Seattle School Board Meeting November 15, 2017 Part 2

This could be a long night.

Okay we have now moved to the action portion of the agenda.

Item number one amending policy number 24 1 5 high school graduation requirements.

Good evening.

My name is Caleb Perkins.

Hold on.

I want to start with the motion the second and then we're going to hear from the committee member and then you're on.

So stick around.

I move that the school board amend board policy number 2 4 1 5 high school graduation requirements as attached to the board action report.

I second the motion.

Okay so our C&I chair is not here but who can speak?

Director Geary can you speak for this and the next item?

So both item number one and two came to C&I on October 11 and were both passed through for consideration.

Thank you.

All right now over to you Caleb.

Thank you.

Good evening directors.

Thank you for the opportunity to raise two items related to our secondary revisioning work and ongoing work to get ready for the 24 credits.

This first board action report 24 15 asks for your vote on the removal of the 2.0 GPA requirement.

We all support rigor.

We believe however this requirement is no longer necessary or helpful.

And I reference the testimony the powerful testimony from principal Wynkoop from Ballard High School.

and the powerful testimony from academic dean Chris McBride from Garfield High School who has joined us again on the need to make this change.

It also echoes what the 24 credit task force report recommended initially.

There's been no change in the board action report since the initiation and since the introduction on November 1st and we're open to your questions.

Peters Are there any questions or comments about this item?

Okay well then I have a few because we are heading towards a vote on this I just want to make sure that we're clear on a couple of aspects of this.

And so.

So this is this is the request that we eliminate the 2.0 GPA as a requirement as a high school graduation requirement.

Currently you can tell me if I've got this right.

We are the one of only two districts in the state that have a graduation GPA requirement.

There are numerous other things that students have to do to have to have to accomplish in order to graduate from high school.

So the GPA was just one of them.

And is it possible for a student to get beyond a 2.0 in their core subjects but not get it in their electives and therefore not be able to Could you just speak a little bit to why this is an issue just to refresh people's memories on this.

I will I will and I'll also invite Ms. McBride if there's additional details that you appreciate.

Yes there are a number of ways in which the GPA is calculated and for the purposes of this requirement there are certainly scenarios where students can do well in core classes and not well in electives and vice versa.

There's any number of scenarios that I think lead to an inconsistent approach that ultimately makes this this bar somewhat arbitrary or mainly arbitrary and as a result that's one of the reasons why we're asking for its removal and that's why the 24 credit task force asked for its removal.

Again the number of things that can happen that make this bar not a consistent one.

And a 2.0 is a C is that correct?

Correct.

All right.

I think one of the more compelling points that was brought up by Ms. McBride before was the fact that we a D is a passing grade and so students pass with a D and yet that's not good enough for them to have a diploma.

And so there seems to be an inconsistency in what we're doing.

So what one of my concerns would be and I mean I am I am leaning towards supporting this is the question is going to be are we lowering our standards?

And you've made enough compelling points to say no.

You know we're still expecting a lot of our students just not to let this one thing hold them back.

Would it be possible to ask you all to come back to us in about a year and tell us what the what the ramifications have been of this decision if we go ahead and do this.

In other words what did it change what did the change look like so that we can feel that we're on be sure we're on the right path.

That sounds both healthy and reasonable.

Yes.

Okay is that something that we would need to have to put in this bar as like an amended sentence?

I guess I'm looking at legal counsel on that one.

Treat General Counsel and I'm sorry I missed the question.

Okay what I'm what I'm suggesting is I'm asking staff if they can if we go ahead and if this does pass if we can ask staff to come back to the board every year or at least the first year and report back on what the what the results have been or what the implications have been of this change so we can know what we know.

what it was happened and whether it's going in the right direction or not.

And if we it looks like staff is willing to do this but should we have it stated as a sentence in the bar.

Does that require like an amendment.

It wouldn't work.

You wouldn't be required to put that in the bar.

I mean if staff committed to do that you're comfortable with that commitment then that would be sufficient.

Director Geary.

Can anybody think of a report that is already given to us that this piece could be included in as a data point so it doesn't so it becomes a natural fit in terms of not redirecting work specifically at an off time but just an additional piece of information that is included in terms of perhaps achievement graduation rates and just adding that gap in so that we can look at it in a greater context as well which I think would be ultimately helpful.

Michael Tolley associate superintendent for teaching and learning.

I currently can't think of an annual report that comes to the board that would reflect the specifics of this particular item.

Of course we do have annual reports to the board on graduation rates and other data points of course that were presented last week.

I was looking at the language of the policy itself to see if there was anything that might reflect that and it doesn't contain that.

However we could include the expectation that as part of the superintendent procedure which is the counseling manual that guides us for this particular board policy that that would be an additional annual report would be given to the C&I policy committee.

Okay so how would we make that happen?

Is that something we would have to put on the C&I agenda or who could make that happen?

We can make that part of the C&I policy committee work plan and incorporate that within into that process.

Okay so is that something that the associate superintendent Tully you could make happen?

Yes I'll follow up on that.

Okay thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments about this item?

Okay seeing none.

Check the roll call please.

Director Blanford aye Director Geary aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

So now move on to item number two amending policy number 2 4 2 0 high school grade and credit marking.

I move that the school board amend board policy number 2 4 2 0 high school grade and credit marking as attached to the board action report.

I second the motion.

Have there been any changes since this came to us in introduction?

Yes thanks again for the opportunity to address another aspect of our 24 credit work.

So per director Burke's suggestion to ensure that there's adequate language in the policy to ensure that a credit is defined clearly and with adequate rigor and checks.

We added a fourth component per Director Geary's first suggestion at the October 11 work session to define a credit.

The fourth aspect of the definition now as it's been added says successfully meeting the credit earning requirements specified in other existing policies.

Superintendent procedure 2024 policy 2409 and policy 24 13. Again that was per Director Burke's suggestion that we make leverage all the existing language around credit earning opportunities.

So it's clear that all of these are linked together.

Peters Any questions or comments about this item?

Director Blanford.

I would just say that we can see it.

Members of the community might not be able to see that there had been a fairly rich community engagement on this that we're not just making it in isolation but we've gotten feedback from the task force and from community members so that we're making a decision that we believe is in the best interests of the district and the students that we're serving.

But we're also collaborating with them various stakeholders to ensure that that is the case.

Exactly.

Okay.

Director Pinkham.

I believe I put brought this up when this was first introduced.

When it does list the grades 11 grade marks you know A A minus B plus.

Yeah I don't see anything that says like the A is a four point A minus is a 3 5 etc.

I think this would help other people in the community that.

I'm not aware of this grading system you know where I came from the grading system was percentile or something so I'd like to see some clarification for people that may not know what exactly an A is what a B plus is and a B so as they calculate GPAs if they need a 2.0 they'll know what grades like a 2.0 yes that's a C.

I know that maybe most of the board member knows that but do all of our community members know that?

So can be a clarification of what each designated grades are.

I think we can make the commitment to provide communication on what those great outside of actually amending the policy I think we could do that through additional communications and that that's something we can commit to.

So again that detailed information is actually contained in the superintendent procedure which is called the counseling manual that governs this particular policy.

So we can make we can forward make a reference to it or we can make it we can forward that to you.

Director Geary.

So I guess my concern about this is we're making these incremental changes and we're doing them and we're talking about them.

And I think when the big change happens and we actually go to 24 credits people are going to have a population that's going to be surprised by it in spite of us having dealt with it over and over in these tiny little bit.

So if you could take a moment and say for the public what now is going to happen and how that's going to look like to them so that we all have a sense of what we should be saying and talking to our public about as we as we were doing this little work.

But we know it's part of a much bigger scheme that we should be daylighting every chance we get.

I appreciate the opportunity.

So in brief the 24 credit task force laid out some of the reasons why this is another one of these we believe outdated approaches to defining credits and there's other ways to do things and this by removing this requirement it allows us to do two things one to schedule more flexibly and with more innovation to allow the addition of additional periods and additional credit earning opportunities within the school day.

to honor things like worksite learning and internships and apprenticeships that we have talked about with many board members already.

So this is you know when we think about the 24 credit transition it's more than just ensuring kids earn more credits.

It's also trying to take advantage of that opportunity to improve teaching and learning.

And so this additional flexibility flexibility will lead both to more credit earning opportunities and more innovation at our high schools.

And that's why again we're we're asking for this change.

can our public expect to know what high school is going to look like in terms of credit structure?

What is the timeline for that?

So we have a very important meeting with our high school principals tomorrow to talk about what changes we can make in the 18 19 school year as well as where we're trying to get to the 19 20 school year.

There's some important details to be worked out.

So in terms of when something would be publicly facing I believe in the December January time frame I can get more specific after tomorrow's meeting and after we've had some of the conversations with principals.

Harris.

Can you give us just a hint of what is on your agenda tomorrow when you say things like important details to be worked out.

You have my attention.

Yes well I'll give a preview which is that we know that it's critically important that our ninth and 10th graders our ninth graders now next year our ninth and 10th graders because they're required to earn 24 credits.

Many of them will need to have more than six credit earning opportunities per year.

If the current trend holds up where 18 percent of our students only earn five or fewer credits each year that we need to be able to expand those credit earning opportunities within the school day.

Now for next year this is the details to be worked out given issues related to budget and other constraints we need to be careful and we need to be cautious and we need to be deliberative and that's where for next year the discussion is with each school principal to figure out how best to do that with some additional support but you know not enough to make a complete schedule change for the coming school year and that's where The details again I would love to add to Director Geary's point to be able to share much more of that when we are able to engage in those detailed conversations with principals in December and January.

Peters Dr. Nyland.

You know everything that Caleb said.

We have a couple of challenges.

One is we had hoped to be able to go forward with a full fledged plan for 28 or 32 credits.

And as we had conversations around our collective bargaining agreement we realized that although Nathan Hale and Cleveland had models that seemed to get us partway there.

When we dug into the details we found out that they put additional funding in and or they had waivers.

So basically a two pronged approach.

We will be working with high schools and saying that we will have some of the funding available to them to do what Caleb described and be asking them to propose back to us what they can do with partial funding.

more funding than what they now have to meet the needs for ninth graders and 10th graders who are first out of the chute with this new 24 credit requirement.

And at the same time to immediately enter into interest based bargaining discussions with SEA and with principals participating to go to Cleveland, find out what that really looks like on the ground, try to understand all of the details of the schedule, parse that in terms of our CDA and then look at some of the other places that have implemented an eight period block schedule.

based on what we now know that may very well be our preferred schedule going forward.

But we have to actually start to implement things not implement.

We have to actually design things that we can implement on the ground that are in compliance with the collective bargaining agreements.

Our goal is to get the collective bargaining.

Well I'll back up all that ditto.

Now immediately we'll be talking with high school principals about this partial increase in a funding formula asking them to go back work with their BLT give us a proposal for how they're going to make more options available particularly for 9th and 10th grade.

And at the same time by June we want to work through the bargaining process with SEA so that by June We know what we will be doing for not 2018 but 2019 so that we can do the professional development.

We can work with principals on scheduling.

We can provide more opportunities to be on the ground with Cleveland or other places that have implemented more complex schedules so.

We're trying to do it right in terms of giving more time and opportunity to high school principals and to their BLT to try on if you will the things that Nathan Hale and Cleveland have done.

And in some cases that will be that they'll try it on by actually doing it.

In other places they'll try it on by trying to figure out how they get ready to do it while providing other creative ways to help ninth graders and 10th graders continue to be credit proficient.

Okay so I just have a comment.

So one of my concerns is about this originally was the idea that are we doing some shortcuts that could end up shortchanging our students by giving them a class that doesn't have time requirements and maybe could be done quickly and isn't really substantial.

So do you feel that all these different points that have now been added will will ensure will give us some assurances that there won't the scenario I just described wouldn't be possible?

I do.

I mean obviously everything requires implementation and that's something that my office does and my team in particular but generally speaking the central office still vets courses any high school courses new high school courses that goes through a vetting process the curriculum goes through a vetting process the and then there's many other checks that are in place in terms of AP course audits in terms of number of instructional hours in terms of compulsory attendance.

I mean there's there's many things in place to make sure that this is not going to result in students getting credits for very little effort and very little work.

Okay and obviously one of my main concerns would be the possibilities with an online course that could be done really quickly.

So will you do you have anything built into this that will allow for some sort of review similar to the last conversation we had.

Do you have a way of being able to start to tally what kind of classes we end up offering students and what students are choosing and what that looks like?

What kind of follow up are you going to do with this?

Well in terms of the formal procedure I'll turn to what Associate Superintendent Tolley referenced earlier in terms of a formal update to the C&I policy team but I think back to Director Geary's point There will be the expectation that we would communicate with the board and the larger community about what the approach is to expanding credit earning opportunities for the 9th and 10th graders next year.

