School Board Meeting Date March 2, 2016 Part 2

We will now move to the action portion of our agenda.

So we want to make the motion to approve items.

Mm hmm.

Did you read the title?

Okay.

We are now going to our first action item PTA 3 final acceptance of public works contract K5040 Edify's construction company for phase one of the Columbia school modernization project.

I move that the school board accept the work performed under BTA III public works contracts K5040 with Edifice Construction Company for the Columbia school modernization project phase 1 as final.

Okay I want to call on the committee chair to state the committee's recommendation.

This motion was considered and approved by the operations committee on January 21st and moved forward with the recommendation for approval.

Any directors have any questions?

Any comments?

Okay Ms. Bowen for the vote.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Going to our second action item BTA III final acceptance of public works contract K 5 0 5 1 Regency Northwest construction incorporated for phase 2 of the Columbia school modernization project.

I move that the school board accept the work performed under BTA 3 public works contract K 5 0 5 1 with Regency Northwest construction incorporated for the Columbia school modernization project phase 2 as final.

I second that motion.

Any directors have any questions?

Committee chair.

Director Blanford.

That's alright I've grown used to it.

This motion was approved by the or was considered by the operations committee on the 21st of January and moved forward for approval.

I will also note that several the prior item this item and several of the introduction items around capital were pretty thoroughly vetted in the committee.

So hopefully that means that if there aren't a lot of questions that doesn't necessarily mean that we have not paid serious attention to them just that it passes muster in the committee and hopefully can move forward for approval by the full board.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Ms. Foley.

Call the vote.

Director Blanford.

Yes.

Sorry.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Thank you.

And we move on to action three.

Resolution 2015-16-13-A resolution opposing charter schools and charter school legislation.

I move that the board adopt resolution 2015-16-13 which opposes charter schools and charter school legislation as attached to the board action report.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

I second the resolution.

This motion was discussed at the executive committee meeting on February 4, 2016.

President Patu, does the amendment come up at this point?

No, not yet.

Thank you.

On February 4th 2016 the committee reviewed the item and move it forward to the full board with a recommendation for approval.

The executive committee also moved that the resolution be introduced and acted upon on March 2nd 2016 to ensure action before the 2016 Washington state legislative session adjourns.

Is there any questions?

May I add one comment?

Director Peters.

Okay the other reason why we are bringing this as an intro and action item is partly because this is a revisiting a resolution that was passed in the past and also there is legislation pertaining to this topic currently being considered in Olympia and so we believe it is of the essence to bring this forth in a timely manner.

Okay I note that there is an amendment for this item so we will have John Cerqui discuss the item then we will address the amendment.

Good evening Directors and Superintendent John Cerqui, Deputy General Counsel.

So what you have before you tonight is a board action report that contains the initial resolution for your consideration and I appreciate Director Peters and Director Harris for providing some edits and some writing on that resolution.

You also have an amended resolution that we hear about with Director Geary's amendment so you will vote on that separately just that one paragraph and that will be an up and down on that one section and then you will come back to the original motion.

So the documents you have before you is the resolution that has been drafted for your review and consideration that is the 2015-16-13 we have also attached as Director Peters mentioned The prior resolution that was approved by the board as the initial charter school resolution and legislation was before the legislature.

So those are the documents for your consideration and I'm happy to answer any questions or defer back to the board.

So now there is a motion for this amendment.

Director Geary.

I move that the board amend the resolution 2015 16 13 a resolution opposing charter schools and charter school legislation legislation as attached to the board action report.

I second the amendment.

Okay.

Director Geary can you please speak to the amendment and why it's been offered.

I can.

I was not part of the board that approved the initial resolution with regard to charter schools.

So in reviewing what was put before us or what was to be considered now it seemed to me that it was missing some of the very vital work that I feel Seattle Public Schools has taken on in the last even few months.

and some things a few years that speaks to our attempts to reach the child as an individual and reach the whole child and that in terms of the charter school movement that is one of the things that is often alleged against school districts that we don't have the flexibility the ability to meet children where they are.

And I think that while we haven't achieved or accomplished Definitively we are definitely in the process of creating programs to the African-American male initiative through the adoption of native education through the special education task force and departments work on making a continuum of educational placements available to children.

All of these things.

that we've been working on speak to why we oppose the charter schools and that we don't want our resources diverted away from this important work.

So that is the basis for my amendment.

Director Harris has any questions.

Director Burke.

Just a point of clarification for board comments on do should they be attached to the original motion or the amended motion or just the amendment.

When do I mouth off.

If I were to weigh in I would say that you would probably talk about the original motion.

If you have any comments on Director Geary's proposal then now would be the time if if you want to talk about whether you support or don't support the resolution as a whole I'd probably defer to the main motion.

My understanding of Roberts rules of order say that right now we are discussing the amendment And once that's done we move back to the main motion.

I agree.

Yeah Any comments questions Since we don't have any so we go back to the main motion I

You would now vote I believe on the amended motion.

OK.

Ms. Fodey for the vote.

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

Director Burke aye Director Patu aye.

This motion has passed by a vote of 5 to 0 to 2.

I will now call for a vote on the revised motion as amendment.

Point of order.

OK.

We need to have a discussion of the main motion.

OK now it's time for questions and comments.

Director Peters.

I just want to highlight some of the changes to this resolution since it was originally brought forth a couple of years ago.

One of them is we make a reference to the McCleary decision.

And the fact that the state Supreme Court has found our state legislature in contempt of court for not meeting its paramount duty to fully fund our public education services here in the state, which is a constitutional requirement.

And so we are acknowledging that.

We are also acknowledging we are reiterating our position on charter schools because right now there is a focus in Olympia to apparently find a way to make charter schools legal even though they were recently found not to be legal.

Focusing on the students of charter schools but not focusing on their paramount duty to fund all the students in the state.

And we take issue with that position.

And then we also address the recent use by the state of using alternative learning experiences to allow charter schools to be operated by non-resident school districts.

And so these are two recent developments and what these are what we have added to the resolution.

John have I missed anything?

I think you've highlighted the two main areas that we talked about in the executive committee.

I agree.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

I am intending to vote against this resolution.

I will start off by saying that I am on record as a candidate and as a school board director as being in opposition to charter school legislation.

But I will start off by saying I was very disappointed to receive this resolution so and have to both have it be introduced and voted on in one session.

I believe that an issue of this import needs sufficient time for us to be able to consider and research it before making a determination so I'm disappointed that that is the case.

but my primary opposition has more to do with what I see as the pragmatic issues around the resolution and those are namely that after I read the language of the resolution I reached out to a number of friends and colleagues who do the work of education advocacy and many of them are down at the legislature on a regular basis and they have a good sense of the landscape who, which senators and representatives are in favor of or opposed to charter schools and it continues to be a litmus test issue in our community.

It is something that on the campaign trail it is frequently you know you would get support depending on how you answered about your feelings on charter schools.

What I was told almost unanimously from five people that I talked to was first off that given the lateness of the term and the fact that the legislature will adjourn soon it is unlikely that our vote, our decision on this resolution will have much sway with folks one way or another.

Most of them have already decided whether they are in favor of or opposed to charter schools and so it won't have much influence but it does have the potential and this is again something that was shared unanimously amongst those that I talked to.

They shared that it could have a negative impact in that many of the folks that we count on to do our bidding, to advocate for us in the legislature, and I'm talking about legislators, elected members of the legislature, many of them will potentially take a front to the fact that we have taken a position on this issue, particularly if they favor charters.

And in my mind if indeed the impact, the influence that we are able to wield as a result of passing this resolution is not, does not offset the risk that we assume when we would, that we would potentially offend some of those who are doing our bidding, who are helping to advocate for full funding of McCleary, who are helping us with our capital asks.

All of those reasons make in my mind this decision fairly easy that it is something that we probably should not be engaged in at this point.

Director Burke.

I wanted to say that I understand and I appreciate the reaffirmation of this resolution is which is how I'm interpreting it.

And I believe it speaks to the current and fairly consistent position of Seattle Public Schools in regards to charter schools the messaging the actions the philosophies that that I've seen implemented in my short stint as a board director.

I mentioned when I was campaigning Because charter schools are a litmus test and people would always ask what is your position on charters.

I still believe that charters are a distraction from the work that we do.

We do the greatest service to our families by developing and maintaining an amazing public school system.

And so I recognize that charter schools have the potential to provide great educational opportunities but they're not within our purview.

So if we don't draw clear lines.

we risk diluting our mission.

And that also has the potential of further distracting the state lawmakers from resolving fundamental education problems funding problems.

So I also completely understand.

Director Blanford's.

Concerns around the intro approval.

This is a fairly weighty topic.

But the flip side of that that I have in my mind is if it is a distraction from the core work that we're doing of making our district amazing doing that work quickly in a focused way is in our benefit.

And so in that sense I do also support the introduction and action in the same meeting so that we can focus on our core work of making Seattle Public Schools a national beacon shining beacon really good and bright.

Director Harris.

If we as the largest school district in this state do not stand up and get counted for the concept of representational government and for the concept that the Supreme Court ruled charter schools as was written as illegal then what the heck are we doing here.

Now to the extent that we might quote offend some state legislators I would respectfully suggest I am most offended by a number of state legislators who have not seen fit to pass McCleary legislation And I am most distressed by the actions of the OSPI in putting together a macrame scheme to keep these former charter schools in business.

And I'm sorry if the legislators are offended.

I thought that was a fairly respectful resolution we certainly tried hard to make it a fairly respectful resolution.

And I hope that in the future when these concerns come up we share them with each other so that we might be guided by each other's intellect and input.

Thank you.

Pinkham.

You know probably as I guess for me when I saw this that I as I read through it and Just some of the things.

Yes I can see that.

Impacts as a charter schools can have on us it's going to be negative impacts that we need to see that we're serving in all students and sometimes that's why charter schools became the parents felt that the students were being served a particular school.

So hey if we can chart our own school I think that we need to find a way to do this.

You know it's kind of it's already out there.

What do we do.

Do we then now take it back from those students that are in the charter schools that's going to be difficult.

And I guess what I probably had the concern was the whereas the Seattle School District remains ready willing and able to welcome and service the needs and I assume they're supposed to be of every student including all former charter school students in our districts.

If.

I would probably see about rewording that a bit differently that you know yes that's our mission to be ready willing and able.

I'm not sure if we're there right now and appreciate you know that definitely admit that we are working towards this but for the introduction and action the same time I'm hesitant on.

I believe that charter school as director Harris have mentioned is a distraction to what we're trying to do with public education.

It would've been great if funds were not taken away from public education to fund charter schools but that's not the case.

And we already know that it's under we're underfunded by the state to provide opportunities for our kids.

And that is not happening.

Transferring money to a charter school is almost like saying you know public schools is no better but we have to realize public schools have been around forever and it's our responsibilities as board directors who are sitting around this table to support and provide every opportunity that we can to be able to provide that equitable education that we promise 53,000 of the kids that we serve right now.

Having charter schools, it is a big distraction.

state legislative have promised I mean the court have ordered them to be able to fully fund education and yet we're still not at that point and to me having supporting charter school it's just their way of actually distracting us from terms of what the real deal is that it's not fully funding education so I believe that as board directors Voting for this resolution is saying loud and clear.

We you know we support all our kids at Seattle Public Schools and we believe that we can do a great job giving the opportunity and the tools and the resource that we need in order for us to move forward.

We've made some great progress and as Director Harris have said we are the biggest district in this state and it is our responsibility to make sure that.

The education that we provide all the kids that we serve.

It's number one education and we can't do that if the state is not supporting us in terms of where we want to go.

