SPEAKER_03

Okay, folks, thank you for your patience.

Which of the many sheets in front of me do I need to read?

Okay, good afternoon.

The board meeting will be called to order in a moment and SPS TV will begin broadcasting.

For those joining by phone, please remain muted until we reach the testimony period and your name is called.

Ellie, is SPS TV ready?

This is President Rankin.

I am now calling to the April 3rd 2024 regular board meeting to order at 438 p.m.

This meeting is being recorded and again thank you all for your patience as we had a previous session go longer than scheduled.

We would like to acknowledge that we are on ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

Miss Wilson-Jones the roll call please.

Director Briggs.

SPEAKER_06

Present.

Director Hersey.

Here.

Vice President Sarju.

SPEAKER_11

Present.

SPEAKER_06

Director Top.

Here.

And President Rankin.

SPEAKER_03

Here.

I turn it over to Superintendent Jones.

SPEAKER_17

Thank you, President Rankin and board members.

I will be brief today and want to just mention that in store for this evening, we have a continuation of our conversation regarding budget stabilization.

During this work session, we will bring forward the proposed budgets for the academic year of 2526. And what I hope tonight demonstrates is that we're taking a future oriented approach, thinking beyond short term fixes in favor of long term solutions.

Also, I'd like to acknowledge that the board will be welcoming new members this evening.

I'm feeling very optimistic as we embark on this new journey with new SPS board of directors.

I believe that their perspectives and experience will enrich our decision making and our governance process.

I also want to just note that between Garfield High School and Nova High School on the tennis courts, there's a growing protest encampment right now.

And so we're working in collaboration with the city to see what we can do to ensure that that doesn't become a sprawling entity and making sure our students are well taken care of.

And so those are my comments today, being very brief.

And thank you so much.

And back to you, President Rankin.

SPEAKER_03

All right.

We do not have a student member joining us today so we do not have comments from them.

We have now come to the board comments section of the agenda.

In the interest of time I would like to suggest that I make a couple of announcements for the full board and I have an update on a couple of other items and other folks may also have liaison updates that I suggest we will hold those until later in the meeting so that we can just I'm about to sneeze.

Okay excuse me.

So an overview of today's meeting after testimony we'll move into consent agenda and then vote on our appointments for District 2 and District 4 school board directors.

I want to thank all the candidates who stepped forward during this process.

The board was reassured during last week's forum and throughout this process that we have the strong support from the community for public education for Seattle Public Schools and for our work together to ensure that our system makes good on its promises to all of our students.

For those joining us tonight and others involved throughout this process.

Thank you for your time efforts ideas and your commitment.

And following our votes on the appointments we will have.

Well we were scheduled to have a progress monitoring session on college and career readiness goal and a budget work session.

Are we confirmed about.

Okay we're in light of the fact that that is a lot to cover in one evening.

I am going to suggest we do the budget session and save the progress monitoring for another time as in looking at the memo and presentation.

There's not.

new information from the recently last time we had this presentation so but everybody who is interested can and should look over that memo and monitoring presentation as attached to the meeting minutes.

We will just not do that together this evening.

And then but we will have the budget work session.

Whoever is appointed I hope that you will stay and listen or watch the recording as we are Time stops for no one and these decisions have to happen when they have to happen.

So I hope that you will stay engaged with us and the session tonight to prepare you for eventually being part of that decision making.

Our appointees will officially take office during an oath of office ceremony tomorrow.

And then yes I already noted that we'll do engagement and legislative other liaison reports later in the meeting.

So we have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda.

Board procedure 1430BP provides rules for testimony and I ask that speakers are respectful of these rules.

The testimony will be taken today from individuals called from our public testimony list and if applicable the waiting list which are included on the agenda posting on the school board Web site.

Only those who are called by name should unmute their phones or step forward to the podium and only one person should speak at a time.

Listed speakers may cede their time to another person when the listed speaker's name is called.

The total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for the combined speakers.

Time will not be restarted after this ceded to speaker begins and the new speaker will not be called again later if they are already present on the testimony list or waiting list.

If you have your time ceded to you and prefer to retain your place on the testimony list or waitlist you may do that.

The majority of the speaker's time should be spent on the topic they have indicated they wish to speak about.

The board expects the same standard of civility for those participating in public comment as we expect of ourselves.

And as board president I have the responsibility of interrupting any speaker who fails to observe the standard of civility required by board procedure 1430BP.

Staff will read off the testimony speakers.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Good afternoon.

The first speaker on today's testimony list is Craig C. Scholz.

Craig will be followed by Jesse Clayton and then James Parker.

SPEAKER_13

Hit the green.

Hi, I'm Craig Seashells.

I'm retired from Seattle Public Schools.

I spent thirty-five years teaching, ten of which were as a librarian in Title I schools in Seattle.

I want to thank you Superintendent Joes and President and the rest of the board members for your service to fifty thousand students in I also want to thank the 84 librarians in the district serving 98 schools that have school libraries.

This is school library month and I ask you and all district administrative staff to pledge to visit one school library this month.

It's a small ask and a sweetener over there is a stack of books.

you are to deliver one book to one library in your zone, and this is an invitation.

The stack is larger than the dais for staff and administrative personnel here in the district.

They're well chosen.

When you visit, not if but when you visit a school library this month look for the good news because the fact is over the past two years nine dollars per student have gone to library materials and significantly improved the collections Also consider the opportunity.

Librarians are trained specialists in every school that support individualized learning, research, and digital literacy.

And be sure to ask the principals how they're leveraging that.

This is in relation to the Seattle Times article of this weekend.

How will schools address individualized learning?

You've got librarians in place.

Let's make them full-time.

I want to thank you.

I have sent an email of full remarks with links so that that's covered mostly.

I want to thank the district for the progress they've made and encourage you that there's more to be done.

So thank you very much and enjoy the books.

SPEAKER_06

The next speaker is Jesse Clayton.

SPEAKER_09

Good afternoon my name is Jessie Clayton and I'm the French teacher and world language department chair at Garfield High School and this is Miss Perez one of our Spanish teachers.

I'm here to advocate for increased support and protections for world language programs across the entire Seattle School District.

The district has allocated us less money for next year even though Garfield enrollment is not projected to decrease.

And now our world language department is being cut for the third year in a row.

Last year we lost our entire Japanese program and if not for recent family advocacy French was about to be entirely cut.

Suddenly some carry forward funding has been found to keep French but reduce it to point six.

I sadly have to leave because of that because I need to be working full time unless some more funding can be found.

Garfield will likely be down to just one language because it's very hard to find part-time French teachers who are willing to take a .6.

This is happening across the district in world language departments and it is counter to what the State Board of Education and OSPI claim to value which is equitable college and career readiness for all students.

Since most colleges require at least two years of a world language as a prerequisite, our schools can't claim we're preparing all students for college if we continue to cut one of the requirements for admission.

So why is this happening?

One of the reasons is the way that counselors and administrators are interpreting and communicating about state graduation requirements.

According to OSPI, two years of world language are required to graduate high school unless a student chooses a personal pathway.

Counselors and administrators are saying over and over again that world language is not required.

We're just worried about getting all students to graduate and all that matters is the personal pathway.

This is an imbalanced focus.

They're giving lip service to college readiness and it changes the way we are treated.

It's supposed to be an exception and not the rule that the personal pathway is pursued and merci unless you don't speak French, thank you.

SPEAKER_06

The next speaker is James Parker.

After James Parker will be Carol Palacios and then Angie Alfonso Romero.

SPEAKER_12

Hi, my name is James Parker.

Everyone calls me Whitney.

It's my middle name.

I'm a paraeducator at Franklin High School.

I came before you two weeks ago to talk about how the bathrooms, the boys' bathroom on the first and second floor were broken.

They are still broken.

Can you imagine the chaos that that's been?

The boys' bathrooms on two floors do not exist.

There are three trash cans outside of it.

It's horrendous.

It's causing huge amounts of problems in the school.

Please get that fixed.

And I definitely want to echo our coworkers at Garfield.

We just had to cut Japanese at Franklin, which is abhorrent.

It's tragic.

And all the funding possible needs to be directed towards school programs to stop the cuts.

But I'm here today with some colleagues to talk about some of our most vulnerable students.

At Franklin High School, we have the most Spanish-speaking students and we have hundreds of multilingual students.

And we do not have enough multilingual paraeducators to serve our students.

We've been told that there are no staffing adjustments for multilingual paraeducators throughout the year.

