school districts an additional 4% in levy authority allowing local taxpayers to make up the difference, the loss in state funding during our recession years.

They assured us at that time that they would have a solution well in advance of 2018 when that money is scheduled to run out.

Now all of a sudden we find ourselves that if the legislature doesn't do something in 2016 we may be faced with statewide layoffs in 2017. And so they were suitably impressed, concerned, shocked with the numbers, what that means for Seattle and we're interested in knowing more about what that looks like.

both for Seattle and statewide.

So that was a valuable meeting.

A lot of other things discussed I won't cover tonight.

Weighted student staffing.

We are in the process of doing several things at the same point in time.

We are updating enrollment projections for this coming year.

We are figuring out what our staffing formulas look like and we are trying to determine program placements for special ed, gifted and others.

All of that comes together soon in terms of letting schools know how many teachers we expect them to need for the coming year and that means that schools will to find out whether they have the same number of teachers as last year, whether they might be adding a teacher or two or whether they might be losing a teacher or two.

This is a challenge every year.

My analogy here is this is like the bubble under the carpet.

Every year we have inadequate funding to do all of the things that we want and every year we try to make those funds go a little bit farther and we solve one problem only to find out that there's another problem that we have not been able to solve.

So I won't get into the details tonight but we have tried to be responsive to some of the problems that we had this past year.

Probably the one that maybe is most notable from kind of a publicity PR standpoint is that our enrollment projections last year were short by about 700 students and we had 25 teachers that we needed to pull back after the start of the school year.

That's fairly typical.

Every district the cabinet has been associated with has done that but I certainly agree that it's not, it's a painful process at the start of the year.

So at this point in time we are planning on holding back $2 million to allow some schools to keep staff even though they don't have enrollment in the fall.

I suspect that will be another bubble under the carpet and that will be $2 million that other schools will be desperate to have whether it's for dual language, K-8, IB, all of the programs that we have that we love and would love to support but don't have enough funding to do that.

Our levies are coming up soon, now just a month away.

February 9, two levies, one for operations which pays for 25% of everything that we do in our day-to-day operations.

And the other one that pays for buildings, either remodelings or added seats, technology and academics, athletics.

We do have a report out to the community that's on our website, probably some copies outside in the lobby on the, whatever that is, what do you call that?

Anyway, on the front area where the receptionist would be if we were there during the school day.

Tom Redman in the capital construction area has done a great job of pulling together facts on how we spent the levy and the BTA monies from last time around.

Now we have some staff updates and these are brief.

It will be about five minutes each so we may have time for a question or two from the board.

We probably don't have, I know that we don't have time to get in, this isn't a work session we won't be able to get into.

I don't have real depth on any of these items but we did want to give you an update and a public update on three, four issues I guess.

The University of Washington EEU program, math in focus, middle college and before and after care spaces.

So I will make a one sentence introduction and then I will invite to the podium staff members who will give you about a five minute update on each one of these.

So the first one is the University of Washington experimental education unit and specifically the funding for kindergarten.

So we have some funding parameter and compliance issues and Wyeth Jesse is here to give us a further update on what that entails.

Good evening again Wyatt Jesse Executive Director for special education.

I am here to provide information in regards to our annual contract with the University of Washington's Experimental Education Unit otherwise known as the EEU.

We have had this particular contract with them for a number of years.

It has been pretty much 30 years in place as we move forward.

One of the, in addition to providing services for about up to 60 preschool students they also provide services for 20 students with identified disabilities for kindergarten.

And then those students who are students within Seattle Public Schools matriculate into one of our neighborhood schools where we provide services and supports.

Just getting right into the issue is that we are currently out of compliance by using 100% special education funding to support the educational services both special education and general education services for those particular students.

That is called supplanting.

It's any time when you think about it using all special education dollars to fund also the general education portion wouldn't be meeting all their needs.

That's why we have general and then it's supposed to be in addition to to assist these students using special education dollars.

Both internal and external reviews have highlighted a lack of oversight on special education funding in Seattle Public Schools.

There was a number of action items in last year's revised comprehensive correction action plan.

Things that include a detailed review by myself of every single school budget.

Even in that process I identified some areas where we do did misappropriate dollars to support general education services and again that is a planning.

These are things that do happen in every single district that is why we do have to have a checks and balance in place.

As part of those again reviews the EU and our contract with them specific to the kindergarten services not the preschool.

is where again we were using 100% special education funding for them.

Wonderful services at the EU.

We are not here to judge the services themselves but it is actually to say that we have to meet compliance.

There are complexities to finding solutions to this issue.

It is a unique and again wonderful place to receive an education at the EU.

It is a public institution providing private services.

They are not a recognized public school.

They are not connected to Seattle Public Schools outside of some of our contracts obviously.

But also they are not a nonpublic agency or recognized as one.

So there are just some issues that come around that.

Our intent is not to close the kindergarten but is actually to work in partnership with the University of Washington to find a solution.

And because of certain specific timelines we did have to obviously engage in that conversation this past fall, make that determination as well we now have to look for, are seeking some solution to this particular issue.

I've been in constant, continued communication with OSPI over the last couple of weeks to try to seek solutions.

I have a meeting with them, they recognize the complexities as well so I have a meeting with them later this month and we also have a meeting with administration from the EU this Friday.

Looks like we have two minutes left on a five minute ticker for this item.

Questions of clarification.

Director Peters.

Did you say that the students who attend the kindergarten who are availing themselves of the general ed part of the program did you say that those are enrolled SPS students?

Yes there is also students who are non-SPS who are typically developing students who also attend the EU for the kindergarten classroom that are not Seattle Public Schools students.

Okay and so this ones who are enrolled in Seattle Public Schools I'm assuming that they bring funding with them is that correct?

They do bring funding with them.

And if they are typically developing children then that is general ed funding not special ed funding is that correct?

No because of the placement.

Okay, thank you.

Dr. Blanford.

Is there someone specific that you are speaking to from the University of Washington or a department?

Or are you just speaking to the administrators of the EEU program there?

I know she is in attendance, Dr. Eileen Schwartz is the person that we have been ongoing communication.

We have a lot of number of things that we also do with them.

They provide professional development, they did provide in teaming with our entire special education department professional for all our administrators this past previous spring and summer as well.

And they also do training every year for our early learning special education staff as well.

So Dr. Schwartz is your primary contact from the College of Ed?

Yeah that's in this particular instance yes.

We have other things going on with other parts of the special education department at the University of Washington as well.

Director Geary.

Has there been any consideration if this is an issue of compliance of asking for more time from those who would potentially find us out of compliance in order to come up with a solution, a long-term solution instead of making a decision now that jeopardizes the program only to find out that we just need more time to put something together.

I appreciate the request for that.

I am again in communication with OSPI.

I've never known to get an exemption once something has been identified as noncompliant without finding and seeking a solution but in this particular instance we are working on you know with a sense of urgency to find this.

I'd be happy to raise that specific request to ask for an extension and I can find out and get back to you.

Director Peters.

Has OSPI specifically found this EEU program to be noncompliant?

No.

Thank you.

Alright thank you.

Next item is math in focus.

Math in focus is our elementary adopted curriculum and we are in the process of providing some additional professional development for our teachers in that area and there has been quite a bit of board interest in terms of how we are implementing.

We are now into our second second year of implementation so a brief overview from Shawna Heath and Anna Box.

Good evening, Shauna Haith, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction.

So as we move fully into our second year of new elementary math program we are excited about the progress we have made.

Anna Box is here, she is our math program manager and she is going to take a few minutes to share some of the details which focus on the areas of the materials adoption, the professional development and the program alignment.

Thank you.

Anna Box, K-12 math program manager.

And first thank you for the invitation as well as all that you do for all of our students and teachers every day.

I'd like to begin with the fact that we do have new math materials for our K-5 classrooms.

These were adopted June of 2014 and the fall of 2014 We had 1,400 or so teacher editions and 28,000 student editions of this textbook happily delivered to our buildings.

We were, it was a huge lift for our accounting and purchasing and delivery.

systems and they did heroic work in getting this volume of materials into students' and teachers' hands.

Concurrent with this, concurrent with this effort, a number of principals and I went to a training before school started on the background of these books, the Singapore Method.

And we attended this training over a three-day period and began to develop an implementation plan for the textbook and truly fell in love with the good math that is Singapore math.

Also that summer before school started principals, elementary school principals received professional development from the publishers on how to use this book, how to staff, how to budget time etc. etc. etc.

This was at what was then called SLI.

SLI summer of 14 we had a math and focus trainer come and present to the elementary school principals.

In the fall of 2014 teachers, all K-5 teachers were provided a full day professional development by the publishers on the textbook.

This was very, very, very well attended.

We used five different sites around the city.

We had probably 30 trainers in from the publisher and this was all part of what came with the contract.

we bought the books and got with it a couple of days of professional development for teachers.

So the first one was last September before classes started.

Additionally, over the course of last fall, paraprofessionals and community tutors were provided some professional development from my team on, you know, here's this book, here's how we hope teachers are using it, here's the really good math that's in here.

here's how we think that you can be supportive in these classrooms.

We did at least 10 parent nights around the city, six of those provided by the math and focus publishers where again it was part of the contract when the 2014 board purchase this textbook or authorize the superintendent to purchase this textbook.

Part of what came with the package was these parent nights.

The publishers came in, we did six of them all on the same night all around the city talking to parents about here are some of the key features of this textbook, here is what we hope your students are seeing in classes.

Additionally my team and I did another handful I'd have to look up exactly how many, somewhere between four and six more when we were asked, you know, a community might say, we had a conflict that night, can you come do one just for us?

and so we did a handful more ourselves.

Over the course of the school year last year we offered ongoing professional development from the publisher.

They did another half day that all teachers were invited to as well as some webinars.

So teachers had the opportunity to get two full days of professional development from the publishers.

This month, January of 16, we are offering two more publisher provided professional development days for new teachers and for instructional assistance.