And that would be you know that would be the substance of the work.

And then I would again turn to director sorry associate superintendent Tolley to think about how we formally include that as C&I policy update.

But I hear the request it makes sense and I think we should do it.

Okay and I would also request that we alert our counseling departments to keep an eye and make sure that we don't have some kids who are taking certain classes and other kids that are taking you know more engaged rich classes because then we have another equity issue on our hands.

We have to make sure that we're not shortchanging anybody in the interest of following the state mandate.

So that that's my main concern.

And then you have mentioned a couple of times the AP audits the AP class audits.

When do those happen and do they involve assessment of the content or assessment of the instructor or both?

It's mainly the content.

I might defer to others who know the exact timeline in Washington state but it's something that has to have to to be an AP instructor.

It's a it's a regular thing that the college board over the last number of years has gotten very good at making sure that the courses that they're saying count as AP courses in fact go through a formal vetting process.

So I could share more I don't have the exact timeline here but I could.

Yeah I guess I'll just sort of bookmark that topic for maybe later because I know from my own experience you know my own child had various AP classes and some were more successful than others largely had to do with the instruction and there was an inconsistency in the instruction.

So you know we promise our kids AP classes especially for talking about expanding advanced learning throughout the district which we should do no matter what we have to make sure we have the instruction that matches the expectations of the class.

Director Harris.

My favorite topic consistency.

So have we determined now what.

the qualitative issue on advisory periods throughout the district are for high school.

And two are we analyzing the scoring of the AP classes for those that take the test and for the IB tests.

Do we have a sense because we haven't had for a very long time what our pass rates are and what our students are scoring.

I only have a very small answer to that.

Director Geary and I have the report from the Council of Great City Schools and they compare us quite favorably with our counterparts but that really is not a very full and complete answer.

And I'm sure that we do have places where we do need to do better.

I'll only share first per advisory.

Again thank you for the question.

I did follow up with a brief email just to provide the rollout plan of in terms of ensuring a level of rigor and quality for advisory over the course of this year as we work towards a credit bearing advisory approach for next year.

And the email gets into some a little more detail on the timeline.

In terms of the quality in terms of the AP and IB piece what I will say is that it is definitively part of my work plan that I inherited from conversations with the board from the spring in terms of ensuring that not only that there's access but that there's rigor related to the AP and IB program.

I will need to look at the details in terms of what we currently have but that's certainly on my plate.

If there's no further questions or comments check the roll call please.

Oh yeah.

OK.

Sorry.

I just want to say I did find the grade scale and the counseling manual on page 35. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments.

I guess we're ready for a vote.

Director Geary.

Director Harris aye.

Director Patu aye.

Director Pinkham aye.

Director Blanford aye.

Director Peters aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

I just want to add a thank you to staff for the collaborative effort between staff and the board on getting the wording right so that we can reach a unanimous vote like this.

Okay item number three superintendents employment agreement employment agreement cost of living adjustment also known as a COLA.

I move that the board approve increasing the superintendent's base salary by the COLA amount of 2.3 percent or six thousand seven hundred eighty seven dollars twenty two cents and authorize the board president to execute amendment number four to the superintendent's employment agreement as attached to the board action report.

The 2.3 percent COLA is commensurate with 2.3 percent salary inflation set by state allocation and a regional inflation factor of 3.1 percent.

I second the motion.

Are there any questions or comments about this item?

Director Geary did you have a question?

OK I guess we're ready for the roll on this one.

Director Harris aye.

Director Patu aye.

Director Blanford aye.

Director Geary aye.

Director Pinkham aye.

Director Peters aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Let the record show that Superintendent Nyland is appreciative.

Item 4 BTA IV award construction contract K 5 0 7 8 bid number B 0 8 7 0 5 to form a construction company for the Magnolia Elementary school renovation and addition project.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to execute construction contract K 5 0 7 8 to form a construction company for the Magnolia Elementary School renovation and addition project in the amount of twenty six million two hundred seventeen thousand five hundred dollars including alternates 1B automatic temperature controls for six hundred ninety thousand five hundred dollars.

Alternative 2 South addition build out for one million seventy seven dollars and alternative 3 linoleum flooring for $0 plus Washington state sales tax in the form of the draft agreement attached to the board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary action to implement the contract.

In addition I move that school board authorize a transfer of five million dollars from BTA for program contingency to the Magnolia Elementary School renovation and addition project budget.

I second the motion.

May we please hear from the chair of the operations committee for both this item and the following item.

Sure.

This item was heard on May the 18th and move forward for consideration.

The next item was heard on June the 15th and move forward for consideration.

Richard Best director of capital projects and planning.

We did make some minor modifications to the board the board action report.

We included the alternates language in the recommended motion and then we also included information in the fiscal impact revenue source concerning the transfer of the five million dollars from the BTA IV program contingency.

So I'd open up to questions.

Peters Are there any questions or comments?

There were some comments brought up during public public commentary.

Is there anything that you'd want to speak to on those?

Let's see.

I'm sorry I didn't hear.

Yeah OK.

One of them says that the project bids are over budget by five million dollars is that correct?

Correct.

That is correct.

And could you speak to that again why that is so?

Current construction market is extremely competitive or extremely overextended in the city of Seattle and I would say the Puget Sound basin.

There are I think we're paying a construction market condition premium at this moment in time.

We do have a need for this school to come online.

We have crowded conditions both in the Queen Anne and Magnolia communities and that's why we're recommending we move forward with this project at this time.

We did in May bid this project.

We bid the project did come in approximately six million dollars over budget at that moment in time.

We worked with our architects and engineers to revise the project from May to try to get costs down.

We're now recommending five million dollars be transferred from the BTA IV program contingency.

We did not want to compromise the educational program offerings in Magnolia Elementary School when it reopens.

But we did make some compromises on architectural finishes and then some fairly significant revisions to the mechanical systems.

that were initially contemplated in this building to reduce that cost.

We were able to reduce that cost by approximately a million dollars.

Peters Any questions or comments?

Director Patu.

I just want to make a comment that I will not support any PTA until I see schools in the south end are actually attention to Rainier Beach Aki Kurose and Mercer are old as heck and definitely needs attention.

So I'm going to vote no on this.

Peters Any other questions or comments.

Shek the roll call please.

Director Blanford aye.

Director Geary aye.

Director Harris aye.

Director Patu no.

Director Pinkham no.

Director Peters aye.

This motion has passed with a vote of 4 to 2.

Item number five.

All right award three year contract to Hobson's Naviance for new college and career readiness software solution services and support.

I move that school board authorize the superintendent to execute a contract with Hobson's Naviance in the total amount of six hundred nineteen thousand five hundred thirty eight dollars over three years for a career in college readiness software software solution in the form of the draft agreement attached to the school board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract.

Pinkham I second the motion.

It looks like something has changed since it was introduced.

Can you please speak to any changes?

Yes thanks again for the opportunity to speak to another aspect of our secondary revisioning work and the work that came out of the 24 credit task force.

This was one of the pieces that that 24 credit task force asked for greater support for counselors particularly an online tool.

What has not changed is the merits we believe of the program and the usefulness of the tool and the number of folks who believe strongly that this could be enormously helpful in helping students get access and families get access, more equitable access to information about college and careers.

What has changed is some of the questions that have come up so we believe that there are a number of questions that were asked at the previous at the introduction meeting with the board.

We believe we've answered a lot of those questions at the same time there's been many more questions in the last 24-48 hours and in the interest of transparency in the interest of furthering the discussion and to implement this potential contract in the most careful way possible.

We wanted to have a public exchange and I invited up our chief information officer John Krull to help address some of the very important questions that have been raised around data security data privacy and the other pieces that have been been raised.

So with that we will open up to your questions.

Peters So did you highlight what it is that you've added since last time?

Since introduction is there anything in terms of the board action report I don't believe there's there's what's been added is are the attachments that are related to those.

And so that includes we shared a lot of information very recently that includes the project summary of the contract document the statement about ADA compliance and a number of number of other components that that relate to how this contract will be implemented in a careful way.

Okay you pointed out that some of this information was added recently I think was added yesterday.

Is that right?

Can you speak to why it wasn't added last week?

Because the public has asked us questions about why all the attachments weren't a part of it.

I think it's a it's a fair question.

I believe the my understanding was that some of those pieces had already gone out and perhaps they'd not been shared as thoroughly as they could.

So point taken.

All right.

And on that one my understanding is the board office is working on making items that aren't ADA compatible making those available in the board office and slimming down the number of attachments.

Peters are there any questions or comments about this item?

Director Patu.

I guess I would like to know what guarantee that we have that the information that you get on students will not be leaked out.

Thank you for that question.

There's been a lot of communication about privacy and security like a lot of our applications that DOTS the Department of Technology Services offers.

Those are hosted by third parties and we do a very thorough vetting of those third parties.

So Naviance has been vetted by both the legal department and the technology department.

Naviance has a privacy policy that's very public.

They have it on their website at Naviance dot com slash privacy which explains their privacy.

I have made a few notes based on some of the feedback I got.

We can't don't have time to get into the full security analysis but some key points are Naviance does not sell student process for sharing any data with third party partners and Seattle Public Schools has chosen not to do that opt in process.

So there will be no sharing of third parties with third parties.

There was a concern about Naviance holding our data and having it for a long time.

So we made sure that my department has the ability to extra long.

There was a there was a concern about student IDs being in with the third party and when third parties allow it we de-identify that we use what's called a proxy ID.

So Naviance will not have the student IDs We also again if you looked at the if you look at the Naviance privacy Web site they talk about the amount of data that they store and based on the feedback we got from the community we are going to share the minimal amount of data with Naviance.

So we won't be putting data up there.

The minimal amount of data includes the student name the proxy ID the school.

and the grade level.

That's the minimum just to use the product.

Students have the option and parents will have the option but they don't need to to put more information in there.

So instead of just pushing masses amounts of data from our student information system we will put the minimal amount of data in Naviance.

And then finally again based on feedback is along with Dr. Perkins office we are going to be providing an opt out program.

So if students don't want to be out or parents have concerns and they want to make that choice we're going to have a process that's not just a technology process of turning them off.

That's my department can handle that easily.

But working with the education side of the house the parents will understand that they have the option to opt out.

And here's you know they'll have some alternative assignments but I'll leave it to them on actually how the parents will be informed but that'll definitely be an option.

So that's just the highlights of.

addressing the concerns again like the other applications that we bring forth to the board.

They have a full legal review.

We've learned from the past we make sure we have the right clauses in there for protecting the data.

We have our own internal security processes that we outlined at the board work session with I.T.

We have logging we have security protocols in place to really add that extra layer so we will know if there's any issues.

Director Blanford and then Director Geary.

In my discussion about the fact that this had gone to the operations committee I neglected to mention the fact that it had come to the operations committee twice and it also went to the curriculum and instruction committee.

I think this is a classic conundrum that in our four years on the board has come up numerous times where we have a technological solution to address a problem that our educators have told us exists.

And then we are struggling with the issue of data security and ensuring that we don't have a repeat of prior experiences where our data was was hijacked or held longer than we wanted it to.

And I think this discussion does not include has not so far included and I'm encouraging you to provide some information on what our educators have said this problem will help them to solve.

Because it's important for us to know why we're having this conversation and taking potentially the risk associated with getting a product even though I feel fairly comfortable with the guarantees around data security that you've shared if those actually come to pass.

I have a high level of confidence that we're good but I think it's important for you to share the benefit that goes along with the risk.

Before Dr. Perkins goes I wanted to address your first comment about first going to operations and then to C&I.

What I'm really trying to do is change the paradigm of how DOTS is operating.

So originally anything that was technology was for some reason considered a DOTS project.

So I want to be responsible for security and privacy but I want to be in support of what CNI is trying to do.

So traditionally before I got here this was getting geared up for operations because it was a technology because it runs on technology, but it's really a CNI product.

So what I'm trying to build is build a reputation that we're going to provide security and privacy.

I'm going to work closely with my very professional IT or privacy department in tandem with legal, but it's going to be in support of what CNI is doing.

So with that, I'll pass it along.

Yes thank you Director Blanford.

I appreciate the opportunity to review some of the things that we've shared previously and in fact some of the board directors have shared as being advantages of this particular tool to capture some of the comments from the 24 credit task force.

The desire is to support the counseling work that goes on in our schools and a number of levels and the task force went into many different recommendations including things around staffing.

But accompanying with staffing was the idea that powerful online tools that can better link students to colleges to careers to help them think about those to become a focal point for how they can figure out and navigate all the various options out there in an easy way.

is is the crux of the issue.

And it's the thing that many many school districts use just to name a few around Bellevue Highline Everett Shoreline Spokane Kent Sumner as well as outside of the state L.A.

unified Houston Houston school district.