That needs to change.

We've gotten over 46 newcomers, new immigrants into this country.

These are students facing so many hardships, supporting families, needing to get work, shelter, food, all this other stuff, put on our multilingual paraeducators.

And on top of that, they're being told no new staffing for the whole year.

This is the population that most changes throughout the year, right?

If we want to be a welcoming city, we need to do at least quarterly staffing adjustments for our multilingual paraeducators.

That is so, so important.

I know we're facing it big.

I know other schools are facing it.

Other educators will tell you more about the situation that's happening.

Thank you for your time.

Please, quarterly, at least, staffing adjustment for our multilingual paraeducators.

It's so, so important for our most vulnerable students.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

For our speakers, please feel free to reintroduce yourselves as you come to the podium.

Apologies in advance that I will not be getting all the pronunciations.

And Carol, do we have Carol at the podium?

Perfect.

SPEAKER_16

That's me.

Okay, my name is Carol Palacios.

I'm from Franklin High School, and we would like to take a moment to address a growing concern that has been in our minds for a long time.

At Franklin High School, we deeply value the quality of our students' learning experience.

Over the past couple of years, we have observed a significant increase in the number of Spanish-speaking students, and this trend will continue.

Since September, we have welcomed 37 new Spanish-speaking students, along with six whose main language is Maya K'iche' and three who speak Portuguese.

This brings a total of 46 new students who understand Spanish.

In addition, it's worth noting that we are welcoming new Spanish speaker students weekly, up to seven new students in a single day.

We believe it's important to address this situation to ensure that all students, no matter their language, have access to a quality learning environment.

We aim for a balance in the support for students across different language support.

The current influx of Spanish speaking students creates challenges for our instructional system with the increases demand Spanish IAs have to support multiple classes in each period which often results in limited individual attention for students.

This situation is impacting the quality of education provided and it's breaking our hearts.

While we work really hard to support students whose main language is not covered by our current staff, such as those who speak Portuguese, Russian, Fula, Tagalog, Vietnamese, this support has been limited.

Students lacking appropriate language support experience communications gap and have a lover education outcome compared to their peers.

To address this issue, we have asked for help from other students to support us with new students who don't speak the language of any other staff.

However, this approach affect their education and cannot last for a long term.

We are understaffed and we are working extra support for our students even to our lunch.

These are our most high need students, many need housing, work, food, and mental health support.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

The next speaker is Angie L. Alfonso Romero.

Angie will be followed by Lexi Adzizek and then Bailey Craig.

Is Angie here.

SPEAKER_00

But she's already.

We're moving to the next speaker.

Yes.

Lexi Azizek.

SPEAKER_08

Close like CFJ check, thank you.

Good afternoon everyone.

I am the school counselor for multilingual students at Franklin High School.

There is one of me for 360 students.

Behind me is the hardest working group of people that I've ever met in my entire life.

I'm here today to speak on two simple asks that would greatly improve the outcomes and transition of newly arrived multilingual students to Seattle Public Schools and more specifically Franklin.

As you've heard from my colleagues, ML IAs must be adjusted throughout the school year.

Allocating language IAs at the beginning of the school year and only them severely underserves our students.

As we have welcomed, just only today, 69 new ML students, most of whom are brand new to the country.

That's a rate of about two and a half new students every single week, totaling more than 350 ML learners total in our school.

We need more MLIAs to keep up with the pace of this growth and whose language reflect those of our students.

Secondly, having ML students consistently arrive on the same day in a week would help our program immensely.

Right now, students show up whenever, often multiple days a week.

multiple times a day, and our intake process is thorough.

It includes an interview that details personal and academic history and needs, getting students school supplies, including a new laptop, many of which have never used before, a tour of the school, introducing them to crucial staff, getting them a schedule, including teaching them how to navigate a cafeteria, preparing them for differences in an educational system depending on their country of origin.

At best, it takes three adults at different times, all pulling us from our other duties supporting all of those other students and the classrooms that many of us should be in.

The mission of Seattle Public Schools strategic plan states that SPS is committed to eliminating opportunity gaps to ensure access and provide excellence in education for every student.

It is my belief that these two asks are simple and in alignment with that strategic plan.

So I would love to hear what we can do about that.

Thank you so much.

The next speaker is Bailey Craig.

SPEAKER_20

Hello, I'm Bailey Craig and I'm a science and ML teacher at Franklin High School.

At Franklin, our robust program for multilingual learners is one of the many things that sets us apart from other comprehensive high schools and is something we are deeply honored and proud of.

Seattle Public Schools is committed to eliminating opportunity gaps to ensure access and provide excellence in education.

As I'm sure you're aware, this is the mission of the district, and the vision is that all students receive a high quality, world-class education and graduate prepared for college, career, and community.

For many Franklin students, particularly in our ML program, even being able to attend class with consistency is in conflict with what they need to do to attain their basic survival needs.

While we have an incredible student family advocate and half-time social worker, getting our students connected with food, housing, internet access, classes so they can actually see in class, and immigration lawyers has become a role that all of us have taken on in various capacities simply because of the volume of need, and the sensitive nature of some of these needs means that students seek out adults they can trust.

When our staff have expressed the reality of our situation and reached out for relief or support, they've been told that they need to set better boundaries, that these things are simply not within the job description of an instructional assistant, that when families in crisis come to our building seeking help from a school community member they know and trust, we should instead be using linguistica.

Yet the district's strategic plan also states that we will meet our mission and vision by creating healthy, supportive, culturally responsive environments, and by directly and consistently working in partnership with families and communities who represent students of color.

Therefore, not only does the directive to just say no seem antithetical to the district's purported values, it is also in direct contrast with our humanity as educators.

We, in particular Spanish-speaking instructional assistants, are simply spread too thin.

Much like each school's special education needs are reevaluated throughout the year to ensure students' legal right to a free and appropriate education are met, we need the same for ML.

To date, we have welcomed 69 total students in our ML program since our IA allocations were determined at the start of the school year, and not only have no adjustments in our staffing been made, but it's apparent there's no clear plan for what schools can do when their need for ML support changes significantly during the course of the school year.

Students with complex needs are arriving to us every week, and we're not the only building experiencing rapid, inconsistent changes.

SPEAKER_06

The next speaker is Julie Chella, who will be followed by Sabrina Burr, and then Eric Feeney.

ELLIE WILSON- Hello.

ELLIE WILSON- Go ahead Julie we can hear you.

SPEAKER_10

OK.

Hi my name is Julie Chella I'm a parent at John Muir Elementary School and I wanted to speak about some concerns that I think were brought up by some of the other speakers as well as in reading about the circumstances at Rainier View Elementary School.

I feel blessed that we have a principal at our school who is done a lot of work to be engaging with family members and students and working really hard to ensure that everyone's needs are being met.

But my concern is that when there are glaring problems in the way that staff children and families are experiencing the school district there appears to be no clear pathway to obtain remediation for those concerns.

So when I read in The Seattle Times that the plan for Rainier View was to do a review and what the elements of the review that were described sound a lot like basic supervision of a school and then it be it became clear that there wasn't a very robust system in place to evaluate what's going well what's not going well on the ground for students.

And I would love for a more comprehensive review to be completed of all schools so that we know that the policies and practices that are actually happening in the schools are in alignment with the goals espoused at these meetings and in the strategic plan.

I think throughout the testimony you've heard multiple discrepancies in how aspirational goals are operationalized at schools and that we need better communication around how those that difference is going to be met thank you the next speaker is sabrina burke

SPEAKER_19

Good evening, my name is Sabrina Burr, as all of you know.

I've done a lot of work in this district over 15 years.

Where we are kind of makes me sad.

And the Maasai warriors have a saying, how are the children?

Even the Maasai who have no children, they ask how are the children because they know that their health has to do with the children.

We're focused on student outcomes-focused governance.

But what does it look like as a district if we start asking ourselves, how are the children?

And we start listening.

I won't talk about Rainier View, but I do have a question about Rainier View, and that is, how are the children?

What are we doing for them?

Not to harvest information, not to put them in an adult situation, but to bring in people for friendship circles just for their feelings with no agenda, not trying to get information.

You have Rachel Cross go right down there at South Shore, the counselor who brought Ruler to Seattle Public Schools, the one my daughter had to go back and tell, thank you for all the social emotional literacy.

I navigate spaces, I talk to people of power, I give children their voice because of what you gave me.

We have the tools.

