School Board Meeting Nov. 14, 2018 part 2b

OK Superintendent Denise Juneau the floor is yours.

Thank you Madam President and board.

I would just like to start the comments I'll get into my pictures that I usually do later but with a proclamation for Native American Heritage Month.

And so I just like to read that into the record and yeah.

So.

Proclamation Native American Heritage Month whereas Washington State is home to 29 federally recognized Native American tribes and the city of Seattle is named for Chief Sealth and whereas Native American contributions and values have helped shape the social political environmental cultural and economic fabric of Seattle.

And whereas state law mandates since time immemorial the teaching of Washington state tribal history culture and government and common schools which will contribute greatly to improving schools history curriculum enhance students identity safety and improve all students cultural understanding.

And whereas Seattle Public Schools Native American education program is dedicated to increasing academic success for Native American and Alaska Native students across the district.

And whereas the state of Washington and Seattle Public Schools have designated the Friday immediately following the fourth Thursday in November a school holiday known as Native American Heritage Day.

And whereas Seattle Public Schools joins others across the nation in celebrating Native American Heritage Month.

Honoring the unique heritage of this continent's first people and reaffirming the commitment to respect each tribe's sovereignty and cultural identity.

Now therefore I Denise Juneau superintendent of Seattle Public Schools do hereby proclaim November 2018 to be Native American Heritage Month and November 23rd 2018 to be Native American Heritage Day for Seattle Public Schools.

And I encourage all people in our district and city to join me in this special observance.

Director Mack.

Yes thank you.

Superintendent Juneau I'd also like to move that the board adopt this proclamation around Native American Heritage Month.

And we can take short comments.

And I just want to second that.

OK and then we can take short comments to speak to this.

Who would like to go.

Director DeWolf.

I don't have much to say other than thank you Superintendent Juneau for taking leadership on this.

But as a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Nation of Rockyville Montana while I am always so grateful that we get to spend a little bit of concerted effort and energy on and focus on our Native American students and families and community during this month we know particularly as Native peoples that every day is Native American Heritage Day month year so.

Just grateful to be able to elevate this both for our community and our students and hope too that this does more and does a little bit to make visible the students who identify as Native American and American Indian in our schools.

So thank you for your leadership.

Director Patu please.

I just like to say this is long overdue and I'm really happy that we're able to really look at this and actually sign off on it and say this is actually Native American Heritage Month.

So I really appreciate it that we're actually making this a reality.

Anyone else like to speak to that.

Director Pinkham.

I will add my katsiaga thank you Denise Juneau for this as a member of the Nez Perce or Nimiipuu Nation for the particular urban native experience and to be here and a lot of the Tribal members probably from this area aren't indigenously from this area like my tribes more inland.

But thank you for recognizing the Torontonian federally recognized tribes and I know there's still other tribes out there seeking recognition and wish them the best of luck as well.

But Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ thank you for this.

Other comments questions concerns.

Thank you.

This is what a team can do when.

We work together very much appreciate those in favor of the board signing on to this proclamation.

Please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

Thank you.

And I will forward this down there's room for each of you to sign on this as well.

So thank you for that.

Yeah.

Turn the page.

And then I will just give a few comments before we head into the board meeting proper.

So I feel so fortunate and I know this I'm you know speaking hopefully on behalf of everybody in this room to be in a city that really supports public schools.

So thank you Seattle voters for putting your trust in the city for past the city levy and Seattle Public Schools and look forward to our continued partnership.

This is just a picture from the press conference that was held.

It was a lot of fun.

And then you know I usually break this into three parts so students and families.

Here we are with sisters from Ballard High School.

They joined me and other Seattle women leaders for a King 5 exclusive that will be coming out I think early December that will be going to highlight some women leaders in the city and across the state and so it should be pretty good.

Luna and her mom celebrated LGBTQ youth and families at the annual LGBTQ family dinner that SPS hosts and so thank you to the health education office and Meany Middle School for this great event.

These students are very engaged in the math lesson at Cascadia Elementary School.

This is Krista Cherry a student journalist from Nathan Hale High School.

She has tough and thoughtful follow up questions about equity follow up from a big student gathering that we had there as part of my listening and learning tour.

So I really look forward to reading her article.

This fifth grader from Licton Springs asked what advice I would give myself now and my advice as a fifth grader and that was a really actually really hard question.

I had to think about it for a minute.

She also called me an elder which was a surprise to me but I guess I will take that.

So tough questions from our students across the district.

And then I guess I would just as we move into the staff section every time I'm with our building leaders I am blown away with their passion and their hard work and all of them being so dedicated to our students across the district.

This is Principal Campbell.

She shared Robert Eagle Staff Middle School successes with restorative justice practices.

It's pretty impressive about the work and the decline in suspensions and disciplinary referrals as a part of the restorative justice practices that are going on there.