So I believe that you know I support this resolution and hopefully that you know we can see changes as we continue on the hard work that we do to provide all our kids that equity education that they deserve.

Is there any more questions comments.

Director Peters.

Well Directors Harris and Patu said a lot of what I would say and so I completely support what they had said.

I would like to add that you know as representatives of our city 70% of Seattle voters voted against charter schools.

And our current state legislature is in contempt of court for not fulfilling its obligations to McCleary and being fined at a rate of $100,000, is it a day?

A day.

So we're up to millions and millions of violations.

Now that charter schools have been declared illegal, to have a state legislature that's heavily focused on finding a way to keep charter schools operating puts them again in contempt of the court's decision.

By some measures it has been said that what they are currently doing is holding McCleary hostage in order to establish some means to keep charter schools open even though they have been declared illegal.

So yes, we should speak up on this.

Yes, we are the largest school district in the state and we should have a voice on this.

And I agree with Director Harris.

We should not be timidly worried about offending those.

I am offended by their actions.

It's greatly affected our budget, it greatly affects the quality of education we can bring to our students including every single issue of equity.

So they need to do their job.

And to the contrary I believe that if we make a strong statement as the largest school district in the state we could actually help legislators who are trying to do the right thing by fully funding McCleary.

but having their arms twisted or being pressured to do something extra legal for charter schools and that's what got us into the situation with using the alternative learning experience designation to somehow have charter schools that are nowhere near the tiny Mary Walker school district be put under the oversight of the Mary Walker school district and effectively launder public money through a small school district.

I find that very very troubling and to have been asked to participate in that I also find very troubling.

And finally I want to remind everybody that there are less than 1000 students registered in charter schools in the state at this moment.

I've heard there's as few as 800. We have over a million public education students throughout the state.

Our state legislators need to be focused on the big picture and all of our students.

All of them.

Thank you.

Any more questions discussions.

We're now calling Ms. Fody for the vote.

Director Burke aye Director Geary aye Director Harris aye Director Peters aye Director Pinkham nay Director Blanford nay.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion is passed by a vote of 5 to 2.

Okay we are now going to continue to our action items.

Oh we are done with our action items.

We are now into the introduction items.

Amending policy number 3246 use of reasonable force and repealing policy 3247 use of isolation and restraint of students with IEP's and section 504 plants.

Oh what?

Oh sorry about that.

Sorry about that.

We will now move to the introduction portion of the agenda.

The first item settlement agreement with local 609 is an informational item.

I will now invite Assistant Superintendent of Human Resource Clover Codd to the podium to read this item into record.

Clover Codd assistant superintendent of human resources so per the settlement agreement entered into between Seattle school district number one and the international union of operating engineers local 609 the attached notice to employees will be read into the record at this time.

pursuant to a settlement agreement.

In unfair labor practice charges number 127484-U-15 and 127684-U-15 filed by the International Union of Operating Engineers local 609 it was alleged that the Seattle school district unlawfully operated in poor faith by issuing a termination letter to an employee after having led the union to believe it wouldn't.

Unlawfully operated in poor faith by failing to provide relative information to local 609 that was necessary to the processing and investigation of the potential grievances.

The district acknowledges it made serious errors relative to the handling of employee discipline.

The district acknowledges it did not provide information in response to union information requests in this matter as required by law.

To settle the unfair labor charges Seattle Public Schools will upon request timely provide the union with information related to collective bargaining agreement collective bargaining and contract enforcement.

Will utilize written protocols settled upon by both parties and settlement mediations.

We'll provide training on good faith bargaining, obligations to provide information, and retaliation for concerted protected activity to the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, Director of Labor Relations, District Investigators, and Labor Relations Managers and Analysts.

Will review and bargain a clear process for issuing discipline to local 609A members including but not limited to the timelines for issuing discipline.

Will reimburse the local 609 for all reasonable attorney fees and expenses related to these complaints up to the date of execution of the settlement agreement.

Will not fail or refuse to provide the union with investigation information maintained or collected by employer agents as required by law for the collective bargaining agreement.

when the requested information is relevant to grievance processing and contract enforcement.

Will not in any manner interfere with restrain or coerce our employees in the exercise of their collective bargaining rights under the laws of the state of Washington.

Do we have any questions?

Thank you.

Director Peters.

I want to thank our assistant superintendent Claude from HR.

Thank you for bringing this to us.

You know it should not have to come to this.

We should not be having these sorts of labor violations.

And so I'm hoping that we will not have many more of these sorts of presentations.

And I am optimistic that with our new leadership in HR and new general counsel that we can establish better relationships with our labor partners so that does not come to this.

And I want to thank those of you who have helped bring this to a resolution for your work.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

Dr. Codd I am wondering if you can tell us of any changes to our practices after the part where it says to settle the unfair labor charges Seattle Public Schools will Does this document notate any changes to our practices or is it just a restatement of what we said we would do that we didn't do in this case?

So what this is saying and this was signed on February 24, 2016 is that we will have to take action on the things that were written into this agreement.

It does not reflect changes that have occurred yet to date but this is what we are responsible for.

Moving forward, so let me check for understanding does that mean that that we are?

Is it a restatement of what our current practices are I guess I'm asking the same question twice Because I didn't hear the answer

Sorry I think it is clarification of how we will handle processes that are in place that are unclear at the moment which sort of led us to this place.

So there are processes in place.

There's there was a lack of clarity and this document helps to add clarity to our current processes and saying that we will work with our labor partners to make sure we have clarity with respect to all of our processes.

Thank you.

Dr. Harris.

Dr. Codd.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We we we got to get beyond the adversarial relationships with our very valued employees.

I know you are making great strides on that and you're working with legal and I can't emphasize enough how much I believe in early mediation and clarity and transparency and I'm so glad you're in this position.

Thank you.

Dr. Burke.

I want to reaffirm what my colleagues have said.

Thank you for bringing this to us whether by choice or by by agreement.

What this speaks to me as as a director is that there were a learning organization.

And this is a lesson.

So we've been given a lesson as a district and as a board.

And what I've heard from my colleagues what I've heard from staff is that this this has been an important lesson.

And so I I recognize that H.R.

is challenging and sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don't.

And when we learn from the times that we don't get it right that's what makes us a great place.

So I I'm grateful for the work that you do and you know commitment to working with our labor partners and the ultimate goal of making Seattle Public Schools a positive and productive workplace.

Thank you.

OK.

Thank you.

OK we're now going into our.

and amending policy number 3246 use of reasonable force and repealing policy 3247 use of isolation and restraint of students with IEP's in section 504 plants.

Good evening, Directors.

Erin Bennett, Director of Policy, Board Relations, and Special Projects.

I'm here to introduce the policy, and I won't reread the names to you that were just read by President Patu.

But we are here based on some new legal requirements that Andrea Shears will speak to shortly.

This was a project that was tackled by a multi-departmental team, and I just want to call that out because it really was a very large group of people, many of which are seated behind me, that included legal operations, coordinated school health, the special education department, the attendance and discipline, and safety and security, so a rather large group.

This amended policy and the repeal of 3247 was originally introduced in November of 2015, but upon a director's request, it was removed from the agenda in December.

And since then, we have been working on developing the amended procedure that's included and attached to the action report for your reference, as well as amending the policy itself that is before you.

We've also come to the C&I committee several times since then to provide updates on the work.

And so we are attaching to this bar not only the policy that is being repealed, the amended policy 3246, and as I mentioned, the amended procedure for reference.

So I will now turn it over to Andrea Shears and then Peggy McEvoy and Wyatt Jesse will speak to implementation.

While you come on up I'm actually going to ask our chair for C&I to see what the recommendation is.

This motion was discussed to the November 9th December 14th January 11th and February 8th C&I policy committee meetings and on February 8th the committee reviewed the motion and recommended this move forward to the full board for consideration pending further community and board input.

Thank you.

Good evening Directors, I am Andrea Shears, Assistant General Counsel.

As Erin mentioned, I'm here to explain just what the specific legal requirements are prompting this amendment.

First is that the reporting, written report and notification to parents whenever incidents of restraint or isolation are used now apply to every student in the district regardless of their disability or not status.

The law also requires a removal of what is called aversive intervention plans from any IEPs or student 504 plans which is getting at wanting to get away from any planned use of restraint or isolation as a behavioral technique.

However, if students with disabilities teams decide that that is an appropriate thing to put in a student's plan that it be included in their behavior intervention plan with a parent's consent.

So those are the broad legal requirements prompting the amended policy and amended superintendent procedures.

Good evening YTSC Executive Director for special education.

I just want to talk about some of the application of this because there are a number of streams of work internally to meet some of the requirements within this new law.

And so we have a lot of our systems had set up like IEP online for the aversive therapies so they've all been taken down.

We've provided training to all of our staff within special education.

And then now we are building back up systems so that on IEP online for example they can have an emergency response protocol which is what Andrea was referring to inside of the student's BIP, behavioral intervention plan.

And again it requires a whole bunch of things attached to that process.

But the keys here and I think the fundamental underlying thing is is that it can't just happen in a planned element to just say, hey, we're going to restrain the student because they're out of control.

And that's what really let up.

So the underlying cause of this is saying, hey, that's not aversive therapy.

That's not effective therapy.

And so the key is to say, hey, we've got to balance this out because we do have to protect the safety of the student and the staff or anybody, obviously, within the school.

Also with the need to respect the individual rights of the students and so these have these mechanisms and another important mechanism is the reporting.

So the reporting to the parent underneath this policy you know it's within 24 hours with the best effort to get it out there that school day.

Some incidences actually happen on the bus on the way home so there is some guidance on there so we are asking schools to do this in the best effort but have to do it in 24 hours.

And then also obviously follow up written correspondence.

That kind of line of work needs to be embedded into PowerSchool, which would create a new module that's already a line of work under DOTS.

And so that's a multi-department venture right now with coordinated health, special education there.

We have currently a parallel process within that where we have paper forms so it goes out.

And we work the paper and we receive the paper so that we have that data collected, recording those things and of course copies of the incident report.

If there was isolation, restraint or seclusion, we get out to the parent within three days.

But then also we have to keep our own internal records on that as we have to report that to the state as well.

We're expecting this module to be up with PowerSchool by the end of this school year.

It does take some extra time.

We'll be ready up and running most certainly for next year and in addition to the training that we'll have to continue to provide out there for folks and if you are likely to have to provide a restraint or isolation or to be involved in that then they would require, as we have now, training for folks through the Crisis Prevention Institute which is an approved program through the state.

Other states use it as well.

We have about 600 identified personnel that would have to receive that training within this policy and we have that and so we have some mechanisms, procedures set up to ensure that people get the training, updating it, get them ready to go and then also in addition to the reporting mechanisms as I mentioned before.

It's a lot, I'm sorry.

Is there any board comments or questions?

Peggy McEvoy assistant superintendent for operations.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank the board for giving us some additional time to do some of this work.

We were able to go out and do some more community outreach and make sure that we were hearing from people what was important to them that we include in the policies and procedures and those you have seen have been reflected in that.

So thank you very much.

I think the other piece that is important is as we talk about training our staff.

The training is important to align how we are having our staff who primarily or usually see themselves working with our gen ed students, now are aligning that work with our special ed students.

So for instance, our safety and security staff had had CPI training in the past, but now they are much more embedded in how do they support the special ed teams, some of the work around the behavioral intervention plans.

And so I think that will strengthen how we are able to support our students.

Director Harris.

600 identified personnel need this training.

I take it it's not free.

Do we have some metrics on this and where in the budget is this funds coming from or is it yet another unfunded mandate.