Right here is a book.

from pre-K to Cleveland High School of all the educators because I wanted my daughter to be poured into by the educators.

But let me just tell you, out of all the people from pre-K to 12th grade, the number is 12. It was only 12 adults that saw her.

You think she's a success story?

She's not.

You guys failed her.

So I asked you as we unroll student outcomes focused governance we also asked and we listen without agenda in the way that they needed that we asked how the children are and then when they tell us we listen and we respond with action because right now most importantly our children are not well and we are all the answer for them being well.

SPEAKER_06

The next speaker is Eric Feeney.

Eric will be followed by Chris Jackins and then Carol.

Carol is going to have to help me with her last name.

Is Eric Feeney here.

Eric Feeney going once.

OK.

We're going to move to Chris Jackins.

SPEAKER_14

My name is Chris Jackins box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4. On the personnel report 10 points number one the board recently received public testimony on staff turnover at Rainier View Elementary.

Do school board members ever examine the personnel report for hints of proper possible problems.

Number two the current personnel report lists several recent separations at Kimball Elementary.

The principal a teacher and a special education assistant.

Number three Kimball recently got a new building which took away a wondrous setting among many trees.

The district often claims that a new building will help solve education problems and why don't principals stick around.

Number four James Baldwin formerly at Northgate Elementary the new building took away its wonderful play field and the principal left.

Number five at Alki Elementary the district is trying to jam in a too large sized building.

The principal has hinted that he might not be around for the new school.

Number six, when the district closed Rainier View Elementary some years ago, I helped line up attorneys to fight the closure.

The attorneys represented Rose Sanders, an African American great grandmother.

Number seven, but the district closed the school.

A district report concluded that students at closed schools were harmed.

Number eight, Rose Sanders has passed away, but she felt that fighting the closure also helped get the school reopened.

Number nine I have helped other people successfully get a judge to overturn school board actions.

It happens.

Number 10 please do not close schools.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_06

The next speaker is Carol you're you're out.

SPEAKER_01

Hi, I'm Carol Terrell.

I'm here with two separate safety questions.

The first one is about the Alki rebuild that you wanna do.

I would love for someone to explain to me how you're gonna take 542 students and take those 42 preschoolers and get them picked up and dropped off on a single lane road without any life lost.

There's no way, there's no additional buses, there's no parking, how are you gonna do it?

In the past, we've had several near misses with 325 students.

So that's my first safety question.

My second safety question is about The SPS website states that one in seven students will be assaulted by a fellow student.

One in nine will be assaulted by a teacher.

I'm wondering why there isn't a standard protocol addressing these assaults.

One principal chose not to document anything, and so the person was passed on.

The second time the assaults were reported, The principal's choosing to move at such a glacier point, the abused will have to attend school all year long with the abuser.

Why don't they transfer the student out of the classroom?

Because there's other victims in all of the other classrooms.

So I'm wondering why there isn't a standard protocol that all principals can follow since it seems to be hit and miss.

Thank you very much, I'd love some answers.

SPEAKER_06

That was the final speaker on today's list but I'm going to do one more check.

Eric Feeney not seeing Eric Feeney in the room.

President Rankin that concludes today's testimony list.

SPEAKER_03

Sorry it's too many pieces of paper.

So sorry that does conclude our public testimony for them for the meeting and thank you all for your comments.

We the format of public testimony doesn't allow us to directly respond from the dais but we have your names and contact information.

We have now reached the consent portion of today's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

SPEAKER_11

I move I move for approval of the consent agenda.

I second.

SPEAKER_03

The approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Vice President Sarju and seconded by Director Briggs.

Are there any items to be removed from the consent agenda.

Seeing none.

All those in favor of approval of the consent agenda please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

SPEAKER_11

Aye.

SPEAKER_03

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

We will now move into the two action items before us tonight appointment of District 2 and District 4 board directors.

We will begin with the District 2 appointment and then go to the District 4 appointment.

Thank you again to the candidates for your participation in this process and your interest in serving on the board.

We discussed the voting process briefly during our March 6th work session.

This process will be consistent with our process for electing board officers.

So it's not new.

They will not be identical to how the board approached the last appointment.

Regardless of the process, the result that we need to achieve is to get a minimum of four votes to approve each appointment.

Even though there are five of us sitting up here because of, so it's not the majority of those sitting, it's the majority of the full board if it were full.

So,

SPEAKER_21

Director Rankin President Rankin is it permissible for me to request that we recess into executive session one more time.

It is OK.

I would like to request that please.

All right.

SPEAKER_03

Does there need to be a motion made.

OK.

Like 15 minutes.

Yeah.

The board is now immediately recessing into executive session to evaluate the qualifications of candidates for appointment to elective office per RCW 42.30.110.1H.

The request has been for 15 minutes it is 513 now so I will put us at an anticipated end time of 530. Okay, do I have to exit?

I am recessing us out of executive session at 5.31 p.m.

Did I do that right?

Okay.

SPEAKER_06

And you're reconvening the regular board meeting.

SPEAKER_03

Oh yes, the regular board, not only am I recessing us out of executive session, I am reconvening us into the regular board meeting.

OK.

Allie, which there's two different things here.

Wait, not those.

There's this.

SPEAKER_05

This is what your colleagues have.

This is you walking through them.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

This is their cheat sheet.

You don't need it.

SPEAKER_03

Got it.

Thank you.

All right.

Now moving to our two action items appointment of the district 2 and district 4 school board directors.

We will begin with the district 2 appointment and then move on to the district 4 appointment.

I may have already read this before we moved into executive session but thank you again for everyone who participated in this process and your interest in serving on the board and supporting our school district and students.

So here is the process.

I will take first nominations for the district two seat.

Nominations are limited to one of the four finalists.

You can't nominate a whole brand new person.

that were selected at the board's March 13th meeting.

We don't require anyone to second, but if somebody wishes to, you may.

I will, after all nominations are made for a position, I will close nominations and then there'll be an opportunity for directors to discuss or provide additional comments.

When Ellie when somebody nominates though they can say something at that point too or do we just do nominations by name and then all comments.

SPEAKER_06

If we are mirroring your election process for board officers they would just be get all the nominations out there and then make comments next.

I believe.

SPEAKER_03

OK thank you.

Voting will be conducted by a roll call vote.

Oh I'm sorry I skipped a step.

So I will open it up for nominations.

We will close nominations and then we'll have comments on those who put forward nominations.

After comments have been concluded, we'll vote for each position in the order the nominations were made, will be conducted by a roll call vote, and voting will conclude when one candidate gets four or more votes.

So in summary, for each position, and we're gonna start with District Two, nominations, discussion.

If no one receives four votes the candidate or candidates receiving the fewest number of votes will be dropped from consideration and we will start voting again.

If we end up with a Wait what does this mean we won't drop a candidate.

Oh if there's like a 2 1 1 1 split we'll just have to talk about it.

OK.

Nominations are now in order.

for the office of district 2 school board director before I ask for nominations Miss Wilson-Jones would you please read us the four names just because we keep getting flipped around between district 2 district 4. So I just before anybody nominates could you please read to us the names of the district 2 candidates.

SPEAKER_06

I can but I'm going to embarrass myself by needing to pull that up really quickly so I don't further embarrass myself by transposing people's names.

SPEAKER_03

Sorry I pulled that on you last minute but I was also surprised that they're not on here.

SPEAKER_06

DIRECTOR, YOUR CANDIDATES FOR DISTRICT 2 ARE SARAH CLARK, DANIELLE GALL, SEAN SULLIVAN, AND CAROL THOMPSON.

THESE ARE THE FOUR FINALISTS THAT YOU SELECTED ON MARCH 13TH.

SPEAKER_03

THANK YOU.

I WILL NOW ACCEPT NOMINATIONS.

SPEAKER_11

Can I go.

Please.

So for the public we haven't done I haven't done this before.

So if we look confused yes I think we're a little confused.

It's kind of a dizzying array of things to remember.

But I would like to nominate Sarah Clark for district 2. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Candidate Sarah Clark has been nominated.

by Vice President Sarju.

Do we have other nominees nominations for the Office of District 2 school board director.

Director Hersey.

SPEAKER_18

uh...

i'd just want to make it super clear as we're going through these things like there is a wealth of knowledge and aptitude in these two districts and like i only got more excited about people as we went through the forum there was a lot of folks that uh...

showed up and really showed out in many ways so I want to be very clear.

I'm super excited about two people in each of these races.