So if a teacher was hired this summer and would not have had the opportunity to have this training last summer, we found the funding to offer that to them later this month, working with the publishers on coming in to be here on the 13th and the 19th.

So the new math materials are a core component of the aligned math program that we've been charged with developing and that frankly is our responsibility to help develop.

before the 14-15 school year began.

So again, that summer when purchasing is buying the books and when the principals and I are going to training on what do we do with this thing.

During that same summer, two members of my staff and a handful of teachers, fewer than 10, five or six teachers from around the city who had worked from these books before, created a pacing calendar.

And we offered those before school started so that a teacher could say, okay, I got my book, I got my pacing calendar, I know where I need to be each month, when should I be finished with chapter one, when should I be finished with chapter two, and when does the first holiday break come along.

I need to have you wrap up here.

Yes, sure.

Based on teacher feedback in the first year the teacher teams created a standard aligned scope and sequence designed for math and focus textbooks as the core teaching material.

Compared with that pacing calendar the scope and sequence functions more as a detailed curriculum map that also includes unit plans and more of these documents and newer iterations that teachers and principals are asking for are in the works and will be ongoing.

My apologies for the length of that presentation.

All right.

Is there any questions?

Director Burke.

Hi there.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for the work you do on this.

I am curious the investment that we have in the professional development.

How much of that was using the newly developed scope and sequence and how much of that is?

Right.

The two days of professional development for teachers and a half a day, and I'm working from memory here, but I believe a half a day of professional development for principals was included in the original purchase.

Separate from that, any PD that happened last year from my team was on the textbook.

So there were a few parent nights, there was some work with instructional assistants because the contract didn't cover preparing instructional assistants.

There was some work with tutors.

That was all in the 14-15 school year.

In the 15-16 school year and I don't have a dollar figure, well actually I think this is true.

The scope and sequence professional development that was offered in the fall, right before school started, was not an additional expense.

but it was a half a day per subject if you will.

Then the PD that's coming up later this month is an expense, a professional development expense.

So I'm not sure if your question was about expense or about volume of training.

So I hope I got to both of those.

How many days was the scope and sequence PD?

It was a half a day unless a teacher wanted to do a full day in the fall.

right before school started.

Okay.

You bet.

Director Harris.

Real quick question.

I heard both the words required and if they so choose.

Okay.

And I'm not sure that you need to go into a lengthy explanation here.

I'll try not to.

But if you and your team Shauna and Michael could address that in the Friday memo.

You bet.

what part of the math and focus scope and sequence is required professional development and what is optional and the pros and cons on that.

Sure.

Thanks so much.

We will address that in a Friday memo.

Thank you for asking that clarifying question.

Director Peters.

Well by way of context I just want to say that the reason why I think we asked you to make a presentation is because we have been hearing a lot from the community this year about what has been happening with the math and focus and the scope and sequence.

The scope and sequence the first time we heard about it was I think this fall.

And what we have been hearing is the first year the schools were using the new materials but the second year they were not necessarily using the new materials they were using the scope and sequence that I understand was aligning the materials or aligning to common core.

And so the result is we are hearing from the community from parents and from teachers that this means that the math and focus textbooks are not actually being used either at all or as much and instead this is something called the scope and sequence is what they are being given to follow.

and that is interfering with the integrity of the original textbooks.

And so there is a lot of confusion out there as to what exactly the curriculum is and whether or not the materials that we adopted two years ago are actually being used.

So if you can address that, I mean that to me is the core of the question here.

Sure, thank you.

The first thing I need to say there is that I don't supervise any classroom teachers.

I don't supervise any building principals.

So the evidence that I have is anecdotal.

I can tell you that quite early on last fall, a number of building principals and a large number of teachers said to me, I can't use this book.

It's not aligned to Common Core.

And my program and I said, there's good math there.

There's a lot of good math there.

Let me talk to you about bar models.

Let me talk to you about number bonds.

I can tell you that let's say you ask about what is the curriculum.

We have been growing in our understanding of that word from my boss Shawna Heath that a curriculum includes a textbook and standards and an assessment program and so the adopted textbook is math and focus.

And our state has told us here are the standards and we have an assessment piece that is intended to be aligned to both.

The scope and sequence was our task.

We were given a task as part of a larger goal to create, to employ SPS teachers to create this document that would allow teachers to help students meet standards by using the textbook.

I think that may be another one we will have to put in a Friday update so if I can I will move on here.

So thank you for the update on where we are.

The third item is Middle College.

So there's been a variety of issues around Middle College.

We did close one site at High Point.

We continue to have three sites.

And then there's been some other issues in regard to staffing and other things.

So basically I want to give you a brief report that says Middle college continues to be at three sites, it continues to be a viable part of the work that we are doing as a district and we want to continue to support that work.

So looks like Israel Vela is here to give us an update.

Thank you Dr. Nyland, members of the board, President Patu, thank you for this opportunity to give you some update on the middle college.

I know that over the past several months there have been lots of questions coming your way.

A great opportunity to meet with Director Harris yesterday or the day before, I can't remember.

But really the purpose of this update is to address some key points that have been coming forth that perhaps we have not done a very good job of really communicating and messaging.

And so today we have our Principal Cindy Nash who is going to address some key points including curriculum, social justice curriculum among other things.

So in order to not take all the time I'm going to go ahead and turn that over to Principal Nash.

Thank you and good evening.

The first thing that I'd like to talk about is the Simon Youth Foundation because there have been some questions about how our partner the Simon Youth Foundation connects with Middle College.

There have been some questions about whether or not the foundation tells us what kind of curriculum that we need to use and so forth.

And I want to make it really clear that the foundation absolutely does not dictate curriculum or engage really with curriculum in any kind of way.

There are four things that the foundation does provide to Middle College High School.

The first is a space for the Middle College program at Northgate Mall and that is an in-kind donation.

And the second is scholarships and educational opportunities for students outside the classroom.

For example last June seven students all expense paid were sent to the close-up program in Washington DC to get really close up with our Congress persons and see how our government works.

The foundation also provides professional development for middle college high school teachers and small site grants $3,500 that teachers can apply for.

The second thing that I wanted to talk about is curriculum.

There have been some questions about the big history project that is sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

Some of our teachers have, in fact two of our teachers have chosen to take some training with the Gates Foundation.

use the big history project as a resource to supplement their history and science curricula.

This project has not supplanted our social justice curriculum in any manner and that I think was really the big concern.

So I wanted to make sure that that is very clear.

The other thing about I want to talk about as far as curriculum goes is STEM.

That's science, technology, engineering and math.

I know that you all know that.

The reason I want to talk about that is because we are a member of the Middle College National Consortium which is a national organization.

And the national consortium has begun work on an initiative to transform participating middle college schools into STEM focused schools.

And they are starting with schools in Michigan and Connecticut.

And last spring the consortium actually provided STEM focused professional development at the leadership conference and I was able to attend that with a couple of teachers and a partner from our Seattle University site.

And there was some concern as to whether or not a STEM focused curriculum might be in conflict with the social justice curriculum.

And I want to make it clear that that is absolutely not a conflict.

We continue to offer our social justice focused curricula at all of our sites and we continue to strive to meet the needs of our students with engaging curriculum that is aligned to college and career standards.

So in summary I want to let everyone know that Middle College is a thriving program that continues to meet the unique needs of the students that we serve.

We consistently provide the necessary support to allow students to turn their lives around.

I want to give you an example.

On November 19 one of our students Duane Jack received the Superior Court Youth Award and was honored at the King County Courthouse by Superior Court Judge Leroy McCullough.

And here he is right here.

We are very proud of Dwayne.

Dwayne attends our Northgate middle college high school at the Northgate mall.

Like many middle college high school students he has faced many challenges in life.

He had dropped out of school and was homeless when he enrolled at middle college.

But due to the efforts of middle college staff members Dwayne is currently living in transitional housing and he plans to graduate this June and attend Seattle Central College.

I think he deserves another round of applause for that.

The Urban Native Education Alliance supported the recognition of Dwayne as the recipient of this prestigious youth award because he has demonstrated incredible perseverance, determination and engagement in academics and in the community.

To quote the alliance, he quietly leads as an example of strength.

He is a tremendous asset to our native community and the broader Seattle community.

And I want to close by telling everyone that Seattle Public Schools is really looking forward to continued collaboration with our middle college high school partners.

We work very closely with our Seattle University partner, our University of Washington partner in fact I just met with them today and the Northgate Mall and Simon Youth Foundation.

And we look forward to continued talks with Seattle College.

Thank you.

Any board directors have any comments or questions?

Director Harris.

I want to say thank you to you Principal Nash and to Executive Director Villa and to Associate Superintendent Tolley.

Love these titles.

To be continued it's been a rich conversation and we are going to make this circle big and we are going to give you community support so that this program thrives and grows.

Thank you.

And thank you Director Harris.

Dr. Peters.

Thank you for this presentation.

Just two quick points.

I think some of the biggest questions lately have been about the Simon Youth Foundation against the backdrop of what the future is for the different school locations.

And I think it came as a surprise to a lot of us the extent to which the Simon Youth Foundation is connected to Middle College and I think that is an ongoing conversation that I would like to know more about.

You know I would like to know exactly what role and what influence the foundation plays because normally when a foundation is involved with our schools it is something that does come to the board.

This isn't something that came to us.

And so that's why I would like to have more information about that.

As far as the in-kind donation of the space that's fantastic.

But my understanding is in the agreement that is valued at $120,000 and that there are some liabilities involved with the district related to that.

And so it is not a totally free arrangement.

So again this is something that we as the board need to know about so we understand what is going on and make sure everything is clear and the district's liability is clear.

and that it is a beneficial arrangement.

And then finally regarding the big history this is another issue where I was on the curriculum and instruction committee for two years and big history was never brought to the curriculum and instruction committee and to the best of my knowledge I don't believe that Middle College asked for a waiver to use that so I'd like to know who has vetted these materials and what we know about them and if they are going to come to the curriculum and instruction committee for review.

We will get that information.

Thank you very much.

And one more, so before and after care spaces I'll ask Dr. Philip Herndon to come up and comment briefly.