This administration is focused on creating a climate where every student is welcomed and challenged.

Principal Wallace at Cascadia Elementary showed me around.

Students in each classroom were engaged in rigorous reading and math lessons.

And so I just want to thank her for teaching me so much about the highly capable program and the cohort here in SPS.

I did learn a lot from that visit.

Principal Alfin at Licton Springs gave me a tour of her classes and artifacts that are at the school.

I saw evidence of implementation of our new English language arts curriculum.

Congrats to Alki principal Rena Deese for her work to close gaps.

She was recognized by the Alliance for Education.

She was the first surprised SPS leader to win the foster award that goes out every year twenty five thousand dollars is given by the foster family to the alliance for this for school use once they when they get recognized.

Next the alliance surprised principal Jones at Rainier View over.

Okay and then Principal Carter and his staff were also surprised.

These three leaders exemplify the hard work and their focus on equity to get results for our students.

Dr. Smith and Dr. Carter from the breakfast group shared their work with Project Mister to to support our African-American males across the district and I just really thank them for their commitment to our SPS students.

Another shout out to the Fosters and the Alliance for support of our principals and schools.

It was great to meet them and see and thank them in person for their support of our district.

This is a podcast recording I think that will be coming out soon by the League of Education Voters podcast series.

So hearing some good stuff there.

This is a photo as I spoke to earlier about the King 5 women in power panel.

So I was really honored to be among these great leaders and so you'll watch for that special coming out soon.

I had an hour long conversation I think that probably added it to 30 minutes.

And again thanks to Seattle Colleges for hosting this celebration for passing the city Prop 1 the levy to support a strong pre-K to 14 program for all SPS students.

And thank you to Seattle U Seattle Police Seattle Neighborhood Group and the Archdiocese of Seattle Catholic Schools for co-sponsoring Impact Safe Schools Student Leadership Conference with SPS.

Youth leaders from most of our high schools were in attendance.

And their work is really to create safer learning spaces for students in their schools that all take back a project to their school.

So be good to follow up with them and see what came out of that.

And then I just want to thank Director Harris and Dr. Director DeWolf and Director Geary for attending this amazing event at Meany High School.

So thank you board and thank you Madam President for allowing that to happen.

Appreciate it.

Pleasure is ours.

OK.

We have come to board committee report.

Who would like to speak first.

Director Burke curriculum instruction chair.

Thank you very much.

Brief report.

Seems like we do this every month because we do.

Our last meeting was November 6th and what we brought forward.

There is one item that's on the agenda today policy 2090 that the board has seen before.

I'll save conversation until that item comes up.

Rich rich discussion just gets better with age like a fine wine.

We had another conversation about there's a board policy 32 32 parent and student rights in administration of federally funded research and there's essentially two policies that govern our research activity.

There's policy 42 80 that's sort of the outward facing side and policy 32 32 that's the inward facing essentially student and parent rights.

So it's a really important pairing of policies that I think is protecting our students but also providing opportunities for us to learn and innovate.

I'm thinking that will come forward in the next month or so.

There's also a lot of conversation and work going on around digital electronic learning policies specifically policy 2022. And this is one that is being evaluated by our information technology advisory committee and also the curriculum instruction policy committee.

One of the topics that's under discussion right now is putting.

Limitations or guidelines around use of personal electronics in grades K-8.

And that's a topic which obviously has a fair amount of impact.

So we're trying to be thoughtful about how we engage on that.

The other policy which is has a lot of heavy impact and it's a lot of history behind it is policy 2015 selection and adoption of instructional materials.

We're trying to close gaps that are currently in our policy that it's not well represented how we do smaller scale programs like supplemental materials or instructional materials that are less than a full course level.

Things like since time immemorial or you know possibly some supplemental material for math or you know foreign language programs language immersion programs that we'd like to adopt centrally are not well covered by that policy so we're trying to fix that up.

In the future we have our next meeting December 11th.

Again those are public meetings we welcome anyone to attend December December 11th 430 and we will be talking a little bit more about the work plan and hopefully a little bit more about policy A02 which is our performance management That is the extent of it.

Thank you.

Next up is Director Mack operations committee.

Hi good evening.

Our last meeting was the day after the last board meeting.

Materials are found online I believe to see the agenda and they're available if you actually want to dig into the details you can get copies from the board office.

We had an update on the growth boundaries changes proposed for 2019 20 which we're going through the process of decision making community engagement etc.

There are five areas that are being discussed.

There's a work session for the growth boundaries on November 19th for the full board which is a public meeting it'll be in this room.

And during that conversation there was a fair amount discussed but one of the things that came out of it was the Ops Committee's recommendation that the the plan changes for Maple that were already planned for 2020 and were potentially being moved forward for 2019 that the Ops Committee had made the recommendation that we delay that and do the boundary changes for the 2020 change instead.

as a recommendation coming from the Ops Committee.