And I want to give the board an opportunity to have those choices.

Right.

And so while I too am excited about Sarah Clark, I am also really excited about Sean Sullivan.

So I would like to nominate Sean.

SPEAKER_03

Got it.

Okay candidate Sean Sullivan has been nominated by Director Hersey.

Do we have other nominations?

Seeing none I will close nominations for District 2 board directors and invite directors to comment on those they nominated.

Director, Vice President Sarju.

I know it's weirdly formal and awkward and hopefully we don't have to do this again anytime soon.

SPEAKER_11

I don't do this very well.

I want to echo what President Emeritus Hersey said.

I had to just do that.

What Director Hersey said is the quality of the candidates were stellar.

And I had two people in mind, I'm not gonna say who that is, but it's different than President Hersey, or Director Hersey, I'm used to calling him President Hersey.

And my nomination for Sarah Clark stems from the fact that some things she said in her application but also her articulation of being a student in this district and being a student of color and while she did not dwell on how difficult that is to be a student of color in Seattle Public Schools, I know well how difficult it is because I had three kids in it and it was a daily battle for them.

And so to hear, I think what she brings is a deep understanding, in addition to her education experience, her policy experience, and her other professional experience, she understands deeply what it means to be, to try to be seen for the bright intelligent student that she was regardless of the color of her skin and yet she still persisted.

And she still went on to do great things.

And that's it.

That's important to me personally.

I'm much much older than her but I understand at a very deep level.

And so that lived experience in this district in Seattle Public Schools which is its own thing it's its own thing spoke spoke to me.

SPEAKER_03

Director Hersey.

SPEAKER_18

Absolutely.

So I'm going to talk about both because both are nominated and I'll start with candidate Clark.

I think as I think through like what experiences are or rather what opportunities these individual candidates bring to the board it's no surprise that the folks who are sitting here aside from our superintendent none of us went through Seattle Public Schools.

Right.

Well for the whole thing.

Right.

SPEAKER_03

For the whole thing.

SPEAKER_18

And neither did you know candidate Clark but The point that I'm trying to make here is that having the experience of seeing firsthand what it's like in our buildings, even as they've grown and developed over a number of years, I think is a really interesting opportunity for context that the board could benefit from.

I think that based on what I saw at the forum, there's a clear understanding of less so important for me the inner workings of the district or the technical capacities of what it takes to be a board member while those things are critical.

I think there's also an understanding of how to have all those things and hold them in balance with what makes us all individual and what really gives us kind of the aptitude and hunger to do well for kids.

Right.

So.

That's why I'm interested in candidate Clark.

I'm also interested in candidate Sullivan for very different reasons.

I think that having a process-oriented person or someone who's got The ability to approach problems in a way that was articulated during the forum similar to Candidate Sullivan is also a place for opportunity of the board.

The simplicity of his ability particularly to articulate some of the problems that we are experiencing.

I think a lot of us from time to time, and I know that I am the world's worst about this, pontificate, go on and on about some of these things, and it's because we're deep in it, right?

But also being able to communicate WITH A VERY RESOLUTE SENSE OF THE ISSUE, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT REALLY STOOD OUT TO ME WAS WHEN WE WERE TALKING ABOUT HAVING THE QUESTION ABOUT THE BUDGET, AND HE CHARACTERIZED IT VERY SIMPLY, WHICH IS HOW IT USUALLY GOES IN MY HEAD BUT NEVER COMES OUT OF MY MOUTH, IT'S LIKE, YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS, RIGHT?

YOU EITHER REDUCE COST OR YOU INCREASE REVENUE.

AND THOSE ARE THE TWO OPTIONS WE HAVE, RIGHT?

AND I THINK THAT WHEN YOU JUST SUPPOSE THAT WITH the idea that the school systems don't have an opportunity or the ability to generate revenue that clearly gives a picture or at least I think to a constituency that wants to have access but because there's so much jargon and because our budget book is longer than you know the the Lord of the Rings trilogy half of the time that having someone that can communicate and articulate those types of really big ideas in a really digestible way I think for that part of the city particularly is also of interest.

So those are just really small vignettes of why I'm excited about both of these candidates but I'm even more excited for our board to kind of weigh out between those two folks who Who we think should represent District 2.

SPEAKER_03

Any other comments for District 2. So for both positions it's already it's April 2024 and these seats are both up for the.

So.

Something I think is important that I just want to state is we essentially because of the there's not special election procedures for school board.

There's not any other process to have the public vote on this.

The biggest this essentially was an interview in public.

It is our process as elected board members to to appoint.

And that's important because we did get get feedback and listen to it and people You know made their their their wishes known so I just kind of wanted to acknowledge that we we heard and appreciated feedback that people gave and that this is The biggest voice that the public has in this is that we were elected by all of you and so on as representatives of the general public.

This is how we make this decision.

And I say that partly just for clarification but also because it's April 2024 right now and these seats will both be on the ballot in the fall of 2025. One will be for yeah one will be for a full four year term and one will be for that's district 4 and district 2 will be for the remainder of the unexpired term because the requirements of appointments for school board are that at the next possible opportunity the public has the chance to vote.

So my thought process was less I really that kind of messed with me like I'm used to engaging in this process as a voter and as a community member and not as a But that I just I guess helped me personally that our decision that we make are what we need as a board and a district right now in this moment and that the opportunity to choose goes back to the full public in actually a very short time.

So, which, you know, depending on how things play out in people's lives and whatnot, they may have the opportunity to vote for somebody who we appoint or somebody who we didn't appoint or totally new people who have yet to appear.

So my strategies around this are about not who's the...

person who's going to be in the seat for six six years potentially or more than that.

Yeah more than that or less than that because that's actually not up to us.

That's up to that will go back to the public in 2025. Basically a year from now is when you have to start thinking or past time to start thinking about filing.

So I given that too I could see for District 2 you know I didn't make a nomination but I want to acknowledge the two candidates that are here and hope that you will continue to stay engaged and I will be reaching out to you after this to see how we can keep your passion and caring and intelligence and desire to support our kids coming along with us.

So thank you to you to you both.

That's way more than enough words from me.

So if there are no other.

Comments I will we go in order right.

So we need Miss Wilson-Jones please call the roll for the vote for candidate Sarah Clark.

SPEAKER_06

Director Briggs aye Director Hersey aye Vice President Sarju President I mean aye aye.

Director Top aye.

And President Rankin.

SPEAKER_03

That's 4 aye.

SPEAKER_06

The nomination of Sarah Clark for the district 2 school board director appointment is approved by is approved unanimously.

SPEAKER_03

All right.

Congratulations and welcome.

and board director Sarah Clark district 2 board director elect oath of office will take place.

Yes board director appoint.

I mean we appointed her.

All right.

This this whole meeting has weird vibes I'm just going to say I don't know if it's me.

I mean if it's me I'm going to try to.

Shake it off.

OK.

So nominations are now in order for the office of District 4 school board director and Miss Wilson-Jones would you please again read the names of the nominees for district or the candidates for District 4.

SPEAKER_06

The finalists and the four candidates for District 4 are Gabriela Gabriela Gonzalez Joe Mizrahi Richelle C. Olden and Laura Marie Rivera.

SPEAKER_03

I will I will open for nominations and I see movement towards the microphone.

Director Topp.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah I would like to nominate Joe Mizrahi.

SPEAKER_03

Director Hersey.

SPEAKER_18

Again incredibly excited about both candidates but I think contested elections are healthy elections.

So in addition to Ms. Rahe I would like to nominate Laura Marie Rivera.

SPEAKER_21

And I would like to nominate Gabriel Gonzalez.

SPEAKER_03

OK.

I'm assuming silence means we have no more nominations.

Just just making sure.

Well.

Just making sure.

So the nominations for District 4 are closed and I invite directors to make comments at this time.

Director Topp.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you President Rankin.

So I go back to sort of the criteria that we set out and looking at the criteria.

I think that.

Joe exemplifies some of the things that we are looking for and is able to sort of hit the ground running.

The criteria we set was lived and professional experience.

He brings board experience with him and budget experience, which I think is going to be critical in this moment.

He also has a strong connection to District 4 and is out talking with families every single day who utilize the Seattle Public Schools.

I think he demonstrated both in the forum in his answers and understanding of the role of the board and the function of the board and I think that gives him an edge up here.

I also think he understands the equity analysis and the targeted universalism that we are we are trying to achieve as a board and I think that he is ready to help collaborate with us to help achieve our goals.