Each of them has looked at those pros and cons the benefits and ultimately judged that the benefits outweighed the risks.

And that's where we are as well.

Peters

The question I have is that I don't understand why if there's a proxy ID Naviance has to be in charge of that.

Why can't we create the proxy ID and maintain our students names within our system.

I I don't necessarily trust once they get the name that we're going to have any ability to know what they've done with that information in spite of a contract.

We don't have the staff necessary to.

be monitoring them.

You know we don't want to assign somebody just to monitor the data.

If it's released I don't know how we would know that it's been released.

And I really did like Melissa Westbrook's point that what is the penalty for a failure on their point on their part.

And so those are my concerns.

And it really comes down to why must we give them our students names?

Why can't we create the proxy ID?

I may have misspoke when I explained that earlier.

We will give the proxy ID to to them.

So we create the proxy ID on our end and then pass that to Naviance.

But you said minimally we also must give them the student's name.

Minimally we give them their we can give them their last name.

It's going to be easier for the student I would imagine to have their first name and their last name.

Yes I could see that but I don't, the students going to be interfacing it directly into Naviance are they going through our system into Naviance?

Is there any way that this is, maybe I just don't understand the technology of it.

Technically they're going to be logging in through our system.

So another nice thing about Naviance is they use the single sign on system that we do.

But within their system they need an I.D.

for the student.

And if it would be a little bit less secure if we passed our actual student I.D.

so we'll pass a proxy I.D.

but they need an I.D.

in their database to to identify the student.

So forgive me my ignorance.

We set it up on our side and our side when the student puts in their name triggers the proxy ID the Naviance not our student ID the proxy ID and then goes into the system does all the stuff out in the software in the cloud and brings it back into our student.

Again I don't understand why the student's name has to leave our system and why the conduit once there's the interface with Naviance can't be done through the number.

I just don't see why we have to release to them into their system that piece of information because that's the piece that once it's released we can never grab it back.

It's the minimal amount of data.

I mean theoretically if we wanted to just pass an anonymous I.D.

that could be that could be possible.

It's this is very like I mentioned in my overview.

There are other systems that we are doing this with Naviance is not a new system.

Again we are.

Like I said each each year we're bringing different products to the board and we are managing the security and the privacy with the best.

The skillful team that we have.

Have we asked Naviance if we cannot give them the names?

We asked them and they said the minimum is the last name.

We we did.

They did say the minimal was to provide the gender and we got them to not do the gender.

So it's really a very minimal amount of data that we're giving them and we're again giving the students the option to add any more data.

So at a very bare minimum it would have their ID which is just a made up ID because it's proxied it would have their last name and no and no no data other than what which is directory data just their their school name.

And again I don't I just bet without additional data the tool is fairly useless.

I mean it's not going to be able to advise the student back because it doesn't have any information.

Then all options are on the table.

It's the additional data that makes the tool useful.

Exactly.

And that is the data that when tied to that person's name becomes a marketer's dream.

And so again it's just why in terms of tracking that human being throughout their life and maybe maybe last name is is enough of a barrier not to target that person should all that information escape out into the greater wilds.

But I don't know.

And I guess I want to be able to assure my families.

Yeah I think.

Like I said legal has really worked on on the data sharing agreement with with DOTS.

We're putting a lot of protections in place and we're really trying to meet the needs of people who do not want any data out there.

You can opt out and have absolutely nothing in there or there can be the minimal amount of data.

So we're really trying to be sensitive to that.

But on the other hand as Dr. Perkins said there are counselors and students who want to have this use this tool.

We really want a tool that students can use across across all of our schools.

So we definitely want to give the option to have people put more data in if they would like.

And again we studied their privacy policy.

We put a strong data sharing agreement that we learned from past past issues to have that strong data sharing agreement.

And this is my final comment.

I would rather our students be able to put in all sorts of information and not their name so that they can get the full access to the tool without the fear of a leak that then gives all this incredible information about them.

I would prefer that system.

If only we could keep a hold of their name and only send that out through the proxy ID.

That to me would be the ideal.

That makes it a win win for everybody.

And I just I simply can't believe that with all these geniuses doing programming that that's not possible.

And so that's what makes me because I know students are out there giving college board all this information.

I know they're filling out all things and we're as parents.

I do start to wonder how much is out there that they are doing but we're different because we're sanctioning it.

And so it's our job to protect them even when as we know our adolescents aren't necessarily very good at protecting themselves online.

But we're asking them to divulge a lot of information and we're creating a system in order to be effective they must.

They must because that's what's going to make the counselors be able to use the tool.

So I'm just I'm feeling this again I feel in this day and age why we must release the name in order to use this tool so robustly is still not clear to me.

Director Peters I'm wondering if we just allude to a previous conversation whether you know in the interest of transparency I'm very grateful for the opportunity to have this exchange and to be able to hear from Mr. Krull about some of those specific items I think it's important but ultimately you know we're at a point where we think the benefits outweigh the risks but if there's more questions that we need to answer to help others process that We would be absolutely be committed to putting those those answers together in more information and post that publicly to give people an opportunity to see that more clearly if that would be helpful.

So that's just one thought.

I know there's others that have comments I'm not trying to cut off discussion but.

And are you saying that because you're referring to the conversation we had earlier that also meant that we would gather some questions tonight and then you would come back to us with the FAQ and you'll come back to us with the item to vote on at the next board meeting.

That's correct.

So that is an option we could do.

Director Harris I believe has some questions.

I'm very conflicted by this.

I believe that associate superintendent and I started talking about this 18 months ago with my chagrin that this tool is being used in private schools and that the Bellevue schools foundation gifts it to the Bellevue school district and that our children and students ought to be able to compete with private school students and other school district students.

It struck me with director Geary's comments that the fact that we don't have a liquidated damages clause in here for data breach or for misuse of our data.

Or a liquidated damage clause in every one of our sensitive data.

Pieces.

Is perhaps an oversight.

Certainly the liquidated damage clause in the first student bus agreement is something that we're very very very happy is there now because it provides significant leverage.

So I would ask that we address that issue and we make it hurt.

We make it significant enough.

that we are doing our due diligence to protect that very valuable data.

I heard the reference to we will do an opt out plan.

That's that's not good enough for me.

I'm sorry.

That needs to be part and parcel of a bar out of respect to our students and our families and opt out is not a bad phrase in my opinion.

And I've also heard Apple's what feels to me like an apples to oranges comparison saying that if we're going to spend six hundred and twenty thousand dollars on this tool why don't we just hire more counselors so we have better than a one to four hundred one to four hundred and fifty ratio.

Two more points and then.

I'll be more than happy to make a motion to table this after all of my colleagues have had an opportunity to speak.

And I pass this on as well from Director Burke in Japan who I spoke with four times today.

Apparently our governor just came back from Switzerland and apparently our governor has a new computerized tool that is going to make us breakfast and lattes that will address some of the same issues here and it will be free for us.

Can you expand on when that's going to happen?

If in fact we're looking at free robust tools $620,000 tools.

And my last question is is this part of the college board arms race where Naviance points you to college and we look beyond other vocations apprenticeships etc.

And Director Geary's comment about the college board arms race Throughout high school.

I think we probably filled three or four or five dumpsters of solicitations.

To our students.

They're all really shiny and really pretty and frankly false advertising.

And and I.

I don't like that arms race.

And if we are contributing to it then how do we not contribute it to it.

Thank you.

Let me do my best to address some of those.

First of all I think we're all eager to hear what came of Governor Inslee's visit to Switzerland be given our strong interest on the board on career connected learning for and expanding those those opportunities.

So in terms of a specific tech tool coming out of that conversation I am learning just like you are on that front.

In terms of what others have referenced in recent email exchanges on other potentially free tools, we have looked at those tools.

The ones we're aware of do some of the pieces of Naviance but have far less access.

One example of one tool that was referenced is linked to about 130 institutions of higher education as opposed to more like 5,000 in Naviance and they exclude many universities within Washington State.

seems like the wrong way to go in terms of a comprehensive solution to provide equity to our students.

In terms of making sure the Naviance tool is not just pushing the four year bachelors as for everybody as the one solution the only way.

I think we absolutely share that.

It's my understanding that Naviance is a customizable tool and has the ability to discuss and help students think about careers as much as colleges.

But that's up to our our work here in the district to tailor that and make sure that the efforts are balanced in that respect.

So those are just some initial answers.

You've raised some larger questions that I think are worth considering.

The one question about hiring counselors instead.

I wanted to point out that this would be coming from BTA IV funds which are earmarked for technology and related projects.

Director Pinkham.

I share similar concerns as our director Geary and that how much information we are sharing with Naviance because it does seem that we can just come up with a proxy ID that doesn't include the name school and grade level that that information just ties a student ID and Their name and stuff stays with us but their grades and stuff are over at Naviance that has no other identification other than this proxy ID.

Then once we match those two up boom there's all the information Naviance doesn't have any names.

All they have is school data that has no identifiable information that someone can lose and hack into and use.

And so that's why I'm wondering they're first saying no we need this plus gender you got to drop the gender.

I would ask to push drop the last name as well.

All you need is this proxy ID because we can keep all the names and stuff in house because all we're really concerned about is their grades and performance right.

From understanding this right for Naviance to help us track how a student is doing are they on track and to graduate their grades etc.

So that kind of stuff stay there without any identifiable information other than that proxy ID.

To me that seems.

Something that can be done.

And then other questions that come up as far as Naviance and third parties.

Do we have examples who these third parties are?

Are one of those third parties the college board?

Are one of these third parties you know who are these possible third parties that can have access to their information?

I think that's again one of our public commenters brought up you know who are these third parties?

And I think that would be something we need to share when these am I going to opt in or opt out?

And last I guess what would be the alternative for those that opt out?

I mean the very short answer on there is currently an online tool called WSIPC related to the high school and beyond plan.

It's a much more basic tool that the state provides in terms of helping students you know plan their their college their high school careers as well as beyond.

But again it's very basic.

So that would be essentially the alternative.

Director Blanford.

It is appearing that the direction of this conversation is moving towards us not taking action potentially on this meeting which is disappointing because I won't be around for the next meeting and I'd hope that I'd be able to cast a vote on this.

That said I think in the research that you're doing if there is indeed a motion to table this and bring it up at a later board meeting I'm hoping that you will be able to share the experience of other districts that have had this product and what their what any issues that have come up before.

I talked a little bit about the conundrum that we face between the risk and the reward that is associated with making this type of decision and it seems to me that that type of information may reveal that this is another example of Seattle exceptionalism that the kids in Houston or the other places that were listed have had to date a positive experience with this product there hasn't been a data breach and I don't like being in the position of having to defend something that may happen in the future.

But there is risk associated with the enterprise that we are involved in.

and sometimes those types of things happen.

We can protect the data to the nth degree but actually make it unusable for the students and then the problem that we're trying to solve actually manifests and gets bigger.

And so my hope is that you'll be able to share the type of experience that other districts have had maybe some that are smaller than us and some that are larger so it helps to paint the picture Both of the risk that's associated but also the benefit that's associated because I again think that has been a part of the conversation that we haven't had as robust a dialogue on that subject.

Director Geary.

I want to bring up this other point because it's not one that we've brought up a lot and I am I'm very mindful of the fact that this is a tool that will potentially give give a lot of power in terms of this kind of work to people who can't access it through their own funds.

They can't buy a person to help them with this work.

They can't buy a tool that is similar to this online that one might be able to purchase that has all of these options in it.

Because I've seen the ones online that really limit you and you can't get particular schools and when you buy one all of a sudden you have tons more information.

I have the ability to do that.

I'm also mindful as a former legal services attorney that poor people don't have They don't have the same privacy rights because they are out there having to give away their information just to get by in a lot of cases.

They have to share a lot in order to get this or that and so that may not be high on mind in terms of trading privacy for a robust tool.

But we don't, I haven't heard that much from those communities, they are not communities that we can access but I am mindful that there are certain worlds where that kind of privacy seems like a privilege that they can't afford to have.

And I think we all need to be mindful of that as well in terms of whether or not we are going to allow access to a really robust tool.

I think a lot of my pushing back is because I'm the fact that Naviance wants a name just makes me nervous when I think that technologically it's not required.

That to me is just can we I mean is there a way to push back on them to get rid of that?

and still be able to use the number to get all of the other benefits.

And that's what I want us to do.

Take that extra step to push back and if it looks like a board's not going to buy their very expensive product they may find a way.

to make that exception for us for the amount of money we're giving them.

And that's really what I want.

I want a great tool to be accessible for our families that they don't have to trade away something for it that isn't necessary.

We're paying a lot of money.

We should be able to do this.

So I would like to second those comments.

And so I think you're probably mentally putting together a list.