This one's funded, Director Harris.

Yes, exactly.

That's one of those, yes.

It's one of the advantages.

So it's around an estimated 600. I mean, there's some positions that need different levels of training.

So there's some things that where you're just working on, as Peggy's mentioning, and just around de-escalation strategies.

Other ones do have to get more significant training, especially if you're thinking of students who might have emotional behavioral disabilities.

We want to make sure that people are really trained up so they can not only do the de-escalation, but in the event that we have to keep folks safe.

We would do that, we have that training and one last thing about that is that it is every other year certification.

So that is part of the benefit of making it more financially doable as well.

Is it partially funded or 100 cents on the dollar funded?

As it stands right now 100%.

100% we are fine.

Who is funding that?

It has already been funded before for this training.

So just as she said we have done all of these trainings ongoing.

We just, you know, you pack them in a room.

We usually have about 20 people receive, 20 staff members receive this training so they would come in.

And SCA has been an excellent partner in this because they want that for their members as well.

So we've been working on that.

Some folks use, the class of folks use some of their time, professional development time.

Sometimes we have to pay for them for extra time.

It depends on when we can schedule these because it's, It's really tough to get that many people because some people don't want to do weekends.

Some people don't want to do evenings.

Some people do.

Some people want to do it the day.

So we manage all that.

So it is 100% funded.

Folks are coming.

They're already getting the training and now we have even I think a better mechanism to ensure that we get who's got to go with this policy.

It gives that credence to say you must do it.

Dr. Geary.

I want to thank you all so much when I made the amendment to move or you know the motion to remove this.

I think there was a long list of people who are up to speak on this.

And here we are tonight introducing it and there is nobody speaking about it.

So that is credit to you for having taken the time to listen to everybody and to incorporate their input to the point that they now have confidence that we have done more than just propagate a model rule from the Washington State School Directors Association.

And I think that that is a great model for us all to remember that we don't have to do the minimum or the standard that we can take the time to hear from our people and actually come out with a positive result.

You know, we hear so often, it doesn't matter what we do, people aren't going to be happy.

Well, right now, I feel like people are pretty happy about this.

So that's to your credit, and thank you for all the work you've done to get us here.

And one question for you, Wyatt, is With regard to the checklist and reading through the superintendent's procedures there's so many different things that have to be done after an incident.

Is that just an electronic checklist or is there a paper checklist that goes with that?

And would it be possible at all before we have to vote on this as a final to see What that what a building leader would have in front of them as a real quick way to make sure that they've gone through all of those steps in the superintendent's procedure to make sure that they fulfilled this policy without having to go five different places for different computer programs.

Do we have anything drafted like check.

I entered it in this computer program check.

I did that I called this person.

I got this notice out.

Getting approval is the key.

I mean, there's some things we're waiting on, literally, to get this approved.

there's things that streams of work.

And that's a great idea.

We can absolutely do that.

We've done that for other things for the administration to make things easier for tools like that.

That's easy.

We can do that.

OK.

And in the explanation that you were going through very quickly before, I was hearing about things like that, but I just didn't know what that looked like.

So I just wanted to sort of clarify based on what you said.

But I think that would be very helpful, because I know these things are hard to implement in a building, especially if somebody's out one day.

Thank you for appreciating those challenges and implementation because there is a lot of complexity and it's a lot of work for the schools.

It's not but it's the right work and we owe that to obviously our parents and guardians.

Director Harris.

Director Geary had a couple good examples of how this is a success story I wanted to add a couple more.

You know I appreciate the work pulling this back reworking it to better reflect the intent and vision.

Reaching out to the community and incorporating the feedback.

I appreciate reducing the notification time frame for families to 24 hours and I really appreciate the concurrent development and submission of the board policy and the board procedure because I think that's something that you know as a board we love to see.

It seems it feels like the right way to to approve things when we can really see the whole package.

So thanks again.

If I could just think this has been if you didn't do all that I think you should thank Erin Bennett because Erin Bennett this is she kept the patience she was working the project management on this and really kept us tied down and was checking through doing her due diligence so she doesn't get a lot of thanks so she is the one that really should get it.

Director Burke.

And I do have one more clerical question.

Is the document as presented here, has it had any changes since it left CNI committee?

Same version?

Or are there any changes?

So yes, a few based on the feedback that we received at C&I.

So the definition of property was included in the procedure.

There was a reference in the emergency protocols about annually revisiting it.

And there was a typo fixed in the policy.

And I think there's one other change, a definition that we're working on for the procedure that was requested in C&I that we will have in track changes prior to action.

But those are the ones that come to mind based on feedback we got at C&I.

Thank you.

I just want to clarify for my colleagues this is why it was moved forward for consideration because there were several items that were identified.

So thanks for that.

Thank you.

Now moving on to Introduction 3 City of Seattle Department of Education and Early Learning Seattle Preschools Program Service Agreement Amendment 2016 DAS 2017. Okay, this motion was discussed at the Executive Committee on February 4th, 2016, and the committee moved the item forward to the Food Board for introduction without a recommendation pending the February 24th work session.

Good evening everyone.

I'm Cashel Toner I'm the Director of Early Learning for Seattle Public Schools.

You see lots of folks moving up this way.

This is certainly a collaborative effort.

We have partners here from the City of Seattle.

Lots of cross-departmental work and certainly thanks to our board for your ongoing engagement around this really interesting work.

We've had a long meeting this evening, so we're going to try to be pretty concise and then have time for your questions.

So here we go.

All right, as was represented at the work session on February 24th, we're coming forward to you with a recommendation to move forward with option one in the board action report.

This is the option to continue the three currently funded classrooms and to expand to four additional classrooms scheduled to open fall 2016. The high-level concept is to continue the three classrooms started this year at Gatzert, Van Asselt, and original Van Asselt, and to expand to four additional sites located at Arbor Heights, Boren, Thornton Creek and Highland Park.

I'm going to go through a really brief, let's see, progress update about the three classrooms to address some concerns that we've heard and try to succinctly answer some questions for you.

So with regard to enrollment, the three classrooms are currently fully enrolled.

We have now, this is a change since the last time we spoke, we've met six out of six possible programmatic milestones, so that's one more since our work session, and we're on schedule to meet the three remaining milestones, and those are scheduled to be completed May 31st.

And those three remaining milestones are things like kindergarten enrollment activities, completing the spring teaching strategies goal developmental assessment, and updating teacher professional development plans for the coming school year.

Space has been an ongoing conversation.

So the three classrooms that we started this year have been vetted to be available space-wise for next year, as have the identified spaces for next year.

We can talk more about that with facilities as we move on.

Special education has been a dynamic conversation.

We've heard your feedback.

We've heard feedback from families and staff and other departments.

It is an area that we are working hard on.

We don't have all the answers yet.

Currently, we have two students that are benefiting from special education services in our three classrooms.

We have been having conversations with our city partners and we've taken some action steps so I'll just address those things briefly.

We are attending the P3 Executive Leadership Institute at the University of Washington so I'm attending this year along with some of our city partners and our lead for special education preschool in Seattle Public Schools.

Part of that work is to conduct an action research project and our team focus is thinking about special education preschool services and what does a continuum of services look like.

So we're working on that project together.

We've also had some cross-departmental meetings between the Department of Education and Early Learning at the City and Seattle Public Schools.

Thinking about how we can really coordinate child find services, make sure that we have frameworks and systems in place to inform families of their options, and work within the structures that are already in place to do those things really well.

And like I said before, we don't have all the answers yet.

So we are exploring what possibilities may be possible in the future.

We can talk more about that.

But I want to make sure that's a snapshot summary.

I want to back up a minute and just say thank you to those of you who have taken the time to visit classrooms.

Thanks to those of you who have worked through complicated schedules to join us and have visits upcoming.

Thanks for that and for your feedback and your questions.

All right, so now we're going to shift into responding to questions that I'm sure you have.

We have lots of colleagues up here, experts that can join the conversation as needed.

So now we welcome your questions.

Any more directors?

Director Pinkham?

So as I said definitely like to see that we are offering the expanding the preschool program as part of the closing the achievement gap for students of color and all of our students at risk and hopefully some of the issues that were brought up earlier today that we also make sure that.

Other abled students aren't going to be marginalized in this new system.

But one question that I had as we're looking forward and seeing some plans for the schools that actually have preschool sites in them.

So how many sites do we see ourselves expanding to.

And I guess for again looking at it do the new sites have to go to new buildings or can some new preschool sites go into existing buildings that.

didn't have right now because I'm particularly addressing the Loyal Heights community where maybe there's another school that they can host a preschool and then thus take the preschool out of their new building so they're not taking up so much space.

Has that been thought of as far as expanding their preschool program in the future?

So first of all this was our first year.

We started with three classrooms to learn from the process.

This next upcoming this proposal in front of you is very limited expansion for four new classrooms.

I'll let Dr. Herndon speak to other space constraints.

Good evening Flip Herndon associate superintendent for facilities and operations.

We did take a look at each of the possible locations and sites.

So as Cashel was taking a look at possibilities of where preschools, new preschool programs could go.

We had conversations about whether or not there was space available and then in the future whether or not there would be space available.

As you know our enrollment continues to grow as we look at class size reduction and the speed and pace with which that is being implemented.

We're trying to be as judicious as possible but we review that space annually.

In certain instances new buildings for instance Arbor Heights is coming on as a new building this fall.

is built as a 660 will open at about 400 and their rate of growth is pretty minimal in the coming years.

So that is why we know there will be enough space there.

The same with Bailey Gatzert with an existing preschool space.

I would say as we have reiterated in some past meetings Even though some buildings have already, the newer buildings in the educational specifications have preschool or before and aftercare spaces designed, those spaces are designed to be instructional classrooms as well.

So that as we look at future needs, we can have classrooms, we can have those spaces become classrooms without having to add portables.

So even if a building opens up and we are not, we are using the before and after care space or the preschool space the way it is designed, it doesn't mean that in the future we won't have to use that space as a classroom.

When we look at those particular instances the 660 buildings are designed to be four upper basically four classrooms at each grade level.

But with class size reduction if eventually we get to 17 to 1 we'll need five or possibly six classrooms for those K through 3 class sizes.

And so in those instances we would have to use those spaces for K through 3 instructional spaces.

It's a very long answer but I hope that helped.

Director Burke.

Before you leave my question is I have three of them.

The first one relates to leveraging off of what Director Pinkham was saying.

I I feel like creating a.

You know a cohesive pre-k 12 system with wraparound services is a great vision for Seattle.

Obviously on the board we have to consider space funding logistics as you're considering now.

We also have to communicate that to our public.

And so my question is you've come to a decision a recommendation to us that we have sufficient short term space capacity.

to look at expanding the program and it's stated in the in the bar that we believe we have capacity for that.

Can you build out the bar to include a little more justification some numbers one two three year sort of numbers for what those buildings what we think we're going to see for capacity and growth trends so that we can have the confidence and we can share with our community This is the justification why these schools will get a huge value from it and we're not going to be impacting those in a year by having to evict a provider.

That's one of the stability pieces I'm hoping we can improve.

Is that possible?

Yes, so we can certainly provide some information about the particular locations and there are two things.

One is Director Burke was communicating with us, he had a chart that we could take a look at for these particular sites.

So we can fill in that information that shows the capacity of the building, the enrollment projections for what we have.

So that would give you a little bit of an idea.

The challenge though that we have in that and this is why we review annually is that we do have other sometimes programmatic shifts that happen.

So for instance if special education needs to locate a classroom in a building that can change the capacity ability or we may need an additional room in there that originally we didn't have.