I heard a lot from community members about all the wonderful qualified candidates that we have and this process has been really enlightening and exciting because we do, President Rankin, need to reach out to these folks and make sure that they are further involved in helping our district.

But I think that Joe stands out from the rest.

And so that is why I nominated him this evening.

SPEAKER_03

Director Hersey.

SPEAKER_18

I want to echo everything that Director Topp just mentioned.

And as I look at, like, District 4 is well represented not to say that District 2 is not but I found myself really struggling because like there were so many I think the forum really gave me an opportunity to get out of my own head of reading a lot of the application points and actually seeing them being articulated in person to where it really did kind of really push me around I was really going back and forth around, you know, who has the skill set that we need in this particular moment.

And what I found myself coming back to was really trying to focus in on folks who would be able to hit the ground running, who already had a large amount of capacity, and who already brought in their own ways, very unique community support from wide swaths of folks in various sectors.

And while I'm so excited that you nominated the candidate that you did, for me, the two people that really that I arrived at was candidate Mizrahi and candidate Laura Marie Rivera.

And the reason that I wanted to make sure that we had conversations about both of those folks is because when we're thinking about uh who we're identifying in our strategic plan and the experiences that uh need additional representation right and not just like having like because i hear a lot of the conversations that have been coming is like oh well you already have that type of person on the board and like there's already this and that and it's like yo we all have like similar overlapping experiences we're not limiting ourselves to you know we're not one-dimensional beings when we're bringing people to the board it really is a whole package But what comes to mind for me are folks that have experience in what it's like to be an immigrant to this country.

People who are coming in with really important lived experiences and being parents to students who are receiving special education services and folks who, are known quantity in the places where they live, right?

And I think that Laura Marie Rivera presents a very strong case in that area, but I also think that candidate Mizrahi presents a strong case as well.

So I'm excited that we're taking the time to review both of those candidates.

I think we would be lucky to have either one of them or quite frankly, anyone who was on stage for either of these districts.

We have a wealth of talent and not enough seats at the dais at this phase.

So my two cents.

SPEAKER_21

Director Briggs.

Yeah not to sound like a broken record but I truly would be jazzed to work with any of the eight candidates that that we ended up with.

It is a little bit of a tragedy that we have to narrow it to two.

And I just really appreciate everybody who stepped up because it is hard to put yourself out there.

So with that said, I wanted to nominate Gabriela because I felt like she, I was so impressed with her responses at the forum.

And I also feel that she represents a lived experience.

The fact that she's a Spanish speaker that isn't currently represented on the board, that would be really additive.

And I just really liked how much I felt that she was very grounded in an understanding of what is really important about the job that we're doing.

And yeah, I just was generally really impressed with her.

And that's all I have to say.

And again, was really impressed with everybody.

SPEAKER_03

Any other comments or.

I guess I'll just just say repeat my comments from last time for this time that there were pluses to everybody who put their name in and I hope that this is not the last that we see of those of you who are not appointed.

So if we are ready I will ask let's see in order of Miss Wilson-Jones please call the roll for the vote for candidate Joe Mizrahi.

SPEAKER_06

Director Top aye Director Briggs aye Director Hersey aye Vice President Sarju

SPEAKER_11

Is it Joe aye sorry.

SPEAKER_06

And President Rankin.

SPEAKER_03

That makes for I will make it 5 aye.

SPEAKER_06

The nomination of Joe Mizrahi for District 4 school board director is approved unanimously.

SPEAKER_03

Congratulations on your appointment to District 4 school board director Joe Mizrahi.

And thank you everyone.

We look forward to swearing in our new directors tomorrow.

We have decided to forego the progress monitoring session for now.

We have a budget work session.

We have I have some other updates and comments.

So would everyone before we get into those other things would everyone like to take a break.

OK.

It is six o'clock.

6 0 5 6 10. OK. 6 10 and why don't at 6 10 let's just start at the work session tables.

Thank you.

I just chose my books from the books that Craig Seashell has left us, and I am very excited to take a look at that bird, A Young Naturalist's Guide to Pacific Northwest Birding, and A Moose Boosh.

I'm expecting it to be full of puns.

Anyway, thank you to Mr. Seacholes.

Okay.

We are past our consent agenda and action items and in work session time, All right.

For anyone who be just joining us we did have a progress monitoring.

Had a progress monitoring session scheduled for college and career readiness goal.

We are going to.

come back to that at a later time.

But the memo and presentation are full of good information and are available for anyone who may wish to and I hope does wish to review that.

And thank you to staff for preparing that for us.

We will move into the budget work session and I will now pass it to Superintendent Jones to get that going.

SPEAKER_17

Thank you President Rankin and I'm joined with us with me today as assistant superintendent Dr. Bottleman.

We're going to really kind of close out the 24 25 budget planning session and budget planning and then I'll conclude with a fiscal stabilization update on the plan.

If we go on to the agenda.

The next slide please.

Goals and principle timelines, like I said, update to the 24-25 budget and talk about the planning.

Next slide, please.

You all have seen this slide before.

We've talked about the board development goals and principles.

Again, we keep bringing this up over and over.

We want to make sure that we track with this.

This is keeping us accountable to planning prioritizing quality instruction and learning, making good faith efforts that we share each other's values.

We know we need to do this with teamwork and we want to be clear on the challenges and opportunities and I want to give ourselves credit for being very transparent about the work that we're doing.

This is session number seven of 11 and we are My hope is that this board is as educated and up to speed and has full understanding as we go on these next steps that there's no reservations about not being informed.

So without further ado I'm going to turn it over to the bulk of this presentation to Dr. Bottleman.

SPEAKER_15

We can go to the next slide please.

You've all seen this before.

This is our budget development timeline as you can see we're starting to round the corner there sort of in the bottom left.

And just a rough estimate we've spent somewhere between 8 and 10 hours at this table in the last six sessions discussing the but discussing the budget and answering questions.

And so today as Superintendent Jones indicated is the time where we're going to try and resolve some of the remaining questions for the 24 5 budget process.

Staff now are taking the information that's been developed throughout this process and through the school budgeting processes and reconciling all that information which will bring the full budget package to you in June for formal consideration and hopefully adoption shortly thereafter.

So rounding the corner here and again thank you all for your engagement and the time we've been spending on this.

We can go to the next slide.

Just a reminder that the deficit that we're working to resolve for the next year is in the range of 104 to 111 million dollars.

We're trying to adhere to the fiscal stabilization plan and the priorities in the board resolutions and the budget that was previewed and proposed last time and previous times and will be Formally adopted hopefully in June will include a combination of some one time or short term solutions some long term and ongoing solutions and then the utilization of an Interfund loan from our from Seattle Public Schools capital fund which will need to be repaid in June of 2026. Superintendent do you want to add anything here.

We can go to the next slide.

To orient you to this slide the items in black or in bold or in italics are the items that we're going to discuss today.

These were the things that may have changed or required some clarification since our last time two weeks ago talking about the budget.

So the first of those is the loan as one of the one time or part time solutions.

And just a reminder, this is loaning money to ourselves from our capital fund.

Probably the BTA 5 and BEX 5 levies is where the funding balances would come from specifically.

And then we'll repay that with the interest they would have earned in the capital fund to ourselves by June of 2026. And that amount has changed slightly since last time we'll see it and we'll get to that when we get to that slide.

The next slide.

The other three changes that will be discussed today or information will be shared were related to questions that came up at this table or clarifications that were required.

And those are around transportation chain transportation changes in the timing of those that was being proposed by the superintendent School staffing allocations and voluntary athletic fees and some administrative questions around that.

Next slide.

The first in order of magnitude that we'll talk about tonight is the school funding allocations.

So based on the feedback from the board and from the school leaders and the participants in the budget arena process that just concluded last week which I'm happy to report that all but two schools have completed their budget process and input the approval into the system I'm told that's more than typical at this time of the process and so kudos to all the school leaders and the staff who supported them.

Superintendent and I and some others will get a chance to meet with the school leaders tomorrow but this was a difficult task they were undertaking this year and they all were up for the challenge and really approached it with the kids at the forefront of their decision making process.

So one change that will be proposed in the final budget is to restore the discretionary equity funding to the school allocation budgets.

There's a process prior just prior to the start of the school year or some other funding is dispersed to the schools and this funding would be dispersed at that time back to the schools.

