Seattle Public Schools Board Meeting - June 3, 2026

Good afternoon.

All right, the June 3rd, 2026 regular board meeting is called to order at 431 p.m.

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

Ask for the roll call, please.

Vice President Briggs.

She is in transit and will be here in about 10 minutes.

Director Lavallee.

Here.

Director Mizrahi Director Rankin Director Smith.

She's also in transit and will be here in about 10 minutes.

Director Song.

Here.

Student Representative Mangelson.

Here.

Student Representatives Masudi and Yoon are not able to join and President Topp.

Here.

All right.

Thank you.

I'm going to go.

We're going to go straight into superintendent comments.

Superintendent Scholdner.

well thank you so much president top it is an honor and privilege to be here as always um i just want to say thank you to everybody for just the incredible work that's going on in the district as i think many of you know i visited all 106 schools uh the energy was palpable the learning was rigorous and deep and i was just really really proud uh to be the superintendent of the seattle public schools i mean i'm proud every day of that but really when you think back of the 106 amazing places that I got to see, the staff, the students, the families, you know so many of these buildings were vibrant with so many different folks and I really just want to say thank you and again what is so tangible when you go and visit our schools is the talent of the students and so I'm really lucky that I get to invite up Gail Frazier in a second to talk about some of the amazing students that we have in this district in terms of our arts.

an old board member of mine used to say, charge it to my head, not to my heart.

So if I mispronounce anybody's name, I apologize.

But I really want to congratulate Josie Ambrose and Arlo Halle.

All right, awesome, I'm getting a nod.

and I know that Gail Frazier will introduce them again.

But these two wonderful students exemplify just the literal tens of thousands of our students in our district that have just such immense talent.

And so, Gail, if you want to come up and say hi, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Hello, everybody.

So, yes, I'm Gail Frazier.

I'm the Visual and Performing Arts Program Manager for Seattle Public Schools, so I support all of the arts, dance, media arts, music, theater, visual arts, kindergarten through 12th grade.

I'm here today to introduce two students who are going to talk about their experience in the Naramore art show and to also provide a little background on what the Naramore art show is for those that may not know so we've been doing Naramore in Seattle Public Schools since 1985 it is our middle and high school district art show and annually we celebrate over 200 artworks of middle and high school students at the Seattle Art Museum in their community corridor, which is free and open to the public.

And this year, actually, we have 348 artworks from 28 middle and high schools that are, or were, we just closed, we took down all the artwork on Monday, actually.

but at the Seattle Art Museum as well as on our virtual exhibition.

So on the Visual and Performing Arts website you can see more artwork and it's just a way for us to celebrate and share the incredible artists that we have in our district with friends, family, and community both near and far.

So I also wanted to talk a little bit about why we call it Naramore.

I get asked this question a lot.

So Floyd A. Naramore was a visionary architect.

He believed passionately in public education and he has designed over 20 schools.

So beautiful schools like Roosevelt, Garfield and Cleveland just to name a few.

And his family started the Naramore Art Show in 1985 and we've continued it.

ever since.

I would like to take a moment to thank our visual art teachers for their incredible expertise, their heart, their mentorship of our students, and also all of the families that support their student artists.

I'm one of those moms myself My daughter's an artist and I want to thank you all for everything that you are doing for our district to make Seattle Public Schools a truly great place for all students.

and so with that, I want to introduce our students who are gonna speak with you today.

We have Jody Ambrose from West Seattle High School and we have Arlo Halle from Franklin High School who are gonna share about their thoughts, feelings and experiences in Narramore and as artists in our district.

So we'll start with Josie.

Good afternoon.

My name is Josie Ambrose.

I'm a junior at West Seattle High School.

I have taken almost every art class that the school provides and this year I had a piece titled Don't Speak in the Normal Art Show and my piece was a self-portrait based around lack of speech or freedom of speech that I felt as a woman and growing up as a woman, my experience in that.

My piece being chosen was what really caused me to think more deeply about art and the importance of it in school systems, especially for high schoolers who are struggling with their identity.

I think it's a healthy coping mechanism, especially for young people dealing with lots of various emotions.

It brings joy, especially when that seems scarce in the world that we live in.

and even though art is everywhere, art is not accessible for everyone to create.

Not everyone can afford art classes or museum memberships and this is why it's so important for art to be a part of the foundation of school systems because where else would people do art?

Where else would people express themselves in other places?

It's just important.

Without the support of my art teachers and peers, I personally would not have been able to create something worthy of being displayed in there more.

I think we all can agree that everyone appreciates art but not everyone values it and what I mean by that is everyone notices the beauty and the creativity but not everyone chooses to support it even if it's for the sake of others and I think that we need more people to help us support the art and the artists so that we can allow them to grow and thrive in a world that seems very much against it thank you

Hello, my name is Arlo Halley and I am a senior at Franklin High School.

The power of art is within its limitless possibility to become anything we want it to be.

Art, like beauty, is in the eyes and the hands of the beholder.

With that great power, artists have a responsibility when they create.

I encourage everyone of you, everyone, whether they consider themselves an artist or not, to seek out art in everything that they do.

because it may truly be the one unique and human thing that we have.

Draw something that you see at the park or draw your mom who may have never been drawn before.

Doodle the same character in all of your friends' papers make a fairy house in the park or take a picture of someone else's.

In this increasingly difficult time of political and emotional upheaval, I found it incredibly valuable to find beauty and art that surrounds me wherever I go.

Whether you decide to make art that sends a political message or make art because a teacher asks you to, you are participating in an important experience of what it means to be yourself and to be a human.

use that gift to make beauty where there doesn't seem to be any or draw attention to where beauty already exists.

At the Seattle Art Museum, where we had Naramore, there is a remarkable exhibit, What We Leave Behind, by Samantha Yunwall.

In an interview, Yunwall said, I view art as a kind of language.

It's a way for me to process the world around me, but it is also a tool to communicate.

It's not my first language, but it may be my second.

I believe in this message and wanted to share it again here tonight.

through art we can we can transcend language and cultural barriers that are keeping us from each other and it's not just the art that is hung in the museums that make the impact but especially the ones hung in our schools done by our teachers and our students speaking of which please thank our art teachers whenever you get a chance because they may be spending their own money keeping our art dreams alive i hope you can all see the impact that art has made on my life and continue to give seattle public school students the right to be impacted the way that I have been.

Within a district whose art departments are occasionally unequal, Naramore is a shining opportunity for all students to present their work.

Thank you so much again for this opportunity and for all the support that you give to the arts.

Thank you so much, Gail.

Is there anything good?

Awesome.

Do you mind if you come up?

We take some pictures.

Is that okay?

Yeah, yeah, the students.

Yeah, yeah, come on.

So once again, we're just so proud of our students, all of our students, and the great educators that are there to support them.

So with that, I turn it back over to President Top for the rest of the meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That was wonderful to see.

I appreciate that we've been starting a moment of each of our board meetings here with some sort of student participation, learning a little bit more about what our students are doing, and this was incredible to see sort of the art aspect.

I'm going to turn it over to our student representatives for their representative comments, and I've got Representative Mangelson.

Hi, everyone.

First, I just want to say happy Pride Month.

Super exciting.

Second of all, I just want to really quickly reiterate just the importance of arts education.

I was lucky enough to also have a piece of mine in the Naramore Art Show this year.

The Seattle Art Museum is somewhere that's so, so important to me and it was really incredible to have those two pieces of my life just kind of intertwine and have that representation for middle and high school artists.

Arts are essential to education.

They are foundational to everything that we do, whether it's arts or writing or even math.

You know, there's plenty of ways that arts can show up.

so I just want to say thank you again thank you Gail Frazier thank you to one of my friends who's also named Josie who came tonight who's in my AP art class thank you to Arlo who I think they took off but yeah that was really great to see then I just want to say it's my last meeting of the school year which is crazy this year went by so fast I really want to thank, first of all, Isabelle and Sabi, Director Yoon and Director Massoudi, who could not be here tonight.

Sabi, who is in South Korea right now, which is incredible and amazing.

She's studying abroad.

They've been so amazing.

They've been so supportive in helping me learn about what it means to be a student representative and what it means to just be like a participating member of society and democracy.

And I've just learned so much.

Then really quickly I just want to thank everyone else I want to thank all the board directors I want to thank Superintendent Carrie and Julia for being so amazing this year Once again I've just I've learned so much and I'm so so so excited to continue this role next year I'm so excited to meet the next three student representatives and yeah thank you so much everyone

Thank you, Director Mangelson.

And I think we have Director Massoudi online as well.

Hi, guys.

I'm so sorry.

I totally wish I could have made it in person.

I'm at my mom's graduation event right now at the University of Washington.

But I also just wanted to kind of add on to what Josie just said and say thank you so much.

This being my last boarding, my board meeting as a student representative before I graduate, I'm just incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be able to have served on the board and to be able to represent the voices of Seattle Public students.

and over the last year I've just learned so much about leadership, collaboration and public service.

It's just been such an honor to be able to bring the student perspective to these discussions and able to work along such dedicated board members and staff and community leaders.

It's been such a privilege to be able to serve.

Thank you.

perfect transition as we move into board and liaison report.

So this meeting does mark the transition between our current student board representatives and our new student board representatives.

This evening we will be approving the appointment of new student reps for the 26th 27 school year.

And as you guessed from their remarks tonight is Representative Masoudi's final board meeting, and we do want to take a moment to recognize her, her amazing leadership and contributions.

So thank you so much.

Director Masoudi is also Director Mangelson's last meeting of the year, but we want to thank her for her service, but she and will continue on next year.

So we're very excited for that.

So with that, any directors have any remarks for Director Masoudi?

Director Rankin

I just want to thank you for your time and commitment Isabel it's been such a pleasure getting to know you and I brought you a little bouquet of flowers I didn't know you weren't going to be here so I'm sending you virtual virtual flowers I've been channeling a lot of my rage and anxiety into gardening and so I have flowers and it's helping a lot and you know there are not a lot of ways for us to show or it's difficult to show the volume of appreciation for the service and commitment of you and other board directors so I was looking for something tangible but just thank you and I can't wait to see what you do next and we'll miss you.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

Well, I will just add it's I don't think it's easy to be a student board director.

There are lots of student voices that you're trying to bring into to the equation.

And I appreciate every single time one of our student board directors speaks up specifically during our work sessions because it really brings in a a perspective you kind of see a change in the room like you know we're all kind of maybe multitasking a little bit or taking notes but when you know director Massoudi director Mangelson you talk you speak or decide to to add in a point the room kind of shifts a little bit and everyone starts to listen a little bit more so I think you have very impactful and powerful voice so thank you so much for your service and your service to Seattle Public Schools students The other announcement that we I have is we are about to embark on to graduation season, which is exciting directors.

This is the one of the most exciting parts of our job.

We have the opportunity to celebrate our students at the upcoming ceremonies, and I want to congratulate everyone who is graduating on this monumental achievement.

With that, do other board committee chairs or liaisons have any reports?

director song.

Thank you.

I have a quick WASDA update for our board.

So after our April meeting I submitted our five proposals.

WASDA's committee reviewed them and just want to go through the status of each one of them.

Our proposed amendment to attract recruit and retain diverse school board directors.

I coordinated with Liza and we got feedback from them that they prefer the language of shorelines and we were comfortable with that so we're going to proceed with that.

our proposed amendment to gun violence prevention the committee recommended do not pass.

And before I continue it's they can make a recommendation but it's just a recommendation.