And so I'm going to I'm going to either add to it or just sort of back up what has been said and that is there's been talk of a strong data sharing agreement.

And John you said we've put in a strong data sharing agreement.

We would like to see that agreement.

So could you please attach that to this.

There's talk about allowing families to opt either start from an opt in or opt out just give them the flexibility like to Jill's point there might be some people who are less concerned about it.

I feel that regardless of that we as a district are responsible for the welfare and the data and the privacy of 54000 students and so we maintain a standard that we apply to all of them but we can honor families autonomy by giving them the opt in or opt out whatever we're starting from option.

So I think it sounds like everyone would like to have that more clearly stated somewhere in the bar so it's not just you know a wisp of an aspirational goal but it's actually stated somewhere.

And let's see.

I agree with Jill.

Let's see if we can go back to them and say look you know the board's right on the edge here and we're really uncomfortable with sharing anything that you don't really need with with your greater cloud or whatever it is they have.

So could we do it without having the student's name?

Can we use a proxy ID all the way through?

And then let's see.

To Leslie's point about whether we can ever have a clause in there about the misuse of data or the breach of data that is something that I'm also interested in as well.

That might be for a future conversation.

You know I think about Experian we've had so many cases where there have been major That's where something's been hacked but we as a district have not always been on top of our data and we've had data breaches you know that we've released.

And so it can happen and we have to for that reason protect our students as much as we can with proxies and things like that.

And then we should also make sure that there's consequences with any of the vendors that we're dealing with.

And then in terms of how third parties can use this information I would like that also to be explicit and limited.

Director Harris do you have something you'd like to say?

If in fact this gets tabled and that you are willing to provide more information and robust information might I suggest that we have a public meeting here with a demonstration of the product And we have some high school counselors who would be folks who would be using said product.

Then you can come back to us with things like the opt out etc.

If you can tangibly touch it see it understand it.

I think we'll be a lot farther ahead with all the other caveats that have been expressed.

But every time I think of our counselor to student high school ratio I it's visceral illness.

It's not acceptable.

Thank you.

If I can summarize what we have to make sure that we come back with the correct information.

One thing I want to point out as far as the demo we did invite board and community to a demo.

That would take you know we scheduled an hour for that.

So my suggestion there is that we do that again but not during a board meeting.

So we will schedule that we'll schedule that again.

My list I have the main thing is we're going to go back to Naviance and see if we can go with just the proxy I.D.

and not the student name.

We're going to find right now we're choosing not to even let them partner with any third parties but we will get a list of third parties that could possibly be partnered with so we have that information.

We'll get experiences from other districts.

We'll share the data sharing agreement.

We will give the specifics on the opt out policy.

We will look into a breach penalty and in the demonstration.

So I think that that is everything.

Any any further comments on what we should come back with.

Oh I did you also mention feedback from other districts.

Yes you did.

OK.

Director Harris.

So Mr. General Counsel do we move to table this non-debatable to a time certain or does staff withdraw this bar to take it up at a later date?

What's our procedural move here please.

Yeah I think since you've already the board has already made it and seconded a motion I think you now have to make a motion either to postpone to a specific date or to table it and then let the exec committee reschedule it once it's determined what the right timing is going to be.

Unfortunately I move to table.

I'll second the motion.

And that as as director Harris pointed out under Roberts rules a motion to table isn't debatable.

So once the motion is made and seconded you then just vote it up or down.

Is that just yay or nay or do we do a roll call.

You'll do a roll call.

OK.

All right.

Then may we have the roll call.

This is the motion to table.

Blanford.

Nay.

Burke.

Sorry.

Geary.

aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

This motion has passed with a vote of 5 to 1.

I want to thank staff for the work they've done and in advance for the work they're about to help us with.

That leaves us one more action item for this evening that is action 6 approval of a contract for an executive search firm to conduct a superintendent search.

This came to go on.

Sorry.

I move that the school board authorize the board president to execute a contract on the district's behalf with Ray and Associates in the amount of thirty five thousand five hundred dollars plus fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars in estimated estimated reimbursable expenses for the purpose of conducting a superintendent search.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

I second the motion.

This came to the executive committee on November 8th where it was advanced for consideration because I believe we didn't have all our information in place at that time.

So the board met and we took a look at the proposals that we received in response to our request for proposal.

We received a total of four and we carefully looked at them all and let's see we evaluated each one and based on the sort of consensus Ray and Associates is the one proposal that rose to the top.

And so what we're doing today is approving the next step.

I ask Erin Bennett if she could come up and just fill in anything I have not said.

Have I covered it?

Erin Bennett government relations and strategic initiatives.

I think you did.

We met on the 8th and went through and talked about based on what the RFP that was sent out in which we received the four responses and this motion would authorize you as the president to execute a contract on the district's behalf with Ray and Associates.

Okay.

Could you speak a little bit to the timeline on this the next steps?

Sure.

So a little bit is kind of as determined as you go and you decide your approach.

But the proposal from Ray and Associates did include an initial meeting with the board of directors to talk about that approach the week after next.

So the week of November 28th I believe.

After that there is a proposed timeline in the documents that are attached to the board action report within the proposal itself.

And there is a proposed sort of month to month schedule in there.

Obviously it would depend on what the board and the executive committee determines are the next steps.

Peters Thank you.

Are there any questions or comments about this item?

Okay.

Oh Director Geary.

As you all know my board members I am very conflicted about moving forward with a superintendent search at this time because of my perception that there's so many moving parts that For me I feel the weight of the need of stability at this point and having a superintendent who knows our district well to move us forward towards the collective bargaining agreement towards figuring out what McCleary actually means for our district.

And we haven't had a chance to talk about this in the public and I know part of the rationale for moving forward with this was to allow the public to participate in the superintendent search.

But by doing what we have done we didn't necessarily allow the public to participate very well in the idea of moving forward with the search at all.

So the option of not doing a search.

And here we are on an intro action item.

So there's just much about this process that has made me uncertain.

And as I already explained earlier today I don't like being in conflict with my board.

I like for us to move forward as a unit that is taking everything into consideration.

But those are things that I just my gut of guts makes me so nervous about this move with so many things unknown trying to figure out with those unknown who's going to be the right leader and what that person will then have to face coming in right at the moment of a collective bargaining period which we know was rather rough last time.

There's just so many unknowns.

So for that reason I don't think I can support this.

But I do appreciate the work and effort that has gone in by my colleagues who do believe this is the right thing to do now.

Director Blanford.

I'm by and large director Gary stole my thunder when we were when the board met and had this conversation I did a little bit of back of the envelope calculation and if things turn out the way that they very well could I would say probable.

There is high probability that we will be concluding a superintendent search at the same time that we are engaged in contract negotiations with our teachers union.

And that is that should be troubling to anyone who cares about the district because whereas the CBA contract is critically important it will intersect with a new superintendent coming in that will have a number of issues that he or she wants to move forward and the detail that's associated with those types of negotiations as Those of us who were around for the last time know are very complex and I wouldn't wish that on any new incoming superintendent.

For that reason I shared with my colleagues not so much the belief that they are incapable of handling it but just that there are huge There are a huge number of issues that will be all landing on our desks as board members or their desks as board members.

And I fear for the capacity of the district as a whole to be able to manage all of those issues including a superintendent search.

So I also intend to vote against this one.

I'll say a few words.

By way of chronology it was almost a year ago that the board decided that they would pursue a search.

It was December 16th of last year.

So it's not something 7th sorry December 7th.

Thank you.

So it's not something we rushed into and it was a public vote.

So you know the public was informed of that and it has been mentioned various times and so we proceeded with with the next steps.

The fact of the matter is for six years now the public has not been allowed to engage in any aspect of our superintendent selection.

And through decisions that were made by previous boards that I disagreed with where the public was completely cut out our labor partners were completely cut out and we didn't engage the public.

So for the first time in six years we actually are going to engage the public.

And part of the goal of having a search firm is one of their main duties is going to be hearing from the board who it is we need to hear who it is from the community we want to engage in and they're going to help facilitate that.

And we're going to ask the public what kind of vision they want as we move forward as a district and what kind of vision they want in the leader.

So I'm excited about the opportunity of finally being very open about asking the public to weigh in in our communities.

The other point is in terms of the district overloading itself we very pointedly decided to extend the strategic plan that was supposed to end in 2018 extended by one year to the very for the very reason that we didn't want to have too many things going on at once.

So to allow the district to allow the board time to focus on the search first and then once a new superintendent is in place and the new board is in place the new board can work with the new superintendent to establish the next strategic plan.

And so it's a very thoughtful chronology that we set up.

The other thing that we haven't seen in a long time is a board being able to conduct a search without duress.

Shortly after I joined the board our superintendent at the time quit and he was only two years into a three or four year contract.

Before that we had a superintendent leave we had one fired.

We just had a lot of things happen unexpectedly.

What is good about this process is it's being done thoughtfully.

We're doing things in advance.

And this is the right way to go about these sorts of changes.

You know in terms of the CBA there's always going to be something going on with the district whether it's the CBA negotiations for the teachers union next year or for the principals association or there's always going to be something.

You can always come up with a reason not to do something not to advance on a search or whatever it is.

And so we just we don't have the option we don't have the luxury of saying well we can't do anything like this until everything is calm.

Things will never be calm here.

And but you know we can aspire to that.

I'll also point out you know we did even under the current leadership we did experience a strike.

during the last collective bargaining agreement negotiations even with Dr. Nyland.

So that can happen whether or not we have Dr. Nyland or we have a new leader.

You know there's things that can happen.

And so I would I would recommend that the board look for somebody who does have good labor experience and labor negotiating experience and that would be one of the traits to look for.

So I believe that for all these reasons we should be moving forward on this.

We did meet as a board we did carefully look at the proposals.

The one that did rise to the top does seem promising and it feels like it is the right the right step for us to take as we move forward with this district.

Director Harris.

Thank you.

I would echo a number of your comments.

I would also suggest that the vote that we took December 7th 2016 we knew about all of these issues at that time and we voted unanimously.

I have extreme confidence in the depth of our bench.

I have extreme confidence of the folks who show up here every day quality experienced folks that we can handle these challenges.

So as much as I appreciate the comments and the concerns of my colleagues I would suggest to you that I do care greatly about the district.

But I have a fundamental belief that we are capable of good and great things.

Thank you.

Peters there any other questions or comments.

OK Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Blanford.

No.

Director Geary.

No.

Director Harris aye.

Director Patu aye.

Director Pinkham aye.

Director Peters aye.

This motion has passed with a vote of 4 to 2. Thank you.

So we now move on to the introduction portion of our agenda.

Madam President may I be excused.

I am not feeling well.

You most certainly may.

Thank you.

Thank you.

No you may not.

Practically lose a quorum.

But how would that look.

All right.

So introduction items.

OK item number one the repeal of school board procedure E14.04 research activity and test administration procedure and adoption of new school board policy number 4280 research activity.

And let's see.

You hear from the C&I department.

This came to C&I on November 7th and was passed through to the board for approval.

OK.

Good evening Eric Anderson director of research and evaluation.

The purpose of this BAR is to update the old E 14 0 4 procedure to distinguish between two components of the old or current procedure research activity and test administration.

Specifically the BAR is intended to accomplish four things.

First to update the numbering system from the old E series to policy number 4 2 8 0. Second it places the language on test administration into a new superintendent procedure for our assessment policy 20 80. Third it adds language on research activity that was missing in the old procedure specific to student data privacy.

And finally we've added a new superintendent procedure stating district policies and practices for the formal review of external applications to conduct research in Seattle Public Schools.

By focusing on this new policy 4280. I'm sorry by focusing this policy 4280 on research activity we are recognizing that as a large growing urban school district there will continue to be increasing interest from external researchers to study our education practices and our policies in our schools.

It is our hope that this bar will clarify the district's approach to formal research review and also ensure that test administration policies is covered within our assessment policy.

I want to hand it over now to Dr. Jessica Beaver senior research scientist and research and evaluation who coordinates the formal research review process for the school district.

Thank you.

Thank you Jessica Beaver research and evaluation.

So the research and evaluation department instituted a formal review process in 2016 where we began to systematically track and review our external research proposals.

So as stated in the policy 42 80 we evaluate all proposals on four criteria.

The rigor of the research design the relevance of the project to district priorities the burden to participants and to the district as a whole and also the risks and benefits to participants.

As part of this process we reach out to program managers department directors to make sure that they give input on all of these elements but specific emphasis on the relevance piece and the risks and the burdens.

Since our process began in June 2016 we've received 49 external research applications and nine partnership requests across the last two years.

If you take that all together it's about a 65 percent approval rate.

If the research review committee approves a project that includes direct contact with the school we then require that the researchers reach out to the principals to ask them if they at that principal will allow the researchers into the school.