And just as a reminder this is the funding that was Sort of a lump sum for each level of school so $5,000 at elementary schools $10,000 at K-8 $25,000 at middle schools $45,000 at the comprehensive high schools and $8,000 at the non-traditional schools and so those funds will be restored for non-staff utilization prior to the start of the 25 24 25 school year.

And we can go to the next slide.

This is a good prompt for answering a question that came up from the board members around overage pay and how that was factored into the school funding allocations modeling.

And so information more detailed information than we then we then I was able to provide last time as we've set aside about a million dollars projecting the impact of overage pay in secondary schools related to the class size change that's being proposed here from 30 to 31. Staff and I think that's a very conservative estimate that it will probably come in less than a million dollars but we've made provisions that for that overage pay and that's factored into this net savings after the reinstitute of the equity funding savings of five point seven million dollars.

I know there were questions about this.

Does that answer those questions.

SPEAKER_03

Kind of.

I'm wondering how much a million dollar like because overages the amount of overages overage per educator is there's a range right.

SPEAKER_15

For secondaries it's three thirty three dollars and thirty six cents per kid over 150 per day.

does that does that make sense what i just said though i mean i understand what you just said it makes very little sense and so if you estimate that amount for all of the teachers in secondary you get a number in the range of 1.5 to 2 million which isn't realistic that all teachers would suddenly go from 30 to 31 in every classroom.

So conservatively estimating about a million dollars impact is what the budget proposal contains in terms of an estimate for that.

SPEAKER_03

So the initial not initial sorry additional analysis that I am really interested in so that I can fully understand and feel comfortable about accepting this is and I don't.

OK.

So the intersection of.

Where we're increasing the seams.

OK.

This is a budget solution and I don't know that it's necessarily a service to student solution and I would like to understand that it is.

And I can explain that a little bit more if.

So we're hearing about.

And I think what I really want to understand is what's anecdotal and what's actual.

So hearing about language reduction, world language access, which is a graduation requirement, music programs, any kind of other.

I'm talking about basic education.

I'm talking about just regular classes, not things that are after school.

If we are what is the impact of increasing the staffing ratio on the number of courses able to be offered because we've actually taken taken an adult or more than one adult out of the building.

And does the savings.

Does it actually pencil out that it's like how many how many people can be in overage before it costs the same as another teacher.

Because if.

I guess I'm having a hard time understanding really what the actual impact of this is.

In theory, it makes sense.

In actuality, I'm wondering how it's connected to the classes that are able to be offered.

I mean, if that's one person, that's four or five class periods a day that are no longer available.

Maybe that's not connected to the language offerings, but I feel like it might be.

And maybe that's just short-term pain because of the situation we're in.

But I would like to understand that we don't find ourselves in a situation where, for the amount of overage pay that's being expended, we may have done better to just keep the class number down.

And without knowing how many people this are like, I don't know.

I want to see a little bit more of the it makes sense in theory.

I don't know if I'm making any sense.

I don't want to find us in a position where we actually end up spending more in overage when we could have been providing more in classes to students for the same amount or less money.

And if we have enrollment projections by building I would think that wouldn't be impossible to calculate at least a really good guess but I could be totally wrong.

I just, I don't want to be in October going, oh crap, we reduced the services and we ended up spending more in overage than we thought we were going to.

And I don't know if there's any way for you to say 100%, but I would like to have like one more level down of, how many like how many schools generally go into overage based on current current enrollment projections and current staffing allocation.

We should be able to look at those numbers and know already which teachers or how many teachers per building will be in overage based on the projections.

So I'd like us to know that that number is lower than.

keeping 30 to 1 class sizes.

I think, am I way off?

SPEAKER_17

I absolutely understand your question and I think there are multiple factors that go into it and I'd like to maybe get back to you on how we do the calculations because there's several things going into, you're specifically focused on moving the staffing ratio up from 30 to one to 31 to one and I think there's multiple impacts that that has.

And so it's not just a one-to-one ratio around overages.

And so let us work that a little bit, and we can get that back to you right away.

But I don't want to speak out of turn without having that analysis at my fingertips.

And so we'll commit to getting that to you.

SPEAKER_15

You know we there's another compound or complicating factor around the enrollment decline as well and so we're trying to tease that out of some of these data as they're literally being finalized in the last couple of days and so that's another thing to try and tease out of this.

Are we superintendent do we anticipate having bringing back building level information because a lot of this is site specific decision making as well and Trying to tease out what was caused by this or what was some other building decision.

SPEAKER_03

Well and I know we're looking at class ratios but the actual overage is how many is not how many students are in front of you in the classroom but how many you engage with throughout the day.

So even that isn't like.

SPEAKER_17

So not not building by building just the aggregate.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

A little and I don't want to say well show us how you did that.

I want I want that I want validation.

I think I want I want numbers validation to to be like OK I understand why this is like I fully understand even if I don't like it fully understand why this is the recommendation.

And right now I still feel like I kind of understand why it's the recommendation but not quite enough to be like I can, even if I don't like it, feel confident in my understanding that of the several uncomfortable options, this does make sense.

SPEAKER_15

We can do that.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_17

I know you used the phrase show your work, and I think part of the question that you may be pushing into is what have been the trade-offs for what else could we have done?

And I do think we have some information around that.

What choices did we make, for example, We talked about discretionary funds instead of reducing the number of librarians.

So those are some of the trade-offs, for example.

And I think there are, I don't know, you probably have to do a multiple regression analysis to see how these impacts ripple through our entire system.

But we can show, I think, the aggregate in terms of here's what we considered and here's what we didn't.

And I think we showed that before, I want to take a deeper deeper look at it so we can bring back information and if post this meeting you could express a little more around kind of what what you want to see.

I think we'll we'll ask our folks to kind of pull that together.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

Yeah and I think it's it's less well what other choices could you have made and more What supports your decision to make this choice.

Like, how did you arrive at this being the best option?

And for that, I want to see what is the relationship between a school that's not projected to lose enrollment still losing course offerings.

And maybe that's just right now in this moment of time.

Yes, they are losing course offerings because we have to do this because of reductions.

Yeah, anyway, I'm not gonna perseverate on that because I think we're, yeah.

SPEAKER_15

Okay.

We can go to the next slide.

There were questions around making sure kids were not impacted who could not pay or chose not to pay the athletic the voluntary athletic fee that was being proposed.

And we have worked with staff and the vendor of the school pay system to ensure that we can make sure that that's not information that's widely shared and won't be an impact on students participation so.

We're confident we can implement a system for collection to ensure that students won't be prevented from participating in this.

And then there was a question on timing or discussion about timing on transportation changes.

So just that conversation I think was mostly resolved at the table in March on March 20th.

I want to just reinforce for folks that the recommendation still is to.

Return to three bell times not for the 24 5 school year but for the 25 6 school year for many of the reasons that were discussed last time but to do some focused reductions for skill center transportation for the 24 5 school year.

And I know the principal has been communicating and working on that with families who participate in school center anticipating changes there.

Those were the main questions that had come forward so wanted to make sure we address those specifically.

Here's a sort somewhat updated version of this loan amount that's being projected has changed a little bit primarily due to the the change in the equity allocations being restored.

We're still sort of sharpening the pencils on some of the other inputs to the system.

The 110 thousand or 110 million 111 million deficit.

I think that 36 million will be the high watermark in terms of a proposed loan when we get to the finalization of all of this but wanted to show sort of the the highest number that we anticipate currently the loan to be.

But it likely would be somewhat less than that when all is said and done at the end.

But didn't want to go there until we're certain as to how that will end up.

And then just a process check here as I said earlier we're sort of rounding the corner where staff are really busy reconciling the billion dollar budget inputs and gathering all that information.

And June 10th is when the budget book the public hearing on the final full budget will be presented and then anticipating a board vote on that.

July 2nd.

And one note there the loan that's contemplated in the budget proposal the approval of that will need to be prior to June 30th which is before July 2nd.

So we'll have to staff will have to work with the board and the superintendent's office on how best to facilitate those two things.

Sorry can you say that.

SPEAKER_03

I missed the first part of what you just said.

SPEAKER_15

We need to do the actual loan approval by June 30th.

But the current budget vote is July 2nd.

And so since those are so connected we'll have to navigate how best to facilitate that between now and then.

DIRECTOR RIVERA- Got it.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF And then Dr. Jones alluded to he was going to talk about some of the future considerations in the fiscal fiscal stabilization plan.