We as a body and I as your representative will still have an opportunity to vote in support of these.

Our proposed new legislative position school self and policies the committee also recommended do not pass.

Our proposed new permanent position technology development and learning the committee recommended do not pass.

and I would say the feedback that we received is just generally a preference around local control and so that's their position and so that's kind of why they decided to recommend do not pass on these items.

And then the last one, feedback on the effects of social media on mental health, our proposed amendment.

They suggested that we remove the bell to bell cell phone policies from our proposed language.

So I thought maybe I'd just do a pulse check with all of you later if you're comfortable with removing just that specific line from our proposed amendment.

I can go back to them and say we agree to that change and then they can make a recommendation.

So for a finance and audit committee to start it is part of our board procedure that I have to announce completed internal audits.

So we have the Franklin High School audit the Montlake Elementary School modernization in addition ECCM audit and the Montlake Elementary School modernization in addition MCCM audit.

Those have all been posted to the website.

and the finance and audit committee had an opportunity to actually review the Franklin High School audit of our internal auditor.

We had a meeting on May 18th and we received the Washington State Auditors exit conference report and I'm very pleased to report that the state auditor issued no findings and concluded that the district complied in all material aspects.

the auditors did issue three management letters they were related to the financial condition which is just something they have adopted recently and I think we all understand what our financial condition is as do many districts in Washington state also one on school bus fuel expenditures and associate student body activities so corrective actions on these two have already started.

As I mentioned we got a presentation on the Franklin High School internal audit.

There wasn't significant findings related to that.

There was just one kind of around substitutes and reimbursements so I encourage board members if you're interested to have a look at that.

We also as a committee discuss next steps for our human resources audit and Andrew Medina our internal auditor is working on a request for proposal that we're hopeful we'll be able to put out.

for bidding very soon.

And then finally I'm very excited to announce that our committee is seeking a second public advisor to join Sherry Carr and we have posted that to the website.

I asked my colleagues to help kind of share that this position is available and we could recruit some good candidates and that's it.

Thank you.

Hello we'll go to the Operations Committee Director Lavallee Hi I'm going to keep it short because I'm losing my voice.

So we we've reviewed all of the things that are coming before the board today in this meeting starting off in the next meeting we will be starting to vote for approval of recommendation of what the committee recommends when something goes in front of the board and we do not have that as a point yet.

So that's going to be added starting out in this next meeting.

We then went ahead and reviewed what's going on within the technology department including looking at the strategic initiatives and major programs that they have going on as well as their scope of work.

within that the committee went ahead and asked some had some conversation about how that plays out within classrooms knowing that the technology department doesn't necessarily do curriculum or doesn't do the part of how technology is used in the classroom.

So that with that being said we were still able to ask some questions about how this boils down into student learning on a number of different levels and get some learning insight into that.

And then in our next meeting we will be focused on learning more about the student assignment transition plan and what we can expect from that next year.

Appreciate that.

Policy committee director Mizrahi.

We've met twice since our last meeting.

We're the most active committee.

We the two things that we talked about mostly were at the request of this board.

We were looking a little bit deeper into the grants policy and discussing that.

I think there'll be maybe some updates to potential changes to that forthcoming.

at some point and then we also looked at some potential resolutions that will come up and we have another meeting set for July where we can hopefully hone in on some of that stuff.

And we are also looking at potentially discussing technology policy more broadly and just some of the layout of our policies like what what lives in what part of the policies and you know what is going to be the ongoing work of the board versus things that are hopefully more in the purview of the superintendent.

And lastly I would just say that we're having productive meetings and I think we're going to be bringing stuff forward in a good clip.

Perfect.

Liaison reports.

Director Rankin.

It's not specific to Council of Great City Schools but I can't really let the moment go without acknowledging that is in addition to Pride Month is gun violence awareness month.

And the heartbreaking thing is that we are all very very much aware of gun violence.

We lost another student.

We lost a Hale student last week to gun violence.

I have lost track of the number of students that we have lost to gun violence being on the board.

and it's been two years since Omar was killed on the steps of Rainier or I'm sorry Garfield High School.

We lost Rainier Beach students.

It's I'm bringing this up now as sort of a liaison because school systems cannot be responsible for this alone.

We're responsible for the education of children and we really need I guess I'm using this as a call on my colleagues and to other entities to bring in and pressure other other governments the city the county everybody needs to be here for our kids.

And they're it's it's just happening way too much.

It's happening way too much.

And everybody this is a classmate of my son's.

Everybody is being we're all way too close to instances of gun violence and.

anything we can do to help support our families in understanding the impacts of safe storage understanding how important that can be how that saves lives.

Most gun deaths are actually suicides.

And what happens when students have access children have access to firearms is tragic.

So I am asking all adults everywhere to please please if you have guns please keep them safely locked and stored and you will be protecting all of the children in our community.

Thanks.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Director Smith.

Yes so for the scholarship committee I'm just following up I had the honor of attending the scholarship fund award ceremony last week and I just want to comment because as a board much of our work is focused on system level data and long-term outcomes which is essential to our responsibility to guide the district.

but the award ceremony was a powerful reminder of the purpose behind our work.

We heard individual stories from pretty much all of the awardees sharing struggles, challenges, some of them affected by gun violence.

And I think it really fills in the meaning behind the data that we work with here.

So I'm grateful to the students who share their stories and goals and dreams.

So that's all.

Thank you Director Smith.

It was a very impactful evening as we listened to roughly 70 students share their stories and a $10,000 scholarship really goes along a long way to help them in their next steps.

Other liaison reports.

All right then we are pretty much perfectly at time for our 5 p.m.

public testimony by the time I read my spiel.

We are now going into public testimony.

Board policy 1 4 0 0 provides our rules for public testimony.

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

as board president.

I have the right to and I will interrupt any speaker who fails to observe the standard of civility required by our procedure.

A speaker who refuses or fails to comply with these guidelines or who otherwise substantially disrupts the orderly operation of this meeting may be asked to leave the meeting.

I will now pass it to staff to summarize a few additional points and read off the testimony speakers.

Thank you President Topp.

The board will take testimony from those on the testimony list and will go to the waiting list if we are missing speakers.

Please wait until call to approach the podium or unmute and only one person may speak at a time.

The board's procedure provides that most of your time should be spent on the topic you signed up to speak to.

Speakers may cede their time to another person, but this must be done when the listed speaker is called.

Time isn't restarted and the total time remains two minutes.

The timer at the podium will indicate the time remaining for speakers here in person.

When the light is red and a beep sounds, it means that your time has been exhausted and the next speaker will be called.

For those joining by phone, the beep will be the indication that time has been exhausted.

Moving into our list now for those joining by phone please press star six to unmute on the conference line.

And for everyone please do reintroduce yourself when called as I may miss some pronunciations as we move through today's list.

The first speaker is Julie Lechner.

Good evening.

My name is Julie Lechner.

I'm parent to three SPS students, two of whom are in middle school.

In January, my seventh grader was assigned a whole book to read in his English language arts class.

A whole book for the first time in his SPS education in seventh grade.

I was really excited that he'd finally reached this milestone when I told his teacher she said no no no books are actually not part of the SPS middle school curriculum.

I was shocked and dismayed by this and so I went to work figuring out what is in our middle school curriculum.

I read the materials myself and I found a lot of problems.

For example there are many portrayals of marginalized groups in those texts that are stereotyped and offensive.

There is an exercise in there asking students to make two lists.

What are girls like.

What are boys like.

I reached out to teachers at eight different SPS middle schools and every single teacher who responded to me expressed frustration about this curriculum.

They cited lack of relevant texts and they cited insufficient teacher supports.

I met several teachers who have been disciplined this year for teaching full novels in our middle school classrooms.

Obviously that's backwards and it needs to be fixed.

I want to reiterate this.

SPS teachers are safe and encouraged to teach a curriculum approved exercise about what our girls like while others are being disciplined for teaching full novels in our classrooms.

I'd like your help facing this.

I'm asking for two things tonight.

First you can do this immediately and for free.

Please grant our teachers the freedom to pick their own texts or have some flexibility in choosing their own texts in our classroom including full books when that's appropriate.

Second as a board you have the power to start the process of replacing this horrible curriculum.

If we do nothing if you do nothing this curriculum will be in place for another seven years.

We are on year two of a nine year contract.

That's too long for our kids to go without access to meaningful texts that show their cultural experiences and that align with SPS values and it's far too long to go without full books.

I've written an article on this online.

You can find it by googling my name.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Tracy Castro Gill.

Hi my name is Dr. Tracy Castro Gill.

I am the co-founder and executive director of Washington ethnic studies now.

I am as I as I know of the only Washington based scholar publishing peer reviewed research on K-12 ethnic studies.

I co-authored OSPI's ethnic studies framework consulted with the state board of education on their ethnic studies graduation requirement resolution and partnered with the professional education standards board to conduct a pilot to certify K-12 educators in ethnic studies pedagogies.

Nearly 10 years ago as part of a group that successfully lobbied the board to develop SPS's ethnic studies program and I'm here tonight to highlight the fact that the program we worked so hard to build in authentic relationship with SPS communities and students has been completely dismantled and is at risk of being co-opted by a racist organization ironically named the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism or FAIR.

The budget and staff for the ethnic studies program was taken away from the program manager so he left his position.

We are left only with the staff and leadership that have actively worked to thwart and dismantle the program since 2017. Now we have FAIR hawking their distorted version of ethnic studies curriculum written by white scholars who have no background in ethnic studies.

FAIR uses the stale strategy of quoting Dr. King's I have a dream speech to advocate for colorblind ideologies.

Win lawsuits for cis white men in reverse racism claims.

Advance Donald Trump's ban on DEI curriculum and training and engage in anti intellectualism calling into question a scholarship of decades of research conducted by ethnic studies scholars of color.

I asked the board to partner with my organization and others including CSEC and the NAACP Youth Council to learn about the authentic definition of ethnic studies and how the state has defined it and guard against the harmful attempts of FAIR.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Manuel Eslay.

Manuela Sly if you're online press star six to unmute.

OK we're going to move on but we will come back.

The next speaker is Sabrina Burr.

Sabrina Burr.

OK we're going to move on but we will come back.

The next speaker is Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins box eight four zero six three Seattle nine eight one two four.

On school closures 10 points number one at the May 13th board meeting without a hearing.

The board approved the closure of Middle College High School at Seattle Central.

Number two.

The district itself noted that South End students in particular would be harmed.

The board should reverse the school closure.

Number three.

I asked the state auditor to look at the district's decision.

Number four.

Any district decision can also be appealed to King County Superior Court within 30 days.

Perhaps there are those in the audience who would like to help do that.

let me know.

Number five I have helped people with things like court appeals.

Number six one example was a vote by the past school board to allow certain schools to ignore any board policy they chose.

The judge overturned the board's action.

Number seven when the district previously closed Rainier View Elementary I went to court with an African-American great grandmother named Rose whose great grandson was at the school.

Number eight, the district won and Rose has passed away.

But Rose always felt that the fight helped eventually get the school reopened.

Number nine years later at another school a teacher described to me without mentioning a name a special child who nevertheless was having a hard time.

Number 10 to the teacher's surprise I called out the name of Rose's great grandson who I sat in court with.

Closing schools stinks.

Don't do it.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Michelle Campbell.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Great.

Hello, my name is Michelle Campbell.

I'm currently serving as Secretary of Seattle Council PTSA, but tonight I'm speaking only for myself as a mom to a fourth grader and a seventh grader.