We also had conversation around our space available and capacity management process and learned a lot from staff on what's called the start of schools process which is. kind of intimately connected to figuring out how many kids are going to be where and what buildings and what their needs are and how to make sure we have all students having a desk and a bus on the first day of school.

And so we're continuing that that conversation and looking at revising the policy and updating those procedures.

There's a couple of board actions that came out of our meeting that are actually on the agenda tonight so I won't go over them.

We also heard from one of the longtime members of the BEX BTA which is now the newly named BEX and BTA oversight committee previously it was only the BEX committee oversight committee.

He provided a report on their work and there's four new members.

We have a fully populated oversight committee now.

We had a meeting on Friday which was a very good meeting that I attended learned that committee learned more about what's happening or what's been proposed on the BEX V. lists etc. and introduce each other for the four new members and it is a really good committee of volunteers and I thank them for their service to our district and our kids.

We also in discussion of our work plan.

We have had a request from two board directors to kind of start looking at the various opportunities that may exist around priority hire around community workforce agreements or there's there's a number of different ways that these kind of things can play out and we've had two other board directors make the request to the Ops Committee that we look at hosting a work session in January on the topic so that we can learn more from experts and community about what those things might entail if the district were interested in moving forward on something around that.

So that was on in the discussion it's been placed to onto the agenda for further discussion in our next meeting which is December 6th.

We haven't actually finalized that agenda yet.

Meeting tomorrow morning to talk with staff leads and round out the agenda for the December 6th operations committee meeting.

And I'm certain that there will be a number of large items around boundaries and student assignment where things will be introduced to the operations committee at that at that stage.

So stay tuned.

And again those meetings are always open to the public.

Comment is typically not.

There's not much of an opportunity it's a two hour meeting but there there can be a time that if there's a question that the community has that didn't get answered in the discussion I sometimes open it up for that.

So I think that's it for now.

Next up Director Pinkham Audit and Finance Chair.

Thank you Director Harris.

What I have to share is going to be brief and then I'm actually going to pass it on to the stand in for the last A&F meeting for the chair since I wasn't there but you can give us an update.

So prepare yourself Zachary.

And thank you Director Geary for stepping in in my absence.

We do have a quarterly audit coming up on Tuesday December 4th.

So those that wish to sit on that please come and the next A&F regular meeting will be Monday December 10th.

And I also remind directors if you do have something that you want our own internal auditor to address he is taking suggestions.

So he said he is willing to dedicate 16 hours to each of our directors if they have something that he would like him and his staff to look into.

So I just want to.

Keep that in mind for you.

And that's all I have.

And I'm going to pass it on to the acting chair for the last meeting Director DeWolf.

Thank you Director Pinkham for that wonderful reminder.

We had a fairly short meeting on Monday November 5th for the Audit and Finance Committee meeting we actually removed one of the.

fairly large conversations and we'll move that to a different meeting but we did have just I would say some more kind of logistical maybe technical administrative work we had to just do for certification of the 2019 levy and that was a really robust conversation I know that's going to lead into today and the coming weeks.

And then outside of that we just kind of did some general updates about the budget and went over some of our specialty design instruction.

And again that will come up to us relatively soon after.

We have any legislative feedback.

Director Geary please.

OK.

As of our last meeting we did pass our legislative agenda.

So anybody who's interested in learning more about that can go and look at past notes from meetings.

We are planning on now that that has been formulated and as we approach the legislative session starting in January we will be meeting with our Seattle legislative delegation in December to discuss our agenda and discuss their visions or ideas around what's going to be happening in Olympia with the onset of.

the legislative session.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Representative Jerry Palette for his continued work in daylighting the underfunding of special education that.

As we saw recently even in the Seattle Times we get two articles one saying that we are asking in excess of what we need.

And then within a few days coming out to say that it is acknowledged by our state superintendent as well as our representatives and many of the school districts around the state that special education services continue to be woefully underfunded.

So I just want to thank him again and ask that everybody if you have an opportunity to support him in his work and share that information please do so.

And that's sort of until we get going in the new legislative session.

That is what I have to report.

OK.

Last but hopefully not least the executive committee report we met on November 8th.

We passed forward for intro and action this evening the 2000 page collective bargaining agreement.

We only printed one copy the clean copy and one red line copy and I suggested that if we wanted to make any changes you'd probably come home and murder me slowly in my sleep since Dozens and dozens and dozens of people have been working very very hard on this.

And oh yeah it was ratified by our our best asset of all and that's our teachers and our staff out in the schools.

So look forward to that on the action agenda item tonight.

And I again props.