SPEAKER_03

DIRECTOR RIVERA- Before we go to that can we do a quick whip around if anyone has.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah I can go real fast.

So I appreciate I think last time we had a budget conversation.

I think I and Director Sarju commented about the disappointment that seeing the equity allocation disappear.

I appreciate seeing it back.

We'll say one thing that.

I'm disappointed in and I want to see next time as we go through this budget process is working on our timeline because budgets went to schools before we sort of had an opportunity to give direction really.

And that means that these equity allocations aren't going to go into planning for right now because it sounds like school budgets are done and it sounds like the equity money then goes more towards the fall.

It also makes decisions on the staffing ratio more difficult.

because I think it would be an operational obstacle at this point to change that and I would like to understand sort of I think sort of Liza to your point what the on the ground implications are understanding there's enrollment issues in that projections in that too but what that actually looks like on the ground the impacts to the kids in the classrooms.

So just thinking for the future the timing of those and making sure they're better aligned I think would be helpful.

SPEAKER_17

Yeah so thank you and we certainly don't want to get ahead of the board on these critical decisions.

In our planning we we tried to make sure that we didn't do that but obviously we didn't.

We weren't clear we did not.

flag this as something that we needed to bring to your attention and so duly noted and we will endeavor to in subsequent years make sure that we're in front of that and so we may have been moving too fast or we may have not highlighted things along the way but I'll own that in terms of us improving our process.

SPEAKER_03

I think that the board can actually take a piece of that too because and we were actually just talking about this at the break.

We as we lean into pushing the district into having the required annual budget and the forecast which we're about to talk about and and not thinking just year to year but working with the board more into you know out years.

And as we are more focused on our role in governance we We should be able to be more clear through things like the financial guardrail policy and other priorities about what our expectations are before the budget process even starts.

I think historically it's there's a general idea that we want to support kids.

and have them learn and it's sort of a back and forth presenting something to the board and hoping they'll be OK with it.

But the board doesn't really tell you ahead of time what they will be OK with or not.

And so it's a little bit of a like you know this kind of you know alternating one step two step and then we get to the time to approve the budget and the board's says we don't like it we're not going to prove it when in reality by the time we get to July 2nd we're actually just approving all of the things we have already been talking about.

We're not that's not a new decision.

That's like a final acceptance of what we're doing right now and what has been happening in budget work sessions iteratively.

So if we are more clear as a governing body about what will or will not be acceptable, and you're starting from that instead of you know kind of taking a best guess about what seven individuals may or may not be okay with you know i mean i think i think this year is progress we have done that it has been more collaborative and clear and because of the timing of the way that budgets go out to buildings like they have to be able to know that kind of sooner but the clearer we are in our direction to the superintendent in policy and with our goals and guardrails that cascades through you know anything that comes to us should be aligned with those expectations.

If that makes sense which will hopefully mean that we're we're not saying we don't think we like that idea a whole lot.

You should already have a pretty good idea of what will and won't be something that that we want you to consider or what information is important for us to know related to that and especially as related to student outcomes.

SPEAKER_17

Yeah, so I think the combination of clear expectations, us anticipating the operational constraints that we have and planning accordingly, I think we can get to an improved process.

And again, it is not our intent.

Our intent always has been to be as transparent as possible.

But we'll work out those kinks for future presentations.

And we still owe you the information that you asked for as well.

So we'll get that.

SPEAKER_03

And one other thing I want to ask about is Having staff in place to the best of our ability along the most updated projections on day one for students with and without disabilities is critical.

And so if there is an update to enrollment in June I would like to know I don't need to know the details about it but I would like to know that There are considerations being made to update budgets based on the most recent enrollment so we do not have students especially in special special education classrooms and needing services without their adequate support on day one because we under staffed.

SPEAKER_17

uh...

received gotcha yes absolutely so uh...

as we see as we pull the shutters down on all the kind of the operational pieces of the budget you know we uh...

doctor bottom and show the that the dates of june second skinny june tenth in july second uh...

where you are formally voting on that we are essentially moving from 20, 24, 25 planning now into 25, 26 planning.

So for 23, 24, oh, you can leave that slide up.

For 23, 24, we closed $131 million gap.

In our planning, for 24, 25, we will have closed a 104 to $111 million gap.

That's about $235 million in two years.

And this has been, I'm proud of the work that we were able to do.

And part of this is, what we are doing now is we are attacking the structural deficit.

And this was the, our expenditures and our revenue did not match, we had, We had help from the federal government.

We had help from the state.

Those funds are no longer available.

We've been riding with a structural deficit for many years.

We just had means to be able to close those gaps or even mask those gaps.

But this is the first time that I believe we're going to be...

that we're gonna actually come really close to closing the structural deficit.

So that's a big deal for us.

Now, along the way, we did take out loans against our own assets, and we're gonna need to pay that back.

But those were some of the creative, if you will, ways that we got to the point where we're moving now into 25, 26 planning.

And so to that end, next slide, please.

As we did for the previous year, we had a resolution and the spirit of the resolution was to really give the superintendent and team tools and possibilities to pursue in order to reconcile the budget.

And we did that in the previous year and we've done that this year and included in this year's resolution, we had an item around 2526. and twenty five twenty six we've talked about school consolidations to be implemented in twenty five twenty six.

grade level reorganizations, program adjustments.

And so as it's articulated in the resolution, we will be bringing you a plan for a system of well-resourced schools on May 8th.

That system of well-resourced schools will have this first bullet in here around school consolidations and an aspect of grade level reorganization.

SO WHAT WE'LL BE LOOKING FOR IS YOUR AFFIRMATION TO KEEP MOVING IN THAT DIRECTION OR GO IN ANOTHER DIRECTION.

BUT THE TEAM HAS BEEN DOING HEAVY PLANNING AROUND BEING READY TO PRESENT A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN COME MAY 8TH.

SO I WANT TO BE REALLY CLEAR ABOUT WHAT WE'RE DOING.

I WANT TO BE CLEAR ABOUT WHAT WE'RE ASKING THE BOARD TO DO, AND THE BOARD WILL GIVE US I'm asking for very clear direction to keep pursuing that direction or go in a different way because it's gonna take a heavy lift to do these things.

And so what it looks like, next slide please, When we talk about a well-resourced school we're talking about these are eight of the key elements to a well-resourced school.

We'd like to have a system of these where every every school has multiple teachers per grade level.

This is the elementary level full time support staff an inclusive learning learning environment for every student social and emotional learning supports art music PE teachers stable operational budgets, safe and healthy, beautiful schools and grounds and connection to the community amongst other things.

And this is the rendering from what our community told us around well-resourced schools.

And so this is what we're going for.

And if you think about year 2030, which we're projecting is the end of our next strategic plan, we'd like to be able to see at least at our elementary levels every school have this as something that our our families are are excited and eager to go to because we will have all of these built into the structure our budgeting our levies our strategic planning that this is what these are these are outcomes that we're seeking and so just wanted to be clear around we're moving from now the budget to a system of well-resourced schools.

And budgeting is one factor that we need to have.

We need to have that stabilization in order to do these things.

But I want to really cast our gaze on this as kind of our North Star, if you will, of where we're going.

And so I wanted to be clear in my signaling around what planning that we're doing.

And with that said, I think that's going to bring us to a close of at least budget session number seven and this we'll start talking about this in a different context around what are we actually trying to do to become a well resourced school and there are many factors that go into this.

So I'll stop right there and that's that's the I wanna thank Dr. Buttleman for getting us through the budgeting process for 24-25.

I know we're not done yet.

We have a couple questions that we need to be responsive to.

We're gonna take a look at our process so that we don't surprise board members with things that are already in flight.

We'll work on that in the spirit of continuous improvement and that's where we are.

So thank you for your attention on this and we're moving forward.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Director Top.

SPEAKER_07

Echo Dr. Jones thank you to Dr. Bottleman.

This is not easy this is complicated and everything is.

There are no easy decisions and everything is felt more harshly because there's no cushion room.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah I think even the choices that we don't want to have to make.

This the five of us and I think are soon to be joining us too will continue to be committed to being clear and understanding that We're trying to support the long term health and well-being of and sustainability of our school district and its ability to provide education for every child.

So it's going to get rough rougher after already many rough years.

But yeah.

And you just chose to be here not that long ago Dr. Bottleman.

Same with you too.

So yeah.

Thank you.

Is there anything that you need from the board prior to May 8. I mean so we've got some maybe some more information hopefully that will come to us before then.