I greatly appreciate the work that each of you do every day to support all our students in Seattle Public Schools.

I know the work isn't easy.

So thank you.

I'd like to comment on the action report for the revision of goals and guardrails to be introduced tonight.

I hope there will be thoughtful questions and a generative discussion tonight on this topic.

Goals and guardrails are incredibly important foundational work.

Our goals and guardrails can serve as a North Star and a shared path.

a light to show us where we're headed and a path wide enough to grant each of us agency and our individual responsibilities and a path clear enough to practice shared accountability as we travel together in service of all our children.

How we get there is just as important as where we're going.

learning doesn't happen learning happens everywhere not just in our classrooms so accomplishing these goals and guardrails accomplishing the goals and respecting the guardrails it's going to require a community effort and I hope we're all I hope we can all join in that in that effort.

I wanted to ask you to consider what best means in comparison to the other districts that are also inequitable not inclusive and perhaps teaching our kids things that we don't really want them to learn but regardless they are I ask you to consider what best means when we're learning it's okay for discrepancies and gaps to remain for five years even if it's only on paper um what does it mean when we have a flat line for a group of students for five years what does that say to them um ask you to please conclude your remarks sir great okay and um I just wanted to mention one more thing on the guardrails um uh can they be weaponized sure but they also can be positive and I think that when they are written even though they're in the negative language they can serve as an accountability measure not a punitive accountability but accountability that is human centered and restorative and I think that's the direction that we had that we need to head to build trust and I will send the remainder of my marks an email.

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Miranda Hoffman press star six to unmute.

Hear me.

Yes we can.

Hi I want to begin with a quote from Marianne Wolf reader come home.

if we in the 21st century are to preserve a vital collective conscience we must ensure that all members of our society are able to read and think both deeply and well.

Today I urgently call on the board to abandon the current IBD ELA curriculum and explore better alternatives.

In the meantime we must end the rigid policy demanding strict curricular adherence and instead empower teachers to bring culturally relevant compelling text into their classrooms.

New York Times warns we are in the midst of a learning recession.

We must take immediate action.

I'm the mother of two students at Hamilton International and a middle school language arts teacher myself.

Both my children reported that much of their engagement with techs in class happened through audio recording.

As a teacher I know the power of modeling deep reading reading aloud thinking aloud asking questions pointing out details and guiding students to do the same.

This is not being done with IBD.

My son a seventh grader was reading a novel exploring the power of literature to reveal truths about our society.

Partway through Hamilton admin forced the teacher to stop the unit and return to IBD.

For two weeks after students read no texts at all.

Instead they sat at their devices creating PowerPoint presentations analyzing ads.

More than 50 parents signed a petition demanding answers and the return of the novel.

Superintendent Scholdinger acted promptly assigning Michael Starofsky to investigate and update parents.

Weeks later parents have heard nothing.

I've reviewed the seventh grade IBD curriculum map and would be horrified to have to teach this.

It clearly fails to engage middle school students.

there's not a single text that would capture their interest while there is a wealth of engaging text out there by acclaimed writers such as Jacqueline Woodson Jason Reynolds and Kwame Alexander to name only a few.

This must change now we are losing a generation of readers.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Gabriel Navarro.

Gabriel Navarro.

OK we're going to move on but we will come back.

The next speaker is Janice White.

Good afternoon I'm Janice White the parent of three SPS graduates.

Last month you heard from Gatewood Elementary about the work they've been doing to implement the collaborative and proactive solutions framework.

Gatewood's administrative intern described seeing fewer extreme behaviors during the school day and a stronger sense of belonging across the school community.

A Gatewood parent and licensed mental health therapist told you that belonging protects mental health supports academic achievement and helps children build a healthy sense of self.

and a second grade teacher who's also the parent of a child with intensive support needs said that thanks to this work her son is now seen as a valuable member of his community at his own neighborhood school.

On May 12th, a coalition including the Seattle Special Education PTSA and Seattle Council PTSA sponsored a webinar with Dr. Ross Green.

Nearly 400 people attended, including three school board directors.

Thank you.

Over 60% were educators.

In 123 survey responses afterward, participants said loud and clear that CPS addresses unmet needs of students whose behavior is getting in the way of learning and that they want more.

Last night on a perfect summer evening, about 120 people, including four school board directors, joined us for a deeper dive conversation with Dr. Green, highlighting the urgency for this work and the commitment of a growing group of educators and families to seeing, meeting, supporting and listening, most importantly, to kids.

Later tonight you'll hear about a grant proposal from the BFDA PTSA to be used in part to support training in CPS.

Historically BFDA and Gatewood have had some of the highest number of student restraints and isolation in the district and I speak from personal experience as one of my kids attended BFDA where he was restrained and put into isolation countless times leading to deep trauma.

evidence shows that we can drastically reduce those harmful practices by adopting CPS.

Please be on the lookout for a proposal from the coalition that has sponsored Dr. Green's appearances asking for district support for this work because kids do well if they can.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Christy Duvater.

Hi everyone.

I'm Christy Devater and I'm an SPS parent educator and one of the organizers of the community effort I'm here to tell you about tonight and Janice just spoke about.

I work with the kids whose teachers behavior techs and sometimes even parents feel like they've tried everything and yet these kids are barely making it through the school day.

And those that do they don't they don't emerge unscathed they elope to destroy classrooms attack classmates engage in self harm make threats to teachers rip up worksheets worksheets and sometimes even eat them engage in all manner of stress responses to expectations placed on them at school.

And then there are the kids who've just given up shutting down checking out taking long bathroom breaks and or not showing up at all.

I love these kids.

I believe in these kids.

I have one of these kids which is why I got into this work in the first place.

So in my time working in SPS I've seen countless incentive plans loads of well informed but often wrong guesses about what will work with this time with this kid behavior charts up the wazoo.

But you know what I'd love to see a whole lot more of listening really listening to kids.

not those quick chats in the hallway that are really mini lectures but engaging with kids as partners in solving problems.

That's the work I do.

And a lot more educators could be spending their PD time which is precious I know getting really good at that.

My work is heavily influenced by Dr. Ross Green's collaborative and proactive solutions model.

Kids do well if they can.

It's both a mindset shift and a concrete set of tools and it's not a unicorn.

Gatewood is doing it.

Denny middle school is doing it.

And last month nearly 500 SPS community members showed up to learn more.

Please be on the lookout for our proposal from our coalition asking for district wide support.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Laura Rose Murphy.

Hello I'm a BF Day elementary parent and a Seattle special education PTSA member.

Everyone in SPS we've worked with thus far has been caring and well intentioned but they are working within a limited set of tools for responding to concern concerning behavior.

Those tools have not worked for my son.

He has been unable to access his education for nearly two years and is now finishing his school year at home.

What's being offered is yet another behaviorist observation.

we've already had multiple assessments and interventions.

The missing piece isn't more analysis.

It's a fundamentally different approach to understanding and responding to distress.

That's what collaborative proactive solutions It gives staff skills and framework to deeply connect with students and help them meet expectations collaboratively.

Too often the instructional assistant role becomes crisis management and the resulting turnover traumatizes kids like mine.

Tonight you're going to be asked to approve contracts totaling more than a million dollars each for private school placements and outside behavior services because the district could not meet specific students needs.

I wonder how long before you'll be asked to one of those contracts for my son.

You're also being asked to approve a grant for BF Day Elementary.

I want to acknowledge that there are real inequities in our system between schools and within schools.

We need to ensure that schools serving students with the greatest needs have access to effective approaches and support.

This grant would fund training from Lives in the Balance and the Herring Center for Inclusive Education support aimed at those very students.

At a recent meeting Director Schuldiner said he wants to identify pockets of excellence and grow those.

You've already seen that excellence at Gatewood Elementary.

This is an opportunity to grow it.

I'm asking you to approve this grant and let it be the beginning of bringing CPS to scale across SPS because right now we are paying for failure in dollars and lost education for students like my son.

Thank you board directors superintendent and thank you principal Eckert and our PTSA budget committee for your commitment to equitable solutions in our school.

The next speaker is Yana Parker.

Yana Parker.

Your online press star six to unmute.

Okay, we're gonna move on but we will come back.

The next speaker is Pamela Phillips.

Good evening my name is Pam Phillips and I'm here as a volunteer with the Seattle Special Education PTSA and a parent of a child who was supported too late.

The PTSA exists because families of students with disabilities have had to fight really hard to get their kids what they need in this district.

We know these kids we show up for them and we've watched this district spend enormous sums of money on interventions that come too late.

We've looked at the numbers and in recent years SPS has spent over 50 million dollars on contracted behavioral and special education services like one-to-one ABA therapy, behavioral support staff that's brought in from outside, another 34 million on in-state placements and 17 million sending kids out of state away from their families and their communities.

That's over a hundred million in reactive downstream spending on kids whose needs were never addressed upstream Those services exist because our schools didn't have the tools to reach these kids before things escalated before the restraints before the isolation and before the out of district placement Collaborative and proactive solutions is upstream work.

It's not something you contract out.

It's something you train your own educators to do to listen to kids to understand why they're struggling and to partner with them to solve it.

The superintendent has said that funding professional development is not the issue.

Funding what works is and we agree.

We're asking this board and the superintendent to invest in something that works before another child in the district ends up in a placement far from home.

please support our coalition's proposal for district wide CPS training.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Jonna Hildebrandt.

Jonna Hildebrandt.

Okay we're going to go back and call the names of the people we missed the first time.

Manuela Slye.

Manuela Slye.

Hello.

Hi.

Hello can you hear me.

Yes we can go ahead.

Thank you.

Good afternoon my name is Manuela Slye.

I serve as Student Safety Chair for Seattle Council PTSA.

Back in February this year I had the opportunity to observe your both retreat.

I left with a deep sense of hope after watching the WASD presentation and hearing your commitment to implementing policy governance through strong goals and guardrails.

The first version of goals and guardrails was developed with community input in 2022 to establish measurable targets for the strategic plan.

Two years later, the board engaged the community again to identify its vision and values for the new strategic plan.

This work has been rooted in community participation.

Today, I come before you with serious concerns about the direction of this board's governance.

Metrics of success belong in board policy, not superintendent procedure.

Goals and Garberos without measurable outcomes are simply statements of intent.

They may sound good on paper, but without clear metrics, there cannot be meaning evaluation, no accountability, and no way to determine whether students are benefiting.

without board self evaluation there's no mechanism to hold the board accountable to doing the policy work necessary to move the district toward better outcomes for students.

With our community developed goals and guardrails and progress monitoring there's no mechanism to hold staff accountable.

Student outcomes focused governance has received criticism over the years.

Yet one of the central truths remains student outcomes will not improve until adult behaviors change.

So my request is simple.

post the adoption of the new goals and guardrails return to the drafting table bring the community with you and accept what is offered to support the implementation of policy governance the community helped build this framework and the community should help shape the future.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Sabrina Burr.

Good evening.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Good evening, directors, Superintendent Sheldriner.

As you know, I'm Sabrina Burr.

I first want to say I agree with everything what Manuel is by said, because Sarah and Jera, how are the children?

A traditional greeting, asking the most important question any community could answer.

Not how are the budgets, not how are the politics, how are the children?

and today far too many of our students are telling us that they are not okay.

Students do not feel safe physically, emotionally, or academically.