That could be the case for highly capable if we had something like that.

So we have other pieces that we always have to take a look annually at what are the programs needed, what are the locations needed for that, and then what is the enrollment and the growth that we have.

But we can certainly start with these are the capacities, these are the classrooms available, these are the numbers that we see over the next three years or so.

We can do that.

And then a question regarding the individual schools that are under consideration for expansion.

Can you speak to what outreach has been done at those schools, specific surveys, or is there qualitative or quantitative feedback you can give us?

Sure.

So in identifying the schools, a big component has been capacity.

So I just want to be really transparent with that.

That's where the conversation starts is do we have the space available.

At the same time, Arbor Heights, the principal at that school reached out to me probably about a year and a half ago with interest around thinking about really intentional early learning at her school when it opened in a couple of years, right?

The leadership at Arbor Heights, no.

The leadership at Highland Park is participating in the P3 Executive Leadership Institute at the University of Washington as well, so deeply engaged in the early learning work as a core strategy for closing the opportunity gap.

As for surveying families or staff we haven't gone that far quite yet because we've been working very carefully with our board to see if this was going to be a viable option.

Some of the schools Principalships, principals have joined us when available and others haven't.

I just want to give a shout out, I used to be a principal and folks come to meetings when they can.

Please don't interpret principals who aren't here as a lack of support.

They can't be everywhere.

So just know that.

Thanks.

When I was the executive director of an early learning program in White Center, one of the justifications that we used to determine to site the building in White Center was there was a scan of all high-quality of all early learning programs in that area and we realized that there was a dearth of programs and so I not having visited Arbor Heights yet I just looked up real quick to see where it is and it's not very far actually from White Center and it's also not very far from Highland Park.

So that helps to answer the first part of my question which is have we done a survey of the programs that are existing in the other expansion areas?

Does that question make sense?

So here's what we know about early learning sort of citywide in preschool availability.

We need more high quality access across our entire city, right?

So that's just something to remember.

Folks put their children on wait lists, you know, a long time ago.

The next thing we need to think about is closing our opportunity gap, right?

So thinking about, we were pretty intentional about starting our first three classrooms, one at Bailey Gatzer, one at Van Asselt, and one at original Van Asselt, because the communities which, where those schools are located, there is an opportunity gap, right?

And so we need to address that as a system.

You are correct.

I would love, as the Director of Early Learning, if we get to the space of really doing an analysis and an implementation plan around a scaled up partnership.

But considering our capacity challenges, we've taken this partnership very sort of incrementally and thinking about, you know, are we meeting our milestones from this first year?

What might limited expansion be for next year?

And then sort of slowly moving forward in this partnership.

Is a follow-up I would just suggest and I don't know if it's the city or us or some combination or you know Mining some data that already exists, but I think it would go a long way to make the case for You know various stakeholders to be able to say when we're locating these programs.

We're very intentional about identifying where they are needed the most and trying to make our siting decisions based on that.

I think that would go a long way to alleviate any concerns that folks have and particularly you know we don't want to create competition with already existing high-quality programs.

We want to try to put them in places where kids need them the most.

Director Geary.

Do we know where there's going to which of these locations there's going to be the preschool program and the developmental preschool programs coexisting come the beginning of next year.

I know part of that question, but I'll lean to Jesse for the other part.

I know that if we choose to continue our funding for Bailey-Gatzert, of course there's a developmental preschool there and Seattle Preschool Program classroom there as well, right?

We have the potential for that same sort of co-location of partnership at Thorn Creek.

If we were to find a Seattle preschool program classroom there will also be a special education preschool classroom there as well.

And of course remember original Van Asselt.

So there are special education preschool classrooms there and currently a Seattle preschool program there.

I may have missed one so I'll turn to my colleagues and if we've made a mistake I'll correct that and forward it on.

And a follow-up on that, so will there be a developmental preschool at Thornton Creek no matter what?

Developmental preschool?

For sure, absolutely for sure.

Thank you.

Yes for sure.

Dr. Peters.

Okay I have a few questions for a few different people but I will start with questions for you Cashel.

So if the board approves adding more sites how many total sites the city's preschool program will be located in Seattle Public Schools and that means if you include however many the city is also establishing through private partners how many total.

Okay so that's a little bit complicated.

So if we were to here's what I will commit to doing is making a data chart to send forward to you so that you can understand what the first year sites could look like and potentially what the second year sites could look like for SPP SPS.

Okay.

And then the next thing is that what the first year sites were community based organizations SPP.

Are you following me?

Okay.

And what the second year sites could be SPP community based organizations in Seattle Public Schools.

I think we can answer that pretty close.

We've got 10 sites now, 7 are SPP and 3 are SPS and I think we are still negotiating about how many spaces we have for the city ones.

So I think we might be losing two because of space and gaining one.

So essentially maybe a net zero seven still.

And then we have three and we're talking about adding three or four.

So if you do the math I guess what would that be.

We have 10 now and if we added three we'd be at 13 somewhere in that ballpark.

So about a dozen sites between SPS and SPP for next year.

Alright and then my other question has to do with how many total students does the district currently serve at the preschool level?

Because I think part of something that's been missing and I'm asking this by just by way of context because I think what's been missing from this conversation is acknowledgement that the Seattle Public School District has been serving preschoolers for many years already.

And so anything any deliberation we're making over the city's program is not us saying oh we're not interested in preschool.

we've been serving preschoolers for many years.

So I just want, I know it's different, I know the city's program is different, but I just want by way of context and history I think it would be helpful to remind people.

Plus we've had a Head Start program that my understanding is has been a recognized program for doing good work.

Sure, so high level, we have about 420 students in our Head Start classrooms, about 15 classrooms across the system.

We have about 20 special education preschool classrooms.

Those are continually enrolling, and so children are joining all the time.

And then, of course, we have community-based organizations that have been a part of our wraparound services for children and families at about 23 sites across the city.

So about 63 preschool classrooms in different offerings.

All right and then let's see I think my next question might be for Flip Herndon and that is tagging along with what Director Burke just said.

I think that was a great idea to add some more context again to the bar so that we do understand what brings you the confidence with your projections to say that you can assure us that if we expand the program that those sites will not be under contention for any other use.

So I support doing that and so I'll throw two questions in there right now and for the record, do any of the sites that are being proposed for expansion, do any of them, are any of them currently sites where childcare has been an issue, the childcare programs have had to move or be adjusted because of capacity issues?

I don't believe so because that was one of the questions that earlier came up about before and aftercare and preschool I believe is Director Harris who wanted to make sure that if we were displacing before and aftercare programs we were not going to be putting in pre-K into those dedicated spaces.

So as far as I know none of those spaces are places that have had previously dedicated space for before and aftercare.

Okay so if you could please include that as well.

And then the other part of this is portables.

It's an issue that always comes up.

Do any of these schools, the current ones or the current three or the proposed four or five, do any of them currently have portables on site?

And if so, will the pre-Ks be located at the portables or in the school buildings?

That I'll have to double check and get back to you on.

I know for A few sites, let's see, yeah, I don't want to answer incorrectly so let me make sure and I can double check on the sites and the number of portables.

Okay, that would be great.

And I think my next question is, in general, I also want some assurances about what we are going to be doing for our special ed students in this program and to make sure that They are included.

I don't recall in all the discussions about the city's program what the city was going to offer students with special needs and I don't recall that being part of the discussion of the diversity of the classroom.

So I know you've been addressing this to some of the other directors and I don't know what else you can add tonight but I would like to see some reassurances about how our students with special needs are going to be served through this partnership with the city.

multiple discussions about how we're going to do this.

And this is coming back from last year into this year and really appreciate the city coming forward and want to be more innovative.

We've also had some conversations with the UW.

There's a lot going on here about how we can rework things.

So the planning has some challenges to it.

This is special ed, and so here I am to tell you that there's things around just around staffing, so you have things around, so what kind of staff would that be?

We have a collective bargaining agreement, there's things within that that have some constrictions to what the ratios are, whose assignments, there's things that we have the varied needs within also preschool as you know, so the disability categories and the needs of students as you're developmentally disabled.

We're looking at the needs.

And so what would those ratios be?

What would be the best setting for them?

What's on their IP?

How do you match that?

And then there's the funding mechanism also.

This might seem like a replay here, why he's talking about funding, special ed, and staffing issues, the challenges.

But it's really around us to think about having a plan, We've got definitely a drafted plan and then looking at this so what does this look like next year and we are talking about an integrated model.

So that it and I think that gets to probably maybe where you are coming from Director Peters and you help me out here I'd be happy to answer more is around the full integration as opposed to some ad hoc mechanisms of serving students with special needs.

We've been running, as you were saying, we've been doing preschool business for a long time for students with special needs.

We have that level of expertise within our own staff.

We're just thinking with our partners to say how can we even do this in a more progressive way that does further integrate where we move away from just having a couple of typicals in the classroom to actually where you start to move to where the numbers are even are more so with students with IEPs around their typically developing peers.

Thank you.

My final question is around Head Start so I don't know maybe whether who is the right person to address those questions.

So one of the classrooms that is being proposed for expansion is the Highland Park Head Start classroom.

Now Head Start currently only serves students for, the program is only like a three hour a day program for four days a week.

Whereas the city's program is five days a week for six hours.

So there is a difference there.

Also Head Start has its own curriculum and Head Start receives funding from the federal government grant money that we get as a district I think it is $4 million.

So I would like to understand and just for the record explain why a Head Start classroom, an existing Head Start classroom would be a good choice as opposed to starting a whole new classroom that doesn't already exist.

and how the parameters of Head Start will work with the city's program.

Knowing that we have a different curriculum knowing that we already have a funding stream.

So why do we need another one.

So if you could address those I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

Can I address those.

Sure.

Cool.

Highland Park is in my backyard.

Highland Park is a school that has huge needs.

If we put the Seattle pre K program in there then Head Start moves elsewhere.

These kids will get double the bang for the buck and they need it.

They need it desperately in this school and admit to being ever so cynical about this program.

Still have some issues with it but.

My question is if you move Head Start out and there were some e-mails this afternoon that we need to address where we would move the Head Start out to.

District 6 potentially gets a boom of quality pre-K programs.

Arbor Heights is a very different community than Highland Park.

But the Delridge community down there at the Boren building need it need it need it.

And as far as the placement goes got no issues with that.

So thank you.

I appreciate your questions and I think that this is a healthy conversation to have.

It is complicated so I'm just going to put that there.

With that I've invited our Head Start manager Jean Goosey up to help with this conversation.

But just in summary our Head Start grant.

The new collective bargaining agreement costs exceed the service that we'll be able to provide for Head Start.

So in order to right-size the budget this year, we made a request to the federal government to return sequestration dollars that were once awarded and then went back and then came back.

Anyway, so we solved it for this year.

But moving forward, we have a budget shortfall, just thinking about Head Start.

So Gene, would you like to add anything to that?

Just for a second, I want to make sure that we all understand the Head Start piece of this.

And so the question about reduction of slots for Head Start is simply a federal mechanism for balancing our budget, for keeping us sustainable.

When the feds give a Head Start grant to the district, we get X amount of money and in return we serve X number of slots.

In this case, it's 430 slots for that $4 million.

So as costs rise and the revenue, right, Congress sets our budget, as the revenue doesn't increase to meet the cost, In federal grant land we have limited mechanisms for balancing that budget.

And the primary one is that a certain you know beyond cutting positions in the district and in our program to manage those costs.

The other mechanism we have is to go back to the federal government and ask for a reduction of slots at the same funding level that they currently serve us.