Principals we make very clear to principals they are under no obligation to allow that research to take place in their school.

They do not think it's a good fit for their school for any reason.

And we do have some evidence that schools are exercising their right to refusal for certain research proposals.

Finally we require that any researchers share their final findings to our department and the district in general upon completion of the project.

And we're happy to answer any questions about the policy or research review practices in general.

Thank you.

Peters Any questions or comments?

Director Blanford.

I appreciate that recitation of the process which is really helpful as someone who had to reach out to a school district to get access to data and then to do this.

I know that at the University of Washington we had to go through a pretty rigorous human subjects board process before we were able to do this.

Is that something that's a part of our process?

Yes thank you.

So if the research proposal involves primary data collection so collection of data from a human subject we require that they have what's the institutional review board human subjects approval in place prior to review by the research review committee.

So it's important to note that we don't function as our own institutional review board but rather require that that be in place beforehand.

Thank you.

I'll just say one more quick thing and as a closing remark I know that there is huge value in having collaborations with researchers who are out in the field who are asking really critical questions that we may not have the capacity to one to ask and two to answer.

and they're willing to do the research and particularly if they're willing to share it with us.

I know that there's lots of value to be gained.

So I appreciate the partnerships that are in place and I appreciate the fact that there is a pretty rigorous process in place to approve those so that we can be sure that it's beneficial to the district and that it doesn't harm either our our educators or our students.

But working in partnership Having a clean process is going to result in an increase in knowledge and adds to the field that help us to resolve some of the big challenges that we face particularly around improving instruction for all of our students and closing our opportunity gaps.

So thank you for that.

Just one quick point.

Jessica or Dr. Beaver in her role.

One thing that she does do we we have all the leverage they want to do research in our schools and we have the opportunity to deny that.

So she will frequently in with in partnership with program managers work with the researchers if we have concerns about their design if we have concerns about over using up too much time in our schools and quite frankly and quite frequently the research will make those adjustments so we are not just It's not just a yes or no thing we actually do work with them to make sure that the research is properly calibrated and is of rigorous design.

Peters

Just something that comes to my mind as I read stuff that refers to federal and state laws that oftentimes we can't.

We must remember tribal government laws as well.

So I don't know if this is everything that's ever been thought.

I don't know how many tribal laws that impact the Seattle School District.

If there is anything that just something that comes to mind when I see mention of certain levels of government that we also must acknowledge that tribals tribes or governments as well.

So my question is around the role of parents and guardians.

Is there any element of consent that's required from them?

Yes parental consent is required for any contact that researchers may have with students.

And that's that is to make that distinction between parental consent and student assent.

We say that student assent is not sufficient for a research proposal going forward.

Parental consent must be in place.

OK.

And then our families given advance notice significant advance notice so they can decide whether or not to allow their students to participate.

I would say that depends on the research proposal.

We don't we don't have any guidelines about the timing of the delivery of the consent forms.

We simply we do spell out what needs to be in the consent form so that it's standardized so that parents if they're getting multiple different Research proposals can can very quickly glean what the proposal is and what the potential data that's going to be collected from students and what the potential risks are and contact information.

But to answer your question directly no there's no specific guideline about timelines.

I guess my main concern is that there's some element of advance notice so they're not told after the fact.

Oh your student was administered this test today by the way.

So they're told in advance.

OK definitely in advance.

Any other questions or comments about this item?

All right.

Thank you.

So the next item is amend and rename policy number 32 40 student conduct and discipline to student behavior and disciplinary responses and repeal policy D82.00 intervention for violent exceptional misconduct conduct prior to readmittance to regular schools.

This came to C&I on November 7 and was passed through to the board for approval.

Good evening Erin Romanek program manager for discipline.

I am proud to be here tonight to present you a revised and renamed school board policy 3240 from student conduct and discipline to student behavior and disciplinary responses.

These changes before you align with the policy With the changes before you in the policy align with the changes that were made to the student rights and responsibilities both in the spring of 2016 and 2017. And as you recall over the course of the past two years under the board's guidance the SR&R has shifted from a strict compliance document to one that speaks of the aspirations and values of Seattle Public Schools.

In addition to the changes that were made we also worked in collaboration with several community stakeholders in the past four months.

Ongoing meetings were held with the equity and race advisory committee to the superintendent as well as the disproportionality and discipline committee.

As we were putting the final pieces together we also reached out to Dr. Abe who due to his work over the past year with school leaders with the race and equity department and also with various schools within the district we wanted his insight as well.

We were able to upon his recommendation add in the moratorium that was passed in 2015 so the school board resolution number 2014 15-35 which eliminated out of school suspensions at the elementary level for disruptive conduct disobedience and rule breaking.

We also reach out to the special education PTSA and the Seattle PTSA.

Conversations were had with Sabrina Burr and Imijah Smith from the Seattle PTSA not only about this policy but also about concerns that arose from the basic rules flyer that was distributed to our schools and our families this year.

The words in this policy are truly from our community.

I want to express my sincere appreciation for everyone's time effort and dedication on this policy.

I have no doubt that the final product is stronger because of them.

In addition the board action report also repeals policy D82 which is intervention for violent exceptional misconduct prior to readmittance to regular schools because the language in it is either out of date or is already captured within the student rights and responsibilities.

Peters Any questions or comments about this item?

Thank you.

Oh excuse us there's one more.

Thank you so much for this work.

As we talked about in committee I very much appreciate that we're taking an aspirational approach and we just need to make sure that as our work hits the ground we're taking the extra time as we talked about to make sure that our messages aren't being undone.

Inadvertently through how it's being you know when it actually comes face to face with our public.

So we'll watch out for that in the future so that all of our hard work is received as it was intended.

But thank you so much.

Thank you.

Peters.

Item three community care contract RFQ 0 2 7 5 8. Do we have somebody from the Audit and Finance Committee here to speak to this?

Stephan?

Yeah this was heard by the Audit and Finance Committee on November 6 move forward for consideration.

Okay and does anybody remember why it was moved forward just for consideration was anything missing or was something going to be resolved?

Don't know.

So hi Wyatt Jesse chief of student support services and we are moving for introduction and hopefully approval specific to a contracting with community cares.

This particular staffing firm helps us with behavioral aids and supports to meet the needs of students.

The service is listed literally on students IEPs.

Some of these students have different needs that are outside of the school day.

Some students receive for example supports in their own home.

And so these kind of firms help us get staffing that can assist us with again meeting the needs of the students and their IEPs.

Came to our attention that we were going to exceed two hundred fifty thousand dollar limit and so we want to bring that to your attention up front knowing that the particular trajectory that we're headed.

And then the reason why community cares was chosen was through the RFQ process that we have in place through our selection of specific vendors.

May I ask why this went to audit and finance instead of curriculum and instruction?

Timing.

It was the timing.

It was just one of those things where it came to our attention and we wanted to bring it as fast as possible didn't want to delay that.

So this is that was the reason why.

OK but this is this is more of an instruction.

We had dismissed we had dismissed the C&I cycle.

And so the reason it was brought there it is around a contract and exceeding the $250,000 limit.

And is this a new a new contract?

I like that question.

So vendors some of these vendors are small sometimes they change their names and it's just like one of those fluid things you've seen me over the years they have different vendors come and go and this is one of the ones that we had worked with last year.

So moving this year but it is a newer firm.

Yes.

So we worked with them in the past under the same name.

Definitely again more recent firm.

More recent.

OK.

Director Patu.

Do we have any data on since they've been with us for a while in terms of what progress they've made with our students?

This is I like that question.

Also this is just the staffing.

They just do staff.

We have a hard time staffing these some of these positions.

And so this is one of the firms that helps us staff these kind of aides.

Again these are kids that are at home might have significant anxiety.

So we're just strictly out meeting the needs of students and their IEPs and so we do monitor obviously the progress of students on their goals on their IEPs.

And so these are the folks who help fill that need.

We also do that.

We do contracting for other positions like ESA staff when they're hard to fill and behavioral supports is again one of our hardest positions to fill whether that is with vendors or if that's strictly with SPSS staff and also IA's as you as you know.

All right.

Thank you.

The questions or comments.

Thank you.

Next item item number four city of Seattle families education levy funding for Seattle public schools for middle school out of school program transportation.

Northgate elementary transportation and middle school athletics.

This also came to Audit and Finance.

Yes that's you again Stefan.

Audit and Finance on November 6 and was moved forward for consideration.

And Stefan do you know why it was only consideration?

I do not.

I do not remember.

Michael Stone director of grants I think I can answer some of those questions.

One of it was some attachments that were on the contract that were regarding sample invoices that the city would like for this funding.

And it was 2014 data.

So it was they were wondering why it was 2014 data.

Burge assistant superintendent for finance.

That's the only reason it was for consideration as there was a follow up question from Director Burke and those invoices have been included as examples not.

And they had an old date on them so he wanted that followed up on.

Otherwise it's something that we've done for many years.

Peters Are there any questions or comments about this item?

Director Patu.

So this grant actually I mean is this something that the city has agreed to give us or is just the overall.

This is actually normally part of the spring family education levy funding that comes forward.

They did not get us a letter of intent when we brought that other funding forward.

The contract showed up and we went oh we're getting the funding this year.

So we're bringing it forward to you now but it's normally included with the initial family education levy funding that comes through in the spring.

So it's not something new it's been ongoing.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

And is this this is just a renewal of something that we already it's a renewal somehow got split from the usual cycle.

There was a letter.

We did not receive a letter of intent from them and we now corrected that that from now on there will be a letter of intent that we receive in the spring with all of our other letters of intent of funding.

But this does open up opportunities for our middle school students to participate in sports activities.

One question that director Harris had was is it open to all students.

Yes it is.

So this provides activities for our middle schoolers and provide summer school transportation.

And one question that I had asked and if you could just answer it for the record would be helpful was here's the family and education levy providing some transportation funding and earlier in the year when we asked if they could cover our two-tier buses we were told that no the family and education levy cannot be used for transportation.

Can you please make that clarify the distinction?

This is specifically covering.

extracurricular activities that are participate that are happening at family education funded buildings whereas the funding we were asking for was for across the district.

So this is specifically for opportunities for enrichment for those buildings that are funded by family education levy.

Peters Thank you.

Director Patu.

So is this an ongoing list that we've been getting from the city?

Yes.

On an ongoing basis?

We've been getting it since 2013 yes.

So even if we added something on you know asking the city for something else that still wouldn't change this list would it?

No.

Okay thank you.

Okay thank you.

Next item item 5 BTA IV approve phase one purchase of classroom technology to support teaching and learning.

Let's see this and the next one came to curriculum and instruction committee.

Jill why don't you tackle that one.

These came to curriculum and instruction on November 7th and were both passed through for consideration.

Thank you.

Good evening John Kroll chief information officer.

I want to introduce the item it is for 80 computer carts 100 and 1280 computers and it will be funded with voter approved BTA IV funds.

Thank you and as oh Kyle Kinoshita chief of curriculum assessment instruction and as John pointed out earlier one of the things that we're working to do is any time a technology measure is brought up that we also emphasize the teaching and learning side.

So one of the things I wanted to explain is that in this particular pilot which is you know again a pilot a relatively small purchase of laptops that the problem that it is actually addressing as per you know Dr. Blanford's idea that That in many cases like classrooms all over the region as well as all over the field really that teachers are creating more interactive experiences more collaborative experiences which would be you know in terms of the learning be really accelerated.

or amplified if teachers possessed technology tools.

And you know some of the examples are things like projects that involve interactive writing where students actually create products together.

or where they have practice or research skills and access information globally, data analysis, things like, you know, developing products that actually communicate and educate others and things like that.

Basically the idea here is that in many cases in Seattle classrooms teachers don't possess the technology in order to do these things or the technology that they do possess is aging out into obsolescence or is in the case of desktops quite immobile and doesn't allow the kind of instruction that teachers would want to do.

So basically our theory of action in this regard in this pilot is to provide the ability to teachers who are actually already on the way in terms of developing these types of projects to prioritize you know the acquisition of these computers first of all.

Second of all in cases where there is you know a curriculum material in which technology can accelerate and amplify deep student learning they would also receive priority in order to enable those kinds of experiences to happen.

And as well we prioritize need with an equity lens.

And so by prioritizing allocation of the pilot in this way we believe that technology can make a difference in terms of helping students meet standards and achievement goals.

Rather than have me explain this we actually brought both a principal and a teacher in this case principal Chris Carter of Mercer International as well as Emily Dulaski a science teacher.

and if they could come up and maybe explain a little more about how this works.

Good evening.

Thanks for having me here today I'm delighted to have this opportunity to speak with you.

I am a proud principal of Asa Mercer International Middle School.

I've been there for 12 years six years as a teacher years ago and then most recently six years as a current principal.