Families are exhausted, staff is overwhelmed, and too many young people are disengaging because they feel unseen, unheard, unsupported.

and our most vulnerable students, black students, students with disabilities and students furthered from educational justice, continue to carry the heaviest burden of instability and inconsistent support.

The school board's actions matter because your decisions state whether students experience schools as a place of possibility or places of harm.

Students' well-being cannot be treated as separate from academic outcomes.

Safety is not just locked doors and emergency drills.

Safety is belonging.

Safety is trusted adults.

Safety is mental health support.

Safety is stability.

Safety is culturally responsive education.

Safety is students believing that their lives and futures matter in Seattle Public Schools.

We have a moral obligation to do more than manage crisis after they happen.

We must lead with prevention, accountability, compassion, and courage.

Every vote, every policy, every budget decision should answer one question.

How are the children?

And if the answer is too many of them are struggling, we must be willing to change course and to do better.

because our students are watching and history will remember what you choose to prioritize.

Thank you.

Gabrielle Navarro.

Yana Parker.

Good evening.

My name is Yana Parker.

Today I am wearing several hats and I'm a parent and an educational advocate and I'm a leader in the Seattle Special Education PTSA.

One pattern I see in SPS is that unmet behavioral communication sensory and mental health needs often lead to increasingly restrictive learning environments for our kids.

When students don't receive the support they need early, adults end up responding to crises instead of preventing them.

We already know who is the most impacted by these outcomes.

Students with disabilities and particularly our BIPOC students.

When supports are not working, teams spend hours in meetings discussing behavior concerns.

Too often those conversations happen about students rather than with students.

This process is time consuming, expensive, and frequently ineffective.

families spent countless hours advocating for supports that should have been provided earlier delays make everything harder more intensive and more costly instead of waiting for a crisis and just placing students in non-public agencies later we should invest in prevention including universal design for learning inclusionary practices and evidence-based approaches like Dr. Green's collaborative and proactive solutions.

CPS helps adults work with students to identify the underlying problems driving behavioral responses, then support them to solve those problems collaboratively and proactively.

Every child deserves adults who solve problems with them, not around them.

And long before things escalate into crisis.

Thank you.

Jonna Hildebrand.

Press star six to unmute.

Okay.

I think that was our final speaker.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for folks for coming out this evening to provide public testimony.

We're going to take a very quick break.

We will join back together here at in five minutes so 536. All right we have now reached the consent portion of today's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

OK approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Director Rankin and seconded by Director Mizrahi.

Do directors have any items to remove from the consent agenda.

I do.

Director Rankin.

And sorry this is going to add time to the meeting but I'm going to pull four five six seven and eight.

OK.

All right.

May I have a motion a revised motion for the consent agenda as amended.

I move approval of the consent agenda as amended.

Second.

Okay.

Approval of the consent agenda as amended has been moved by Director Rankin and seconded by Director Mizrahi.

All those in favor say aye aye aye aye aye.

Those opposed signify by saying nay.

Okay.

The consent agenda as amended has passed.

So we're going to move now to items that have been removed from the consent agenda.

So we'll get this back to Vice President Briggs here.

So Vice President Briggs.

uh just so you're aware uh items four five six seven and eight have been removed from the consent agenda so looking forward to reading all of those yes um okay so can we have an item or a motion for the first one four four four yeah sorry I will make that more clear

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to approve the contract amendment with Brightmont Academy in the amount of $86,201 for revised total contract amount of $1,075,036 for private placement for students who require therapeutic day services and programming with any minor additions, deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent.

and to take any necessary actions to implement this contract immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

We have a motion from Vice President Briggs and a second by Director Mizrahi.

We'll move into discussion and we'll start with the person who pulled the item Director Rankin.

Thank you.

I have pulled all of these for the same reason very similar reasons.

I have.

we've tried talking about this in many ways and we talk about it and we all go oh yeah yeah we shouldn't do that.

And then we just keep going.

So I'm trying to figure out how we stop doing that.

So for four or five and six which I know right now the motion is just four but four or five and six have similar reasons so I can say them now and we don't have to take time with my comments on the other ones.

These are all authorization under a policy that has to do with money that's already been pledged.

So this is I want to talk about with this and the other ones the way that the bar process and our own policies have been used to control and coerce the board and how we have given up our authority and taken also interfered with the superintendent's authority.

So if we set our expectations for students the superintendent should be able to determine whether or not entering into a certain contract is appropriate.

We don't know that we're not giving the opportunity to discern that.

We're asked to approve this based on the monetary amount that is going over a certain amount.

We can't vote no on it because that money has already been spent.

Those services have been provided.

it is really kind of oversight theater to ask us to approve it at all and it is only because of our own policy that we approve it.

There's no state law that requires that we approve this contract.

So my my ask of all of us now that we have a finance committee we have an operations committee we have a policy committee.

These things come to us because they say in our approved policies that they have to.

and they have been used the bar process has been used to frankly bully the board.

It has treated every action that comes to the board as the same level of importance.

and almost all of them come to us when it's too late for us to actually talk about whether or not we want a thing to happen.

Most of the things in a district of 50,000 students should be up to the superintendent and his staff not up to us.

But either way it's too late.

So in the in four or five and six these are for students that have been served at the cost of the district.

outside of our district.

We don't talk about why those students are being served in the district.

We don't talk about if this is the best thing for those students.

We don't talk about the the value or appropriateness of the services.

We are asked to sign off on paying for it when it's too late to do anything about it.

and so I'm gonna be abstaining on all of these because I don't believe it's appropriate or effective for us to vote on them.

If what we want as a board is an overview of here are contracts that were, here are contracts that we entered into or signed in the last six months, year, whatever it may be, we can ask for that.

We can ask for whatever information we want.

we can say that in in the procurement policy we could we could require the superintendent to provide to the board an annual report in writing of all contracts agreed to.

We can then take it upon ourselves to read through those contracts.

If we have questions of course it's our right to ask about them.

but this is this is fake.

This is pretend and we're doing it to ourselves through our own policies that we've approved that then staff tells us we have to comply with but they're ours.

So I also want to talk about with the seven eight six seven eight no seven and eight sorry.

Oh OK I'll bring those up next time.

So that's our job is to talk about what's best for kids what our community expects for our children and to make sure the superintendent operates the district in a manner that's aligned to those expectations and us voting on these contracts after they've already been spent have nothing to do with that.

Other discussion director or vice president breaks.

I just want to thank you Liza for sharing your encyclopedic knowledge of school board governance with the rest of us.

And I'm being very sincere.

I think it's really, we really don't get very much training.

We don't get a lot of support.

It's very hard to know when something gets put in front of us.

Is this something that should be put in front of me or not?

So I just want to I guess again suggests that we continue to engage in ongoing board training with Wadsta so that Liza isn't the only person who is recognizing these things and so that we all feel empowered to when we vote that we know why we're voting and what we're voting on and I personally do not have the I have been on the board for coming up on three years and I still don't have the skill set to accurately determine that for myself which is very disempowering.

So thank you for helping the rest of us see it and and I hope that we can have WASDA come back and continue to train the rest of us.

Director Song.

Liza thank you for previewing some of the work that the finance and audit committee is going to be doing so either at our next meeting or the one after that we will be having the special education come in and talk to us about special education contracts because I think the appropriate role for school board directors is not to say whether it's this vendor or not this vendor but the appropriate role for us is to understand the implication of this contract change with our budget.

And so I share your frustration.

I know other directors have had this frustration too where we are approving a contract for something that has already been the services have been delivered and the money has been sent.

so I am excited to have this conversation as a committee so we can understand the process with special education contracts.

How are they budgeted.

How are we tracking our spending to the budget.

what prompts changes and what can we do as directors to support that process in the context of our budget development and making sure that we are spending appropriately.

So thank you for previewing the committee work that we're going to be doing.

Other directors.

All right then I'll call on staff for the vote.

Director Lavallee aye Director Mizrahi aye Director Rankin abstain Director Smith aye Director Song yes Vice President Briggs aye President Topp aye This motion is passed with six ayes and one abstention.

We will move on to item number five.

Is there a motion.

I move that the school board authorized the superintendent to approve the contract amendment with Dartmoor learning in the amount of $177,402 for a revised total contract amount of $1,001,462 for private placement for students who require therapeutic day services and programming with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement this contract immediate action is in the best interest of the district

Second.

Okay we have a motion from Vice President Briggs and a second from Director Mizrahi.

Go to Director Rankin first as she pulled the item from the consent agenda.

Thanks my comments for the previous item apply to this one as well.

Any other directors.

All right then I will call for the vote on the item.

Director Mizrahi.

Yes.

Director Rankin.

Epstein.

Director Smith.

aye Director Song yes Vice President Briggs aye Director Lavallee aye President Top aye this motion passes with six eyes and one abstention.

All right we'll go to item number six.

May I have a motion for the item.

Yes I move that the school board authorized the superintendent to approve the contract amendment with sum of learning in the amount of five hundred eighty thousand dollars.

for a revised total contract amount of $1,560,000 for behavior technician board certified behavior analysts for students who require special services per their individualized education program with any minor additions, deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement this contract.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

I have a motion from Vice President Briggs and a second from Director Mizrahi.

Director Rankin any comments.

Nothing to add.

Thank you.

Other board directors.

Director Smith.

I just want to comment how we have now we're on our third separate contract for special education services and who knows how many others are out there.

We don't get the full picture.

So just again we need to change how this process is working.

Other directors.

All right.

I will call for a vote on the item.

Director Rankin.

Director Smith.

Aye.

Director Song.

Yes.

Vice President Briggs.

Aye.

Director Lavalley.

Aye.

Director Mizrahi.

Yes.

President Topp.

Yes.

This motion is passed with six ayes and one abstention.

All right we are on to item number seven.

Motion for the item please.

or wait, this got pulled too.

Pardon?

Item seven did, okay.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to approve fiscal year 2025, 26, 20, 28, 29 contracts for commodity foods and amendments thereto not to exceed a combined total of $2,220,000 annually across all vendors with any minor additions, deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to amend and implement the contracts.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

All right, we have a motion from Vice President Briggs and a second from Director Mizrahi.

We'll start with Director Rankin for comments.

Thank you.

So a slightly different theme, but I guess similar theme, slightly different reason well same reasoning really but when we approve the budget every year we already authorized the superintendent to spend money in alignment with what's in the budget.

So there is definitely value in us having checks and balances and making sure that when money is spent it is spent in alignment with what was budgeted.

But I don't I don't think this is the best way to do that.

I also again with the bar process a couple of years ago we worked pretty hard as some of us on the board on making recommendations that were accepted by the full board on addressing the bar process from a place that was a little bit more useful to us and that allowed some differentiation between items that come to the board.

In I think the summer of 2024 also I made recommendations on a delegation policy that would describe with the input of everyone on the board at the time what are the things we need to know when we're asked to approve things.

That hasn't gone anywhere and have not been able to get that to be actually spoken about and acted on.

It's some pretty again basic stuff but we are being this this system the system that is the Seattle Public Schools is taking advantage of the fact that we don't want to look bad.

We don't want to make people mad at us and we don't know what we're doing.

And that has been used against boards for going on more than 30 years.

And so I also wanted to add something about the way that the bar processes is works now.

It is so full of contempt for the board quite honestly and by extension our community.

We're here as representatives of the community.

and the passive aggressiveness and I'm not saying this about any individual person because it is a system although I would suggest that if as an individual you're taking personal offense at what I'm about to say that may be an admission and to think about that but this is my real experience as a parent for 15 years in this district almost and as a school board director for almost seven as the employee of a new superintendent or employer of a new superintendent who I see being sabotaged by the same crap that the virus of this system does to people and I don't know why I'm feeling particularly brave right now because I have been punished greatly by this system that is trying to sustain itself in a way that is really damaging.