We did this, by the way, when we had sequestration three years ago, where we went to the federal government and negotiated a reduction of slots to keep us solvent for that year.

So that's the mechanism.

It stands only by itself.

It's not that we're moving the Head Start program somewhere else.

We are reducing by one classroom, two classes.

With the minimum number of slots, we can lose and manage that process.

and exists independent of sort of these other conversations, although in the bigger picture, right, the district is trying to put the pieces together of the early learning picture.

So let me see if I'm following this.

So you're saying that we have currently we have two Head Start classrooms at.

OK.

We just have one.

We have one classroom two classes.

This is we serve back to back three and a half hours one classroom morning and afternoon two different shifts.

Right.

And you're saying that if this converts to a city program actually that's where I'm lost.

Well see I'm not saying that.

What I'm saying is in order to manage the budget right of the program that I run.

my responsibility to put forth this plan, is the way to do that is through the mechanism the Feds have enabled us, which is a slight reduction in slots.

So we're not converting something here in that...

You're reallocating Head Start funds to a different...

Not, no.

No, Head Start funds will continue to serve Head Start

No, I mean this particular classroom we're talking about.

The classroom space will, by the fact that Head Start moves out, or there are fewer slots, right, we won't be using that space, the space becomes available.

So Head Start moves out of Highland Park?

Yes.

Okay, that's one of the points I want to clarify.

So Head Start moves out.

So there will be no more Head Start at Highland Park.

Instead we would have the city program.

And that Head Start class, those students, would those students be absorbed into the city?

So those students would stay put.

Well they would have an option they could go to the Seattle preschool the SPP program the SPS program right for a full day experience if that's what they desire and these are the ones who wouldn't be going on to kindergarten already next year right.

The other option is is we have two neighboring Head Start programs.

Okay so you're saying if you have one fewer site then you'll have more funds to go around if you have one fewer site.

And instead it will be backfilled.

It will no longer be a Head Start site.

Right.

It will not have the Head Start curriculum.

It will have the city's curriculum and so it will no longer.

Whatever comes with whatever program moves in.

All right.

I think I'm fine for now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

I had a I think a similar question or an extension to that question.

The Head Start grant is that based on per pupil or is that a flat amount.

It's a it's a flat amount.

It is not.

Head Start slots aren't allocated.

with a, unlike ECAP slots, right, state pre-K, they are not allocated with X amount of dollars.

That takes in, so that when you apply for a grant, you can take into account local situations, high cost of living in Seattle versus Ellensburg.

Just to reflect back my understanding, when we apply for the federal grant, we can say, we have 420 students that need to be served for this $4 million, or we can say, we have 400 students that need to be served for this $4 million.

And in both cases, it's $4 million.

And we're likely to get that award.

We have an ongoing agreement, a five-year grant, that allocates us $4 million a year.

Our ability to make adjustments to that amount, we can't make adjustments to that amount over that five-year period.

We can make adjustments to how many children we serve with that amount.

Understood.

So this is a you said a five year.

It's a five year grant we're in year three right now and then it will.

So we'll have this discussion again in two years when they renegotiate or we renegotiate.

Next year the feds will work with us to redetermine the future of the grant.

I guess that that gets to the root of my question which is are we working with a lower number of students at that point because we've.

Allocated some of those students.

Into a Seattle preschool program and therefore When we go to renew the grant we won't renew at the same level.

Is that a future problem that we might have to consider.

When we go to renegotiate the grant we would.

Negotiate based on the realities of our fiscal situation.

We can ask for more at that point.

OK.

So we can we can do a need based request.

Yes.

Absolutely count based request.

A little of both.

Yes.

OK.

Thanks.

Peters.

Okay I just have one more simple math question.

So currently the classroom, the Head Start classroom has two sessions.

Are there 20 students in each session?

Does anybody know how many?

Okay so it's a total of 40 students are served in that classroom.

So if we no longer provide the Head Start model and instead bring in the city's model, the city's model is a 20 So that means that we will only be serving 20 students for six hours a day as opposed to 40 students for three hours each.

So we will be serving fewer students if we do this but they will be getting more time.

Is that correct?

More time.

Some of the students remember are four and they will be going to kindergarten.

Okay, so of the 40 current students, some of them are four-year-olds, and we'll go to kindergarten, and some of them are three-year-old students, right?

So of those groups, it looks like about 19 of them are three-year-old students, and if we could replace the funding stream with SPP funding, you know, there's capacity for 20 students.

Okay but the pure numbers are still we would be going from serving 40 to serving 20 in that classroom.

Yes and then the other consideration is the time.

So right 40 students half day or 20 students full day.

Okay thank you.

Dr. Harris.

Thank you for that Sue I didn't get that.

Appreciate that clarification.

Would it be appropriate to speak to some of the city folks to answer questions.

Yes.

Mr. Chappelle.

Yes ma'am.

Thanks for being here and thanks for your goodwill and collegiality and working through.

some of our questions.

When last we spoke we were discussing the 25 percent hold back the piece of glass and many people's shoes.

Can you enlighten us as to what's going on with that piece if you can.

Yes, we're still, as a team, trying to figure out the best way to accommodate the request.

So it is a piece of glass in your shoe and our shoe right now.

But as Cashel said earlier, the programs have met six of the nine components so far, and they're on pace to reaching all nine prior to May, correct?

Yes.

So we're on point to be 100%.

Would you agree that it's not necessarily a question of meeting those metrics but can be perceived as a jurisdictional issue and that it's not in the MOU or the ordinance?

I would have to research that more to better answer that question, but I can say that the way it's set up, every program that we have will be 100%.

I can say that for sure with a lot of confidence.

Can you enlighten us as to what the Seattle Parks Department and other city departments are doing towards finding space in their own facilities as well?

Yes.

So right now I believe we have a SPP program that we are looking and working with Seattle Parks to see if we can place them in it for next year.

Yes, one of the programs that's leaving SPS right now, we're in talks with the parks right now trying to locate, find a location for the SPP program to go into.

And I'll let our director speak a little bit more about that.

I also wanted to let you know that we are working really closely with parks and the preschool programs that they have right now in their sites to have them become, get on the pathway to pathway and to SPP as well.

So actually just this afternoon we came from an overview meeting for all the program providers that are located in community centers right now.

So we are actively pursuing lots of different space availability in the city because while we hope that we can offer as many preschool programs in SPS buildings, we know that we have to look elsewhere.

And while we've got you up here are you also working with the community based organizations that were providing child care services and we have unfortunately had to ask them to leave our buildings because of our reduced student to teacher ratios.

The seven that We had to take the unfortunate and difficult vote on a month ago?

Right.

As far as we know right now, only one of our programs is being displaced.

We may need to clarify some of those numbers based on what I'm hearing this evening.

But yes, that's the one that we're working with closely and looking at different avenues.

Thank you.

Any more questions?

Sorry guys.

A little clarification.

One thing is about the preschool classrooms and that's what Monica is talking about.

One we know is going to need to move into another location and that's what they're exploring.

The before and after care.

So the child care internally Seattle Schools is trying to help explore different potential capacity within the classrooms.

Right.

So remember we were in a dedicated space model within the schools.

Now we're looking at lunchrooms, and each one of those things is a case-by-case issue.

So we're not quite sure yet if folks are actually going to have to move off campus.

We're exploring where we might be able to accommodate with those seven before and after care sites.

And then we'll be working with our city partners as well if folks actually do need to move off campus.

Dr. Herndon, correct me if I'm wrong.

Okay, thank you.

We're finished.

OK.

Thank you so much.

Thank you Chapelle and your group for coming down.

We're now moving on to introduction 4 resolution 2015 16-12 parent teacher waiver waiver of the 180 day school year requirement.

And I want to ask the C&I chair for his recommendation.

This waiver request was discussed at CNI on February 8th of this year.

We reviewed the waiver request and recommended that this be presented to the full board for consideration with some recommended edits.

Thank you.

Ronald Boyd, Assistant General Counsel.

As was stated this is a resolution requesting the State Board of Education to approve a three-day waiver request to allow our schools to do full-day parent teacher conferences.

It is actually a three-day request for elementary K-8 and one day for high schools and middle schools.

This request is actually the third of this type that we've done with the State Board of Education.

We are on our sixth academic year of doing full-day parent teacher conferences as a result of asking for this waiver.

We still get funding from the state once this waiver is requested so we don't realize a reduction in money from the state.

We actually see a little bit of a savings because we don't have transportation costs for those three days.

We have also realized that by doing this full-day parent-teacher conferences that we see benefits as opposed to doing half-days which otherwise we would be looking at about seven half-days and it's the preference of staff, families to do just the full-day parent-teacher conferences as opposed to the half.

So this will be a resolution.

If the resolution is approved it is submitted with the State Board of Education with a pretty simple application as well as our proposed school calendars for the next three years and it will be reviewed by them at that point for approval.

Dr. Blanford.

When you said something about the district will see benefits as a result of this resolution passing, I didn't hear you say anything about the possibility that we'll see increased participation.

Is that what you meant?

We'll see more parents actually participating in the parent-teacher conferences?

So there are a number of benefits that we see and we laid out in the resolution.

I'll have Michael Tolley, if you'd like to speak to some of the educational benefits that are received as well.

Of course our ultimate goal is to involve parents in the education of their children.

This is the true opportunity for parent engagement in the education of their children.

Any more comments or questions?

Is this the same parent conference that normally happens with elementary schools in the past?

Yes this is the one around the November time frame just before Thanksgiving break.

So what's the difference from that one in comparison to this one?

There is no difference.

That's a three year waiver request and every three years we have to make that request again.

But I'm hearing you saying that your whole purpose is actually to get more parents engaged into the conference.

This is in regards to doing either full day or half day.

We anticipate of course and what we've seen based on our surveys of parents in the past as well as staff that we will be able to have more parental participation in the full-day parent-teacher conference format rather than running seven half-day parent-teacher format.

Thank you.

Director Geary.

I would say that when we moved to having full days over the week in November versus stretching it out over a week and a half, it made such a difference in terms of the disruption of the class day and the disruption to daycare and parents and before and after school.

It was one of the best things that I saw happen in terms of elementary school making that shift.

in terms of eliminating the disruption to families over a long period of time.

So I think it's a great waiver.

Dr. Harris?

I'll ditto that.

Dr. Burke?

Times three.

Dr. Peters?

Times four.

And I also do want to point out that this did go to Curriculum and Instruction.

We did receive some feedback which we used to change some of the wording on the application, the resolutions and I want to just let you know that that was done as well.

Thank you very much.

Introduction 5, Kids in the Middle grant from the Nassau Family Foundation.

Good evening.

Excuse me.

Directors.

Excuse me I wanted to ask the chair for C&I what their recommendation is before.

I will say this motion was discussed at C&I on February 8th and we reviewed it moved it forward to the full board with a recommendation for approval.

Thank you.

Good evening Directors and Superintendent.

Michael Stone, Director of Grants and Fiscal Compliance.

This is, let me give some background story to this.

The Nest Home grant has actually always been a part of the MOU with the Alliance for Education and with the separation from the Alliance this now is no longer part of the MOU so that's why it's coming this late in the school year.

So we're bringing to this forward to you approval.

of $531,655 grant that will support work at Mercer, Denny and Aki middle schools around literacy.

It funds an assistant principal at each building and professional development around literacy and reading development at the school.

Any questions?

Superintendent Nyland.

I just don't want to pass up an opportunity to say great things about the Nesholm Family Foundation.

I've said this several times I was here 20 years ago and had the opportunity to work with John Stanford and I went to every middle school in the district did focus groups with teachers, principals, students, parents and the work that I see at middle level today is just so much stronger and more robust.

