SPEAKER_25

But aren't you reading the intro for Public Testimony?

SPEAKER_21

I think you're reading...

No, I'm just reading the message for people who are on the phone.

To wait.

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_99

Yeah.

SPEAKER_21

But I'm in your house today, so I don't feel important here anymore.

SPEAKER_19

You are in here.

It looks like our camera's not currently operable, but we can hear you.

Okay.

SPEAKER_22

Well, this is Vice President Rankin.

President Hersey is in transit from another obligation and will be joining us shortly.

I am now calling the July 6, 2023 regular board meeting to order at 4.29 p.m.

Again, apologies for the delay.

We're having some technical issues.

This meeting is being reported.

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

Ms. Wilson-Jones the roll call please.

SPEAKER_19

Director Harris.

Director Sarju.

SPEAKER_08

Present.

SPEAKER_19

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

Director Song-Moritz.

Present.

SPEAKER_18

Director Rankin.

Director Hampson.

Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_21

Director Hampson.

Director Hampson are you able to hear.

SPEAKER_25

No I can't.

I can hear like very very distant.

I couldn't tell you when they're calling my name.

That's what's happening.

Certainly couldn't understand something somebody was saying conversationally.

But I'm here.

I'm going to finish that part of it but I don't think we can conduct business if that's the level of volume.

SPEAKER_08

Director Hampson can you hear me.

Director Hampson can you hear me.

SPEAKER_25

I couldn't hear any of the other eyes.

SPEAKER_08

Okay, the last thing that was said was whether you were here or not.

SPEAKER_25

Yeah, so maybe other directors not speaking into the mic.

I don't know.

But I heard that.

SPEAKER_21

So I see Director Hersey is here.

Director Hersey, we're having some technical issues that are making it really hard to hear between.

SPEAKER_06

I'm late to one meeting.

And it goes off crazy.

I got it.

SPEAKER_19

There wasn't previously.

SPEAKER_16

I think we have to hold for right now because there is.

SPEAKER_08

We have to hold for now.

Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_19

Can I have somebody remote say something?

SPEAKER_14

Test, test, test, test.

SPEAKER_99

This is Marnie.

Thanks, Marnie.

SPEAKER_19

So does it not go through?

SPEAKER_01

It's not recognizing the headphone jack.

SPEAKER_19

If they talk through here, can we mic this computer?

SPEAKER_01

It'll cause an infinite loop.

So for some reason, we can't seem to get the microphone, the headphone jack.

SPEAKER_16

Test, test, test.

SPEAKER_99

Testing, testing, testing.

SPEAKER_21

We have seen.

SPEAKER_09

We're doing an audio test.

SPEAKER_20

So I'm getting a pretty significant echo, but did you say that you wanted me to say something?

SPEAKER_17

Yes, thank you so much.

There is a feedback loop when I speak through my computer, but it should be just fine.

SPEAKER_06

So where were we?

SPEAKER_22

We just made it through the roll call.

SPEAKER_06

Oh, from the top.

OK, let's go.

OK.

SPEAKER_22

We made it through the roll call, and I was going to turn it over to Superintendent Jones, but now you can do that.

SPEAKER_06

Yep.

OK, so let's just start from the top and do roll call so we can see everybody here.

Miss Wilson-Jones, the roll call, please.

SPEAKER_19

Director Harris.

Director, sorry, President Hersey.

Here.

Director Sargio.

Present.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

Director Song-Moritz.

Present.

Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_15

Here.

SPEAKER_19

Vice President Rankin.

SPEAKER_15

Here.

SPEAKER_19

You have all of your directors.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you, Ms. Wilson-Jones.

I will now turn it over to Superintendent Jones for his comments.

SPEAKER_03

All right.

Good evening and welcome to our final board meeting of the year.

And believe it or not, we've had a productive year.

One of the elements is approving a budget, and we've had multiple work sessions and briefings with our board members and the community.

They've had great constructive feedback and guidance.

Between the last board meeting, where we introduced the 2023-2024 budget, package and the board action today, staff had the opportunity to break down the special education services trajectory of what we're trying to do.

And this is important because special education is over 20% of our budget for our special education services.

So the board has a better understanding of what we're trying to do as a leadership team.

We've also talked about well-resourced schools, and we have community meetings coming up.