We are using up I don't know 60, 70, 100 classrooms per year for growth and for the McCleary smaller class sizes and that means that we are running out of space fairly rapidly.

Associate Superintendent Flip Herndon for facilities and operations.

So as Dr. Nyland was just alluding to every year we are continuing to have to find additional instructional space for our students.

Next year will be no different.

So currently we are in the process of refining our enrollment projections for next year.

We should have those by the end of the month.

And in the fall we did send a letter to all of our community-based organizations which would include all of our preschool providers as well as our before and aftercare providers to make them aware of the fact that we have been growing in enrollment and that we are also dealing with class size reduction.

Both of those issues are placing a premium on space obviously.

And so we are finding ourselves challenged with finding additional space.

We are at the point now where we will be contacting folks who are impacted by losing some space for the before and after care providers.

We are hoping that we might be able to find some multiuse space within the buildings that might still be able to work.

But that is an issue that we are going to have to work with each building and each provider to see if that is a possibility.

But other than that we will be making notifications to people as quickly as possible so that they can plan and more than willing to continue the conversations with those providers.

We do realize that it is an incredibly important asset for many of our families and provides a lot of support for them but we are also aware that we have to make sure that we've got our instructional space for our students first and foremost.

So it's certainly a challenge.

I don't think we are the only ones in districts that are growing in population and dealing with class size reduction as well.

Director Harris.

Associate Superintendent Herndon.

Can you give us a thumbnail about efforts to reach out with the city of Seattle and with the parks department with respect to alternative space and partnerships towards not leaving our families and our kids high and dry.

First question.

Second question might this be an appropriate topic for a reinstituted FACMAC committee?

So I will address the first one first.

So we do have conversations with the city.

I typically have a monthly conversation with the city on a variety of topics and I do know that our early learning department is looking at application for possible preschool places but again we have to take a look at where we might have space.

So part of that conversation with the city in an upcoming meeting will be about spaces we have available, spaces they may have available.

Obviously we don't have any control over their spaces but we can let them know places that we might be running out of space.

So at least they have an idea about the scope of the challenges that we are facing.

On the second one certainly we can always take a look at some advisory pieces.

Our space is finite obviously so creation of new spaces is obviously a challenge but certainly we will be working with anyone who that we think can provide us some important information and so I have spoken with the superintendent about this and I know I have spoken with several directors as well.

So we are looking for opportunities that might benefit us and work well for the community as well.

So I don't have a definitive answer on that or a timeline but I can tell you that we are looking at that.

Director Harris.

I think I missed the Seattle Parks Department piece.

That Seattle Parks is one of the people who is at the table when I meet monthly with the city so they are included in those conversations.

All right thank you.

I'll try to wrap up my remarks briefly here.

It's been a long time here.

So school visits, I had an opportunity to visit three schools this week Whittier, Loyal Heights and North Beach.

And Whittier did confront one of those space issues where they are entitled to 20 teachers and they have 19 classroom spaces.

They are being creative with walk to math and how they utilize that 20th teacher which is part of the smaller class size opportunities that we have from the state.

I don't know the exact number right now.

In the spring we thought we would be 15 classroom short.

for the number of teachers that we had in place and then our enrollment projections were down a little bit so it was not quite as bad as that but I know of at least two schools and I'm guessing that there is probably a half dozen others where we don't have enough classrooms for the current teachers that we have in place.

PTA Reflections appreciate their work every year to honor and recognize students who do artwork.

About 150 works were on display at Seattle Center on Sunday and I was pleased to have the opportunity to participate with the PTSA in giving out the recognition and the awards to students.

We met with the John Stanford Center staff here just before Christmas and recognized a lot of our coworkers that had done outstanding work.

One of them being our special education ombudsman who was called out by OSPI on a recent visit for having provided quite a bit of additional service to our parents as they seek information about special education.

Other community activities for December and January I had the opportunity to participate in the P preschool through grade 3 cross-district coalition that includes Seattle, Edmonds, Everett, a variety of other districts that are working together to figure out how to make a seamless transition from preschool to kindergarten to first, second and third grade.

Director Burke and I had the opportunity to be at the city council inauguration earlier this week and Bruce Harrell will be the incoming president of the city council and he will be the representative for education and so will become our contact with regard to the families and education levy.

had the opportunity yesterday to meet with Senator Murray's staff and get a briefing on every student succeeds and what that looks like.

A lot of information pretty much as we expected.

The part that we are still fuzzy on is the timeframe.

So I have been saying that it would be nice not to have to send the letters out saying that our schools were failing.

They are not sure about that.

They are working on that.

Likewise, highly qualified educators, we know that that's being softened and will, I don't know that it will go away but it won't be as stringent in the future as it is now.

Again they don't know if that will be in place by September or not.

I had the opportunity to meet with Asian Pacific Coalition, appreciated that opportunity and then I had the opportunity to meet with Chamber of Commerce Executive Director and talk about some of their hopes and dreams for kind of making Seattle a lighthouse district nationally, internationally.

Several good news items, KPLU has reported several times, continues to report on the great work being done at Rainier Beach, appreciate that.

The CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella was at Rainier View for the hour of code and then Jeff Wilkie presented a check to Rainier View for $10,000 to pay for additional technology in the school.

I did have the opportunity on December 20 to be at Roosevelt when Tom Litke was selected by the Seahawks for recognition.

So huge gymnasium full of all of the students, brought out the teacher, brought out one of the Seahawks players.

Said all kinds of good things about the teacher, gave him a jersey with his name on it, gave him tickets to the game, introduced him at the game.

And they recognized him for his work on unified sports and engaging special needs students in a partnership inclusion partnership program with regular ed students.

So it was really a heartwarming standing ovation from all of the students for one of the teachers at Roosevelt.

The donors choose project has helped generate $600,000 that have gone into funding 736 classroom projects in King County.

So this is where people are invited to look at teachers kind of mini grants if you will.

self-funded mini grants where they put up an idea that they want to do something with students and then donors sign up to help them out.

Muckleshoot Indian tribe gave $10,000 to Seattle Public Schools for cultural enrichment programs through Gail Morris our manager for Native American education.

Alki Elementary was recognized by Q13 who came out and did some fun things with kids over the holidays and brought toys for needy kids.

And then I mentioned that I was at North Beach Elementary this week as well and they were telling me about skydivers, jump for joy.

that jumped into the campus reminded me of John Stanford and that was one of the things that he did that I won't be doing as superintendent.

So that concludes my remarks.

I do ask for the agenda.

that we delay action item number one the annual approval of schools.

The school board at our last session asked for some issues of clarification.

Schools have been updating that regularly.

We have gotten permission from OSPI to delay that item until our next board meeting and that will allow us to be more responsive to the board concerns.

And then second I mentioned earlier that we are trying hard to stand up the opportunity for more students to have ORCA cards and so we are asking for an adjustment to the agenda to allow us to accept some funding from the city in order to make that happen.

So we will talk more about those items as we come to them on the agenda but the first request is to.

postpone or delay action item number one and then we will speak to the other item when it comes up on the agenda.

Thank you Dr. Nyland.

As we have now reached the action portion of the agenda we will address superintendent's request to amend the agenda.

First item is regarding the delay of the annual approval of schools item to the January 20 board meeting.

I will now entertain a motion to amend the agenda to delay action on the annual approval of schools to the January 20 board meeting.

I so move.

Any directors have any questions or comments on this motion to amend the agenda?

Director Peters.

Well I greatly appreciate having more time for the schools to completely complete these reports.

The reports are fairly detailed and in order for us to feel confident in our approval of these reports I think we need to have them in a more finalized version.

So thank you for this choice of delay.

Director Burke.

I would also like to thank Superintendent Nyland for the extra time to allow schools and executive directors to ensure that these plans are complete and accurate prior to board approval.

This was a platform document during my campaign so I feel kind of passionate about it.

And I see these as a vehicle for building-based transparency, autonomy, and change.

And CSIPs are one of the tools that incorporate the active participation and input of building staff and students and family.

So community, it's really important that we get these plans right and truly engage all the stakeholder voices.

So thank you for that.

Director Harris.

A matter close to my heart.

I think this goes both to transparency and accountability and we can use this as a tool to compare apples to apples to go to our laptops or our phones and find out everything we want to know and bring to the table your ideas and suggestions.

Thank you.

Any other board directors have any comments?

I would also like to add to the rest of my colleagues.

This is actually an area that I have actually, every board meeting I have asked about this whenever it comes up in terms of the CC and really wanted to find out exactly before we vote on it you know I always ask are these completed?

How do we know they are completed?

And staff would always tell us we know they are completed because the principal has told us to.

But in terms of actually looking at to make sure it is completed we wanted to see some data that actually goes along.

If a school is not succeeding in terms of the plan they have I would like to see something that tells us why are they not succeeding or if they are succeeding and completed the plan What do we have to prove to say that they actually have completed that plan?

So hopefully by delaying this we as directors can actually look into this and see what we can do to work together with staff in order for us to be able to really move this forward and really see a concrete plan that is going to be successful for every school making sure that every student in every school are getting the equitable education that they deserve.

So thank you for that.

I want to call on Ms. Fobey to vote on the meeting agenda.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

We will now address the superintendent's request to add the Orca Car Passport program enhancement for free and reduced lunch secondary students for the 2015-16 school year to the agenda as in the deduction item number one.

I would note that this motion is specifically regarding adding the item to the agenda not the merits of the item itself.

I will now entertain a motion to amend the agenda by adding the ORCA card passport program enhancement for free and reduced lunch secondary students for the 2015-2016 school year item to the agenda as introduction item number one.

I so move.

Before I ask for director comments I would like to add that at this point we are just discussing whether to amend the agenda and should this item be added for introduction.

That will be the time to discuss the proposed agreement.

I will now ask directors for questions or comment.

I would like to ask Ms. Foley for the vote on amending the agenda.

Director Peters.

Aye.

One second.

The motion is right here.

Right there.

Okay so I need to do that then.