To everyone involved in this big heavy lift especially without the kind of sustainable funding that we wish that we had but they made up for it in creativity and collaboration and we're extraordinarily lucky to have those kinds of labor partners.

And when I say partners I do mean in fact partners.

We also discussed amending board policy 10 10 which we'll talk about later tonight on the agenda as well.

We finalized the December 1st board retreat agenda.

And we'll be speaking mostly about the strategic plan and props to Director Jill Geary who is the board's representative.

And it's a ton of work.

It's a ton of time and we're very appreciative that you're doing that work on our behalf.

Thank you.

Also heard from new chief Jones and new chief Campbell that in fact we are going to have a community engagement standing committee and that's happening soon.

I did not get a deadline so I will continue to pester them until I do.

Soon is what soon is the deadline.

No it doesn't work for me because we're a year behind and we had an extraordinary task force that worked very hard and we made it one of our goals.

So I'm just going to continue to be the little pebble in our shoe because we can and must do better.

And having folks helping us is. mission critical it was thoughtful discussion and I'm pleased to have been there and pleased to work collaboratively with our staff.

So.

We come to the agenda where our Roosevelt student Micah Weiland gets to tell us about herself about her school what she likes and what she thinks that the board of directors and the superintendent and senior staff and the millions of people watching on video need to know.

Take it away please.

OK.

Hello I'm Micah.

I'm from Roosevelt.

I'm a sophomore.

I'm heavily active in our school orchestra.

I'm on the council for the Roosevelt suicide prevention team.

And I'm a member of the Associated Students of Roosevelt which is just student council.

So in terms of things that I really appreciate about Roosevelt I really appreciate how nice our facilities and our building are.

It is very functional and.

It gives us a lot of opportunities to have such a nice gymnasium and orchestra room and theater because it it really is the backbone of a lot of our programs.

What else.

Things that could be concerning are a lot of the students at Roosevelt have noticed a lack of technology in our school.

We are a cell phone free school.

I don't know if you guys have heard about this but with that comes a lot more pressure to be on top of the technology situation because.

In class it's really hard for us to work when we have no access to laptops or the books and materials that the teachers are needing us to use because we already had a lack of reading material and books anyway.

It's hard for us to get access to the things that we need.

Along with that there is a significant amount of academic pressure within our school atmosphere and that's because Roosevelt has highly rigorous academics and our programs are really good.

But we feel an outstanding amount of pressure to graduate with a super high GPA and then go immediately off to college which may be the right thing for some people but not necessarily for everyone.

So I've.

Definitely heard of some students feeling isolated because of that.

There is a fair amount of racial tension in the Roosevelt community as well.

I don't know if any of it is purposeful.

I don't think so.

But Roosevelt in general is a very clique oriented school.

It's it's hard to get in with anyone.

And it's it's very noticeable how people are separated within our community and it's it's been hard to penetrate that barrier.

Do you guys have any questions for me.

Any questions.

Director Geary please and then Director DeWolf.

Hi, Micah, welcome.

So Roosevelt is my district.

It's in my district.

And my son, Henry Geary, went there last year.

And I believe his dear friend, Nate, Koidal, and he were part of the originating founders of the Suicide Prevention Club, which raised a lot of eyebrows at the time because of Questions about how to prepare students to do that work because it's a big lift.

So thank you for doing it and I hope you guys have a really good plan and that you are supporting the students doing that work as well because it is hard.

Everything you've said about Roosevelt is my experience too.

And so but it's not OK.

So how do we how do you a leader within your school who's going to be there for a few more years.

How what is it that you think we can do as a district or what we can do to support you in changing that culture so that it is more welcoming and students let down their barriers their own personal barriers to accept the idea of a relationship with people who are different than they are.

So do you have any thoughts about that.

It's really tough because these problems are going way far back and I don't think that it's anything that the school itself did but the zoning of it is definitely why we're there.

And then the separation between classes like AP calculus versus like different math class.

It's very it's very separated and you can see exactly where people are.

I don't.

We don't know we've been thinking about this in ASR on how it's possible for us to really just break that down and get everyone on the same level.

We have not come up with an idea yet or with a solution that will definitely work.

I know that we too are grappling with the issues around your high school and that we are here and if you need us me to come and help talk about these issues and daylight them and work forward to solutions that we are here for you.

Thank you so much.

Director DeWolf please.

Thank you.

My question was just back to the group that you shared about the suicide prevention group council club.

Can you just share more about it and what you're doing and I'd just like to hear about it because I think you know as much as we can support it from the board we'd love to do that.

Roosevelt I believe is currently the only high school that has a suicide prevention team.

We were founded a few years back.

What we do is we basically.

Our name is kind of misleading.

We do we inform students on suicide what it really is and warning signs.