But do you need anything else from us before the next time we are here.

SPEAKER_17

I encourage you to ask as many questions as you want to.

The more you ask us questions, the more we can refine what we're trying to do.

Our planning is always in motion.

We're always evolving.

And so, again, trying to have no surprises.

And so if there are things you're wondering about, curious about, scared of, let us know so that we can try to be anticipatory of those in advance of May 8th.

SPEAKER_03

All right.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Few quick things to do back at the dais.

OK team.

So the next thing on the agenda is board evaluation.

We don't have a time use evaluation for March yet.

What.

I didn't really I think I didn't assign anybody.

So so here's actually so we don't have that evaluation for March.

I can do it for March for us to have in our materials in the next April board meeting.

SPEAKER_02

Because of Passover.

Sorry guys.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah I mean Passover is eight days eight nights long but it's it's just the first couple nights are.

Yeah.

So I don't know directors Topp or Briggs in your training have you all gotten to time use evaluation yet.

SPEAKER_99

OK.

SPEAKER_03

I guess I'll do it.

So here's what I would like to propose that we do with this board evaluation piece.

We had begun at some point doing the time use evaluation is just one little piece of the overall board evaluation and I am trying to make myself and us stick to our commitment of doing regular self evaluations.

And so in our adopted framework you start with kind of quarter zero and we do quarterly self evaluations where we just check ourselves.

These are the things we've committed to do.

How do we do on them in the last few months.

I know Director Hersey started that practice with us and we've had many different things happening and.

doesn't matter we've somehow lost track of that and I am going to propose that we call April 25th the new quarter zero.

And I will work in the work back into our calendar the regular progress or sorry board evaluation.

It's not a huge chunk of time but if we don't do it it won't happen.

So I'll do time use evaluation.

I'm happy to if anybody wants to look over my shoulder if you want like a it's really it's not that complicated it's just a matter of the the it's not even a theory.

The research shows how we spend our time matters and we want to push ourselves to spend more time talking about student outcomes than we do talking about other things that are not the purview of the board.

And the goal eventually is to have 50 percent of our time together being spent on things that have directly to do with student outcomes which is goal setting guardrail setting and monitoring on both of those.

And so we can see how we're doing on that by Looking at our time spent together as a whole board Over the past month look month over month and look for trends and try to push ourselves So but that that's just a little part of it.

That's the part we've been consistent about what we've lost the quarterly evaluation so I am proposing and asking you all to help hold me accountable to make sure that I implement that into our agendas.

If I forget or if it like if it's not there in the next two weeks ask me what happened to it because I we just you know it seems like one more thing but it's really like all we have all the reasons in the world not to do that.

And that's actually what will help us move in advance in our effectiveness for our students.

So that's that.

I also wanted to reflect back on the community engagement work session that we had a couple of weeks ago.

Following that Dr. Jones presented me with a kind of a summary of based on what we said what was heard and so I want to reflect back to you all and see that we're we're still aligned and should still keep going.

So basically what came out of that work session is that building off the work of the ad hoc community engagement committee And next steps out of that is that we will work together and with staff to do a long term regular thing and an immediate short term thing which I can't remember how much we touched on but I'll tell it to you now.

So the long term we want to calendar community engagement events for 24 25 determine what the purpose of those events will be what you know not just we're doing engagement but you know very specifically board to engagement with community calendar those determine what they're for what we talk about and what support we may need from staff to help us do that effectively align our engagement with engagement of the superintendent and staff on customer and stakeholder events that we want to either be present at as a community member and supporter or hey the superintendent's asking you about this and the board wants to also hear about this just get some get some coalescing iteration there you go and then we've got we want to revise and and produce the one pagers which that will be a staff task and then revise and adopt well not revise because we don't have one but that policy on board engagement And so is there anything does that does that capture it.

I mean I have more notes with other things but I want to make sure that before we say yep let's keep doing that and staff moves to support us that make sure that we all have a shared understanding.

Yeah Director Top.

SPEAKER_07

I think so I think the short term stuff is that where the goals are going.

OK.

Just making sure I understood that.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah sorry I didn't mean to like tease that and then not say it but I'll come back to it in a second.

SPEAKER_17

Yeah President Rankin I just want to clarify the one pagers that you all desire to have were really around the role clarity of the board in trying to kind of have a campaign marketing education around the distinct role of the board.

And so I think that was the intent of the one pagers correct.

SPEAKER_03

And that's also content that was produced by the ad hoc community engagement committee so that that's not a new project that's a material that has been produced that now needs to be.

ready to be forward facing.

OK.

And then in the short term, we have the opportunity very quickly to kind of put ourselves and this to the test, which is So when I was elected president, I imagined that this would be how we would be starting January.

And then other things have transpired, and now we have to get back to our job of recognizing that the current strategic plan is expiring, and it's our responsibility to set goals to direct the superintendent on behalf of the whole community about expectations for the school system and allow give him the.

The guidance for the strategic plan the next strategic plan.

So.

When we have our two new directors seated this is my proposal is that for goals and guardrails engagement after we get back from spring break we run engagement specifically around goals and guardrails so student outcomes from the entire Seattle community.

mid April to mid June by eight weeks and then at the end of June have a full day board retreat where we will get take everything gathered and reflected to us from the community on goals and guardrails and we will sit together for a day look through all that data staff will of course support us in collecting and aggregating data and we'll develop our draft goals and guardrails.

which will be the basis for the new strategic plan.

So the proposal that I have is that we the superintendent is is already doing another set of well resourced schools which is really about what do families and students expect from a school.

It's about the inputs into the system.

And so we can come alongside that and say in service to meeting what outcomes that the whole community expects.

So we can do some coordination with that.

We can do, I have asked staff if they can support us in collecting information based on a set of questions through an online tool of some sort, thought exchange or some kind of other thing.

that we would all be able to share out and have access to and go to a PTA meeting or community meeting and say, hey, you can go here to this website or here's the QR code, whatever that is, and do outreach based on getting what we need to be able to develop the next set of goals and guardrails.

And so if that's going to be something You know it's a it's a shortish period of time.

It is a doable period of time.

If we are.

Ready to do that.

And then the idea would be to have the draft goals and guardrails before the July break.

And then they'd go back out to community for confirmation based on what you told us.

This is what we heard are the priorities here our draft set of goals and guardrails.

Let them sit for a little bit.

Let people say like no that's totally way off or yeah that feels that feels right based on the information that you got.

And then when we come back in August September We look at you know the superintendent will then be responsible for setting interim goals.

Then we look at those together.

Are those a reasonable interpretation and do we do we think those will indicate progress towards our goal yes or no.

Introduce a final version and and then adopt it and then we will have we'll be able to give to the superintendent.

Here are the goals and guardrails for the 25 30 strategic plan.

Let us know when you have a plan that you want to bring back to us that we can approve.

So if that makes sense and sounds good I will continue to work with Dr. Jones and staff on getting us set up with steps to go forth.

SPEAKER_07

What's up.

process question but I can ask it mainly is so the strategic plan is it does it align with the interim goals then is that the.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

So we have our top line goals.

And then the interim goals are measures that the superintendent sets sort of.

SPEAKER_07

Interim goals and the strategic plan are aligned then.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah so the strategic plan would be basically the superintendent's description to us and direction to staff about.

All right folks what are we going to what are we going to do.

What do we think we need to do to make progress on these goals.

OK?

Yeah, we're the what, he's the how.

Yeah.

That's mostly it.

Legislative session has ended.

I said I would give an update.

I'll send.

Is it.

If I send you something can you attach it to this meeting or is that like that ship has sailed.

No Ellie is saying no.

OK.

I pulled together a bunch of links to just to give background into well links of.

stories from around the state about you know smaller districts but some same sized problems with structural underfunding and what we all should be thinking about organizing towards together for the next legislative session that I wanted to share.

And I also pulled together some background information on just how we got here as a state and McCleary and some other things.

because basically the report from the state legislative session is we made some progress on some of the things that we advocated for and it was a supplemental year and you know, it's time to start thinking about 2025. So what would be the best way to, I guess could I just put those in information items for the next board meeting?

Okay.

Does anybody else have liaison.

Director Topp.

SPEAKER_07

Next community meeting that everyone is invited to April 13th 1030 a.m.

at Delridge library.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Anything else for the good of the order.

All right there being no further business to become to come before the board this meeting stands adjourned at 7 0 9 p.m.

Thank you and good night.