Okay go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead.

All right we had a slight oversight so I am going to withdraw my motion.

Okay Jill you need to do that.

I hereby withdraw my motion.

And I'm now going to make another motion.

All right.

To amend the agenda by adding the ORCA card passport program enhancement for free and reduced lunch secondary students for the 2015 school year and also to the agenda as introduction item number one.

Okay.

And waive for the purposes of this motion only from the requirements that the item be posted to the district's website at least three days in advance of the meeting as discussed in policy number 1420. We need a second please.

So now we vote on that don't we?

Now Ms.

Foley.

Director Peters.

Point of order.

Director Blanford.

I'm just curious as to what just transpired.

Why did that change?

Okay originally we were supposed to read in the motion and also make clear that we are asking to waive a policy and so it is very important to be open about that and so that is part of our request tonight is to waive a policy.

And I had not read that into the record yet.

You are welcome.

Thank you for asking.

I know that was kind of confusing.

I apologize everyone.

Ms. Fobey.

Director Peters again.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Thank you.

We have now reached the consent portion of the agenda and I would call for a motion on the consent agenda.

I motion to approve the consent agenda.

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

Seeing none, all those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

The consent agenda has now passed.

If items are removed from the consent agenda, never mind.

Okay let's see what's next on it.

All right we are actually now into our public testimony.

If the meeting reaches public testimony, as we have reached the public testimony portion of the agenda it is now after 5 so we will go ahead and call three names at a time and before I do that I would like actually to stress the rules.

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

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

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

When the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

So the first three names I would like to And please, if I destroy your name, I apologize.

The first three names is Nate Kodal, Chris Jenkins, and Melissa Westbrook.

Hello my name is Nate Quidal and I am currently serving as a sophomore class representative at Roosevelt high school as well as one of Roosevelt's lacrosse captains.

Roosevelt is a phenomenal school with great student leaders, athletes, artists and most importantly learners.

A place where everybody is somebody.

A little insight into how Roosevelt is currently doing pertains to our main goal of inclusion which is to create a community culture at Roosevelt high school in which all students feel welcomed, recognized and celebrated.

Looking out into the horizon as the month of love, February approaches, the student leadership class is combining love and inclusion to make an unforgettable memory for all Roosevelt High School students.

We will be hosting kindness week, a spirit week in which all the lockers and floors are covered in inspiring and uplifting words as well as random acts of kindness such as passing out candy and bubbles for our students and our lunchtime activities of trivia and cast competition games.

We also plan during the month of February to host our annual pancake breakfast where students can come eat homemade breakfast if they bring one can of food for our local homeless shelters as well as Valentine hearts overflowing the staircases and walls.

A specific event approaching that focuses just on that celebration of students is our annual diversity week.

A week in which students from different cultural backgrounds emerge from their clubs to participate in a week of cultural identity appreciation of others and overall celebration of unity within diversity.

Now one of the pressing issues, pressing student concerns is food selling during this one specific week.

Cultural clubs such as black student union are allowed to sell foods usually pertaining to that culture.

usually pertaining to their culture, such as fried chicken and cornbread for Black Student Union, French club crepes, and Chinese club dumplings.

Because trust me.

The best way to a teenage student's heart is most likely always through the stomach.

Which leads me to say that our next main concern is with policy 6700 the distribution and sale of competitive foods which was passed on June 18, 2014. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the fellow Seattle Public High School students as well as a chance to hear on behalf of the board members and other public testimonies.

Thank you.

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. On self-help playground projects at Viewlands, Broadview Thompson and Lawton.

Four points.

Number one, these projects are funded by the city, King County, the school district and PTAs including individual and corporate donors.

The agreements related to the funds are not attached.

Number two, the currently proposed building expansion at Loyal Heights would demolish a playground constructed by the neighborhood.

In a few years could the same thing happen at Viewlands, Brodget-Thompson and Lott.

Number three, the board should be told who the private donors are.

Number four, last year the district accepted a grant that required that the identity of the donor remain secret.

This is not the way to conduct the public's business.

On certifying unavailability of facilities in contiguous districts.

The board did not receive a listing of school enrollments and capacity from other districts.

Please vote no.

On revised bell times, three points.

Number one, just as with school closures Schools were pitted against each other.

Some communities won, others lost.

Regardless of outcome the process was flawed.

Number two, appeals have been filed challenging the district's environmental review process on bell time changes.

Number three, the district clearly did not follow its own policy.

A simple way to resolve the appeals would be for the board to rescind the previous vote and follow a proper process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I always like to tell new board members and superintendents congratulations and welcome.

Please let me know how I can help.

On the CSIPs I am glad this item was pulled because it is better to get it done well than to just get it done.

Every school CSIP should be at its website.

I did a random check of 16 schools and I could only find it on one school's website.

On capacity management a couple of items.

From the BAR this action will allocate $2.5 million from BTA III and BEX IV capital.

I don't have a problem with using capital funds for this work but there are no attached documents at all explaining what projects are either being canceled or delayed by this shift in funds.

When taxpayers are told one thing when they vote and then it changes the staff needs to be clear about what that means.

As we saw this week Rainier Beach High School's boiler took a long time to heat up after the very cold weekend and as well the building is in poor shape.

So they are not all alone and capital dollars matter.

I also note in this list of what needs to be done quote conversion of 19 childcare classrooms to 19 new home as Dr. Herndon spoke about.

Please forward this bar to the City Council and the Mayor when they come knocking at your door for space for their preschool program.

There is no room at the inn and clearly the district needs all the space it can get.

I also want to observe the issue of possibly closing Roxhill to I spoke, I was on the board's closure and consolidation committee and I know what it means to close a school.

You must be very careful in what you close and why.

There are real costs to closing a building only to open it again later.

I also want to end on the EEU program at UW.

Again we see action by the superintendent and staff that seems to come out of nowhere.

You should ask for more clarification and ask the superintendent that there be a longer timeline for notification and explanation on the closure of any program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Theo, Pauline, Nexter, Jordan and Patricia Bailey.

of Theo Pauline Nestor.

Hi I am here today to ask you to support the continued funding of the EEU kindergarten.

As Wyeth Jesse stated earlier the EEU kindergarten's effectiveness is not in question.

The EEU kindergarten is not broken for children.

It is not failing to meet their educational needs.

When an educational program doesn't work for children that is the time for adults to step in and defund.

But the discontinuation of an effective program would be asking children to pay the price for an adult administrative problem.

Besides access only by lottery the other rationale for defunding has been that the general population students are benefiting from a program funded by special ed funds.

This seems to be a problem caused by the EU's revolutionary excellence.

The proven success of the program results directly from its visionary approach of including typically developing students who model typical behaviors in the classroom.

Again this is a program, is a problem, an accounting one that is an adult problem that children would have to pay for if the kindergarten's funding were to be discontinued.

You will hear testimonies today from parents whose kids are currently enrolled in the EU.

When you hear these testimonies please remember that the lives of parents of special needs kids are already beleaguered with tasks.

They don't have time or energy for this but they are making time because this program works for them.

I have nothing to gain personally today.

My daughter attended the EEU preschool in 2003. She did so well they wanted to pull her out.

But the then principal argued she is doing well because of the program.

She needs to stay.

She graduated from the EEU kindergarten in 2004 and has just received her first letter of college acceptance.

Yay, thank you EEU.

My family was served by Seattle Public Schools Alliance with the EU.

I hope that will be true for other families in years to come.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm going to cede my spot to Anna Fragomeni.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Anna Fragomeni and my daughter Amelia has attended the EEU since she was two and a half years old after having a brain tumor removed and being diagnosed with autism.

She is currently attending the amazing EEU kindergarten program.

Amelia's life and ours has been changed forever because of the EEU, literally.

But I'm not here to talk only about Amelia.

I'm here to talk about the outsized impact that the EEU provides for children with special needs well beyond the students directly served in its program.

The EEU in partnership with Seattle Public Schools and the University of Washington has helped to make great leaps forward for special education locally and nationally.

In the 1960s the EU's founder and staff were the first to prove that children with Down syndrome could learn.

Prior to this children with Down syndrome didn't go to school.

In the decades since the EU has partnered with Seattle Public Schools to serve children, develop groundbreaking research and programs and train hundreds of the best special education and inclusion focused teachers in Seattle and the region.

The EEU is a shining star and a regional gem for special education.

It's something that Seattle Public Schools has been doing right for the decades of its partnership.

If you go to Kindering Center which is a successful sought after Bellevue early intervention program featured last week in the Seattle Times.

You will find a faculty of many EEU trained teachers and a program modeled after the EEU's.

In fact, you will find the EEU's fingerprint in most of the successful special education classrooms throughout the region.

Please don't let 2016 be known as the great leap backwards for special education and inclusion in the region.

Please work together to come up with a resolution to this issue and continue your contract with the EEU kindergarten.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I am a 20 plus year veteran teacher in Seattle and it appears that if my evaluator has his way this will be my last.

Despite having been evaluated just two years ago with the highest rating possible and never having received an unsatisfactory evaluation during my career my teaching is now labeled unsatisfactory because I do not use readers and writers workshop methods with fidelity.

I have heard of other teachers in the district being similarly pressured.

My classroom management is good, students are engaged in achieving and the parents are satisfied but the problem is I will not forego my years of experience with what works for the exclusive use of prescribed methods.

If my MAP standardized test scores show my students underperforming then indeed it is my responsibility to make changes to increase student achievement.

Historically my students have exceeded district growth averages according to map.

However, I have not received these scores for the last two years.

I've asked my principal for a chance to discuss the missing scores with him, but he seems uninterested.

He said he did not have access to them and further added, quote, I'm not sure how they would be useful to you, unquote.

My school's CSIP states that curricular decisions are driven by test data.

However, to my dismay, this has not been the case for many years.

As explained, the exclusive use of readers and writers workshop is mandated even though it is not school board adopted, contains many academic gaps, is not in line with the state standards, and was recently discarded in New York City as being deficient.

My question to you, is your strategic plan centered on student achievement or on specific methods?