And it started with these three middle schools and I think this is just a real gift to Seattle and they're part of our outlier study to find out what the rest of us can learn about closing gaps.

And I think that they hold real keys for us as we maybe try to expand into their attendance areas and start serving the elementary students that come up into these middle schools.

So the National Home Family Foundation has just been certainly not the only one, the city funds have been helpful, the staff have been awesome but having this dedicated source of funding I think for 15 years and providing an AP for math and an AP for literacy.

It means that we also have a robust pipeline of instructional leaders in the AP role who get the transformational model in their DNA and can take it to other schools.

So Mia at Aki was an AP at one of the other schools and was able to take that information and continue the work at Aki.

So, sorry, a little commercial announcement for the National Family Foundation.

Dr. Peters.

So with that lead in, I just want to go over a couple of details of what the basic heart of this grant is.

It looks like it basically pays for personnel.

Is that correct?

It looks like three assistant principals.

Three assistant principals.

It also provides funding for substitute teachers for professional development from the Readers Writers Project.

and just supplies and stuff to get them through the work that they're doing at the buildings.

And also a middle school teacher for Mercer, is that correct?

Yes a portion of it.

So and I am assuming that this has been a successful investment and we have seen some good results.

Yes.

Just judging by Superintendent Nyland's enthusiasm and the fact that we have been doing this for 15 years.

So when we talk about what works it seems like this is something that works and so we should take a look at the ingredients of this recipe and it Does this mean that we need more assistant principals in order for schools to function well, that we need more staff, we need more professional development.

Are these the ingredients to successful schools and if so should this not be something that we aspire to offering all our schools ultimately and also give us pause whenever we try and cut back staff from schools.

That's perhaps not a question for you.

Well, this is one component of the work that they're doing.

Besides this as a principal, these three buildings also have modified school days.

So they have seven period days and are breaking the periods out.

So that's just one more factor that's showing the growth of these three buildings.

So there's multiple components to it just besides this.

And over the years, we have actually taken a very close look at the work that's been going on, for example, at Mercer Middle School, and then taking that information and applying it to other other middle schools.

So we have seen, as Dr. Nyland has indicated, a significant improvement in middle school instruction, teacher instruction, as a result of taking the models and strategies that we are observing in these three model schools and applying them in other middle schools.

And while you're still here,

Associate Superintendent Tully.

How many principals then do these schools have?

How many principals and assistant principals?

Well, of course each of these three schools have one principal.

The number of assistant principals depends on the size.

Right now, off the top of my head, I don't know the answer to that.

I will have to get that for you.

Do they have more than one assistant principal?

Yes.

Oh, they do?

Yes.

Okay.

For example, Aki Kurose does.

They currently have at least two, specifically one focused on math instruction, one focused on literacy.

And that's made possible with this additional resource.

Okay, my final question has to do with the curriculum.

So, my understanding that it's the Readers and Writers Workshop that they are getting professional development in?

Yes.

Okay, so Readers and Writers Workshop at the middle school level?

Yes.

Okay.

See, I wasn't clear that that was a middle school curriculum.

I thought that was an elementary school curriculum.

It's actually an instructional practice more so than a curriculum.

Okay.

Yes, of course, the curriculum is a number of different components to it.

Instructional materials, the instructional practices supporting that, the assessment work, the progress monitoring, all these pieces come together to form the curriculum, all based on ensuring the students are mastering the standards on which we are holding ourselves accountable for.

But the instructional model that they're using for literacy is the reader's writer's workshop.

Okay, so just to be clear, so it's an instructional process, it's not a curriculum.

Oh dear.

I was trying not to say that.

I was trying to keep it in.

Yes, it's just the way of the strategies in which teachers use to instruct the students.

Okay, because I know we've had a conversation about the Readers and Writers Workshop recently, and I think part of the conversation was the fact that I don't think it was a curriculum adoption process that led to that.

That's because it's not technically a curriculum.

And again, specifically, we go through instructional materials adoption.

Not curriculum adoption so there is a distinction there.

Okay, I think I will leave it at that for now.

Director Blanford.

Given the fact that we have 11 items still to go I will hold my comments.

Director Harris.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Yes, if you guys want to be here all night, keep your questions.

Our next item is number 6, McDonnell International School 2016-17 Annual Fund for Language Immersion Instructional Assistant, IAAS.

Hold on for a minute, let me, I didn't finance

So this one and the following one were both brought to audit and finance committee on February 11 and we reviewed the items and we brought them forward for consideration because we are torn about what this entails and we know that it is a tricky arrangement that we are demanding so much, we require so much of our families in order to sustain a program that we as a district have started.

So before you, we have a request from the John Stanford International School and McDonald International School administration and PTSA to move forward with fundraising to fund instructional assistance that support the dual language immersion classrooms at each of the buildings.

This is something that they have done for five years.

2000, sorry, since the beginning of the schools.

And to move forward with allowing them to do this fundraising to support the programs for next year.

Any questions?

Dr. Burke?

I just want to, these comments are leveraging off of what Director Harris had said before This is really one of the stark pictures of the inequity that we face in our district and I think something that I hope the board can try to address.

I want to be really explicit to say that we can't counter this by telling families they shouldn't advocate or support their schools because that's a critical component of what brings these communities together and creates that sort of unity.

But I just challenge my colleagues and the community and staff to see if there is a pathway from where we are to where we want to be.

And that is the discussion that's taking place and there is going to be a task force.

Is that Michelle?

Yes, this is certainly one of the issues that challenges our international schools and our schools with dual language immersion programs and so on the request of Associate Superintendent Michael Tully and Associate Superintendent Flip Herndon, I've been asked to spearhead a task force on international schools and dual language immersion in the district.

We're looking to complete that work pretty quickly and have recommendations to the superintendent by June and then to the board by August.

So while we're asking for the support for this year because the school communities really didn't have an opportunity to consider other alternatives at this time, we expect that part of the recommendations coming out of the task force will really address directly issues of equity and also program model because one of the important reasons that the school community has sought this the level of additional support.

Originally, it was because of large class sizes.

And so, you know, circumstances are, I should say, they're in the process of changing.

As you've mentioned several times tonight, McCleary hasn't been fully funded, so we don't even know the full impact as class sizes are reduced.

So that has an impact.

The other thing is that over the last 15 years, there's been so much evidence about the benefit of having multiple native speakers, heritage language speakers in a classroom with the Dual Language Immersion Program.

So, there is a method now that the school district has had, but just only for a couple of years to set aside spots to encourage people who have those languages to join in the program.

when you have those native language speakers that reduces the need to have another adult like an instructional assistant.

At the same time, I do want to say that there's a lot of efforts right now around the teacher shortage issue in our state.

how to attract a more representative, bilingual, and diverse workforce.

And I've been part of a group that's meeting right now with the Professional Educator Standards Board.

And these schools actually are excellent examples of how we have brought teachers in through the instructional assistant route.

who have then gone on to get teacher certifications.

So some of them do become teachers in dual language immersion programs, but they teach elsewhere in our district.

So I think it's important to realize that we don't want to just throw out the benefits of creating that pipeline, even though it is rather challenging that it's fallen on the shoulders of the parents to fund a pipeline that's really benefited the full district.

Thanks so much for the clarification.

I've heard also from a lot of other community members in my district about the benefits that their families get and the advantages of the emergent schools.

Can you, just in closing, can you describe who are the stakeholders that make up your task force?

Well, first of all, I just realized, as Michael Tolley pointed out, I didn't introduce myself.

I'm Dr. Michelle Ansu-Aoki.

I'm the International Education Administrator for Seattle Public Schools.

I've been here for about a year and a half.

I also serve as the Director of the Confucius Institute of the State of Washington, which is a partnership with the University of Washington and the Governor's Office to promote and expand Chinese.

In any case, the benefits, there's many direct benefits to the children who participate in a dual language immersion program.

There are many studies, I'm sure you're aware of them, that whether you are bilingual because you started out your life that way, we certainly have many, many students in our district that are in that situation.

And we're promoting a Speak Your Language campaign now with the ELL workgroup to try to create more opportunities to support languages that come from the home and from the birth.

But it would be beneficial for everyone to have the opportunity to learn a language early in life.

And we can see the benefits academically.

But one of the most important benefits is the opportunity to walk in the shoes of someone who is a language learner.

And it's been one of the most divisive things in our district and most districts that children who arrive in our schools without English skills are set aside.

I mean, the term bilingual has come to mean you don't know English.

I mean, it doesn't mean that you know two languages.

And so the opportunity to have schools where the very design of the school is intended to make everyone a language learner and everyone including the adults addressing those challenges constantly is designed to create a more empathetic community of schools and so on.

I don't think it's an accident that some of our most successful middle schools such as Mercer and Denny Our international schools as well, they've embraced that approach.

And so I think where we're heading with this work and with the task force, we'll be looking at how to benefit the entire district.

So the decision to create the task force is about a week old and not even that long actually, I think it was Monday or so.

So we're in the process now of setting up the process for identifying people to join the task force.

We will have Associate Superintendent Michael Tully and Flip Herndon, also Ashley Davies, who does enrollment services as some of the core central office staff, and then we'll be reaching out to parents, teachers, principals, both from international and non-international schools, because a lot of the issues are the impact of to other schools, neighboring schools?

When you have an international school, what is the impact of enrollment and so on to other areas?

Sorry, I may not have answered your question.

It's getting kind of late tonight.

That was perfect.

You nailed it at the end.

Okay, thank you.

Good story.

Good lead in.

So thanks for that.

I'll look forward to hearing more about it.

Dr. Harris.

Thank you for the explanation on the task force.

I'm hoping that you can brief the board on that soon.

You know what they say when you're in a hole, the first thing you're supposed to do is stop digging?

How do we get out of this hole in terms of putting the burden on these parents, in terms of the equity issues here?

Is there a mechanism of some sort where we approve this, And I've watched several boards go through this exercise, and we clench, and we say, boy, this just isn't right.

But we don't have any money, and we don't want to kill a good program.

Is there a way to amend this to say we will come up with a solution for sustainable funding within three years?

think outside of the box so we don't engage in the same exercise where everybody's cringing a year from now.

I think the task force is that first step towards that and working towards that and having the dialogue about how should a program look, if this is one that is beneficial, where do we go to next?

With all due respect I suspect that any task force, we've had many in Seattle, will advocate for what you just said, funded.

Unless miracles happen and McCleary is funded it will not happen.

We are 47th in the nation in funding for our schools in Washington and it shows.

Our model is fundamentally broken.

Every penny we have in discretionary money goes for teacher salaries, special education, ELL, and other unfunded mandates.

And we have my $80 million list.

I've given up on adding to it.

I'm sure I could add to it of unfunded things that we have promised.

So I hear us.

I love briefing papers.

I love options.

We can come up with them.

But the only two options I see are gradually starve them out and say, you can no longer fund with your dollars what the state refuses to fund.

Or we continue to, what your words were, clench, grit, whatever, and say, we don't like it.

but it serves a need.

So sorry I get passionate about this.

I mean we just love to keep promising more and we don't have more.

We're we're blessed we have more than any district in Washington.

But we don't have enough to do all of the things that we've already promised.

Dr. Blanford and then Dr. Geary.

To that I would add, I try not to too frequently note the fact that as a father of a student who started in the emergent programs and is now a seventh grader and has been wildly successful in the program along with many of her classmates, The thing that I struggle with in this conversation is recognizing fully the benefit of the program to the students that it serves and wishing, you know, one of my fondest wishes would be that every student in Seattle Public Schools has access to a dual language immersion program because I believe it would help us to achieve the goals that we have set out much more easily than some of the other interventions that we're talking about.