So one of the parts of our bar says policy implication, which I have seen used two different ways.

It either says what are the implications of this action on policy, meaning like would it change a policy, but also sometimes what is the policy that is directing the board to take action?

And that seems to be interchangeable.

It's kind of problematic.

In this case, though, I find it helpful to know when we're being asked to approve something here's why you're approving it because you asked us to bring it to you or because the superintendent would like the board to approve it whatever it is but it's helpful to have the policy that's connected to once there is a policy that's connected to it that is usually reflected in the bar saying policy such and such requires that the board take action this bar and I think also number eight very passive aggressively reminds us that we made a change to our own policy to lower the threshold and that quote, with the lowering of the applicable threshold for board approval, it is now necessary to seek school board authorization.

that is so passive aggressive it could just say school board policy 6220 requires that you know any amount under this amount it's and this sounds maybe petty but this is endemic of how the board is treated how the community is treated and how I'm really afraid that I see our our new superintendent being treated sabotage like weird alliances cronyism protectionism of adults and trying to bully the board into just signing off on everything.

So yeah for that and for the fact that it's again pointless to approve money that's already been spent getting information about it is great superintendent doesn't need our permission to spend money we already told him he could spend excuse me and so I will be also abstaining on these next two items.

further discussion from board directors.

All right, we will go to the vote on item number seven.

I move that the school board authorize the.

Oh no, we'll go to Julia.

But there is one more to read.

Director Smith.

Aye.

Director Song.

Yes.

Vice President Briggs.

Aye.

Director Lavallee.

Aye.

Director Mizrahi.

Yes.

Director Rankin.

Abstain.

President Taup.

Aye.

This motion passes with six ayes and one abstention.

All right moving on to item number eight.

Can I have a motion please.

I move that the school board authorized the superintendent to contract with maintenance services with Convergent Technologies LLC maintenance service agreement under Washington State Department of Enterprise Services contract number 27323 in the amount of 968,493.94 cents paid over a two year period plus Washington state sales tax with any minor additions deletions modifications and actions deemed necessary by the superintendent to implement the contract.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

I have a motion from Vice President Briggs and a second from Director Mizrahi and Director Rankin.

The same comments as the other and I will add also that another element of control from staff to the board is pretending that we are required to read the full motion when it's perfectly recorded in public record announced documented posted with all the things.

But we have a script that we read from.

All right let's move to the vote on item number eight.

Director Song.

Yes.

Yes.

Vice President Briggs.

Aye.

Director Lavallee.

Aye.

Director Mizrahi.

Aye.

Director Rankin.

Abstain.

Director Smith.

Aye.

President Topp.

Yes.

This motion passes with six ayes to one abstention or in one abstention excuse me.

All right.

We are moving on to the action items and we're going to try to move quickly because we need to wrap up by seven.

So we've got a lot to get through and some discussions.

So we will.

The first item is the selection of student board representatives.

And do I still have Representative Masoudi online?

She had.

OK.

Perfect.

So may I have a motion for this item?

Let's see, where are we?

I move that the board approve Johanna Michael to serve as school board student representative for the 2026-2027 school year.

I further move that the board approve Eliana Fonce and Frina Tese-Gazeb.

Sorry if I butchered that, I apologize.

to serve as school board student representatives for the 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 school years.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

Motion from Vice President Briggs second from Director Mizrahi.

I am the sponsor of this item, but it's really the work of the Student Selection Committee.

The committee met over five weeks to review written applications for student representatives.

They interviewed candidates.

They reviewed references and made final these final recommendations to the board.

of three students to join our join the board next year.

As just a reminder we revised our policy 1250 in March.

So now we have four student representatives.

One senior was selected to join Representative Megelson as the senior representative next year along with two juniors who will serve a two year term.

So that any questions or comments from board directors.

All right.

Oh, yes, Director Mangelson.

I just want to say that I'm really grateful to the selection committee and Director Yoon and Masudi because I was not part of the selection process for my coworkers.

But I think they did a great job.

I'm really, really excited to meet the new student representatives, and I think it's going to be a great year.

So thank you.

and we'll keep it right there because I'll ask you for the student representative advisory position on this item.

We will advise pro.

Thank you.

All right.

With that I will call on staff for the vote.

Director Lavallee.

Aye.

Director Mizrahi.

Aye.

Director Rankin.

Aye.

Aye.

Director Smith.

Aye.

Director Song.

Yes.

Vice President Briggs aye.

And President Topp.

Yes.

This motion is passed unanimously.

All right.

Our next one is the acceptance of BF Day Elementary School parent teacher student association grant for the 26 27 school year.

Can I have a motion for the item.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to accept an additional BF day PTSA grant of $92,500 for the 2026-2027 school year for a total annual grant amount exceeding the threshold requiring board approval under board policy number 6114. Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

I have a motion from Vice President Briggs and a second from Director Mizrahi and I think I'm gonna pass it over to Superintendent Shuldner to start us off here.

Hello everyone.

I'm certainly happy to speak about this but I know that our wonderful principal is in the audience and so if you and I guess budget wants to come on down as well, I love it.

So please come to the podium and take it away.

Hello not I'm not Tim Moynihan I'm the regional executive director Kurt Bettleman assistant superintendent for finance just wanted to preview for Principal Eckert that this is the first submission from a PTA that exceeds the $250,000 threshold and as you remember on March 11th at your board meeting we worked to clarify that threshold and so just wanted to set the stage and let Principal Eckert talk about the good work that this funding will do for BFDA should you approve it.

I'm shorter than he is.

We're going to adjust that.

Good evening directors and Superintendent Schildener.

I am Kristin Eckert and I am the very proud very new principal at BF Day Elementary and I am here tonight to ask for your approval per board policy to accept our PTSA's grant funds which exceed the standard limit by ninety two thousand five hundred dollars.

I want to begin by stating unequivocally that I deeply respect and share the board's commitment to equity over my 21 years in education all of which have been served in Seattle Public Schools.

I have served schools and communities across our city and I have seen firsthand how vital it is that we ensure every school has what it needs to thrive.

at Mercer Middle School where I was a teacher and a principal intern.

I was the and my students were the beneficiaries of a very substantial grant that provided significant collaboration time and professional development for our teachers.

Not time to work together to plan thoughtfully for students to read through curriculum and to differentiate was a game changer.

My understanding is it still is. that provided us the opportunity to meet students where they are to accelerate their growth and to build a more inclusive learning community.

And that is the successful framework that inspired the heavy focus on teacher collaboration and professional development to meet the needs of students at BF Day.

Our PTSA is an incredible partner and they in this vision they're showing a deep commitment to supporting school initiatives that advance learning for all students.

This grant does exactly that focusing heavily on meaningful differentiation to serve our students in special education general education and highly capable programs.

and it is serving students whose families choose to keep them right here in their neighborhood public school.

Right now our baseline data shows us exactly where we have a hopeful opportunity to grow and address inequities within our own building.

This year we have 167 logged instances of student dysregulation and patterns of struggle primarily involving about 40 students across grade levels and demographics.

Most critically a small number of our students have experienced 69 incidents of restraint often as a part of a series of restraints during prolonged escalation events all involving students with disabilities and disproportionately affecting our students of color.

And I stand before you because I want those numbers to change.

These numbers show a clear and urgent need for change but they also give us a hopeful path forward.

I know from experience that when we strengthen our systems and collectively improve our skills that we can transform how our students experience school and keep them engaged as learners.

our potential partnership with Lives in the Balance and the University of Washington Herring Center gives us the exact tools to do just that and we have seen that evidenced at Gatewood Elementary School where PTSA member, myself and members of my teaching staff and instructional assistants were able to observe the school in action and speak with our counterparts to see how that work was benefiting children.

by funding intentional teacher collaboration targeted professional learning and a classroom tutor.

We will build deeply inclusive environments where children feel safe.

They feel understood and they can be what we all want ready to learn.

So as I mentioned earlier I've been serving our district for many years.

I believe in and am practiced at building coalitions and systems across schools.

It's one of the benefits to having been an assistant principal in Seattle.

I've seen my share of buildings and been able to build strong relationships across this city.

It is through being generous leaders and collaborative leaders that we can take the change that you could help us create at BFDA and share it across our city.

And when I was on those Ross Green webinars that came up earlier tonight and saw our directors there I also saw across those two webinars many of my principal peers who are interested in what this work might do for students across our district.

I urge you to allow us to accept this grant and I thank you.

Thank you Principal Eckhart.

Questions or discussion from board directors.

Director Rankin.

I just want to say thank you for the honesty and forthrightness about your current student data.

There is as I talked about a little bit earlier a culture of fear where a lot of times data like that people try to hide and we can't we can't fix it.

We can't help support what's happening in buildings.

We can't address it if we are not willing to talk about what's really happening.

to students.

And so I just I want to thank you for saying where you're at committing to change.

And thank you also to the PTSA for recognizing the students in need of the most support and finding a way to provide it.

And I hope that more schools will follow suit.

Thank you.

Then I will go to our student representatives for the advisory position.

The advice pro.

Thank you so much.

And then I'll ask staff to call the call vote please.

Director Mizrahi.

Yes.

Director Rankin.

Yes.

Excuse me.

Yes.

Director Smith.

Yes.

Director Song.

Yes.

Vice President Briggs.

Yes.

Director Lavallee.

Yes.

And President Taub.

Yes.

this motion is passed unanimously.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We are going to move to introduction items.

We're going to move to the U but we're going to change one quick thing.

We're going to take item number two first because again like I said we will stop at seven to move into executive session so we'll take item number two which I think will be the faster of the items and then we'll go to one which I think will take a little bit longer but still allow us to have a cutoff time.

So with that we will move to the DU.

Right as I mentioned we are on to introduction items on today's agenda and we're going to start with item number two the BEX gap resolution 252615 new in lieu of modernization option for John Marshall school interim site modernization and addition project and I will pass it over to Superintendent Schulzner and his guest.

Thank you so much good afternoon everyone so we're at the you mainly for the next one but I think it's important that we have a little bit of a conversation so that the board feels comfortable with the direction of the district in terms of our long-term planning I think one of the things that really matters certainly for a district of this size with so many moving parts is that we don't think just what happens tomorrow but what happens in a year from now five years from now and heaven forbid we even think about 10 or 20 or 30 years from now and so as you all know we have a series of buildings and we also have some of those buildings are from a long time ago and in order for us to be nimble and thoughtful of rebuilding schools of reinvesting in schools of taking buildings that might be in positions that we do don't think that they are going to last very much longer is that the best practice of a school district is to have swing spaces so that you can move students out of one building, continue that wonderful education, and then move them back when there are schools fully built to do that.

And so in this era of certainly lower students and some of our more problematic buildings, it is important that we still continue with the vision of making sure that all of our buildings that we have students in that we're moving forward with are able to be sustained and one of the only ways to do that is to have swing spaces that are both large enough to take in almost any kind of school when you need to close them down to reinvest within them so what the introduction item really is about is the modernization of John Marshall and I wanna make sure and I wanna give really a shout out to Director Lavallee for making sure that we really discuss this because I think it's really important that this isn't kind of on a consent agenda that this is a place where we can have a conversation about the vision of this district and where we're moving forward so what we're going to be introducing today and then bringing back for kind of a vote next month if the board co chooses is to move forward with a kind of modernization of the John Marshall site.