My piece of this presentation really has three key points and all points are made in the spirit of strong advocacy for the urgency of tools to support teachers and to support students and their long term vision around technology in schools to support instruction.

My first point is currently our students, we do not have enough technology in our school to allow for access and opportunity for all students.

As critical instructional tools for teachers in the service of preparing for students for their future we are under resourced.

At Mercer we are approximately 70% free reduced lunch.

We have approximately half of our families that do not speak English as a first language.

Our families rely on us to provide access and opportunities for kids to get 21st century learning and develop digital literacy skills.

In terms of technology the Seattle community obviously is a world leader yet in schools from a practical standpoint our systems don't match and one example which is a little humorous but reality just this year we stopped using chalkboards in our classroom and have some whiteboards which is fantastic.

I say that jokingly but it is our reality.

Another example is takes me to my second point is that we at Mercer just in terms of a data point about 30% a little over 30% of our students are in academic enrichment classes or intervention classes to get kids up to speed.

As students enter Mercer in math as an example they come to us the last four year average is at 40%.

44% of our students meet the standard.

They leave Mercer over 70% of students meeting standard.

So it's about a 30% gain in achievement which sets kids up for success long-term.

The net result of that is in order to provide that level of access and resource and support and prioritizing these students it takes you know there's over 350 students in these classes that requires technology to support that.

And by so doing it does technology, it takes technology away from other classes that could also provide digital literacy skills for students.

So a bit of a I guess a school based decision but we have to prioritize high needs of students.

I did my colleague here a teacher Emily Olasky is going to share a little bit about what that can look like in terms of engagement and levels of depth of learning and teaching using technology in science more specifically.

But my third point is just you know technology is an ongoing priority like textbooks technology wears out.

and needs to be renewed.

I submitted an email to the board director Patu some weeks ago that really detailed out some of our challenges that are incredibly urgent here.

I don't speak on behalf of Mercer but I know I'm not unique or we're not unique in terms of technology needs in schools.

So with that I'm going to pass it over to Ellie to share what that can look like in the science classroom.

Hi I'm Emily Lasky I'm a national board certified teacher in EA science, a master's in teaching, a master's in biology, CTE certified, a content demonstration teacher and this is my 10th year teaching 8th grade science at Asa Mercer international middle school.

I strongly believe in equitable and excellent science for all of our students and one of the ways we make that possible is by increasing access to technology.

Our current science materials were out of date when I started teaching and they were never complete.

Giving us technology allows us to keep up to date with current science.

All of our middle school science teachers are involved in a project with UW helping develop new science materials connected to the new state standards the NGSS standards.

16 of those middle schools applied for a waiver and a tech grant in order to get computers technology in our classroom so that we could run a technology based program.

And we're currently waiting for those computers.

So I want to give you just a little bit of sample of what we're doing in science so you can see how very active interactive and engaging adding technology can be.

So one of the benefits of the technology is allowing students to try out a variety of authentic science.

Students are introduced to different types of scientists such as physicists, geneticists and we get computer simulations that mimic what scientists in the field are working with.

Along the way students are involved in all of the NGSS practices, they're developing models, they're arguing with evidence and using technology allows students to experience things that are too big, too small, too expensive, too complex to have in the classroom.

So I'm going to show you just some samples of what using technology in the classroom can look like.

So in this unit students are investigating forces in motion and this is a modeling tool where students are able to show what they understand about the forces in a collision.

And so they're able to move things around and show what it looks like.

Then they discuss with their partner they hear different ideas.

Unfortunately we weren't able to get the website to work so I can't move things around for you.

Sorry it's a static picture.

And then it's a check in for me where I can see which students are maintaining any misconceptions and we can have a whole class discussion about it.

Then, you know, there are things that we do that are similar without technology, where they do hands-on activities, but then they get to collect their data like a real scientist, where they're typing it in, they're analyzing it, they're making it into graphs and working with that data and really being able to analyze it.

And then the great part about using technology is students can do computer simulations right and so computer simulations allow them to ask questions and find answers right so after they've done this modeling they have their prediction then they can actually run it in a sim they have things crash together they see the results they look at the forces and they can analyze all that data.

and so they can build their understanding of science by moving things around.

Then how this moves on right so once they understand how things work right how forces of motion work then they are able to see how science can help people and make the world a better place by taking their understanding and doing an engineering project.

So in this unit for example students are involved in the iterative process to develop supply pods that can be delivered after a natural disaster.

It's really relevant for our kids especially with all the hurricanes that happened recently thinking about how we can help our communities.

And so with technology they're able to design and test and build and analyze and do that over and over and over again in a way that's not possible with physical materials.

And so they get that experience.

I'm going to share a little anecdote of one of my students this year.

Started the year she was really disappointed.

She viewed herself as a biologist and we started with a physics unit and she was you know I have to do physics but I really like biology.

By the end of this unit she went home and told her family I think I want to be an engineer.

I really like the iterative process of doing all these tests and finding the best possible solution and convincing people my solution is the best and this is going to help so many people.

And so having access to all this technology changed her mind from I only like this type of science to I'm open to so many more possibilities.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

Thank you for bringing this forward and I recall at the University of Washington we had actually something similar where they're talking about bringing in computer carts into the institution and helping us out so that more students had access to technology.

But one of the issues we ran into is that these computer carts required a big power source.

So they would sit someplace where they'd be plugged in and all the laptops that were in the computer cart were charged and ready to go.

And we did not have the space for that.

Are we sure that we're going to have space in the schools and the schools are going to be capable to handle these carts that may be in there and.

So one of the cool things about carts currently is they have a rotating charging system and so they're only like charging a few of the laptops at a time and so we have some of these already in our classrooms and we seem to be able to maintain it.

So are there are all schools were school selected based upon were they able to handle the power requirements or were there any schools didn't get one because they didn't have the power grid to handle these.

Because again that was the issue that came up for us at the University of Washington we didn't have the space to.

Maybe because they're less power consuming now so that's probably not an issue.

I just want to see if that is.

Yeah that just what you said there is the carts now draw less power and the computers draw less power.

You know as you've noticed probably newer laptops the batteries last a lot longer.

They're a lot more efficient.

And then also moving to mobile technology we're removing some of the tables in the classrooms that heretofore had the desktop computers.

So there is built in room for the cart.

Pinkham And sorry a few more questions.

How adaptable will these new technology be as again technology changes.

How long what's the life cycle do you predict for these computer carts so that and then next.

So as you look on training for instructors what's the impact for that?

What do new instructors have to learn about these new new technology?

And hopefully this won't replace hands on.

Yes it helps them redo things but hopefully we can still keep the hands on going and ADA compliance issues if that needs to be addressed.

I forgot the first question already.

So we're planning on a minimum of a four year life cycle and the laptops we are developing a standard where we're able to support those centrally and push upgrades from from central.

So I don't see an issue there.

ADA compatibility all of our software goes through a process for that so anything both websites and the actual software if it's installed goes through our ADA process as well as our security privacy processes.

Did I get everything?

Okay.

Peters.

I just want to say that I saw those carts at some of the schools and they're very convenient.

I noticed that the computers are plugged into those carts and the students actually get to go right into those carts and just pull them right out and then when they're done they go right back in there so they are very convenient and students seem to know exactly what to do with those.

Peters.

I'm taking off my school board director hat and putting on my hat as a parent and giving a huge shout out to Ms. Lasky for all the work that she does in that school.

I have benefit as a parent and have seen the great things that have happened and the energy that's generated from being able to do those types of experiments and come back and share at the dinner table with family what learning had occurred and the level of excitement that comes from that and you know occasionally the desire to change careers and maybe become a scientist in addition to the first African-American president and all the rest.

I know that it is having a huge impact in schools and the other point that I'll make that if my fellow board members have not had the experience yet they surely will where they will encounter a constituent who's been in our classrooms and talks about the state of technology in our classrooms and is just appalled that we are not cutting edge in a city that you know leads the nation and the world in terms of technology and its use and its application and its creation.

And that's a hard conversation to have with people about why is it that we are not making the types of investments that are propelling their kids into jobs and careers in the 21st century.

And so though I won't get a chance to vote on this particular one I'm hoping that it will pass overwhelmingly and will allow us to move forward with some of the improvements that need to happen in our in our classrooms.

So thank you for being here.

And thank you Mr. Carter as well for for all of your leadership and we see frequently frequently your school listed as one of our high performing schools and that's due in large measure to the leadership that you have insisted on and that has infused throughout the entire school.

So thank you for being here as well.

Director Patu.

I just want to add to that I had the opportunity also to visit Mercer and just had an opportunity to watch the students at work in terms of their computers and what they're doing and it's just amazing that kids know exactly what they're doing.

and engagement that goes on in that school.

There's not one time that I saw a student actually just played around or you know sometimes get distracted.

They were really into those computers.

And so I definitely would like to see those computers and those carts go down to Mercer.

Great job.

I have a couple of questions.

So what role does the hands on part of education or learning play in this scenario?

So with science we do a lot of where we do a hands on and we model in the sim and so it's kind of alternating so we're looking at getting that tactile moving things around doing experiments and then also looking at things that we can't necessarily capture in the classroom in the sims.

And so there's very rarely a day where students spend the entire time on the computer.

It's more of a support of the overall learning in a different way and keeping the materials up to date.

Yeah my piece isn't maybe so much about the hands on in terms of as it applies to the scientific action.

However in terms of the enrichment action for like math support or reading support you know we're able to our teachers are able to sit side by side with students watch their mathematics watch their misconceptions give immediate feedback and give feedback to families as well what next steps look like.

And that doesn't necessarily that can't necessarily happen that effectively and efficiently without the support of technology.

The other part I want to also emphasize with this is just the urgency with which in which we need carts and how they're applied across the school.

So we use them in multiple ways so the mobility of the carts allow us to shift carts out of a classroom.

We have a very complex schedule.

Definitely share it with you if you're interested.

But we are able to pull cards out of the classroom and move cards around throughout the day so you will see cards shifting and moving to support instruction.

And because of the sheer number of students that we're accelerating in math and reading skills classes like social studies and language arts don't get access to the technology because we have to prioritize the students that need more support in math and reading and science.

And last point on this piece is Mercer has invested supplemental dollars performance pay from the city baseline dollars to purchase our own carts and we cannot continue to support programs and continue to purchase carts on our own without district support.

So there's an urgency between behind for us to get carts allocated and purchased.

Thank you.

So just a couple of points that I just want to everyone to be cognizant of and I think is perhaps points we brought up before but I think we have to make sure that we keep a balance with how we use technology.

Technology should never replace human interaction.

It should not completely replace hands on.

I mean I have just in my own family I have a child who's basically he's got lots of engineering prowess and I see the value of what it's like to work with actual raw materials construct something.

nothing really you don't really learn physics like having something fall on your foot.

You know I mean that's not going to happen with just the conceptual understanding we have with technology.

And so it would be good to know to what extent we balance out the use of technology as tools And another issue is as parents we're very concerned about screen time.

And when I hear people say oh the students love the screens.

Well yes I know that.

And that's the problem.

And so I think as a district we have to be very mindful of using the screens in a way that is constructive.

And then when we see the use of personalized learning one of my biggest fears as a parent is personalized learning could end up being abandoned learning where the child is over there in the corner with a computer and you don't really know what they're doing and if they have two windows open one is educational and one isn't.

You know so there's there's a lot of areas where we just have to be vigilant and focused on how we use these things.

And so I just hope these considerations are part of the conversation about all of this and a part of the construct of the curriculum.

Yes it's true in the area of instructional technology there are lots of different processes and practices.

I think our bias is you know the type of project work in which people students are working collaboratively with other students as well as a teacher.

We are not so fond necessarily of just sitting a student in front of a computer and having the computer be a teacher.

We think that teachers are really good at engineering those kinds of experiences whereby students can actually interact with not only the technology but with each other.

As well I think are at least you know from the teaching and learning side we think that there is really a broad definition of technology.

We think that for example print media is not something that necessarily becomes obsolete.

And you know we believe that students should be able to learn how to get information from all sorts of media including the textbook and other kind of printed material.

But we do want them to be very capable of getting information from technology as well.

I want to address two of your points.

One we are definitely making sure that we balance the hands on versus the computer sims.

And the second one there there are a few different versions of the technology but there's a way that you have all of the laptops in the room attached to the teacher computer and then the teacher can actually see the screens of everyone in their class and then they know if anyone's using something that they shouldn't be.

As to your concern of like having multiple tabs open that aspect of it.

I'll just finish with one other observation.

There were some studies that came out a few years ago about the value of handwriting.

People often say do we even teach our kids cursive anymore and what good is it you know we just want them to have keyboarding skills.

But there was some research that came out that actually said there's a value to handwriting that there's some neurological connections that are made and that students retain information better when they're handwriting it.