But the thing that I fear in this conversation is that we, first off, I will say that as a member of the immersion family community, they pay attention to the conversations that we're having about these issues.

And we don't want to do anything to alienate that population.

There are folks who are willing in the school communities that we're talking about, they're willing and able to go out and raise money for their programs.

And there are other programs that exist because we're able to pull a little from here and there and fund the IAs.

What I fear is that we get on a high horse around equity and we lose sight of the fact that the solution like Superintendent Nyland says has to be with increased funding.

We also don't want to alienate those who are willing to do the work and raise money for their kids in their schools.

And so until we get the solution that comes from the task force, if that solution comes from the task force, I think we have to embrace the fact that they are willing to do this work and we have to retool our efforts to make sure that we are seeking those types of solutions that you're advocating for, Director Harris.

I think it is important to note that the district does not require the schools to hire IAs to operate the program.

There are many dual language immersion programs throughout the country that don't staff it that way.

One of the reasons, as I mentioned at the beginning, that it happened at the beginning because it was the launch of a new program.

So having the instructional assistance, which were paid originally by a magnet grant, a federal magnet grant, allowed the schools to have enough room so the teachers could learn to collaborate between a Spanish and an English side teacher and create curriculum and so on.

So over the years, the intention is that the program could be staffed with normal staffing.

However, as you all know, for many, many, many years, that's why we have McCleary, Washington State has not funded reasonable class sizes.

So we had national experts who would come and visit our schools and were shocked to see that we had kindergarten classes with 28 and 30 students.

And so the fact that we had an instructional assistant made it possible to manage in a situation like that.

So we're at a place where we're going to see some changes.

We know there's going to be some smaller class sizes and We need to look at what that means and also what it means is we'll be able to attract more Native and heritage speakers into the program.

So I just want to make it really clear that no one from the district is saying that these parents are required to raise those funds.

They are simply being transparent by coming to the board and letting you know.

I'm sure there are dozens of schools in this district that are raising at least that much, if not much more.

I know there are schools that are buying their own Spanish language curricula because the district has not purchased books in decades.

I know that music programs, when my daughter was at Garfield High School, raised many, many thousands of dollars in order to offer something that we did not offer equitably.

No one has promised that every jazz band in the city is going to go to essentially Ellington.

And yet we're proud of the fact that Garfield and Roosevelt have regularly gone.

So the fact is that if we put limits on what parents are able to do to support their public schools, we know what they'll do.

That they'll do what they've done for the last several decades.

They'll go to private schools or they'll go to charter schools.

So we do have to work on the equity around our models around international, absolutely, and we need to make it clear that that we can do a better job on that and not make it such a stark kind of thing.

But I do think it's a bigger conversation for all of you around the issue of fundraising and how that impacts equity across the district.

So thanks so much for having us on the agenda tonight.

Just a few things, I'm glad you brought up the reduction in class size and that with a smaller class size we wouldn't need the IA's necessarily because as we reduce class size certainly it's going to be the huge challenge of finding the teachers with what I've heard at repeated board meetings we're not finding in the first place.

so we'll have more of those teachers to find and I guess the question that led from that is that are we going to need to be funding more IA's and I'm hearing that perhaps not that with the smaller class sizes the need for the IA's won't be as necessary so therefore the obligation of parents to contribute won't continue to grow.

I have heard about this program from the population with parents with children with disabilities that they don't believe it is particularly accessible to their children and so that I would hope that the task force would continue to examine that question because it is a group of people who do not always feel that their children are equally included for the resources put to it.

And then the third question that I guess I would want the task force to look at and that I think we all need to think about is what prevents, as we go through this process, groups of parents getting together, fundraising, in order to claim a methodology for a different methodology.

Maybe it's not this type of thing.

But just in terms of consistency, in terms of what prevents another group of people coming up with a different modality and saying well we've raised the money for it to support it we want this school to be that way.

These aren't necessarily questions we have to go into tonight but just ones that I wanted to throw out that have been raised in my mind.

Peters.

I just want to add.

Hi, I'm Deedee Fauntleroy.

I am the principal at John Stanford International School.

And you raise a lot of good questions, and I think we do need to grapple with the equity.

We do need to grapple with the sustainability.

take a little bit of issue with the accessibility for students with disabilities.

I love my special ed kids.

Our special ed kids do really, really well and we work really hard at kindergarten nights to pitch that to people that don't shy away from learning a second language just because you have a disability.

We have lots of kids like that and I'd like to have more.

Yes, I think I think you make good points about that.

And we do.

I think we with the task force.

That's a good start for us to talk about it and to propose some action.

Yeah, I just wanted to affirm, too, that the national research shows that children with disabilities, other than specific communication disorders where perhaps it is too difficult to learn in two languages, and that's really a very, very small number, that children with disabilities generally will do at least as well, if not better, in a dual language immersion program than they'll do in a regular monolingual program.

But in addition, they get two languages.

So I think part of it is just getting the word out.

I have heard people say, when they've had this question, that, oh, well, we should move them from the dual language.

It's too hard for them.

But there's no research evidence to support that.

So it's just a matter of needing to educate people to have the mindset that Didi just expressed.

And I have no preconceived notion about your program.

These are only things I am reflecting that I've heard from the community.

So to the extent that you can publish, then, or get that word out, That is to all of our benefit.

Director Peters.

Just by way of context and this came up in our conversation I think at the Audit and Finance Committee, adding to the complexity of the equity issue is the fact that some of our international schools are funded differently.

They are qualified for, is it Title I funding that covers this?

Well, they have a different model.

They don't have IAs in the classroom.

They may have one or two in a specific language, depending on what grade level, but they're using a different model than what these two schools do.

Okay, different model, but they do have a funding source that some of these other schools, like John Stanford, You should come to the microphone so we can capture what you're saying.

Yes, it's true that Title I schools, for example, have smaller class sizes than non-Title I schools, so that's one thing.

There's also ELL money that affects schools that have high numbers of ELLs, like Concord and Beacon Hill, for example.

And there are IAs, but often there are IAs that are helping in general around language acquisition, for example.

And one of the specific reasons that the parents advocated for raising the funds was the fact that as the population shifted and the district moved from a choice model to a neighborhood model, the school lost many of its native speakers of Spanish and even Japanese that they had had in earlier years.

And so having the bilingual instructional assistant meant that you have two adults.

You need that language model.

And why do you need that?

Because it's not just about language acquisition.

Without strong language acquisition and literacy development, you won't be able to access the content, which is half your day.

So it's critical for academic achievement, not just for linguistic goals.

But you're right, there are differences because of the populations in the schools, but the basic goal of what they're trying to achieve is the same.

OK, and just to put a final point on this, so the schools who we're talking about tonight, McDonald and John Stanford International, do not have access to some of the funds that these other schools do.

That's correct.

They don't get levy funds.

They don't get roadmap funds from the ELL work group, for example.

And many things that reach, I see every day that there are things that I would like to do with the school.

And at one of the South End schools, they've got funds one place or another that can do something in literacy, for example.

And the principals up here have nothing for professional development, for anything.

They're very bare bones budgets.

OK, thank you.

Any more questions?

Thank you.

We're now into introduction seven, John Stanford International School.

Was that both of them?

Okay, never mind.

Okay, introduction eight, BTA IV Award Architectural and Engineering Service Contract K1243 to Monlon Architects Incorporated for the Magnolia Elementary School renovation and addition.

And actually I want to ask the chair what is the recommendation for this operations committee?

Oh, he's not even here.

Okay, never mind.

We'll ask him later.

Oh, okay.

This motion was discussed at the operations committee on February 25th.

The committee moved this item forward to the full board with a recommendation for approval.

Thank you.

late hour I will be brief in my explanations on the facilities issues that will be before you.

I'm Richard Vest I'm the director of capital projects planning for Seattle Public Schools.

This item is to award a contract for a capacity project that was identified in our BTA IV levy.

It is to award the architectural and engineering services to bring back Magnolia Elementary School located in the Magnolia community of Seattle.

We selected architects in the fall with the hope and the anticipation that BTA IV would be successful.

Malum Architects was selected from a group of 16 firms that submitted written statements of qualifications to be shortlisted.

We interviewed three firms and they were the selected firm.

Our project manager then engaged Malem Architects in negotiations for the project.

The project will have a four classroom addition and a gymnasium addition.

In addition, we'll be making seismic improvements, mechanical, electrical improvements to the existing building.

And so we are recommending tonight for introduction, or we're introducing tonight, this AE agreement to mainland architects.

The fee amount is consistent with the Office of Fiscal Management fee structure.

And then you will see that there are additional services, which are additional basic services, and then additional services, which are quite common with our AE agreement.

So, questions?

No questions.

Thank you.

Move on to the next one.

Deduction number 9, PTA 3, award construction contract K5066, bit number B11535, 2, for athletic field turf replacement at Franklin High School.

This motion was discussed at the operations committee meeting on February 25th, 2016. Committee moved this item forward to the full board for consideration.

Yes and the committee moved this item forward because we had some blanks in this document.

We still have blanks in this document today.

I can tell you that we did open bids on March 1st.

We opened within budget.

The project manager is evaluating those bids along with the architectural firm and we will have the blanks filled out for the time this comes for action before you.

But we are within budget.

This is to replace the athletic turf at Franklin High School, the existing athletic turf at Franklin High School.

As I explained to the members of the operations committee, all of our synthetic turf fields are on a replacement schedule.

We replace one to two every year.

We monitor them generally our lifespan is 10 years and on an annual basis we do what they call GMAX testing which is a resiliency testing of the synthetic turf just to make sure that it is safe for kids to play on.

So thank you.

Any questions.

Real quick question.

This turf and any of our other turf is not the type that we're reading about in the media.

Presently that has a carcinogenic effect.

Is that correct?

This turf is the controversial turf that you do read about in the media.

It does have a rubber crumb and fill.

I will note that that was a question that did come up at the operations committee as well.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the Center for Disease Control, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are engaged in a study of that question that you posed at this moment in time.

They are going to be releasing that information at the end of 2016. I will also note that EPA has 41 studies listed on their website.

Some of those studies are international and on their website in quotations, this is quoted from their website, it said limited studies have not shown an elevated health risk from playing on fields with rubber tire crumb infill.

That's posted on their website at this moment in time.

I did have staff look that anticipating this question tonight because I knew it was a question that was asked at our operations committee as well.

It is a legitimate question and folks that are very knowledgeable at Center for Disease Control, EPA, Consumer Product Safety Commission are studying this and we're looking for that report to be released at the end of this year.

Let me follow up if I might then.

At what point is this to start construction?

This will start construction this summer and be finished by the end of this summer.

Have we done any kind of risk analysis or review of litigation history?

and or can we find an insurer that is willing to replace this if we don't like the results of the 2016 study.

I'm not aware of risk analysis that's been done.

I could reach out to Richard Stout and see if he's done a risk analysis but I'm not aware Director Harris of any risk analysis that's been done by Seattle Public Schools.

I am aware of a substantial amount of reports that notate information about this and to date I'm not aware of.

I'm aware of alleged health risk, but I'm not aware of any reports that substantiate that health risk.

I'd suggest that the CPSC and the Center for Disease Control have an even bigger unfunded mandate budget than we do, if that's possible.

I just want to address that just quickly.

Clearly Seattle Public Schools is not the only school district that's having to renovate and replace and upgrade field turf.

So I think if the results of the studies that Director Bess has mentioned comes out in a way that were to support substantial health risks that there would be a substantial shift in the way thousands of school districts across the country would have to address this issue.