Last week, an email was sent out inviting district families to join us in conversations about well-resourced schools.

Starting in August, we will host a series of six community meetings to talk with students, families, staff, and community partners.

Five of these meetings will be in person across the five SPS regions and will hold an additional virtual meeting.

Interpretation will be provided for all meetings.

Now, well-resourced school conversation is about accelerating learning for our students and ensuring that our schools remain viable and strong for generations to come.

It's about working in the present and preparing for the future SPS graduates to successfully take their place in the world.

I want to emphasize that this is not a conversation about school consolidation and scarcity, and there is no predetermined list of schools for consolidation nor playbook from other districts on school closures.

This is a conversation about creating schools where students receive the programs, services, and instruction necessary to feel safe, successful, and supported in their learning.

This is a conversation to build a unique solution for our unique community.

For more information about that, please visit our website or funding our future webpage.

Today we're going to have progress monitoring.

This is one of the fundamental elements of board meetings now.

And we'll talk about third grade reading, progress towards seventh grade math.

I'm looking forward to getting our SBA Smarter Balanced data later this summer so we can know where we are on that key measure.

We are already in flight refining strategies to ensure that we're in a state of continuous improvement.

And academics is going to be leading the way on ensuring that we've refined our strategies and our goals are very solid.

Regarding leadership, I'm pleased and sad to announce that Dr. Concie Pedrosa, associate superintendent, will be taking the helm at Tukwila as its interim superintendent.

Her last day is this Friday, and she led us through many organizational breakthroughs, notably bringing forward inclusionary practices, making highly capable classes more accessible, She's worked really hard on keeping us in compliance with our special education services.

So she'll be taking the helm at Tukwila as the superintendent.

As we have people leave the organization, we have people come into the organization.

And one of those persons is our new deputy, Art Jarvis.

I want to take a moment to introduce Art, who's joining the SPS family as our deputy superintendent of academics.

He has a very accomplished and lengthy track record, including earning superintendent of the year twice.

Art has willingly agreed to come on board and help us tackle some structural pieces to get us ready to fund our future.

Art has a wealth of knowledge, tremendous experience, and high integrity.

I am so grateful to have him part of my newly formed leadership team.

So Art, I don't know if you want to come up and just say hello to the people, but give us 30 seconds if you wouldn't be so kind.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you Dr. Jones.

Members of the board it really is my pleasure some of you may know that I'm rejoining the Seattle schools after last time was about 16 years ago and it really was a pleasure to have this opportunity.

I think the world of Seattle and I think that Seattle's future is absolutely going to be on top of the world.

I am really pleased to be part of that as Dr. Jones was just reporting on what's ahead for us.

It is going to be complex.

It's going to be challenging.

And I have no doubt with this staff and the resources and the wonderful community that we will have some fun making Seattle continue to be on top of the world for our kids.

So thank you Dr. Jones.

Thank you for board.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Dr. Jarvis.

Lastly, I'd just like to acknowledge graduations.

Graduations and the end of year activities went very smoothly.

I'm grateful for the staff, for the planning, and the support that they provided students.

And the students were amazing.

I'm happy with how we closed out the 22-23 year.

And I'm sure that you all that attended graduations got to feel the joy and witness the fruits of your labor.

We were all in this together to getting our students across that finish line.

So we will continue to celebrate through the summer.

But before I conclude, I want to thank each and every one of you for your partnership.

This year has had its triumphs and its challenges, but through it all, having your support as board members and your guidance is deeply appreciated.

I'm proud of you all for digging in and keeping students centered.

And don't forget, you got the award for the best board in the country, urban board of the year.

I want to remind you of that.

So my staff and I will continue to work over the summer, and we'll get ready for all the pieces, all the moving pieces that we need to put together to make sure our start in September is going to be fruitful and healthy.

So without further ado, back to you, President Hersey.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you very much, Superintendent Jones.

Flipping to my comments really quickly.

Just a heads up, the board will revisit goal setting in our time use evaluation when we come back together later this summer.

This afternoon, Superintendent Jones and I met to discuss the draft 2023-24 work plan.

We will have a lot on our plate, including welcoming new student members and directors this fall and winter.

setting goals and evaluating both ourselves and the superintendent, continuing progress monitoring, updating our policies for compliance to ensure they reflect our community's vision and values, engaging with community to hear their vision for our district, and carrying forward those insights into all of our work, including development, of our guiding principles to the next BEX levy, curriculum adoptions, and budget development.