Basically what we do is we work with University of Washington's forefront the School of Social Work and we present one of their PowerPoints to language arts classes teaching students how to potentially deal with a peer or someone that they know that a may be suicidal and we teach them warning signs how to deescalate and how to find help.

Terrific.

Any other questions comments.

I'll go then.

Go ahead.

Director Mack please.

Got to be quick.

And then Director Burke.

Thank you for coming up here and speaking and speaking candidly about your experience.

And I really appreciate the honesty around recognizing that there is a racial issue at Roosevelt and that you're you're interested in in working on that issue.

And I just appreciate that you brought that forward as well as the issue of suicide prevention is incredibly important to have education around and I think I just I'd like to honor that and offer support for for your efforts as a student body and yourself and in the school and making improvements.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

I want to also second that and I appreciate that you're you've shared the racial tension concerns the some of the polarities that are created around academic rigor versus maybe students that don't see that or that that's not their their natural inclination.

That's a conflict that's been going on for many many years.

And one of the things that's changing in the narrative a little bit is we're hearing from more families who have.

had themselves come up through a college track and their kids they envision that's what they envision for their kids and they're finding that their kids do that and don't have a career before them.

They don't have you know they end up back at home on the couch or in the basement.

And so there's a there's a growing awareness in the public that it's it's not just about getting through high school as fast as you can with the highest grades and getting into the best school and getting your four year four year degree.

There's this really broad spectrum of additional careers out there that can also be really high paying highly rewarding and don't necessarily follow that track at that time.

And so that's one of the things we're trying to build out here a little bit is the career and technical education pathways which right now are our career and technical education enrollment.

is really well representative of district demographics both racially socioeconomically.

And it's I'd like to say it's a great equalizer and it's also an opportunity provider.

So if that's if that's a place where where that story could take root.

I think it's starting to have more value than it did in past years.

These classes are not just classes where kids go when they're not able to do college work.

It's actually classes that prepare people for college work or for careers.

So I think that's an interesting narrative to explore.

OK I would like to know the story behind your sweatshirt and where you're going when you graduate Roosevelt.

If you know or the ideas you're ruminating for.

I.

Like I partake in the academic rigor.

Roosevelt.

I am very active in orchestra and I love math so much and I'm a sophomore so I have a couple of years left to go but.

Ideally I will I'm looking into Ivy League schools such as Columbia and Princeton and I would and MIT but that that comes later and I would ideally like to double major in both orchestral conducting and engineering.

Love the combination.

Again music every day every school every kid that we don't have to worry about our math scores ever again.

Peer reviewed research on that.

Thanks very much.

Hugely appreciated.

And again feel free to jump in when we ask for comments questions concerns.

OK.

OK.

We have now reached the portion of the consent agenda of the meeting.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

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

I take chairs privilege and make a suggestion.

The personnel report is particularly murky and I understand a lot of reasons why it is because people's careers are at stake etc.

But if we're doing things like reorganizations and changing titles then.

Maybe we can put that on there and and make it a little clearer to the public.

I understand the delicacy around personnel personnel issues but if we could be more transparent and forthcoming without violating anyone's civil rights much appreciate.

So not seeing anyone wanting to remove anything from the consent agenda.

Those in favor of passing the consent agenda please signify by saying aye.

OK then.

So we have a time check of 5 0 2. We start.

Public testimony at 530 on the dot.

This would be a good time to get our board board member reports in.

You will have the opportunity to speak again about issues that come up during public testimony.

Who would like to go first.

Don't all rise in unison.

Director Geary please.

OK I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

Few things you know we we had two big sort of national events.

We had Veterans Day and we had voting day since we last met.

And so really takes it reminds one how closely linked those two days are.

in the fact that we have had Americans go out and fight for our country.

And one of the greatest aspects of it is the right to vote.

And so just taking an opportunity to acknowledge that as a really important event.

I guess if I had my druthers, I wonder why we couldn't put Veterans Day and Voting Day together so that everybody could take the day off and make sure that they exercise that right and that they really had the time to reflect on what an important privilege it is and how many people have sacrificed their lives for that event.

They're just that important.

OK.

Director Mack and I met today with the Metropolitan Democrats Club and got to share the goings on of the district.

And so I thank them for that invitation.

It's always fun.

They're a very active and questioning group.

They really like to get into the weeds and having somebody like Director Mack there to drill down on the information is always very helpful.

So thank you for joining me in that.

And then as you mentioned Director Harris I'm participating in the strategic planning steering or strategic plan steering committee.

And while the conversations within those rooms are to remain in those rooms in terms of any individual sharing because we want it to be a safe place to talk about the future of Seattle Public Schools.

I will just share some general comments about how much people appreciate the opportunity to go through that process.

How the conversations are are very honest and to the point and that we are always mindful and being reminded that reflecting back on the input that was brought in from the listening and learning tour.