Also, please help me obtain my math scores so I can see if my eminent forcing out is justified.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alexandria Chung and Cynthia Portico.

I would like to cede my time to Gangame Halaki.

Hi my name is Kana Mehalake and I'm from East Africa.

I'm in Seattle for 23 years.

I have high school kids in Seattle public school but I'm a parent of EEU for five years.

My three kids graduated from EEU program.

My daughter graduated last year from kindergarten.

When she's heading to first grade they tested her, she passed in school for second grade level.

She went to private school.

And she get a full scholarship.

I want to keep our EEO program as it is now.

We need more funding.

We have my daughter.

She's not a special ed, but we have a lot of special ed in the class.

We have wonderful teachers.

We love it.

And when my daughter attend there, between my hours working, I took a bus to pick up my daughter, put my daughter in the corner.

sit with me until I finish working.

That's why my other kids can keep coming to the EEU.

They have a wonderful staff, wonderful teacher.

We need to keep our EEU kindergarten program.

More funding for them, please.

Cynthia Portugal.

Good evening, I'm here to support our EEU community and ask for your assistance in upholding EEU's high quality inclusive education programs.

It's every child's right to be and feel included and my boys, Gabo and Oscar and all the other students and families at the EEU share this right.

In a truly inclusive environment all children belong and all children learn in different ways.

None of this is new to anyone in this room but perhaps the way we approach inclusion differs.

Inclusive education is based on the simple idea that every child and family is valued equally and deserves the same opportunities and experiences.

Done successfully an inclusive education builds friendships, membership and community and gives opportunities to my boys just like every other child in the school and every other family in the community.

One of the primary factors that sets the EU's inclusive education apart is that the EU not only teaches key skills but they strive to cultivate a culture in which genuine relationships can develop among children and families who might be very different from one another.

As a result our boys have made deep friendships who might be very different from one another Friendships with classmates that have positively impacted their happiness and quality of life.

We are blessed to be very busy with play dates and birthday parties with all of their friends of all abilities.

Inclusion is not about access to things or lack of access to things.

Inclusion is a community's continuous state of being.

It's not something you turn on and off or put in and out.

It's ever-present, without much thought.

At EEU, autism does not define Gabo and Oscar.

Their passion for their superheroes, artistic masterpieces, love of Legos, picky eating habits, and deep brotherly bond with each other is what defines them in our EEU community.

Our boys are just two more children learning, having fun, getting into trouble, and making lasting friendships in their school.

Our boys and our family has thrived in the EU's inclusive environment where we feel we belong all the time, not just part of the time or part of the day.

By defunding the EU's kindergarten program it is clear that Seattle Public Schools does not define inclusive education this way or perhaps it is choosing not to implement a truly high-quality inclusive education in our community.

I ask you to please assist us in having SPS reverse the decision to defund the EU's high-quality inclusive kindergarten program.

SPS should be prideful in its partnership with the EU and together continue to use the high-quality inclusive program as a model from which all schools, teachers and staff can learn to grow their communities for children of all abilities.

Inclusion matters.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Police can you state your name before you speak so we know who you are on our list.

Hi I'm Alexandra Chuang from Garfield Earth Corps.

I'm here to talk about access to drinking water in Seattle Public Schools.

While we have clean water in our schools various factors discourage proper hydration and the use of drinking fountains.

For example there is often dirt, gum and food in the fountains and in some schools like Rainier Beach the water is lukewarm.

While this may sound trivial we've had multiple students tell us that these factors create a stigma against the school drinking water.

Furthermore, in some schools there are signs in bathrooms saying do not drink the water.

While these signs are necessary their wording adds the misconception that our water, all of our water is not safe to drink.

This issue impacts student health and academic success as hydration is vital especially when we sit at desks for six hours a day.

Without proper water access students are likely to turn towards sugary alternatives.

Improving water access for all students would mean addressing issues of food justice and social justice.

Environmentally it would mean less plastic waste in schools and reducing support for unethical unsustainable corporations.

Now I want to give my time to Hannah Mumey.

Hi my name is Hannah and I'm also a member of Garfield Earth Corps.

Our solution is to install one water bottle refill station in every Seattle public school.

These refill stations have motion sensors which are not only hygienic but are also visually appealing and will encourage the use of reusable bottles.

This will combat the stigma around school drinking fountains, encourage students to hydrate and create a more positive learning environment.

Fortunately it won't be hard to find funding for this project as the state office of the superintendent of public instruction is offering $1 million to any district that wants to install a station in each of their schools.

All we need is for the Seattle School District to apply for this grant by February 19th.

We will email this application to you and hope that you take all of our points into consideration and apply for the grant.

Thank you for your time.

Robert Fimiano, Eliza Rankin and Laura Lynn Dixon.

Robert Fimiano, a former Seattle school teacher.

Can you read this word?

If I was using Reader's Workshop in my classroom, I would instruct students to read the picture for clues to this word.

I would tell them to look at other words around it to determine the pronunciation.

Or I would ask them if it looked like another word that they knew.

I might suggest using the first and last letters to guess something that makes sense.

Do test scores show this is an effective way to reach all students?

Because this type of teaching is happening all across the district.

Reader's workshop is sometimes mandated schoolwide by principals.

It claims to be a balanced approach to teaching reading but it isn't because it shuns systematic teaching of the underlying vital skills of reading, namely phonics.

To read this word, you used phonics to sound it out letter by letter.

The alphabet was invented to encode the individual sounds within a word.

Without understanding this relationship between speech and print, many children struggle to make sense of how reading works.

For them, it's often a guessing game with the inevitable ensuing frustrations.

So just why are we keeping this code a secret from them?

A few years ago I testified to the school board that my second grade math reading scores more than doubled the district average four years in a row.

I suggested it wasn't me as much as it was phonics and the fact that direct and systematic instruction was far more effective than using strategies.

I offered to share my methods but no one contacted me.

So I'm making you the same offer again.

As a past adjunct faculty at a local university I will train your K-3 teachers for free in hopes of providing a truly balanced reading program for our collective children.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Eliza Rankin.

Hi, since September many issues have come up that fill this auditorium with people passionate about their cause.

Staff reallocations, bell time changes, Queen Anne Elementary, Mill College and today inclusive kindergarten at the EEU.

You hear moving stories, passionate pleas and some kind of solution has reached the tide of concerned parent ebbs until the next emergency.

I think the time is long overdue for us to stop jumping up to put out fires and look at where the matches are coming from.

The big picture that these flare ups distract us from is this, our district is putting a corporate agenda and a deference to data ahead of its educational and ethical responsibility.

None of these emergencies have come out of an issue relating to students or schools.

They've all come directly from district administration as they react to budget concerns, OSPI, what have you and then teachers, students and families bear the brunt of the fallout.

Administrative policies are slowly but steadily marching us all towards sameness and standardization and telling us that it's about equity and it has to change.

I have two sons, one is an EEU grad and one is a current preschooler.

I don't need to tell you how wonderful it is because these people will.

I am constantly adapting my parenting as I raise them with this small sample size of two.

Two boys, same parents growing up in the same household with the same resources and they couldn't be more different.

Nothing that worked for the first son works for the second and as frustrating as it is I have to adapt and set expectations differently for each of them.

Our district is responsible for over 52,000 kids every day five days a week and one of them is not like another, one classroom is not like another, one school is not like another.

We are hitting our heads against the wall if we keep operating as though changing the children to fit the system is going to work and I have not enough time to say all these things I want to say.

Basically I want a change in our priorities.

Students need to come ahead of the system.

When I wrote an email with concerns about the changes at Middle College the response I got closed with please no decisions are made in the best interest of each and every student of Seattle schools.

That's not good enough.

I want to see that the students are the top priority not just hear that the students are the top priority and have a pat on the head and be sent on my way.

That's not good enough.

You need to go to the schools, talk to the parents, talk to the students, ask us what we need instead of telling us what we're going to get.

talk to the educators and do the work of creating a district that meets the needs of all of its students, not just the ones who can comfortably fit within the constraints of increasingly limited options.

It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of time.

I have a really easy, fast suggestion that you can do right now which is to the flowchart of.

Please conclude your comments.

organization at the top I'd like to see another box added that says 52,313 Seattle Public School students and have everything else come under that.

If you propose that anybody who resists that you should really ask them why because I would like to hear it because I don't think there's any reason why the students shouldn't be first in any case.

Thank you.

I handed out this photo to all of you, hope you have it.

My name is Lynn Dixon.

My son Ted has autism spectrum disorder.

He attends the EU preschool.

One of his favorite activities there is dramatic play.

He's the one pictured here calling an ambulance when another child was sick.

When his teacher sent me this picture I was shocked and delighted that Ted knew how to call an ambulance.

and that he was playing with other kids.

At his previous two preschools, Ted didn't interact with other children.

He alternated between acting out and laying on the couch sucking his thumb.

His teachers didn't know how to help him.

Because of his disruptive behavior, we were asked to reduce his schedule to half days.

Each day, I'd pick Ted up at noon while the other children were excitedly settling in for lunch.

He'd look at me, sad and confused, unsure as to what he'd done wrong.

It took four months, half a school year, for Ted to be evaluated and sent to a developmental preschool.

In his class of 10 at Viewlands, there was one typically developing peer.

We had gone from being isolated to being segregated.

Then I toured the EU.

There I saw kids with and without special needs learning and playing alongside one another.

In most cases, I couldn't tell the difference.

Looking at this picture, I doubt you can either.

This is what inclusion looks like.

We'd hope that Ted would move up to the EU kindergarten next year.

That after four years, three years of being juggled to four different preschools, he could finally stay put.

It's looking less likely.

What the district in essence is telling us is that the EU is too successful, that other schools can't possibly meet the same standard of inclusion.

And therefore the EU special education kindergarten shouldn't exist.

You're right, it's not fair that some kids have access to this wonderful program and some kids don't.

So why not make the EU the model for other schools?

Why not give every child typical and non-typical access to what is being offered at the EU rather than taking it away from Ted?