And again, the rationale is that that's a building that would be big enough that would allow us the flexibility over many years to rebuild almost all of our buildings because it could take an elementary school, it could take a middle school, it could take a K-8.

you can't do that unless you have a building that's big enough and modern enough to allow for that sort of flexibility so I again I'm really thrilled we get to talk about this and I'll turn it over to a man who knows our buildings probably better than anybody Mr. Richard Best

Thank you Superintendent Schuler.

So John Marshall is one of three interim sites that Seattle Public Schools has spread about the district.

It serves the schools generally north of the Ship Canal Bridge where Van Asselt serves the schools south of the Ship Canal Bridge and we are currently using Schmitz Park Elementary School as a site that serves our schools in West Seattle.

John Marshall the request before you is to approve resolution 252615 new in lieu of modernization.

This is an OSPI standard process in order to be eligible for state construction assistance program dollars.

We at John Marshall are proposing to demolish 6,094 square feet and then build new 27,840 square feet.

And that would be a three story addition on the east side of that building to allow a thousand students to occupy that space.

the space that we're proposing to demolish is unreinforced masonry typically referred to as URM.

You've probably all heard me say URM construction in the past.

City of Seattle is looking at passing a URM ordinance in which they are going to require building on owners to bring their URM structures up to compliance.

within a period of seven years.

We have been engaged in conversations with SDCI structural engineer for the past two years about this upcoming ordinance.

Bassetti architects and Skanska Building USA examined the URM portion of John Marshall which is located on the east portion of that site to determine is it easier to modernize that portion of the building or is it more and cost effective or is it more cost effective to build new.

The determination was made that it would be more cost effective to remove the URM portion and add a new portion so that we meet the thousand student threshold that we're designing John Marshall for.

And so that is what this bar is requesting from you is that we are going to be building a portion of John Marshall John Marshall school that will be new in lieu of modernizing.

Open it up to questions.

Director Song.

question but I thought maybe I'd just share some of my thinking with my colleagues because I've had the pleasure of serving on the BEX oversight committee where we did get a presentation on John Marshall and also I've taken advantage of the superintendent visits and have been to a number of our schools that are north of the shift canal.

So I appreciate Ben's comments about the kind of the long term piece of it.

I think that the middle schools north of the Ship Canal specifically Whitman Eckstein and to a lesser extent Jams are really in desperate need of an update and so without having the swing site it really undermines our ability as a district to maintain important public assets one but two to ensure the best possible learning environment for our students and while this is a interim site for for like the district it is the school for the students and for middle school students it's two out of the three years and so I think that I've had the benefit of not only also getting a presentation in the operations committee so I had a little more time to reflect so just wanted to share my thoughts with my colleagues.

Go to Director Lavallee and we'll go around the circle.

Thank you so much for your presentation on this Richard Best.

I wanted to follow up on what Vivian was saying.

I've also been privileged to get the presentation from the architects and with the design and within the operations committee and I hope that we can vote within the operations committee to make a decision on a recommendation in this next month.

I know that within those I've asked a lot of hard questions of you as well and just really pushed to make sure that this is the most cost effective thing that we can do for our students and for our district.

I would like to highlight within one of those answers at 1.2 I had asked you kind of what alternatives looked like for students and if there's opportunities to do some of this without doing to increase the quality of our middle schools above north of the Ship Canal without doing this modernization.

And I really appreciated that the answer that you gave me was that it would be really difficult to do it without sacrificing student learning.

because we'd end up needing to put kids in portables and shift stuff around in such a way that it would be detrimental to student learning as that construction project happens.

So I wanted to I don't know that I had a question there.

I just wanted to highlight the question that I had already asked you and make sure that that was transparent as well.

I would note that not only would it be potentially impactful for student education but the well being of students is always foremost in my mind as well.

And you know construction activities are very very loud so you have and also they create a lot of dust and so I'm thinking about indoor air quality issues.

I'm thinking about you know just the noise of being on a construction site and how impactful that is to the education of our students.

Director Rankin.

Thanks.

I want to really appreciate Vivian's comment that for us it's an interim site but for the students that's that's their school for that period of time.

I think that's I was like oh yes.

That's extremely important because I immediately started thinking about you know kind of moving in and out of the building and 100 percent like the kids who end up there it's an interim site to us but that's that's where they're going to be going to school.

So thank you for that.

My question is really more one that's more broad not just about this.

Oh wait sorry no one clarifying question.

So the 6000 square feet that's being demolished and then the almost three times that that's being added that's a vertical addition right.

So the footprint is essentially staying the same.

Correct.

It will be a vertical addition right up next to the existing three story building.

OK.

That makes sense because I drive by that site all the time and I've been in that site a lot and I was like I don't see if there's space for that.

So thanks.

Just more broadly it's a requirement or it's a I can't remember if it's a requirement in the law or if it's just a recommended best practice that school boards direct superintendents to maintain a 10 year facilities plan.

So my ask or suggestion of all of us would be we technically have that on paper and our facilities team is very very good at understanding what what the buildings are what needs to be done.

But in terms of like a plan a like what do we actually plan to do when do we plan to do it.

we don't have that and I think that would be really helpful not that it can't change because things happen but in the context of like we know that multiple schools will need to be to be there but how can we support the community and understanding you know what's going to happen next.

It could impact families choices depending on if you know they're they're making different decisions and their school might be in a location they can't get to.

And also just for our very generous taxpayers that are funding all these projects to understand that we do have a plan we are aligning it to to best serving students and it's it's out there for everybody to see and understand and then future boards and superintendents can you know make changes if they need to but I think that having that actual active here's what here's what we are planning would be really helpful.

Yeah I agree and the other thing that we're going to have to and want to have a really deep conversation is the planning based on the physical buildings that we have certainly is paramount you know is jams going to fall down or not like we have to think about that.

The other thing that we have to start really taking into consideration is not just population decline in terms of students but really population movement.

One of the things that I'm concerned about is that we see that there are areas in this community where people are moving into like let's say downtown do we have a school downtown.

Not really.

And so it's not just about opening closing merging rebuilding.

It's being thoughtful about where population centers are moving to.

And when we have a good 10 year plan we can start to really plan those things out.

So I appreciate that point.

Looking at other directors.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Oh.

Yep.

Director Smith.

expecting more comments before it got to me.

And I'm probably repeating some of what Director Rankin said that there are good arguments here for having an interim site and that this building needs modernization but without the context of what this looks like in our long term plan it is lacking some of that meaning.

So and we can't just snap our fingers and have that long term plan exist where we are.

Director Mangelson.

Representative Mangelson.

just really quick a quick comment just on something you said earlier about construction specifically and the noise and disruption it creates I remember being in Madison Middle School a couple years ago it was the first year back from COVID too and they were building on an addition to the school and I remember very vividly being in English class and trying to read and it was very very loud jackhammering right next to the window so I agree.

I think there's a lot of value in bringing students to another place where they can effectively learn.

I also went to Schmitz Park Elementary School before it was an interim site.

But yeah, I just want to thank you again for bringing this and having a conversation about it.

Thank you so much executive director Best.

We will move on to introduction item number one which is approval and revisions of board policy number 0020 the goals for the district and board policy number 0025 guardrails for the district and then finally board policy number 1010 board oversight and progress monitoring.

And this is where we will turn it over.

I'll turn it over to the superintendent to do his thing.

Hello?

All right.

Well good evening everyone.

It is now past 615 so I guess it is good evening.

As you know this is now in essence the third time that I have presented this.

This is the first time that it is going to be more of a formal and certainly my understanding of the role of the superintendent vis-a-vis the board is that the board has absolute jurisdiction certainly over goals and guardrails and you know what I am trying to figure out certainly is how best to be of service to the board and the community and of course the students by setting really thoughtful goals and guard rails.

Now during public comment you heard some folks say you know these are certainly really important and you got to make sure that you're talking to the community and you got to make sure that you're incorporating all these things and just as a reminder the all of this is built on the last two goals and guardrails that this board has passed which had all of the community's kind of input.

So if we just remember that what I'm presenting here and I was asked by the board to kind of say hey what would the goals and guardrails be from a superintendent standpoint this is it.

So as a reminder The summary is you know the feedback and changes snapshot and we'll go through it.

So if you remember the last time I presented there were two outstanding questions.

The first question was should the goal be sixth grade math or should the goal be eighth grade math.

Now again, this was definitely from the community and the years of service that everybody has put into but there was a belief that we wanted a math score that was really important and what I would like to posit and what I think we had a conversation about is that eighth grade math in some respects is a better understanding and determinant when it comes to the kind of junior high school, middle school understanding of are they learning and are they ready for algebra?

Are they ready for high school?

One of the most interesting data points is that there is almost a one for one correlation of if you pass algebra, you graduate high school.

and so we really wanna make sure that that change, it's a tweak, it's a change, that instead of it being sixth grade math, that it's eighth grade math.

The second one, which again, community input as well as board input, was that we've been talking about graduation plus, this idea of not just having graduation as this number, but really college and career readiness.

Were there ways to really to be clear about our intention of what we believe is important for children, and there was a really strong belief that we should have the seal of biliteracy as a graduation plus metric, and thus the change is to add the seal of biliteracy into the graduation plus.

Now, again, just as a reminder, all of this is coming to us with community input, from board input, years of ideas of ELA, math, graduation.

but the real question is if those are our data points, then what should the appropriate number be?

And again, this is not a conversation of if those are the correct numbers or the correct topics, those were topics that were already chosen by the board, the community, et cetera, it's about what is a thoughtful reach rigorous and kind of good goal and I couldn't think of a better goal than being top five in everything right and I think that would be a great argument that we are in fact the best urban school district in America and so just as a reminder, what we have is that the baseline for top five in SBA, and just as a reminder, that's Washington, California, Oregon, Nevada, so there's not one state exam for the entire country, but there is SBA, which is a lot of people, California's a really big state, and when you add in Nevada, or Nevada, I wanna be very clear here, it's an A, Nevada, and Washington and Oregon, that's a lot of kids.

And if we could be in the top five percent, that would be, the top five period would be really awesome.

So in order to do that, we'd have to go from the 62.6 that we're at to 67.2, and we wanna round up.

I wanna be very clear, we are rounding up, meaning we are going higher because we think that we need to hold ourselves to that account.

And then with the eighth grade math, if you remember, that number's actually much lower than our sixth grade math.

So we're making it harder on ourselves, but we owe it to our children.

And so the goal is to go from 50.3 to 65, well, 66, right?

We're rounding up.

And then again, wanting to be really clear about graduation that as I showed this board previously in the community that our graduation rate is actually quite low when you compare it to Washington state school districts.

And again we can't compare graduation rates across different states because each state has its own graduation metric and so the goal to be in the top five of the large school districts in the state of Washington would actually mean to go from 86-1 to 94-2 which is a huge jump because it gets a lot harder the higher you go.

Going from 2% to 3% not that difficult going from 86% to 94% and actually 94.5 is actually quite difficult but I think we can do it and then again the grad plus number currently sits at 65.3 of course there is no benchmark there's no way to compare us and so we really thought if three quarters of our students were not just graduating but graduating with and as a reminder passing an AP test, not just the class, but the test, passing an IB test, getting the seal of biliteracy, as well as a bunch of our CTE data points, that will allow us to really, I think, be really, really good.

again, and then there was also a real desire from the board, from the community, from everybody that we talked to about really making sure that we had organizational goals, and that is enrollment, attendance, and financial stability.