It's going to be really important in that we took the time and we asked the community to come out and share their thoughts with us.

And if we are putting together proposed strategic plans without having taken the time to really put that information together and allow the steering committee to reflect upon it in in going forward in their work that it looks it has the potential of looking like box checking versus authentic community engagement.

And so we need to be very mindful that circling back with those communities that have taken the time to meet with us to let them reflect upon the work that we are doing as we do it is really really important.

If that is going to be seen as sincere.

So I share those thoughts so that we are careful in our work as we go forward.

I will continue to have my Tuesday morning coffee meetings at Soka on Blakely near the university village.

Please do check my Facebook page though the morning of because there are times like when I had to attend the steering committee when I can't attend that.

But for most part every Tuesday morning is an opportunity to come and I have heard from some people out in the community that they're planning on showing up.

And then I will be meeting on Thursday night tomorrow night at Thornton Creek Elementary to with Concie Pedroza here at the district to talk about the district's strategies around moving forward on racial equity.

And so while the meeting is designed for the Thornton Creek community it is certainly open to the public and anybody who would like to come and hear about what the district is doing.

You are welcome to join us as well.

So that's it.

Thank you everybody for coming and looking forward to hearing public comment.

Next up is.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you President Harris.

Just want to again iterate first as a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Nation of the Rocky of Rocky Mountain Montana.

I want to recognize that we are on stolen indigenous land and I am honored to live work and serve here in the Coast Salish territories of in the city of Chief Sealth who was a descendant of the Suquamish Muckleshoot and the Duwamish.

Wanted to first thank directors Mack and Burke for having a really meaningful conversation a couple weeks ago coming up with some really exciting ideas on how to engage our community and the appropriate stakeholders on a potential workforce community workforce agreement.

Thank you also to the passionate and very engaged families from Washington Middle School for a very engaging and productive conversation a couple weeks ago.

It was really nice to just be in community with them and do some relationship building.

Thank you also to the more than 75 very inspiring SPS leaders and educators who I was happy to join in attending the annual Black Prisoners Caucus annual education summit.

It was certainly fruitful and I left feeling motivated on new ways to address our racial disparities and the hidden racism in our system.

Thank you also to Lisa Love and Brennan Ham from our health ed department.

Last week on Thursday there was it was just probably the most emotional and moving and immensely powerful and beautiful community event.

The LGBTQ families dinner at Meadey Middle School last week which dovetailed really nicely with the meeting I had just this week with Pride Foundation transform Washington other LGBTQ community groups.

Where I left feeling again very inspired and happy to report that I'll be working with Lisa Love to reinstate an LGBTQ advisor group to help SPS ensure we're serving better the needs of our LGBTQ students and families.

Looking forward to meeting with school leaders staff and students at Lowell Elementary tomorrow.

Just a reminder in the 2016 2017 school year we had four thousand two hundred eighty students identified as experiencing homelessness.

Seven hundred eight of those were unaccompanied youth.

One hundred twenty five of those were unsheltered and four hundred four of those were American and Alaska Native specifically which would be about 10 percent of those students.

Also looking forward to joining the Title IX task force.

Thanks for the invitation Superintendent Juneau and also looking forward to tomorrow's listen and learn tour at Daybreak Star.

My only final thank you is just to the Seattle voters.

Last week you showed up for not just SPS but for kids and students and namely public education as a top priority for you and our city.

And we just are so grateful for you for continuing to show up.

So I look forward to coordinating and collaborating with the city in regards to family support workers students experiencing homelessness and student health centers particularly at Nova High School.

So thank you.

That's all I have to report.

Director Mack please.

Good evening again.

Yes voting.

Election Day.

I love election day.

This was a very exciting day across the nation.

The power of a vote is it can be seen in a lot of races across the country.

There's a lot of close races that are coming down to even.

votes just in the 10s and even locally in our state legislature.

There are a number of there are a number of positions that were one way on election night.

But when all the votes are counted they got flipped and were flipped by you know 500 votes.

So voting matters.

And I had a fun time visiting Ballard High School and Mr. Webb Hudson's Civics for All initiative.

They do a mock election.

and have the students vote on and also debate.

I understand they put together a number of videos of pros and cons on the initiative so they're not actually doing the entire ballot but they get a a special ballot made for them by King County elections.

And the voters guide it had the major initiatives on there.

They had robust conversations and did robust pro and con statements and debated the issues and then voted and tallied it.

And by all accounts the folks felt the folks the students felt as if it engaged them in taking action as a voter when they could vote.

So I like that.

because every vote does count and it matters to have your voice heard.

I had my community meeting on November 3rd.

I only had three people come which I was kind of surprised by when there's a lot of challenging issues going on in the district.

I would have you know I encourage folks to show up to my community meetings to be able to talk about them.