Thank you.

Dr. James Kaur, Dwight Raleigh, and Elma Felbush.

If I pronounce your name wrong please excuse me.

Dr. James Kaur.

Good evening.

I'm here representing the Jackson Street music program and we are petitioning the school district for inclusion, more inclusion regarding the public schools station C89.

One of the aspects of inclusion stems from the fact that I had a public school student parent who is a client of mine on a station that we do content marketing and she wanted a project for her kids this summer and she paid for it.

And I told her, I said this Seattle Public School District has a station where students could possibly do a project like the one you are proposing to me.

Which is a genre called storytelling, which is talking about things that are going on in the community.

Turns out that the kids have done about five months of this program which the parent Dr. Price has paid for and it has been the most successful program on my particular radio show.

And the kids and some of the kids are actually in the audience who they've interviewed have been very very pleased with the outcome, they've been engaged.

And so I at the beginning of the school year went and talked to the new general manager of the station who actually asked, who has told me that we can be included.

But my concern is that it seems like the station is limited to only a certain area in the programming Although it is an award winning program station, the music stems because of the type of music, it could be looked at as somewhat segregated because not all the students in the public school district listen.

And an interesting thing when I've asked some of the kids, they don't even know that they have a station.

that should be inclusive to all the students.

So we are actually going to start our program next month.

However it is something I think this valuable asset should be.

Please conclude your comments.

Yes ma'am.

Should be utilized to the better benefit of the entire school district.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Dwight Rowley.

Honorable commissioners my name is Dwight Rowley and I'm the father of three kids in the Seattle school system.

Two of my children have IEPs and my second child Alex is a recent graduate of the latest EEU kindergarten class.

When Alex entered EEU he had considerable social sensory and academic challenges.

Across the board he tested less than 10 percentile in almost all the developmental categories.

But during his year at EU it was pretty clear that all the teachers and the aides and the students saw and accepted Alex for who he was, for both his challenges and his talents.

And an interesting thing happened, he began to really blossom.

He made significant social and academic gains.

His relationship with school changed, in fact he actually wanted to go to school every day.

Most importantly for us he completed most of his IEP goals and we were able to set even more challenging ones for the following year for first grade.

So that gain in kindergarten was extremely significant for us.

There are 20 students a year who have the opportunity to blossom the way that Alex did this past year.

That will continue to occur if the school district continues to back the EU kindergarten program.

Obviously you've heard a lot of testimony about its unique approach on inclusion and acceptance but that extra year of kindergarten really helps the school district out.

If you consider the fact that 20 kids a year will get that extra gain and leap with all these people surrounding them, all the love that's surrounding them, all the efforts, it really has a profound effect on each kid.

And just consider that impact on school district resources when you have 20 kids every year getting that, getting those resources.

Finally I'd like to conclude to let you know that Alex has successfully transitioned to a mainstream classroom.

primarily because of the skills that he acquired and sharpened at EEU.

He continues to have these challenges, but because of the partnership with EEU, it really helps the families advocate for their kids.

And this is my youngest son, Andy.

He's been in the EEU program for three years.

When he entered EEU, he was nonverbal.

He's four and a half, and he can now read.

So if that doesn't show what the EEU can do, I don't know what does.

So please continue to support this program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Emma Felposh.

On the district's international education webpage the first bullet under current initiative states expansion of the international school pathways.

The bullet continues stating that additional schools will be added.

Until the board and the district commit to fully supporting the international program in more than words I implore you to delay further expansion.

Prioritize quality over quantity in international schools so that other Seattle families are not put in the maddening situation that we face at Dearborn Park International.

My first grade son is four months into the school year and he still does not have a lead teacher in math and science.

A recent assessment revealed the unsurprising finding that our kids math skills are not where they should be at this point in the school year.

Our principal has brought in an English speaking guest teacher and our assistant teachers and many classroom volunteers are all working hard to educate our kids.

But the fact remains the district has not adequately supported our school.

This lack of support is resulting in measurable impacts on academics.

The difficulty in recruiting teachers for the dual language program is a problem the district has faced for years and yet no clear path has been developed to identify and hire teachers.

There is no logic in bringing on additional international schools without a plan to adequately staff them.

Doing so degrades the quality of our core academics, math, science and literacy.

I ask that the board actively and urgently work with the district to ensure each class is properly staffed at the start of every school year so that we can continue to expand and enjoy the many many many benefits of the international program without sacrificing quality.

I ask that you approach this problem as if it was your child who has not had a lead teacher all year.

As if it was your child whose academics are not progressing on schedule and your child who is receiving the message that their academics are not a priority.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Stephanie Prima-Table, Vilarious M. Luskies, and Laura Wood.

My name is Stephanie Primitivo and I'm here in support of the EU and the programming that they offer not only to my son but to many families.

My son was diagnosed with ASD early last year and was eventually placed into developmental preschool through the school district.

During his time there he did not learn or progress as I was hoping he would.

He spent a lot of time there alone.

He did not have the support he needed to succeed.

This year he attends the EEU and the change in him and his progress has been tremendous.

He is more social and vocal and has learned more this past quarter than he did all of last year.

The EEU offers him the support he needs, access to typically developing peers, and most importantly, he feels like he belongs.

This is all due to inclusion.

Inclusion matters in his life, our family's life, and the lives of the families in our community.

It is vital.

My son has friends that are typical and non-typical, and he has learned so much from them both.

Autism doesn't define him here.

Kindergarten at the EU will give him the continued confidence he needs to succeed and will allow him to make up for lost time.

He deserves the right to feel included and have the sense of belonging.

The goal should always be progress in all aspects of the education system and for all of our children.

This decision that was made by your administration is not progress it is regression.

This decision is greatly affecting our family amongst many others.

I urge you to assist us in overturning this decision.

and continue funding a program that has positively impacted the lives of so many students and families.

The EU is setting the standard of what inclusion should look like and feel like across all schools.

The district should be giving them their full support and championing their success, not taking away their funding.

I can honestly say that the teachers, staff, and families at the EU are my heroes and are angels in my son's life.

Their expertise and the support they offer are priceless.

I humbly ask you to please help us with this and make inclusion a priority.

Inclusion matters.

My son and my family thank you for your time.

Thank you.

As a quick introduction I'm Lieutenant Colonel Vilius Leskis of the United States Army and I want to thank this board for the opportunity to address my concerns about anti-military organizations on our school grounds.

In short I believe that these organizations have overly broad access and provide blatantly inaccurate information to our students.

During my 24 years in the Army and with the assistance of the GI Bill, I've had the opportunity to earn my Master's and a Juris Doctor.

And as an attorney and officer, I've come to understand and appreciate our Washington State Senate Bill 5114, the legislation pertaining to K-12 campus access for occupational or educational information.

And frankly, I don't understand how anti-military organizations are provided such unfettered access to our schools.

They've had admittance to at least eight schools in the district.

In most cases, representatives from these organizations are able to set up a table adjacent to a military recruiter and will wait to interact with students only after they have spoken to that recruiter.

These organizations are allowed to set up any time a military sister service is present under the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security, allowing them up to five appearances per term when each service, much like any single university, can only appear once per term under the Senate bill.

They are therefore provided greater access to schools than any of the post-secondary occupational or educational representatives to include any university.

As a rhetorical question would an anti-Stafford anti-Stanford or anti-Peace Corps organization be provided with the same access.

Without better understanding of how these organizations are permitted to have this access to our schools one can only assume that it is under the guise of equal admittance under the Senate bill that solidifies parity of access.

These organizations however provide no substantive occupational or educational opportunities for students required to comport with the law merely exist to negate an option for students to join the all-volunteer military force.

I conclude with reiterating that within the auspices of the law these anti-military organizations should not have the access they have and I believe this board should ban them from our schools.

If perhaps they haven't granted their unfettered access based on a 501c3 nonprofit status then I ask once again rhetorically do other nonprofits have the same access like the American Legion?

I wish once again to say thank you for the opportunity to bring this issue to light and I greatly appreciate your consideration.

Thank you.

Laura Woods.

Thank you.

Directors, Superintendent, my name is Laura Wood.

I came here tonight to urge you to please do everything in your power to renew the EEU Kindergarten's contract with Seattle schools.

I have three wonderful sons.

Alex is 13 now and my twins Henry and Patrick are 11. They're all graduates of the EEU program in kindergarten.

And today, all three of them are thriving in regular classrooms.

Thinking back to those early days, it was really tough having three little kids with special needs, all three of them.

It was easy to feel like my kids would never fit in or never have friends.

But at the EEU, all the kids, with or without disabilities, learned side by side.

My kids had the benefit of playing alongside typically developing peers and learning from them.

At the same time, typically developing kids benefited.

They were learning how to be understanding and kind, playing alongside kids who were diverse in so many ways.

They were diverse physically, socially, emotionally, and neurologically.

It is so crucial that kids with special needs like mine have a meaningful fully inclusive education and the EEU is the leader and the role model for this type of classroom.

The Seattle school district should continue its longstanding contract with the EEU.

I urge you to ensure that the funding to the EEU kindergarten continues for the next school year and beyond so that more kids can experience the inclusive kindergarten mine did.

Thank you.

Katie Wilson, Laura Wright.

Hi my name is Katie Wilson and I'm the General Secretary of the Transit Riders Union.

Over the past year we've been working with students and educators at Rainier Beach High School and together we were successful in getting the city to allocate $1 million per year for the next five years to fund transit passes for low income students.

We are very happy to see the school district moving quickly to turn this money into ORCA cards and to get them into students hands.

However the Transit Riders Union along with the students and teachers who have worked so hard to secure this city funding have some serious concerns about the school district's current proposal for administering this program.

Specifically we do not believe it is equitable or necessary to categorically limit the new ORCA passes to students who live between one and two miles from their school.

There are very good reasons why some students who live within the one mile radius need a pass.

For example their parents may be divorced and one may live in another part of the city or they may want to participate in extracurricular activities that take place elsewhere or last until after dark.