Now one of the things that was mentioned was, hey, why do the board goals as written, are they more kind of open, and then there's and the answer is because they is then attached a superintendent's procedure with all of the data points below it.

I defer to the board.

If the board would like to enroll them all together, that is certainly your prerogative and I would have zero problem with that.

It's just a thoughtful way of saying the board is setting the goals.

You want to really focus on this stuff.

but that the individual numbers can tweak a little bit.

For instance, the regular attendance number, and again, regular attendance is the opposite of chronic absentee.

So one of the things that we're really worried about is that our chronic absentee rate, meaning that you're absent basically more than two days a month or 18 days a year because you're on a 180-day of school days, and so we want to be really careful that we're focusing on real data, and I'm not sure that our attendance data is as clean and as accurate as accurate as it needs to be.

So we're gonna be doing an audit on our attendance.

We'll be getting you a number.

I'm happy to get you the number whenever it comes out, but I don't wanna stop us from approving the idea of goals and guardrails.

And then of course financial stability.

I appreciate very much that goals tend to be academic.

but we do know and understand that this district is 100 million in the hole, basically insolvent and so it's good for me as a superintendent to hold myself accountable to this and hold myself accountable to you as the board and the community and if the board so chooses to have organizational goals that is your prerogative and certainly the academic goals as well.

And the last thing I'd say about enrollment and we can have a long conversation about the way that we do our budget that it is not clear that if we increased enrollment we'd actually not continue to be in the hole.

We actually might go into the hole more because the way that we spend is that the more students we bring in the more things we spend on.

But for me the enrollment is all about are we serving our community because we know and you will hear me say this forever until we change it every morning 20,000 children wake up in the city of Seattle and choose to go somewhere else.

They choose to go to private.

They choose to go to parochial.

They choose to go to charter schools.

They choose to go to other public districts that are not SPS.

And so if we start raising our enrollment that means people are choosing us and that's a really good indicative of us doing well.

So The last thing is certainly the next thing on guardrails.

I again commend this community.

I commend this board.

I commend all of the work but the important piece for me as superintendent and my suggestion of course is the change from constraints to commitments.

what should we be committing to the community?

What should we be committing to the board?

What should we be committing to the community?

And that really is that the superintendent instead of shall not, the district led by the superintendent, it's just me, I'm not that important or that powerful, the district led by the superintendent shall work towards.

And that's important because now you can hold me as superintendent and the district accountable for actually showing how we are working on this.

If the language was back different where it's the superintendent shall not it's very hard to prove a negative but for instance if you're talking about promoting physical and emotional safety in schools and classrooms.

You heard a wonderful presentation from the principal of BFDA to talk about a program that they are going to bring in or extend at the school that is going to be helping physical and emotional safety of students.

Why?

Because it's gonna have them be doing better in school, right?

So here's a way that you could say as a board, as a community, Ben, what are you doing to promoting physical and emotional safety?

Well, we're doing X, Y, and Z.

So that's why this is meaningfully engaged with students and families prior to bringing forward major decisions.

Well, we just spent two months speaking to over 1,500 families in all of our communities doing surveys, and all of that is then going to implicate not in a negative way, it'll implicate the work we are going to do moving forward that I will share with you and the community during the retreat.

So these are really good ways to I as superintendent and we as a district prove to you what we are doing.

Okay, so next steps.

Again, who am I to tell the board what to do?

I work for you.

But my understanding is that because these are in policy that it would be an introduction to amend policy 0020 and 0025 with a possible action in July.

that we would create procedure that includes goal targets and then move towards action.

Now I do want to point out a couple of things that this has nothing to do with the board goals but that this is about what we're doing in terms of the kinds of action that we are thinking about is launching the framework for great schools which I'll talk about during our retreat because again this is now saying if these are our goals how are we going to get there.

We're going to align CSIPs, which I know you all approve, but I'm not sure how often we share them with you or go through them with you.

And so wouldn't it be great if our CSIPs actually align with our goals and our framework and that you as the board and the community do it?

And the people that I know in our department who are working really hard on CSIPs, they're doing a good job, right?

But are we really being transparent and open around all those things?

rolling out new curriculum, right?

The new K-5 curriculum is hopefully gonna really lead us towards those third grade goals.

Update schedules to increase instructional time, which is something that we'll talk about later, is really again thinking about the time that our children are in school and what do they do, and then of course the reorganization of central office.

so these are the actions that you are holding me accountable to do with these goals.

So that's it from my end.

I know that we gotta kinda break at seven so I wanna be really thoughtful of your time but again as your superintendent my presentation to you is just to go over after now four months of being here, four months and three days, is taking all of the incredible wonderful work that has been done by this community for years now and just tweaking it so that it represents what we've been hearing as we've gone into the community for four months now and then of course looking at all the data that we have collected over the years.

So that is my kind of presentation but certainly the submittal to board policy 002 and then 0025 is on the board and that is yours but I really thank you for the time.

I appreciate that Superintendent Schuldner and I appreciate that this is the third time you've presented us this information and also the the feedback that you've gathered from board directors and made those changes to this work so that we can move towards action in July.

This will be on our July calendar.

or our July agenda for action.

We're going to just go around the U.

I would like to try to break at seven.

I think that's unrealistic with the amount of interest I know that folks have in this conversation.

So what I'm going to do instead is I'm going to say the total of five minutes per director.

I'm going to move you on after the five minutes.

We're going to go around the U and we can say your piece and then we will need to move into executive session.

So we'll start with Vice President Briggs.

okay I thank you for this and I'm excited I think it's gonna happen which is great I I think the thing that I am continually hung up on and this is starting from way before you took over is the low numbers, and I just simply can't be psyched about that.

And so while I understand, I totally get the logic of sort of mapping two benchmarks provided by other similarly sized school districts in a way that take the same test so we can measure, totally get why we would do that.

And also, I guess the burning question I have is in a universe where we had no idea what those other schools were doing, what would we think is possible for our students?

And so I can totally get behind doing this.

right now, but so assuming we meet these goals in five years, which I have great faith that we will, then where do we go?

What if we become the top?

Then what is our next goal after that?

How do we get to 100%?

I mean, that to me is the goal that we should all be having, 100% across the board.

So I think that I'm just trying to reconcile the logic of, aligning to other school districts and also wanting us to think about us as as a as a separate entity and and I'm curious what we are capable of.

Yeah I really love that question right I mean you know what we would start to bench us to is Singapore.

Finland right like that and that would be awesome that absolutely right I mean when you look at the best school districts in the world it ain't America and so I think it would be pretty awesome that we could be best in the US let's get there we want to be thoughtful about setting those systems and structures for five years but no I mean you know I believe that if we can get to be best in America we certainly have a chance to really put ourselves on the map in terms of the world.

There's something called the PISA exams.

There's something called TIMS.

I'm happy to go through all of that.

But I agree with you.

I think that we have to start kind of thoughtfully and logically that if we're going to be best in America, let's try to get there.

But I also want to really remind ourselves that we might have pretty good test scores and other things.

This is not just about test scores.

This is about attendance and graduation.

And of course, we're going to do survey data and all these things.

But the way that the goals have been constructed before, throw them out is to use this.

But we also have a huge gap with different populations in this district.

Right.

And so we really have to move that forward too.

And just as a reminder to the board all of that is in the appendix in terms of the detailed goals breakdown because if you remember it's not just the top five in ELA and math and graduation.

It's throughout all of the different groups of free and reduced students with disabilities ELL.

So yeah, I think we can do that.

And I guess I will say this just to put it out there.

So when you get to a certain point around standardized tests, there is some argument about are standardized tests really the be all end all for everybody.

So the idea of 100% proficiency in third grade reading, sure, I think that would be an awesome goal, but then we have to have a conversation about like, what are these tests really testing and what is it doing?

But no, I love your question and it's like, well, what's next?

Finland, you know, like, let's do it, so.

Can I just say one last thing?

Thank you.

That's awesome.

I love that.

I have two more minutes.

Heck yeah.

I love that answer.

And you're totally right.

We have to leave the country to get out of this range here of 60 whatever percent.

and then this I am a little bit can I will I will own that I am confused about the superintendent procedure aspect of this and I and so I I'm I have a feeling and one of my other board directors will speak to it so I I'm curious to understand that a little bit more because I do appreciate that the the goals belong to the board and it is unclear to me how having the superintendent procedure interferes with that.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm not sure.

I'm bringing it up because I'd like the question to be answered at some point and it could be now or it can be later.

Yeah, absolutely.

And what I would say is that's why even though it is the third time I'm doing this, I want to make sure that we are introing it now to help answer those questions in the next four weeks so that when we do the final, it's up to you.

My understanding, and again, this is just me and I'm happy to work, is that there's a lot of really granular data that can fluctuate pretty quickly.

And so if the board says, well, this is the board's goals for all of it, all 57 different data points, I just don't want it to be set where we might need to tweak it because we do an attendance audit and it turns out that our baseline was five points off.

Well, that's now we would have to stop, go back, redo board policy.

But again, I'm happy to do it, but that was my understanding, yeah.

Director Saul.

I have two comments and a question.

So I really like where you are going because to say like our goal is 70 percent of our third graders reading feels of course we want as close to 100% of our students reading as possible.

What I think is important about having a kind of a smart goal is that we really need to be measuring our progress.

So I looked very quickly at policy 0020. I wonder if it would be helpful if we had kind of like a mission statement of like where we're truly heading and these are the specific ways that we are measuring ourselves that's just something to consider.

My second comment is that I'm very excited about the organizational goals because I really think that they kind of capture what we're trying to achieve with the guardrails what we're committed to because it's really about the health of the district.

the academic goals are really about how our students are performing but like I'll give the example of attendance.

I think if we are making progress in our attendance that is a good indication that our schools are safe and belonging place because kids really want to come.

And it's interesting that you talked about the regular attendance is the opposite of chronically absent.

I was just doing some basic math here.

So we've got about 6000 students that are chronically absent.

gone 18 days a year if we get them to show up to school they will definitely be learning but it will also help us financially because then they get counted and we get the revenues for that and 6,000 students times $16,000 of revenues that's a hundred million dollars so I just want to put that out there my question is about I don't feel like I've ever really understood so SBAC is because that gives us ability to compare to other districts.

What is the real difference between MAP and SBAC because feels like we're putting our kids and a lot of testing time and there is a trade off with instructional time.

So do we still want to do map testing and what will that give us versus the SBAC?

It's a great great question.

So the smarter balance right that is the state test that's the thing but you take it once.

If we're interested in interim data you got to have more than once a year.

Map is a really good way of doing that.

map is norm, map is really kind of pretty close to SBA, but there's actually some exams we could talk about.

Maybe they're a little bit closer, but it doesn't really matter.

The idea is this board should hold me accountable to my job more than just once a year.

and it's pretty hard to do that if you're only taking one test once a year.

The other thing, and more importantly for a teacher, is that a teacher should be thinking about both summative and formative assessments.

And so that formative assessment, something like a map or just stuff that happens in the classroom, will then help inform instruction so that you can move forward.

True, great teaching is differentiated.

and so if you know that these students are moving at this clip and that you can group them here or that you know that their interest is here and you can group them there but without progress monitoring you can't do it.

So MAP is a really good way to progress monitor.

Director Lavallee.

All right.

I'll try to keep it kind of short.