I have another one coming up.

I don't have lasagna.

Sorry.

I don't.

Maybe I need to have another.

OK I'll have to have to come up with something like lasagna but I'm not going to copy lasagna maybe chocolate chip cookies.

I don't know something.

But I have my next one coming up on I believe the 8th at Queen Anne library at 11 o'clock I believe.

Hope that's right.

And look forward to hopefully seeing more people there.

The I'll be leaving tomorrow for the WASDA state school board directors conference their annual conference.

We went to the legislative assembly a bit ago going back to Spokane for their actual conference and I hope that I'll be appointed.

elected I guess again to the legislative committee which I've been serving on for the past year and look forward to that couple of days happening and I'll respond to public comment after the fact.

Next up Director Burke please.

OK.

Where do I start.

Well we'll go into some past activities.

A couple of weeks ago had the pleasure of visiting Seattle Maritime Academy with Director Mack which was awesome.

Seattle Maritime Academy is a Seattle colleges program.

So we're just exploring different places of synergy for for for our students and they can't currently go there but it's a great opportunity that we can maybe figure out how.

It is the place where our summer skill center maritime program is held.

So if people are attending that I highly recommend it.

I was joined by directors Mack and Geary to meet with some of our some of our colleagues port commissioners Bowman and Ryan Calkins to talk about maritime education programs and synergy.

around our current technical education and other kind of programmatic factors.

Great great conversation.

They've been a long term partner in support of that work and continue to be enthusiastic.

I had the pleasure of attending the Lincoln transition planning meeting.

that was held November 6th and I believe you like you're going to hear some public testimony from from folks that were also there.

The there's a lot of really great excitement about the robust programming the pathway continuation at Lincoln High School for our dual language programs language immersion programs.

But there's a there's a definitely a concern around how we maintain the integrity of the Japanese pathway from the elementary through the middle and what that's going to look like into Lincoln High School.

So I'm I invite my colleagues to to listen to the concerns that come up in public testimony and see if we can think creatively about policy put budget and strategy to make that successful.

Just earlier this week I had a chance to visit with the Seattle Seattle Academies Foundation.

They they oversee the finance hospital hospitality and tourism programs at Chief Sealth Franklin and Ballard.

And one of the conversations is are there other pathways that work well under the Seattle Academy's foundation umbrella.

They also offer through their national group an IT pathway a health care pathway.

So it was just really great to hear this passionate group of parents business leaders community advocates.

that are all in on support of our our our programs and our students and are actually going out to the schools bringing kids to their workplaces bringing their workplaces into the schools and just the energy in the room was was really empowering.

We had a lively community meeting I was joined by also directors Mack and Geary at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School and Licton Springs K-8 and I want to thank Ashley Davies and Michael Tolley and the principals for attending that as well.

It was rowdy is a good word for it.

If I were to quote my my colleague Director Harris President Harris and I really want to honor the feedback we heard.

It's not something to make light of.

I think I take it to heart that we really need to respect the integrity of the Lincoln Springs K-8.

program you know that was loud and clear that the community at Licton Springs and the community not at Licton Springs were enthusiastic about respecting that integrity of the program.

We were reminded multiple times that we missed an opportunity to have a solution.

in the time lapse between when we knew there was a challenge with capacity and when we started coming forward with recommendations.

And so that was that's something that we own.

And I want to say that although we missed that opportunity we did do a lot of work around capacity management.

We did recruit and hire a superintendent.

We did do a lot of things but they didn't touch this community the way we needed to.

And also I want to honor that I heard loud and clear that our selection process was non-transparent and people felt like although it might have looked like we were being decisive it was not done in a way that gave people confidence that it was transparent.

So it's it's a balance.

The identification of possible alternatives.

Thank you for that.

That those possible alternatives were not well represented as to why they were alternatives versus others and that there wasn't enough time to communicate it.

So I own my part in that as well as the director for that district trying to push staff and push us all forward to let's come up with a thoughtful solution.

Let's be creative about it.

Let's and what I heard loud and clear was.

We're not quite there yet.

And we do have to put student success at the core.

So I know that work is going on.

I think Superintendent Juneau for taking a closer look at it and saying OK let's not just go to meetings and talk about things that we maybe don't quite have all the pieces in place for.

So we're going to put all the pieces in place we're going to reach out to community more.

And.

The I also had a community meeting on the third same date as Director Mack and I also only had three people that attended mine.

So by all means it's a great opportunity to hang out.

And my next meeting is December 8th same date as Eden's Director Mack's but I'm at 10 a.m.

So if you wake up a little bit earlier you can come to my meeting and then you can go to her meeting.

That's all for now.

Thank you very much.

Next up Director Pinkham.

Welcome.

Good evening.

I am Black Spot in the distance.