We do understand that the state will reimburse the cost or most of the cost of the passes only for students who live more than one mile from school and we understand the concerns of the school district that this program be sustainable.

However I think it's important to recognize that when we and the city council identified this funding we did not know that the state would reimburse it at all.

We assumed that after five years the city would extend funding for the program if Prop 1 was renewed or find a comparable source elsewhere if it was not.

So the fact that the state will reimburse is excellent, it's wonderful and it opens great possibilities for expanding transit access even further.

It would be incredibly unfortunate and unjust if the promise of more money than we thought was there led to a decision to restrict the passes to a small pool of students and exclude students who really need them including some of the students who are active in advocating for this program.

We and the students and the teachers have some very specific ideas as to how this proposal could be amended slightly to address these concerns.

We hope that you will maybe meet with us or talk with us before the January 20th board meeting so that we can discuss this issue and arrive at a simple and equitable solution for allocating transit passes to students.

Thank you.

Good evening my name is Laura Wright.

We are part of the Rainier Beach transit justice team that procured the $1 million for ORCA cards.

We would like to be included in how this money gets allocated and we would like to provide input on the pending action plan.

I would like to remind all of us that without the brave and persevering efforts of our Rainier Beach high school students the district would not have this money.

Their willingness to march, testify, rally their peers and community, develop compelling solutions, walk with political leaders, share their obstacles about their daily commute has brought us all to this point today.

Yet sadly they have not been consulted with and have not been included in this decision-making process.

This is not equity.

As a school district pursuing equity it is your legal duty to keep us, the community, informed and involved in this process.

The students who have been raising awareness who understand this issue better than any of us because they are living it every single day must be informed and involved in this decision-making process.

The original ask from our Rainier Beach students is that all high school free and reduced lunch students be included regardless of walk zone to receive an ORCA card.

In the current proposed plan there are 1,200 free and reduced lunch high school students who would be excluded from receiving an ORCA card including many students who have been advocating since this summer for ORCA cards.

We must prioritize the students walking to school who need these bus passes to access after school programming, running start jobs and extracurricular activities.

Some of you were unable to attend our student town hall in October.

Therefore before this action is voted on I am requesting that the school board and authors of the proposed plan meet with and listen to our students and the Rainier Beach transit justice team.

As we move forward with this action who better to consult with than the students who are currently impacted most by this issue.

We will have a follow-up email with a personal invitation to meet with our students in your inboxes tomorrow.

Remember this is about equity not equality.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This is the end of our testimony and we are now going to move on to our board comments.

As it is late in the meeting already I would like to remind directors that they may refrain from providing comments if they wish.

I would also request that if directors have comments on an agenda item that will be discussed this evening that they wait until that item is up for discussion to make those comments.

And also I would like to welcome Director Pinkham who just arrived.

Then I'll raise your hand at once.

Dr. Carey.

I will keep this brief.

I want to make sure that everybody knows that I am going to have my second community meeting on January 16 at the Montlake community center from 11 to 1. Everybody is invited to join me there.

I also wanted to let the community know that I am in the process of setting up meetings with all of the schools in District 3 of the Seattle Public Schools because I want to take this time and opportunity one to meet with the, at least initially within the district that I've been assigned to, to meet with those schools, meet with the principals, have an opportunity to review their CSIP so that I understand what those plans contain what they mean to our communities and so I have set that up with Laurelhurst and McGilvra in the process of setting it up with Thornton Creek and I invite any school that wants me to come and visit them and sit down with them and please reach out to your directors and invite the same.

I think that will actually give us the real view of what those CSIPs mean.

Something that's on paper versus what's actually happening in the school.

I wanted to give a little shout out for Nate Coitle.

I've known him since kindergarten and I can't be more proud of a young man who would get up and stand before me now and celebrate inclusion in his high school.

very touching and that gets to of course all of these programs again I said it in the last meeting and I will say it every single time I get up here that we need to continue to look for ways to provide education that meets the individual needs of our kids whether they have an IEP or not and that I do not accept anywhere anyhow or anytime that what is happening at the EEU only has to happen at the EEU but certainly Over my career I have met too many families and I have seen too many children who have gone from isolation to inclusion and I know what that means to each and every family.

And so that is something that I will continue to be open to and look for ways to make happen for all of our families.

Thank you President Patu.

Same day, different time for my community meeting and I did that purposely so if you have an issue you can ride circuit.

That would be January 2016, 3 p.m.

to 4.30 p.m.

at the Southwest Branch Library, 35th Avenue Southwest, Southwest Trenton.

I look forward to seeing you all there and I look forward to tagging one or two of y'all sitting at the wall to come in with me.

Congratulations to Clover Codd and Brent Jones.

I'm excited for this.

I don't know what your new titles are, so I mean no disrespect by not prefacing those titles.

I'm excited about the future.

For those that have asked, I've been treated really well down here.

and really transparently and I've got to tell you it's delightful and we're getting to know folks.

Folks are being responsive and we're digging down into some of the issues for which you elected us for and I'm very excited about forward progress and that certainly goes for you Superintendent Larry.

had the pleasure last night of meeting with the Lafayette PTSA and I brought some show and tell.

This is Al the alligator's foot.

Al is a playground structure that the district and the PTSA and the school all split up by thirds over a year ago because the old owl was damaged.

The new owl was put on a pallet on the playground and poor owl's foot got broken.

The folks out at Lafayette PTSA and at the school are frustrated that we can't get owl put back together again so that the kids can enjoy owl and We'll figure out a way.

We'll hold hands and figure out a way.

This is a PTSA that works real hard, that raises over $100,000 a year to fund staff positions.

And, you know, that's absolutely an equity issue.

And Lafayette PTSA asked as well that I advise that their demographics have changed greatly in the last five years.

They are no longer the elitist non-diverse school that they continue to be perceived as.

And they welcome the opportunity to show you all that.

And I was real excited to see their data points and to see the partnership that they have.

Lieutenant Colonel Lasky, thank you for coming.

Thank you for your service, sir.

I'm a military brat.

Most of my siblings have either served or been spouses, but I would suggest to you that if you're serious about this issue, please send us real data, dated data, so that we can address it.

And also, we need to address our policies.

Because about 10 years ago, Seattle Public Schools had very specific policies put into place about military recruiting.

And certainly with data and sourcing and citations as a lawyer, happy to dialogue with you.

Thank you for the young people that showed up here tonight to testify.

Here's a hint.

When you call the magic number, tell them you're a student and you go to the front of the line.

Please use the email if you're going to testify.

Excuse me?

That is not the case?

My feet are small, they both fit.

Keep us posted via email.

Send us information because you can't cover what you need to cover in that two minutes.

And I know that my colleagues and I are reading all of your emails.

Thank you very much.

Dr. Peters.

Okay, well maybe it should be a policy that students should go first.

So my list got longer and longer as the night went on so I'm going to try and be not too slow at this.

Okay where to begin.

First of all thank you all for coming out so many moving testimonies that were very Very compelling.

I would like to overall thank all the parents who have been supportive of the board in the last few months.

We've had a lot of, we had a group that provided food for our retreat, I think it was a soup for teachers and we have a lot of different groups that are emerging and they've said they want to help us and I thank them so much for their support.

There have been some very kind gestures sent our way.

And I believe this is a good year for us to reach out to our communities and bring them to the table.

So just wanted to give you a thank you for that.

Housekeeping, I will have a community meeting this Saturday January 9 from 11 to 1 at the Queen Anne library.

Everyone is welcome.

Regarding EEU, absolutely this is a program that is so worthwhile and so my request has been to the superintendent to staff to see what we can do to find a way to keep it going.

Because I don't understand exactly.

what the issue is and so I'm hoping we can find a creative solution here because you've more than amply demonstrated the incredible value of these programs so thank you.

For many years my children were at Lowell Elementary and at the time there were two programs there, there was a special ed program and there was the APP program and having those two programs together in the same building was so meaningful and it very much influenced my children and who they are today.

So thank you.

Let's see, Martin Luther King celebration will be coming up soon, it will be on Monday in a couple of weeks so we won't have a chance to talk about it before our next meeting.

So I just want to give a shout out to Flip Herndon who has been working very diligently with the Martin Luther King committee who puts on an event at Garfield high school every year.

They've been doing it for 34 years and it's my hope that that event can continue and that we've worked out a good schedule so that that event can happen as well as the basketball events that happen afterwards.

I just want to remind people that there's a historic significance for having a Martin Luther King rally and march emanating from Garfield high school because Garfield was one of the only places that the Reverend King came to in Seattle in 1961 and he spoke at Garfield high school.

So there's amazing history there and it's very important that we keep up this very important event.

So I also want to thank all the members of the MLK committee who are trying to put this together as well.

and also principal Howard over at Garfield.

Alright let's see.

Someone mentioned, Superintendent mentioned in his comments that we are setting aside $2 million to mitigate against any changes in staffing and student enrollment changes at the beginning of next year.

I am very pleased that that is going forward.

It is something that I remember supporting a year ago.

Heather finance, Ken Gotch and I chatted about that not too long ago and I suggested we call that the student stability reserve.

And so I'm really happy we have that.

So thank you to all who made that possible.

Let's see.

The students who came to us about the water and the $1 million grant from OSPI.

Absolutely, please send us that.

I'd be happy to take a look at that.

That sounds like a great opportunity.

So thank you for bringing that to our attention.

Orca cards.

I would like to hear the amendments that the group from Rainier Beach brought to us.

Please send those to us as well so we can fix that.

I understand what you are saying and thank you to all the students who have been advocating for that.

I know it's hard.

It's hard to push for something and you don't know what the result will be and to get this close let's help you get all the way so that every kid can get to school because it's also a safety issue.

And so thank you very much for coming out tonight.

Okay I'm sort of waiting on the readers and writers workshop issue.

Okay I'll get to that one.