So knowing that I think we also have to keep an eye on what the research says about what's developmentally appropriate and make sure that we're not getting caught up in things that ultimately might not be the best tools or tools that we don't want to overuse.

That probably branches out into another area of instruction.

I think that you know in our basically foundational instruction in K3 although we may not get into the level of handwriting in the way that we used to in which you know the practice was to get quite fancy about it.

It is important to have an amount of automaticity in terms of being able to handwrite such that the child doesn't have to really spend cognitive energy thinking about the actual task of putting print onto paper.

So that's still definitely a foundational skill that we'll emphasize in early learning.

Yeah and I just was using it as an example of where the hands on connection to learning is still important like the Montessori approach.

You know there's there's some serious research behind that.

And so I just wouldn't want to give up all of that you know just just for the technology solutions.

OK.

Thank you.

I've lost my page here.

The next item is.

Let's see.

BTA IV approved purchase of mobile computer devices for certificated staff.

And I don't have my page in front of me.

Oh there it is.

OK.

So that one probably came to C&I and you may have already spoken to that.

Yes I did.

OK thank you.

John Krull chief information officer.

I'd like to introduce this item.

This is for.

Five million five hundred thousand dollars to provide.

devices to every certificated staff member in the district.

It would include not just the device but also a docking station that would make it like a desktop for them and the peripherals that they would need to use it to improve their teaching and students learning.

And with that I will pass it again to my teaching and learning colleague Dr. Kinoshita.

Thank you.

Having come from other districts in which it's been a standard practice to issue technology to teachers.

There are a multitude of uses that you know teachers put to them that actually end up benefiting students.

First of all beyond the basic productivity that's involved in teachers using technology to just basically operate their classroom.

The fact as more and more mobile technology gets into the classroom for students these these particular tools are pretty important so that the teachers can actually interact with students you know on a pretty frequent basis as well.

The development of you know instructional products that are flexible and actually kind of accommodate the really current needs of the students.

are made much easier by the fact that teachers have reliable technology.

So there are multitudes of uses.

One other one which we found that was actually quite beneficial is the fact that.

with teachers having consistent laptop technology that has some very good professional development uses in which you know teachers could in a professional development actually interact with the material.

and you know do some of the same things that students do in terms of you know co-creating things like units and lessons in real time to where you know three to five teachers would actually be accessing the same document.

So there are many many uses for you know teacher technology as well that will end up benefiting students.

Peters Any questions comments about this item?

Director Pinkham.

And just another with new technology and stuff again is going to be access to data as teachers get these mobile computer devices will they be able to download student data and store that on the computer itself or are they going to be limited that they can only interact with the data.

Because unfortunately it's going to be experiencing University of Washington yes we have all this data and then when someone downloads it.

it then becomes accessible to somebody else.

I just want to ensure are these going to be more like what we call not computers themselves but more like monitors that they use to access other data but nothing stored locally on them.

So I have two parts to my answer there is we are generally moving to applications where mostly the work is done on the screen and not downloaded and we're working on training teachers because kind of the old the older way to work was to have a desktop application and you worked in Microsoft Excel and you downloaded it.

But we're trying to move more towards working within the web application.

Since we're not 100 percent that way we have an initiative that all of our laptops come encrypted.

So any data that they do download is encrypted and cannot be accessed by other people.

Also point out that you know the laptop technology will interact with the other types of technology that we're adopting such as for example our databases our data warehouses in which the data is not on the laptop but it is accessed you know at the district level and laptop technology will you know allow teachers to become a lot more proficient in terms of how to use that and use it in real time.

Director Patu.

It's in comparison to the other schools district.

We we are behind because most other districts with teachers that I talk to or staff they all have computers that they personal computer from the district that they actually take with them at work.

And I think we're the only district that doesn't do that.

Yeah I actually went around and looked at the technology plans of various districts so seven surrounding districts for example not only provide teacher technology at some grade levels they provide one on one laptops.

Other districts you know have infusions of technology at both the student and teacher level.

And I know everyone has their own anecdote about their own child but my child graduated from Shoreline schools in 2008 and she had as well as her teacher a one-on-one Macintosh laptop.

My only last comment on that would be is it do the districts of similar size to Seattle also offer the same degree of technology?

Okay.

In actuality in my examination the districts come in all shapes and sizes.

So you have some very small ostensibly poor districts such as the one that I actually came from Marysville which had issued Macintosh laptops three years ago to all their teachers and then also had a Chromebook one on one initiative for all students from middle school on up.

My point is perhaps it's easier to do that with smaller districts.

Everything we do has to be to scale.

That's one of our challenges.

OK.

And if there's no further comments on this one let's go on to the next item.

And that is the approval of the student assignment transition plan for 2018 19. And there's also an amendment attached to that.

We hear from.

See Jill if you could address.

Well there's a lot of ops.

It's.

Oh Stefan's here.

Okay.

Sorry.

You're our C&I person right?

Sorry I'm just I'm just getting tired.

Stefan could you please address the rest.

There we go.

The rest of.

Okay.

So so.

The rest of the list is all ours.

Being sensitive to the time I will note that this item and all future items were heard by the ops committee on November 2nd and moved forward for consideration.

I will note that this item was heard by the ops committee then referred to the entire board and then referred back to the ops committee.

where we did not hear any concerns voiced the second time around and we invited all board members to participate.

So the amendments have not been vetted by the committee.

On one item I was talking about many items so on item 7 the committee heard it went to the entire board went back to the committee.

We did not hear any concerns about amendments and so this is all new for us as well.

Good evening.

My name is Ashley Davies I'm the director of enrollment planning.

So as was mentioned the student assignment plan for the 2018 19 school year was first brought to operations committee in the beginning of October for initial discussion and then was brought to operations committee of the whole at a special meeting October 25th And many of the items were discussed there that are in the plan as well as some additional things that we have changed or removed based off of the feedback that we got from the committee of the whole.

Those updates were then provided on November 2nd back at operations committee.

And so that's what I have here today to again review with all of the board for introduction.

So as I mentioned I'm going to highlight the changes and differentiate whether there are changes from the October 25th meeting the committee of the whole when all the board was there to discuss and therefore.

So the first of which we had initially had a discussion talking about removing the transition label from the student assignment plan that has been added back into the plan moving forward for board approval for the 2018 19 school year.

So it reads the student assignment transition plan for 18 19. There was discussion about for the 19-20 school year having a larger comprehensive discussion utilizing also our race and equity analysis to look at how we could combine that with the 2009 document as well as the current transition plan.

So that will be work that our team as well as other departments will be engaging with our school leaders as well as community in the coming year.

The next was an item that we had added to the transition plan that would remove the ability for students to transfer back to their attendance area school from an option school if there was not space available.

And so based off the feedback from the meeting on the 25th committee of the whole we took that out of what is going forward for board approval.

So there is no change to the language that is referred in that document talking about the ability for families to transfer back.

And again the thought behind that initials recommend recommended change in language was around ways to manage our capacity at attendance area schools that are overcrowded and option schools as well as being able to maintain stability for those two.

The next is in addition to the special education language.

So this was based off of discussion that we had at the operations committee of the whole.

And there was a specific ask to add language that talked about students who are at a link school either in elementary school and would then be in a middle school feeder that is not their attendance area middle.

So the language added allows those families to be able to continue with the students who are in their linked school attendance area for middle school.

So again if a student is assigned to an attendance area elementary school that is not within their middle school feeder they have the ability to continue within that middle school feeder with the cohort of students that they may have those relationships with.

Since then we've also had additional discussion around some special education language that refers to the school choice process and families with special needs being able to have access to option seats in the same way that our general education students do.

And so that was a discussion that we had after that we continue to have discussion after the operations committee meeting on November 2nd.

So there is not red line language in the document that you have in front of you but I do want to acknowledge that we are adding a piece That will essentially indicate that students who have again special education students will have access to choice seats through the open enrollment process and there will be seats set aside.

So we'll put that language in.

We can send directly to the board so you know exactly what's going in and if there is any other edits we can make sure that that's refined before we go for action.

Just before you move on and then the middle school piece that you were just got done talking about that we were going to do.

High school piece as well.

Yes sorry.

Yep.

And so the one other thing we're adding is also to the same extent for the middle school piece I mentioned for students who are at a linked elementary who would then be in a different middle also allowing them to continue into the high school that would be within their attendance area based off of their assignment at the elementary level.

Okay the next piece is around clarifying space available as it applies to choice seats.

So the document that was brought forward to the board on October 25th indicated in a footnote about what that meant in terms of seats available and so first want to mention that the recommendation was to put it into the text of the document so we've removed the reference from a footnote into the main body of the text.

Again that footnote was on page 3 and now it's in the main body of the text.

And so the clarification and that was based off of discussion that the district had in conjunction with the school board as well as community throughout this past school year through the open enrollment process as well as the wait lists and moves process.

about wanting more clarity in terms of what seats available meant.

So that is then defined there to say space availability depends on seats available given the staffing capacity at a school.

So that language is still what was provided on the 25th in the operations committee of the whole.

The change from then is that it is no longer in a footnote it's referenced in the body of the student assignment plan.

So the next piece is the advanced learning pathways.

So we had.

Tremendous amount of engagement that was going on separate from separate and in conjunction with a lot of the work with the student assignment plan around pathways for not the 18 19 school year but for the 19 20 school year.

And so this was really driven by and our addition of the language here is really driven by wanting to provide that information that predictability for families.

Earlier we had talked about the high school boundary changes and being able to do them again before open enrollment for the 18 19 school year knowing that it would impact families who are moving into high school not only.

in the 1920 school year.

But now if we're talking about again ninth and 10th graders when Lincoln opens in 1920. So in that same way we wanted to make indication of any advanced learning pathway changes at the high school level to align with the high school boundary changes which is why there is indication in the student assignment plan for changes for the 1920. So the reference in there talks about the regional pathways.

Again this was mentioned in the November 2nd operations committee.

It also referenced the fact that students would be grandfathered if they are within the pathway already at the high school level.

And that includes students who would be entering in ninth grade in the 18-19 school year.

So again it would be any students currently in the pathway at the high school level and then any students entering into the high school pathways next year would be grandfathered.

Then the last advanced learning piece that we also have is around our advanced learners and essentially we have updated the information there and really just cleaning up the language talking about the fact that opportunities for our advanced learners which is formally.

referenced as spectrum is available at all schools.

And with that if a student is at a school and with that designation they would have that designation.

We also updated the tiebreaker chart in the student assignment plan.

for the advanced learners such that service area used to be the first tiebreaker and we just remove that such that it aligns with all the other tiebreakers.

Again our general education tiebreakers are highly capable tiebreakers and so that would just be the first one would be sibling and then it would be lottery.

So that was the only one where we had a service area aside from Montessori and the Montessori is still the same.

I have a question.

It says that spectrum is offered at each school site.

How exactly is that mandated and what does that look like?

Hi again Wyeth Jessee chief of student support services.

And so this is just a follow up to some of the work that was done by our REA Eric Anderson and his team that did a program review for advanced learning services.

And so one of the things that I would really highlight here is while we do have those things about advanced learning for students There are some still some inconsistencies that do exist out there around and it was called out by one of the parents I heard the comment was around worksheets.

I think sometimes the promotion of more is advancement but actually it's the depth of knowledge that we're trying to instill not only you know for our advanced learners but all students and that's what the research said is that all students would be you know obviously supported from that mechanism.

There are things that many of the schools do.

So there is either a walk to math model or they do do working groups within your class.

So that's small group rotation of tables mostly in the area of math that gets advancement and then L.A.

skills are a lot easier to advance in because you often picks the text.

The text is really a big deal for the students and obviously the skill set gets attached to it and that happens in most classrooms elementary classrooms across the district.

So are you saying that you could guarantee to families that spectrum services will be offered at their student school?

We can I could guarantee that we're providing advanced learning services as much as I can guarantee that we're providing any other guaranteed service that we provide that we say we're going to give our students.

That's what I'm worried about because I had a similar question where we say regarding special ed we say resource level special ed are available at every school.

Is that true?

That is true.

OK.

You know the problem with spectrum is it's almost become a phantom.

You know we say we've said elsewhere that some document that's been given to us that the spectrum doesn't exist anymore.

All right.

So and yet here we are assuring parents they'll have spectrum at every school and they shouldn't have to worry.

But I've had parents come to me and say you know what if only my school would offer walk to math you know but it doesn't only the spectrum school does or only one school does.

A parent recently wrote to the district because he wanted to move his child to the spectrum school in the area.

So there's still some going by that that name and there's this belief that some schools offer advanced learning and others do not.

So there seems to be a disconnect between what we say we offer and the student assignment plan and how that actually plays out in our schools or how parents perceive it.

And so.

I'm not sure how to resolve this.