I'd love to know there's one question that I have and then one comment within the next steps and board action you had you have a like it's wonderful.

We haven't gotten this in all the time that I've been watching the board of kind of what the steps are that you're going to take to get there.

I'm a little bit concerned that I don't see anything on there that kind of in pairing with what we saw from BF Day today that moves special education students forward within this as some of these will impact them.

But I also had the pleasure of going on over 40 of the school tours with you.

And there were some schools that were doing things in a really great inclusive way and there were some schools that absolutely were not.

and so you know I'd love to you know have that reported as well at some point in time.

Yeah no it's a great point and just because I haven't really gone through a lot of those you're 100 percent right that it needs to be a holistic way of serving all of our students and so what you'll hear when we talk about the framework for great schools a lot of that is going to be about rigorous instruction for all it's going to be about community and family engagement for all.

So a lot of it you're going to see that.

Also if we're aligning the CSIPs to their goals the goals are to move students with disabilities and all of our different students.

So I think we're going to be able to see that.

But again this is why I love sharing with the board.

I appreciate that special education is a big issue for this district.

I have no problem and also highlighting that in the work that we're doing.

I think it was just like, here are five bullet points to give you a sense of where we are, but that's really helpful and I'm always happy to highlight that.

My next one is going to be kind of a point where I'm just going to direct Vice President Briggs point is where I'm not as expert and I'm sure Director Rankin will likely cover this in a minute and her questions as well.

But it's kind of the difference between the board policies and the superintendent policies.

And so I think as a board and I hope within the policy committee that that can really be dug into a little bit to ensure that the right policies are being enacted in our policies that really are clear and concise and not too granular but enough that it actually has teeth and allows you to do your job.

And so that that relationship between those two policies in this is I'm not sure we're meeting that mark.

Absolutely and I think that's why I wanted to make sure that we were introducing it today and then having a month so that if the policy committee wants to tweak it if the board wants to tweak it you know for me it doesn't matter where it lives be it the board be it the superintendent I believe that our job is to make this the best urban school district in America and I believe that the ways we're going to do it is through this.

Who says it how we say it where it lives I defer to the board.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

Sure.

Director Mizrahi.

I was really counting on that five minutes to mentally prepare.

No I actually in the interest of time I won't take up too much of it because this is our third time and we're going to be talking about it again when we actually take action on it.

But you know I will just say that to me this actually in many ways feels more in line with the many engagement sessions that we did than what we had originally put on paper whatever a year ago you know because it includes just the multiple comments we had about seeing progress throughout.

I think moving to eighth grade is actually something that is somewhat responsive to what we were hearing because I think people really did want a middle school goal and obviously I do appreciate you looking in and adding the seal of biliteracy because I think that that was the other thing that we heard.

It's really hard to capture in any goal but this idea of like world citizen and people being prepared to be out in the world but also having this multicultural and multilingual often.

education.

So I think that's a really strong addition and hopefully that is easy to capture the numbers.

But I appreciate all the work that went into this and I think we're well on our way.

Thank you.

Representative Mangelson.

I don't have much to say.

All I have to say is kind of just reiterating what other directors were saying just being appreciative of how thorough and detailed and I feel like responsive that this looks and I'm really excited to see where it goes and hopefully feel the effects of it next year.

So thank you so much.

Director Smith.

Thank you.

Oh, I see you're starting a timer.

I do have an official timer.

Okay.

I'll try to be quick.

So first, just with the seal of bi-literacy, I do have a little bit of concern that that could turn into a lowering of standards for multilingual students or multilingual learners if it turns into that you already know more than one language.

You can get the seal of biliteracy.

We're not going to push you to achieve the other things.

That's a good boy.

If it really does recognize the skills they already have, that's good.

But I just would want to track that.

and then in the equity framework we are missing some intersectionality.

I think that would be easier to maybe let that slide for now if we knew we were going to be investing in every category.

and I also want to call out when you were answering director Lavallee's question and saying that in the CSIPs, once they're aligned, the CSIPs will reflect our goal to move students with disabilities, but in the numbers we have here, that's actually not something we would be investing in.

despite our current numbers being very low in those categories because they aren't low compared to other districts.

I think that that's very concerning.

And then without tracking the intersection there we could also do a disservice across other categories.

Yeah, no, that's really a good point.

I mean, our data out of special ed is really interesting.

And so when you compare us in that way, because again, it's the only way we can compare across districts, but I think you're right that it's not just those goals, but it'll be instructional time is gonna change, the framework for grade schools, so survey data, people feeling like they're being engaged.

But I'm happy to, as we work on this, if we feel like we're not moving it, we could certainly address especially those students.

Yeah, and I think also just thinking of it from an equity framework, it doesn't seem like enough to say our disaggregated result, like numbers, they're doing as well as other schools in the US, other urban districts.

That would be saying equity in the US is at a standard.

We need to go beyond that.

I think that kind of goes back to Evan's question.

Yeah and then I think the final concern I would have is just exactly where things live between policy and superintendent procedure and I am wondering if it would be good to hand it off to Director Rankin.

Do you think that you would be able to handle that topic.

Well I don't want to influence anybody else's comment that's why I asked to wait.

I don't have more to say on it then yeah we've got to get that balance right.

Yeah, so I thank you, Superintendent Schultenert.

You did exactly what the board asked you to do.

This is exactly what we asked you to do.

We said we have these general things we think would help demonstrate to our community how our students are being served, if our students are learning, and our previous attempt we knew we didn't have the right measures.

We knew we had the early literacy, some math, graduation, but we really struggled to work with previous leadership to get something really tangible and that laid out kind of how you expect these things to be established and then cascade throughout the system.

So what you have presented now three times is exactly what boards rely on superintendents to do.

Thank you.

what's a problem for me is exactly what's been stated by others is that during I hate to bring up the third rail student outcomes focus governance but during that implementation attempt because it was not implemented there was concern about delegation and all of our policies are already delegated to the superintendent that wasn't a new thing of student outcomes focus governance that's in state law.

the board hires a superintendent to delegate operational obligations to.

It doesn't mean we don't care about it.

There's certainly requirements about reporting and different things, but if you look at our existing policies in the 1000s through 6000s, the bottom of every policy, it says the superintendent is authorized to blah, blah, blah.

That's the board's delegation to the superintendent that has existed for however long that's been a state law.

My concern is that the only thing that we actually managed to retain ownership over previously was the goals policy and the guardrails policy and that by adding in the superintendent is authorized to blah blah blah we are delegating our responsibility to the superintendent in a way that I am deeply uncomfortable with.

Our as a board we have to be consistent and predictable and the public needs to understand what we're evaluating when.

We have to show our community that we are doing our job of holding the superintendent accountable.

And so as presented, and I know that this wasn't you trying to do anything, you did what we asked you to do.

But as presented, and this again goes to my earlier comments about the machine that is this district.

It's literally like this system doesn't understand how to present us with something that's not a bar and a superintendent procedure.

Well, this is our policy.

We don't have to give a board action report to ourself because What a board action report is for is for things that the superintendent asks us to approve.

It's a review of why and what it is.

We don't have to give ourselves a board action report for our own policies.

We own that.

And so I have real concerns about I won't approve this as it's presented I guess I'll just say and I'm happy to work on amendments but it's the structure it's not the content without us having very clear for our community for ourselves saying by this you know over the next five years this area will move from this percentage to this percentage that's it that if we give that up our only thing that we have that we have control over is saying try your best and so totally understand all the different breakdowns of stuff.

That needs to live somewhere.

It doesn't have to all live in the board policy.

But those overarching pieces, we should retain ownership over.

And then if something happens and we realize the attendance metrics are way off and this is totally unrealistic, it forces a public conversation with the board to approve the changes to our policy, which is not actually that, that's fine.

That's the mechanism.

But if we have in our policy, we hope you focus on early learning, math, and graduation, and we authorize you to tell us how you're doing, when you feel like it, and the way you feel like.

We have given away our accountability.

So it's a structural thing, and I...

and then to Vivian's point with the, what's it attached to?

This is again, we have all the pieces.

We just don't have the adherence to it.

We have policy 0010 which is instructional philosophy.

I think that contains so much of what we heard from our community about what they think is important.

I think it would be a great opportunity for us as a board to kind of revise slash recommit to that as a vision.

and say, as representatives of our community, this is what we want for our students.

And then 0020, the goal policy, can be to measure whether or not we're doing that.

Here's what we're going to measure.

And so we would have this sort of vision and value section of our policies that would have the instructional vision, the measurements of the goals, and then 0030 really already is like a values statement.

So we'd have that, and then we'd have guardrail policies.

And those things would all be connected, but we need to own those on behalf of our community.

So yeah, that's...

And I very much appreciate that.

And so I just want the board to know that in no way am I trying to overstep your roles.

I would love you to spend the next month working on this.

You want to do it through policy committee.

You want to just do it through however it is.

And then certainly just give me a heads up as to where you think you're going to be in a month.

And as long as this is a structural thing, because to Director Rankin's point, which I really appreciate, I want to be a good employee, did what I was asked.

I think it's pretty good.

It could be better.

I really appreciate the question about biliteracy.

Is there a way that I can sort of protect that?

I will think about that.

It's a really good point.

But I also want to make sure that we do have goals so that we can start doing the work, right?

And so whatever that takes, let's do it.

The one other thing I want to add is that we have been asking Ben to do a lot to kind of come in and fix everything and he's doing that he's doing his job my very strong feeling is we need to commit to doing ours and not ask him to also then monitor himself and and bring it to us we need to say here's the information we need on behalf of our community obviously in partnership but but I think as we move forward and things get more challenging and changes that have been signaled actually happen.

Not only do we need to hold that accountability but we also need to have his back and he needs to be able to say I'm doing what the board asked me to do.

If we ask him to be the superintendent and the accountability that's going to be a really tough situation.

So thank you.

All right we are so I'm just going to kind of chat through the next steps here.

We're still going to move with action in July.

I think the policy committee is going to work on tweaking I would say and having a conversation about where different things live whether I don't think all of this lives in policy.

I don't think all but I think that there is a balance to be had and a conversation to be had and a workshopping can happen and all board directors are welcome to join the policy committee.

And Joe I'm adding to your work plan without really getting your approval.

But I don't know if you have any if you would be willing to do that Director Mizrahi.

Well I don't have much of a choice but no I know that's fine.

No I think that makes sense with what our charges.

I mean I would say what I would be comfortable in the policy committee talking about isn't the like what is included in these goals but the where it lives.

Yes.

Right because I don't want I don't think it's the role that committee to be talking about the details of what's in here but talking about where we put what

I think what I heard this evening besides director Smith and the seal of biliteracy and some thought around that which I think lives with the superintendent this is much more not around what the actual goals are I saw general agreement but this is much more around you know what is the where it lives and how I think we can tackle that yeah thank you and then the second portion I sort of heard from some board directors is sort of whether there's a more mission statement.

So maybe you know direct Vice President Briggs and Director Song you could too could kind of workshop that idea a little bit and I would be more than happy to help.

Yeah.

All right.

All right, with that, look at that.

We're only 10 minutes off my goal time, everyone.

I really appreciate that.

So with that, the board is now immediately reassessing this, it says special meeting.

I think it means regular meeting.

into executive session to review the performance of a public employee per RCW 4230-110-1G and to discuss a request for reconsideration of transfer to subordinate certification position per RCW 28A-405-230.

The session is scheduled for two and a half hours with an anticipated end time of 9.30.

hence why I said we were trying to get done by seven.