So as a parent in Seattle Public Schools for the last 11 years my children also were taught the readers and writers workshop and I saw the value the first year and then the second year it started to get a little bit repetitive and so I am glad this was brought up as well because I know we were talking about bringing in a new language arts curriculum for our K-5 schools and so I would like to ask staff if they could give us an update perhaps in a Friday memo as to where we are at with that because we have had the readers and writers workshop for many many years and I know it has some strengths but I also know it has some serious limitations and obviously we recognize that and we have been talking about replacing it.

And so I would like to know where we are at with that.

I do not think that we should be limiting our teachers to just using those materials that will limit what our students are exposed to so I certainly hope that we are allowing our teachers to use their wisdom and professionalism to expand beyond the limitations of that curriculum or any curriculum to be honest.

And we shouldn't have a fidelity of implementation that completely stifles creativity in education.

And regarding the map scores I would assume that every teacher should be allowed to see his or her map score so if that's not happening I would like to know why that is.

Alright I'm afraid I'm going to forget something Well one little observation I noticed that we have a new city council that was inaugurated on Monday and which is very exciting and actually I think President Patu was also at that event and so we had some good representation there.

I noticed that the media talked with excitement about the new city council and how district elections have brought in more diversity to the city council and new energy.

Well I'd like to say the same I believe has happened with the school board election and so once again I'm thrilled to have my new colleagues here.

I think we have a more diverse board.

I think we have great new energy and I'm really looking forward to working with everybody this year.

So thank you everyone.

Director Burke.

Since my colleagues are doing such a great job with their comments it allows me to be briefer.

I want to start with a shout out to the student speakers.

Having students come to the board, identifying systemic improvements, things that don't just impact them as individuals.

but that impact their peers, their schools, the entire district.

Coming to us with problems and solutions is amazing.

I love that.

Especially when they come with solutions that include potential funding.

So thank you so much for that.

Orca cards, building water, we recognize the importance of hydration for learning.

So yes.

Fully supportive of that, thank you so much.

I appreciate the speakers who spoke on the readers and writers workshop program.

I've had some existing concerns about this since this program is not formally adopted, it's not a board adopted instructional materials and it's referenced pretty extensively in CSIPs and this is something that gives me some pause as a board director that a lot of the buildings are using a program which is not part of an official adoption.

So I definitely would also look to the staff for understanding on what our adoption framework looks like and I'd love to see that in an upcoming Friday memo.

Regarding the EU, I am deeply touched by your emails and your testimony.

This program seems like a desirable program, a successful program.

It aligns with our ideals for inclusive educational service.

It provides training pathways for innovative teachers.

These are teachers that we want to recruit into our district.

And by not renewing future funding, we are sending the wrong message on all of these fronts.

when we should be replicating these.

So these are critical formative years for students and so I've also asked the staff to try to seek out a win-win solution that respects our three decades of history with the EU.

And I thank you for your passionate story.

I'm enthusiastic about the chances of how we're going to come out of the end of this with some amazing things as a district because as part of onboarding as a new school board director I've had the opportunity to meet with many of the staff that are along the wall there and a couple of meetings still left and I'm impressed with their intelligence and their ideas and I think that with a unified board and the innovation that we've got and the passion in the community, we've got a lot of potential to make Seattle even more amazing than it already is.

Personally I had a really great treat to go into Director Harris' district and visit Louisa Boren K. STEM last month.

I want to thank Mr. Craig Parsley for letting me sit in his classroom during math and science.

He teaches the Singapore math program.

And his kids are amazing, including an EEU graduate that's in his program.

So I had the privilege of doing engineering evaluations on their science projects.

They were doing Mars landers.

And so they're developing, they're building these contraptions where, you know, it's a classic school project where they're dropping an egg.

but they're doing it in the context of Mars landers.

And what's amazing about it in the STEM school is not just that they're doing these great projects, but that they're tying it to the science.

They have engineering notebooks.

They have a prototype development cycle.

They're rooting their analysis in the first and second law of thermodynamics.

Newton's first and second law.

And so for me as an engineer to go in there and see these kids, these elementary school kids doing this amazing work, it blew my mind.

So my hat is off to them.

And then in closing I have a community meeting set up Saturday January 30, 10 AM at Greenwood library.

And one of the things I'm looking for community feedback on, do people prefer weekends or evenings?

What's more accessible?

Or is it better to switch it up?

And like Director Geary I'm also scheduling meetings with schools to visit with PTAs or building staff or whoever wants to hear me blah blah blah blah.

So thank you so much.

Dr. Blanford.

Much of what I would say has already been covered so recognizing the hour I will try to be brief.

I appreciate all the testimony that we received today and particularly the testimony of the EEU parents.

desperate for a solution on this and I believe that our staff and our superintendent are working hard.

to find a solution.

I don't believe, I can't believe, I refuse to believe that an asset like our EEU program would be at peril as a result of accounting errors or lack of management oversight or whatever it is that is the cause of the problem.

So my hope is that and my expectation is that we will get to a solution that will leave everyone satisfied.

One of the things that I didn't hear that I think is really important is the recognition that we heard earlier about the schools of distinction.

I know that all of our schools are working really hard and when we are recognized by the state when we have particular schools that are recognized by the state I think we need to take a moment to celebrate that fact and particularly the leadership that is demonstrated by our principals.

I know from my professional work that getting a school to a level where it's performing, outperforming the state is not easy work.

And I know it requires an awful lot of collaboration between teachers and parents and students obviously.

All kind of administered or organized by a principal and so I think this was a wise, what's the word I'm looking for, exercise to recognize our principals who are leading these schools and to, and hopefully more principals and more, we'll have to find more space on the wall for all of the schools that are being recognized.

And then finally I'll just end with my community meetings which are scheduled for the 23rd of at Douglas Struths library on the 20th at the Capitol Hill branch, the 20th of February at the Capitol Hill library and then back at the Douglas Struths library on March the 12th.

Well first of all I apologize for being late but I'm definitely glad that I was able to get here.

I did want to share that yes the EEU is very special to me as well.

My daughter attended there back in 2001 I believe it was 2001-02 when the principal, when Seattle's best principal of the year.

So I too am wanting to support the EEU to make sure that we do.

keep it and whatever we have to address I think we can come up with a solution here with the school board here, our directors and our staff.

You know it is important to me myself and then listen to our other board members here it's important to them too.

So we are listening, I have that personal experience as well, my wife even worked there for a while so let's do what we can.

And again I apologize we were just commenting on the last three commentaries of the Orca cards.

I was at your town hall meeting Rainier Beach I attended there and was definitely impressed with what you presented there and also that you're still here supporting the need for our students to be able to get to school safely.

And it isn't about equality, yes it is about equity.

We have to make sure our students get to school safe.

And I know it's also going to be a challenge as we're looking at the new bell times.

How do we work that out?

And I'll be here to make sure all those issues are listened to and heard and addressed and as we mentioned to people before that I think we have a great school board now, nothing against the previous school boards, but that we will want to see that we are transparent and if people want to have voices that feel like they're not being heard make sure you sign up to say something at these board meetings.

Oftentimes when I was in the audience we would wonder what do they do?

What do the board members do while people are doing their two-minute comments?

And we're listening.

Others, I don't know if tribal governments have been mentioned yet since my absence.

Just something I want to make sure I put out there.

For me I'm looking at January 30 for my first district one board meeting.

The site is still to be determined as I nail down a location.

So my district one schools let you know that hey I'm here.

Send me an email as well.

Let me know if you have any issues to discuss.

I have been reached out and touched by the Loyal Heights community and met with them a few times and yes I am listening.

So and we'll bring your voice here to the board as well.

Thank you.

Before I make my final comments, I wanted to say for the Orca Cars, for Air Beach, yes, we hear you loud and clear, and we have not actually finalized everything.

So we definitely would like to have you come down as soon as, have a meeting with Miss Peggy, that we'll be able to actually contact you to come down and meet with us in terms of how we move this forward.

But it's actually, we're also trying to reach out to the city to make sure that what was promised is actually going to be happening.

So those are some of the things we need to work out.

But thank you so much for continuing to remind us who actually started this movement.

And I know you guys really worked hard to do this.

So thank you for being here tonight.

I also want to thank the EEU parents.

My heart goes out to you.

I was really trying to keep from not crying.

Because when you talk about kids, That's a passion.

That's why we're here.

Because we're here for those kids.

And programs like that are hard to come by.

And those kind of programs we do not get rid of.

We want to continue to support programs because those kids are special kids.

So we want to make sure that every child that we serve is touched one way or the other.

And it's our responsibility to make sure that it does happen.

So we hear you loud and clear.

hopefully that we can resolve this problem and working together with our staff and our superintendent and be able to make a win-win situation.

I would like to say thank you to my colleagues for voting me as your president.

I didn't get a chance to say my speech so I'm going to say it tonight.

It is a very important position towards making vital and concrete decisions that will revitalize the outcome of Seattle's public schools.

It means I and my executive team will lead this district into an optimistic year where the superintendent and his cabinet staff will join our team in working smart and not hard.

Optimistic because of the changes that has long been overdue and the willingness of this new board to make it happen and reaching out to our parents, community staff and students to help us redefine what it is to be a truthful honest and transparency school district.

This is a year of change.

We can no longer make excuses for our mistakes or oversight in providing the best education that we can for all 52,000 students.

It is time for us to look towards each other and ask ourselves how can we be a change maker?

to our 52,000 students.

How can we bring our talents and ideas to support the work of our school district and when can we start talking about serious partnership with our parents, community, staff and students to bring about the sustainability that is so much needed for this school district to move forward.

Don't get me wrong we have made much progress but it is not enough for us to really see how those progress have touched the many lives of our students that we are responsible for daily.

This is the year for some serious changes that is going to provide equity especially those who have not been given the opportunity to excel such as special ed students, English language learners students, homeless students, black males and our students of color who also need special attention and our support.

These students have the right to an equitable education as well as our regular students.

It is all our responsibility to provide the best education for all our students but the only way we can do this is joining efforts with those who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get to working.

Together we can be a powerful force that can bring about the many changes that our parents and community have longed for many years.

Thank you very much.

We are now going to take a 10 minute break or recess I'm sorry and then we will be back.