I think we do hear from the community that just because the district says it so doesn't mean it's real.

So that.

So that's the reality of the situation.

And so that's why we wanted to make sure the language is there.

There is no designated site.

I mean there's the services are provided at every single school and so there is no self-contained spectrum anymore at any of our schools.

And the point that I think you're really illustrating some think of what I do here here Director Peters is is also the amount of information or misinformation that is currently existing out there and that's something that we receive on an ongoing basis and that's exactly some of the cleanup that I want to do within advanced learning services is to say hey this is a this has got to be a lot more about than the testing it's got to be about the oversight of services across our schools and so.

We do have to shift that work and the workload that's going on within a small team of folks at advanced learning and put that back out there on the schools is to make that shift out there that we are ensured doing that advancement of services for students.

And when I say that again that's the enhancement.

That's the rigor that we talk about.

That's the things that we do.

We talk about honors at high school.

What are what are the tasks that we're asking students to do.

Are they project based.

Is the project related to what the students interests are which often fits what advanced learners want to do.

And then also what is the depth of the work in the in the cognitive load that we're asking students to partake in and then we assess on.

I honestly believe that if we did genuinely do this if we did genuinely offer advanced learning at all our schools we would have much more satisfied families because just about everybody is asking for it for this.

And people want general ed to be more meaningful as well.

And so if we could make good on this I think we'd have a lot more people happy with their schools less willing to less interested in changing schools.

And I also think we'd have less families signing up for HCC.

Did you.

This gets for me back to the review of the CSIPs and using them as a living tool and going back through and making sure that it is not rote language that is in there about what is offered for the advanced learners in a school.

Because then that's the accountability piece that I think people are yearning for with regard to have you really thought about it or is it a worksheet?

And then knowing that that school has done the work that BLT has done the work to make a concept that they're willing to implement and live with and then families will have some assurance.

So those those are all the changes that are in the student assignment plan.

I did want to reference and I don't know if there's a protocol for talking about the amendment but I did just want to talk about some of the timelines that come after this and talk about some of the sequence within this.

So right now it's November 15th.

And if this were to move forward this would go to action on December 6th.

On December 7th I will be coming to the operations committee to present the high school boundary recommendation moving forward.

And so I understand that there have been questions or concerns about wanting to pair the pathway information with the actual high school boundaries.

But because of their dependency on each other it does actually from from our perspective and from a planning perspective and from a clarity for families perspective for us to be able to have that information before moving forward with a boundary change recommendation will allow us to be able to be more thorough in those recommendations to be able to do the analysis to be able to do the right sizing with the piece around the pathways for the current and future in mind when we present those.

So the challenge with a delay in the pathways piece is that if there are questions or adjustments that need to be made any adjustment with the pathways would then impact our boundary scenarios.

And so unfortunately I couldn't stand up right in front of you and and create a new scenario based off the questions that you may may have.

So that's why again advanced learning has done a tremendous amount of engagement around this work to come up with this recommendation to provide a more equitable service model across those advanced learning opportunities.

And so in order for us to continue to to continue to move forward in service and support of creating clear defined pathways and boundaries for all students involved.

We would recommend that this continue to move forward such that we can do that boundary work with the clarity around the pathways.

And then a few other pieces of next steps.

So again if this were to move forward for action that would this would go for action on December 6th and then December 7th would be the committee where we would bring forward the high school boundary recommendations.

Then on January 3rd we'd be coming for intro for the high school boundaries.

And then on December sorry then January 17th that would be action for the high school boundaries.

That leaves no time for kind of delay in between board meetings that's essentially just a two weeks.

We only have the one board meeting in December so that gives us December 6th from the one board meeting to January 3rd.

But then open enrollment begins February 5th and we are looking at a choice fair on January 20th.

Director Blanford.

I think you introduced the concept of the amendment but we haven't actually had the amendment introduced into the record so it seems to me that now would be the time to actually do that.

Blanford.

And I recognize fully that the two authors of the amendment neither are present right now.

I'll introduce it for the record.

So we have an amendment to this item and it was it says approval of this item would amend the student assignment transition plan for 2018 19 to delete assignment pathway change changes schedule for implementation in 2019 20 and combine them with high school boundaries boundary approval to be implemented in 2019 20 and directors Burke and Harris are the authors of this amendment.

I can speak to it somewhat because I I've also heard that there's some concern about combining this with the student assignment plan partly because the this pertains to something that will not happen immediately whereas the student assignment plan takes effect next year.

And so there's concern about that sort of alignment and the belief that the conversation regarding high school pathways and HCC pathways needs to happen at the same time.

That's that's a more organic combination of topics.

And then I also know that there's concerns about the proposed HCC pathways.

I've been hearing from the community.

I have my own concerns.

I know Director Burke does as well.

And so that you know that could lead to another conversation could also lead to another amendment frankly.

So in terms of the in terms of the sequence of things our high school our high school boundaries actually don't go into effect until 1920 either.

And so we first kind of began this work with the idea of wanting this information.

at least a year ahead if not two years ahead for families.

So that's why we began the high school boundary conversation much earlier than just one year ahead.

And so because the HC pathways at the high school level go hand in hand with the boundary work we've been discussing and we've been discussing and engaging on the same timeline which is why we've been doing the open house meetings talking about the high school boundaries as well as talking about potential student assignment plan changes advanced learning changes.

Again we recognize the dependency between those two.

That's why the discussion happens together.

The piece that I was trying to articulate is that again to the extent that they are dependent in order for us to create high school boundaries that are going to be sufficient for you know more than just a few years.

We need to have baked into that analysis the pathway information because that will influence the way we draw the boundaries.

So you know based off of the pathways that are recommended we are working to not only take into consideration feedback that we've gotten from a lot of the meetings.

Some was shared here tonight about some of the transportation concerns.

So we're using that feedback as well as any changes that need to be made based off of the projections with the HC pairings as we move forward with the boundary change but again for us to be able to do that in a thorough way and be able to communicate that in a thorough way we need the HC pathway information decided on before then.

When is the appropriate time for directors to weigh in on the HC pathways and pairings?

that's been proposed.

So given that it would be in the student assignment plan that's in front of the board now this I imagine this would be a time where you could discuss those because ultimately if there are if there are questions about that we would want those addressed in order for you to approve next steps moving forward with those pathways.

Okay well then I'll share some of the concerns that I've been hearing as well as my own and that is the proposal is being put forth which is to basically have multiple pathways for HCC.

Concerns me from a capacity standpoint and also from an academic standpoint.

From a capacity standpoint we're talking about students who might currently or otherwise be going to Garfield or Ingram would be sent to their neighborhood school and included in that are schools like Ballard and Roosevelt that are already incredibly full.

And so this could have an impact at that level.

There's a sense that I'm hearing from people at that school saying no we don't need any more kids in our schools are already full and then families who feel that there's just not enough room there.

And then the other thing that I have seen and this is just from having been involved in the district for a number of years, I've seen the district take the HCC program and break it into pieces and put it in different places and the goal of access and equity, those are both good goals but I don't know if we are totally accomplishing that because here we are still talking about the inequity of the program.

And so just putting it there doesn't necessarily make more students come into it.

That's something else we need to do.

There's some other barriers we need to address.

And then we know from different task force studies and just things the district has has determined in the past in order to successfully offer something like HCC or even dual language immersion you have to have a critical mass of students.

so that you can concentrate your resources and do it well.

And if we break it into pieces there is the serious concern about whether or not we're going to have enough resources in each school to fully fulfill what each of those students needs.

So this is another case where sort of like spectrum just because we say it's there doesn't mean it's there.

And just because we send students to a school or to a location and say the resources are going to be there.

We have to put the resources there first before we send the students there.

And I don't think that's what we have happening here with these HC pathways.

So the solution that I would propose is to consider a north-south HCC pathway split where the south end students go to Garfield, north end go to Ingram and I also think that we should consider Lincoln for either HCC or dual language immersion or both.

Those are the sorts of thoughts that I've been hearing that I think have some merit.

And if now is the time to put them on the table consider them placed.

Jill did you have something to say?

It's so late it's so hard to have such a complex conversation.

This doesn't seem the right way to go about it but I appreciate the disbursement of the HCC program and I appreciate that the placement of the program at Ballard and Roosevelt is because those schools is my understanding already offer Sort of of when you look at all of our schools and how many schools offer multiple AP offerings versus very very few.

They already have multiple AP offerings and I think that those are the schools that are most likely to have kids in the highly capable cohort who decided to stay in their neighborhood schools in them.

And so by.

By just allowing kids to stay in their neighborhoods and get the services that's that would be a good thing.

And for other kids and in neighborhoods where you have higher populations of kids of color and perhaps less affluent the cultural bridge that we're asking them to cross to go into schools that are out of their neighborhoods seems to be answered by dispersing the program a little bit more as well to me.

I want us to keep in mind that unlike a lot of our other kids once you get to high school a highly capable student has a choice of going into running start.

And for these truly truly unique learners they also have the Robinson Center at the UW.

And so already for those kids who really want a traditional high school experience they can they can go to a traditional high school for those who want college with a myriad of offerings they can go to running start and for those really uniquely exceptional kids they can go into the UW and that's not ideal but it's a lot of offerings.

And we have a lot of kids in our district who don't get much of any offerings and I'm thinking of you know maybe a student I hate to put them in a percentile but a student who's maybe performing at the 89th percentile in things and so is a smart kid and their neighborhood school is Rainier Beach and that's where they get to go.

And it what what is the panoply of their options?

It doesn't look like much.

They are not smart enough to gain access to all these other things there.

You know they're performing well and so they don't necessarily get a lot of special supports either.

They're just middle of the road and they got one option and that's it.

And so I think it is our responsibility to make sure that to the extent we're balancing the options that are available to address the needs of our students that we're being Fair.

Just plain fair.

And so I see this as a movement towards fairness.

Yeah I just want to say in defense of Rainier Beach they've got the IB program there.

It's not chopped liver.

And you know there's some good things I mean really good things happening at Rainier Beach.

The graduation rate is going up and what they've done with the IB program is very interesting.

They make sure every student participates in it.

So I think Rainier Beach is actually a good example of us doing something really well.

So with the IB program then that's a unique offering that could actually allow the deeper deeper learning that any kid would benefit from with the theory of knowledge those classes.

So again making sure that we have multiple options for every student throughout the district is important.

So Director Blanford and we actually have to take a break unfortunately in a few minutes to change the tape.

Speaking of technology and our lack of Director Blanford.

So I'll try to be brief with these comments.

Director Geary started off with concerns about the process and I will elaborate on that and share that I have a very bad taste in my mouth as a result of the amendment that's been put forward.

Ms. Davies shared at the beginning the fact that we that this This motion has had numerous looks and data that has been provided to us and changes that we've made.

Originally we were planning to vote on this particular item on this day this evening and the the entire committee or the board decided that they would refer back to the operations committee We had an operations committee the following day we looked at the proposal.

We offered the opportunity for any board member to give advice or thoughts about how changes could be made.

Didn't hear any substantive ones.

And so we've moved this forward.

And as the director or the director who is the chair of the ops committee where this should have been vetted.

I discovered an email at noon today that was sent at 1023 this morning notifying me that there was an amendment that was being put in place.

All of that to say this is not the way to run an effective organization where we're making decisions that will have huge impacts on on children's lives.

There has to be sufficient time for board members to look at and consider.

There has to be additional time for staff members to vet these these ideas and share their thoughts and share some of the unintended consequences of moving forward.

And this is a classic example of us not doing that and as Ms. Davies has shared there are unintended consequences with the amendment that I think will have long-term implications particularly As we're talking about predictability and some of the higher ideals that we've set for our behavior if this has a severe impact on our ability to tell our families that your student will go to school X or school Y.

then particularly in pursuit of maintaining access for those who already have it to the detriment of those who don't have access to HCC then I think we are doing a huge disservice to our families and making a mockery of the idea that we're about equity.

As somebody who's having to speak for the amendment tonight I want to say that they introduced it today a full three or four weeks before that we're actually going to vote on it.

So that's that's plenty of advance notice.

And we all reserve the right to introduce amendments even from the floor.

So you know I don't I don't believe that the the sponsors of this amendment have done anything inappropriate.

And in fact they put a lot of thought into this and we have heard from the community about this issue and they're addressing that.

And everybody has the right to vote against the amendment.

So we are at a point where we have to take a technical break.

So let's make it five minutes and come back and continue.

We're still talking about the student assignment plan but maybe we're near the point where we can move on to it.

I don't know do we feel like we're ready to move on from the student assignment plan at this point or should we come back to it?

Ready to move on?

Let these people go home?

Okay that's it for the student assignment plan tonight folks to be continued.

There was nothing to vote on tonight please it was just introduction so and then we'll come back to item 8 when we come back from our break.

Thank you.