And I'm sure there would be a lot of differences that would have to happen.

We wouldn't be alone in that for sure.

Can I add one more comment?

Oops, sorry.

I'll also note that organic infills, while heavily utilized in Europe, are relatively new to the American market.

And I can only find one organic infill field in Pacific Northwest.

That's located in the South Kitsap School District, South Kitsap High School.

It was installed in September of 2015. I went over and looked at it in September of 2015. I did raise some questions and I think over time we'll be able to answer that.

The organic infill mix is rice husk, coconut and cork and so it stays in place better it requires that the field be watered on hot days.

My concern is potential for this to decompose and then if it does begin to decompose what potentially you know if you have an abrasive injury could you get a virus from that so that's you know, what I would like to research.

I will note, though, that these infill mixes are utilized heavily in Europe.

American football is not as prevalent in Europe.

And I will say we did we had this discussion it was a good discussion and it always has to be balanced against the potential of the risk of not replacing according to best standards should one of our students get injured and so I think that was we all considered all of these issues in committee.

Any more questions or comments?

Thank you moving on to the next one.

PTA 3 award construction contract K5067 to Halas Construction Incorporated for Ballard High School and Roosevelt High School athletic facility improvements.

And can I ask our chair for the recommendation?

This was heard by the operations committee on the 25th of February and was moved to the board for consideration.

I believe we didn't have all the numbers in the contract.

Thank you.

Is that correct?

Not sure.

Maybe a different one.

You are correct.

We had just opened bids on this.

Thanks for that.

This will replace the existing athletic turf at Franklin High School and the track, excuse me, Roosevelt High School will replace the existing athletic turf and also the track at Roosevelt High School will be resurfaced.

And then we will be resurfacing the track at Ballard High School as well.

Helles was one of, I believe it was three, four bidders and they were the low apparent bidder And so we're recommending award.

This is a highly specialized field.

All four contractors that submitted bids on this project have done this work for an extended period of time.

And all of them are well-known.

Hellis was substantially below, well, was below the second low bidder, which was FieldTurf.

Any questions?

Okay, moving right along.

We're into introduction 12.11 PTA IV award Architectural and Engineering Services contract P1426 with DLR group for ECU's elementary school modernization.

Yes, E.C. Hughes Elementary School is also a BTA IV project.

The existing school had been utilized by Westside School in the past few years.

We would like to come in and replace the existing mechanical and electrical systems which are in poor condition at this school, put in new new mechanical electrical systems and technology systems before the school is occupied again, and then just refresh some of the architectural finishes.

The contract amount that you have before you from the DLR group is based upon OSPI's.

architectural engineering guidelines.

There are two guidelines that we look to both Office of Fiscal Management and to OSPI.

Generally, when you calculate fees, they come out within literally dollars of one another.

Malem that we've discussed earlier used OFM, DLR group used OSPI's guidelines.

I'd like to ask the chair for the recommendation from their committee.

My colleagues on the operations committee and I were very busy on the 25th of February.

So all the remaining items were all heard by the operations committee on that day.

And if you ask me, I'll tell you whether or not they were moved forward for consideration or approval.

In this case, this one was moved forward for approval.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Okay, moving right along.

Introduction 12, PTA 3, award construction contract, K5070 to CDK Construction Services, cooperated for the Eckstein Middle School Phase 2 fire sprinkler installation project.

And I want to ask the chair for their operations committee's recommendation.

February 26, 2016, move forward for consideration.

Thank you.

Yes, we began this work last year in the summer of 2015. At that time, our project manager who was overseeing this project believed the work was too extensive to be successfully completed in one summer.

So we determined to bid this project in two phases, and this will install the fire suppression system in the auditorium.

CDK was the low bidder on the project that did the work for phase one, so I'm not surprised that they're the low bidder for phase two as well.

We did have three contractors submit bids on this project, and they were all pretty much grouped up together.

Actually no excuse me they were approximately $100,000 apart a low bidder from the second low bidder.

Any questions comments?

Okay moving right along.

Oh I'm sorry Director Pinkham.

I'm just going to probably one of the comments that was brought up by the people that came up here, Chris Jackins in particular, about has it kind of changed the practice that he mentioned that when we get incomplete documents but you're saying, oh yeah, that's how we've been doing it.

Has things changed from before we had complete documents before things were moved forward?

And now things are okay, we have enough, let's move it forward.

I've been here a year and a half Director Pinkham.

The BTA3 projects have come forward for introduction with blanks in them.

The BEX IV projects given the size and magnitude of those projects have not come to you with blanks in them.

The prior board said that those projects needed to have all the financial information articulated.

The BTA3 projects are generally summer construction projects We try not to group our projects so that we're competing with ourselves when we bid them.

We try to spread them out.

And so sometimes that necessitates that we come to you, at least for introduction, and many times we go to the operations committee with blank documents in them.

But that's the rationale why is because if we If we group them all together to hit your sequence of when you're meeting we're going to be competing with ourselves with other projects that we have out bidding on the street so we're trying to bid every two weeks.

I'm going to say late winter to late spring periods of construction can begin in the summer.

Okay, so it's, has this been done in the past then too, and when the contracts we need to do it?

It's been done as long as I've been here, and I've only been here a year and a half, so.

Okay, just checking to see if we are again trying to cut some corners that we don't necessarily need to cut.

for the purpose of not informing the public enough, because I think that's part of the concern.

Well, if we're going forward with these projects, but then publics aren't getting all the documents themselves.

Yeah, I think that the practice has been pretty standard.

We have many people in the capital program.

that have been around longer than both Director Best and myself.

And so this is a practice just to make sure that we can sequence things and keep things moving along.

But again, we never bring anything to you for a final vote unless it has everything complete and all the numbers are in there.

So just hopeful that we get the community that they have the complete documents as soon as possible as well so they have time to comment.

Any more questions?

Thank you.

Introduction 13 BEX IV and PTA IV award contract P1438 for construction management services for BEX IV and PTA IV project at Lincoln High School and Wing Luke Elementary School to Harry International Incorporated.

Can I ask, I'd like to ask our operations chairperson for his recommendation.

Operations committee February 25, 2015 move forward for consideration.

Thank you.

So at the same time we were advertising for architects and engineers for some of the BTA IV projects.

We were wanting to complete the construction management selection firms for the BEX IV projects as well.

Lincoln High School was identified as a BEX IV project, but we supplemented that budget extensively in BTA IV.

Published the RFQ in July of 15. I think we made selection.

We had four firms submit.

We ended up interviewing all four firms.

We did select Hearing International for Lincoln High School and Wing Luke.

We began negotiations with them.

with the hopes that if Lincoln High School, if the BTA IV again was successful, we would immediately begin work on Lincoln High School because we need to open that school in the fall of 2019 to meet our enrollment projections.

So you can see the fee here has been broken down on the third page to notate that Lincoln High School, the fee is to I'm going to use round numbers here, 2.4 million.

And for Wing Luke Elementary School, it's 1.6 million.

That will take the project from conception all the way through to construction completion.

During construction, we will have a second assistant project manager added to the Lincoln High School project to observe work being put in place and the existing conditions that are being encountered at that historic school.

Thank you.

Any questions?

All right, moving right along.

Induction 14, PTA 3, award construction contracts K5063 to Design Air, LDT for green energy mechanical upgrades at John Muir Elementary School.

Operations committee chair.

Operations committee, February 25th, 2016. Move forward for consideration.

Thank you.

So this project will replace the heat pumps at John Muir Elementary School with the hopes that we will install a geothermal system next summer, the summer of 17. The existing HVAC system at John Muir has really reached the end of its life.

And so these geothermal heating systems have a very low energy use index.

And so consequently, we're recommending that design air install these water source heat pumps.

They've done this both at West Woodlands Elementary School and Olympic View Elementary School in the past couple of years for Seattle Public Schools.

So we have a track record of working with them on these types of projects and they've been able to successfully deliver these types of projects over the summer.

It is an extensive amount of work so.

Any questions?

Comments?

Moving right along.

Section 15 PTA 3 and BEX 4 award construction contract K5062 for McGilva Elementary mechanical HVAC upgrades.

So similar.

Can I get recommendation from the chair?

Ops committee February 25th move forward for consideration.

Thank you.

And again, similar to MIR, this is a HVAC project.

We did open bids.

We had six bidders on this project.

We did open bids within project budget.

The project manager is right now reviewing the references of the low bidder to make sure that they can perform this work.

And we'll have the blanks filled out when we bring this forward to you for action at your next board meeting.

Thank you.

Any question, comment?

Director Geary.

Mr. Jackins raised a question about the environmental review on this project not being complete.

They've not that the public has not been advised of any environmental threshold determination.

That's for another project at the school.

That's for the lunchroom.

It's not for the mechanical system.

When you're replacing existing mechanical systems you do not have to go through SEPA, environmental review.

When you're replacing or building a new structure, the lunchroom at McGilvra, then you'd have to go through a SEPA process and we are going through that process with that project.

We did work at McGilvra last year, we replaced the boilers.

This year we're replacing the air handling units that are fed by those boilers, and then next year we're adding a lunchroom at that school.

Any more questions, comments?

Thank you.

Moving right along.

Induction 16, BEX IV, program contingency fund transfer to the Minnie Middle School renovation project budget.

Operation chair, recommendation.

Operations committee, February 25, move forward with the recommendation for approval.

Thank you.

Yes, we are asking that the board approve Moving $2 million from the BEX IV program contingency.

The BEX IV program contingency is, and again I'm going to give you round numbers, is currently at $14 million.

And we're asking for your permission to move $2 million to Meany Middle School for construction improvements and to implement construction improvements at this school so that we can award the bid to Western Ventures which is your next item.

We did bring this item to our BEX oversight committee.

Director Burke attended that meeting.

There was some brief discussion not significant but we did get a head nod from the BEX oversight committee.

To move this forward to your for your approval.

So Thank you any questions comment dr. Peters

So what is the significance of this being a transfer?

Does this mean that the funding is coming from a place that was not originally designated for this project and what are the implications of that?

We had, when we started our BEX IV program, Director Peters, we had a program contingency of approximately 3% $30 million or 5% $30 million on a 695. We have as projects have been bidding and you might remember this for Seattle World School last year we have on occasion had to move some additional funds because the project bid over budget.

Sometimes we've done that during the design phase when we've acknowledged that You know the scope of work here at this school exceeds the project budget but we want that scope of work.

We don't want to reduce that scope of work because we have the time to implement it at this time.

It would be more costly to implement it later and sometimes we've had to do it when we've opened bids.

We did anticipate from the information we got from our cost estimator on this project that we had opened projects within budget.

When we opened the bids we were not within budget and so we're asking your permission to transfer $2 million from the BEX IV program contingency it's undesignated funds to this school.

It's critical that we bring this school online in the summer of 17 because we need to offer relief to Washington and to Mercer.

and that the school does that.

Undesignated was the word I was looking for.

Okay thanks.

Any questions, comments?

Moving right along to our last item.

PTA 3 and VEX 4 award construction contract P5071 to Western Ventures construction for Meany Middle School renovation.

Chair of operations committee.

Operations committee considered this on the 25th of February moved it forward for consideration.

Thank you So we opened bids on this project on February I believe it's February 10th.

We had four bids and as I just explained we did open over budget so we need to move the monies that we were talking about and But we're recommending the school board approve the base bid and selection of alternates 1, 2A, 4, 5, 7, and 8. Descriptions of those are in the bid tabulation form that you should have in your board package.

Any questions, comments?

Meeting adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.