I'm Nez Perce and my English name is Scott Pinkham and to the Duwamish Coast Salish area tribes of this area say Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you for allowing us to be here and also to my wife Vicki for her love and being supportive of me Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you I love you.

I want to let you know this past week.

My wife lost her father.

I hope I don't get too emotional here.

Daniel Julio Gonzalez at the age of 88. He'll be missed.

We're thankful that we're he had a peaceful passing with my wife as a side.

He is a Navy veteran and I do want to point out that per capita American Indians Alaska Natives serve in the military at any other rate than other groups and it's part of that being proud to protect the land that we're on.

And it's last week.

Appreciate the words and thoughts and prayers from my fellow board members that you sent me and also staff that heard about it.

It was very much appreciated.

With it being a Native American Heritage Month the director DeWolf mentioned it you know I'm Native every day every second and acknowledging that the indigenous people of this land you know we do have a special place here.

They used to say that the only good Indian was a dead Indian or you know to save the man kill the Indian.

And I'm reminded of a poem by Ryan Redcorn where he said they used to say the only good good Indian is a dead Indian dead Indian.

Well it must be no good at being Indian because I'm alive and well.

We have not assimilated.

We've adapted.

We have not been conquered.

We signed treaties.

Our cultural survival is impacted by a loss of language and spirituality.

When practicing some of our traditions even we become reluctant to share with others because we see the cultural appropriations by examples with mascots or stereotypes in movies.

And this can be an impact on our native youth and I'm glad Miko is here to talk about suicide.

Our native youth can sometimes see themselves as not being native enough.

And it's a challenge for them.

So if we can support our native students all students that who they are we appreciate that of them and we want to learn from them.

It's not just learning about one person but learn about all of us that we're all here together.

And that's why I'm still supportive that we open a native focus public school in Seattle in what is the summer day Indian heritage high school.

I think a school would be better for all of us just like Daybreak Star and West La Balte on the UW campus has been.

And I'm glad to hear that we are seeing Licton Springs community stand up.

Let's not break that community up.

We I feel we owe something to that community that we can keep it as a K through 8 school and hopefully keep it on that site because Licton Springs is a sacred site to the Duwamish and Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ people because it's where they gather their red paint for ceremonies.

And Urban Native Education Alliance is actually working with their students to come up with a resolution to present to the city of Seattle.

Save that place.

You know take care of it.

Make sure that people have access to it and that it's an educational access as well not only as a sacred site for the natives of this area.

Let's see.

I also want to share something that I wrote a while back with the help of Roger Fernandez's son Anthony I believe his name was.

He was working with some of our students helping them come with spoken words and we had some of our students share some spoken words.

Not our students but came here with their poetry and stuff at a previous board meeting.

And this is something that I wrote and I wanted to share with you given Native Heritage Month.

So excuse me.

We the first people may have lost our tongues but the voices of our elders carry on in our songs.

Heartbeats of our ancestors sound with the drum.

The seventh generation.

Its time has come.

Spirituality will battle homelessness and drugs shattering the image of drunken Indian thugs.

Education native style and public school courses ensure opportunities for our younger resources.

Calling on the salmon and the blessing of the cedar to return healthy lifestyles guided by the creator.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you very much.

And my next meeting will be this Saturday as well.

Not this Saturday as well.

I think I'm only one this Saturday right.

At 10 a.m.

to 1130 at Ballard.

So I'll be in Director Burke's area.

And also I just give a shout out to my daughter Joanne who's with Hazelwolf K through 8 with their nature bridge.

They're out there for a week.

And as I said before appreciation to the staff during this my family's time of difficulty.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you.

Director Patu you've got a limit of four minutes and we're going to cut you off at 530 to start public testimony.

That's OK.

Game on.

I just want to say that I really appreciate when I went down to Rainier View and actually met with Superintendent Juneau and celebrating our principal who actually made some great improvement and also did a lot of things to make that school what it is today.

And I think that you know we don't thank our leaders enough who runs our schools.

You know we just tend to yes they're the principal and leave it at that.

And I just realized when I went home I just realized How much work that each leaders you know principal has to go through in order to make sure that their schools are safe and that kids are actually learning and that there is a lot of commodity going on within the school.

So I really appreciate it.

When I went to the celebration for the Rainier View principal how much people appreciated her and what she has been able to do for the kids at Rainier View.

So that to me is that I just need to celebrate our principal more often because they do the hard work you know and a lot of times we don't think about that.

But when you really think about it's just like parents raising kids but these are a whole bunch of kids.

So I you know so I really appreciate all the principal that actually that are leading our schools and hopefully that we can continue to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts for taking good care of our kids because we know without you who's going to take care of our kids at Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We've got about three minutes.

Let's take a stretch pause and we'll start public testimony right at 530.