I have asked staff to review the draft work plan with directors and then when we all come back together to review the work plan is going to be at the retreat as we open the coming year.

So please make sure that you have the August retreat on your calendars and you are available in person if possible.

Yes, it is in August.

Check your calendar.

The big thing that I would also say is that when you get a look at this work plan, It is massive.

It is 39 pages, and it details all of our work from the beginning of the year to the end.

It is a draft, so it is still very much so in flux.

If you have anything you would like to add to that work plan when you are reviewing it with staff, please make sure that you are taking note of that, and we'll have a conversation about it at our retreat.

That being said, This is something that is very new for us, incredibly new.

And it's taken a huge amount of effort on the part of Bev Redman, Ellie, and Julia.

So I just want to lift up the work that they have done on it.

I got a preview today, and it is awesome.

And I cannot wait to share it with directors.

But more importantly, I can't wait to expose our public to it so that they can have a proactive view into how we do our work.

And so I think that's going to be super critical all of us as we move forward.

With that being said, I will now pass it over to our committee chairs and we'll start with the Ad Hoc Policy Manual Review Committee.

Director Rankin, do you have an update?

SPEAKER_22

Yeah, just briefly, we just before this meeting had an Ad Hoc Policy Review Committee meeting and we are developing our tool for identifying really.

For every policy, why do we have it?

What's the intent and is it fulfilling the intent?

And so we'll be creating a way of evaluating every tool that can be used to evaluate every single policy that we will be bringing to the full board for.

consideration and hopeful approval in September.

And we'll be meeting again later this month.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you very much Director Rankin.

We will now go to the Audit Committee.

Director Hampson, do you have any updates at this time?

SPEAKER_25

I do not.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, thank you.

The Ad Hoc Committee on Community Engagement has already held its last meeting for the year and we will pick back up in September.

Do we have any.

We will now go to liaison reports for tonight.

Do we have any liaison reports.

Director Harris.

SPEAKER_14

District 6 West Seattle South Park Georgetown Georgetown is new.

We'll be having a community meeting Saturday August 5th from 2 to 5 at the Southwest Public Library.

And there will be lasagna.

Please come.

And my board members are respectfully invited and it's a good time.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you Director Harris.

Any other liaison reports for this evening.

All right.

Thank you very much.

OK.

Board engagement for us to discuss tonight.

Are there any board engagement opportunities.

All right.

Thank you.

If you're into lasagna you know where to get it.

We have now reached the public testimony portion of tonight's agenda.

We will be taking public testimony by phone and in person as stated on the agenda.

Board Procedure 1430BP provides the rules for testimony and I ask that speakers are respectful of those rules.

I will summarize some of the important parts of this procedure.

First, testimony will be taken from those individuals called from our public testimony list, and if applicable, the waiting list, which are included on today's agenda posting on the school board website.

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

Speakers from the list may cede their time to another person.

When the listed speaker's name is called, the total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for the combined number of speakers.

Time will not be restarted after the new speaker begins, and the new speaker will not be called again later if they are on the testimony list or waiting list.

Those who do not wish to have time ceded to them, may decline and retain their place on the testimony list.

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

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

As board president, I have the right to and will interrupt any speaker who fails to observe the standard of civility required by board procedure 1430 BP.

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

Ms. Ku will read off the testimony speakers.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, President Hersey.

A quick logistical note.

Speakers joining us via phone, please remain muted until your name is called to provide testimony.

When your name is called, please be sure you have unmuted on the device you are calling from and also press star six to unmute yourself on the conference call line.

Each speaker will have a two minute speaking time.

You will hear a beep when your time is exhausted and the next speaker will be called.

The first speaker on the list is Kate Fredrickson.

SPEAKER_26

Hello board members my name is Kate Fredrickson.

I graduated from the center school a week ago and I'm here to advocate for my school to be included in the planning of the new Memorial Stadium.

The center school is located in the Seattle Center Armory.

We are growing in enrollment and the class of 2023 was our biggest graduating class yet.

We are also a high school with no theater no cafeteria and no single room where all the students and faculty can gather together.

The school district is constantly talking about the value of community and it's difficult to build community when we don't have a place where everyone can meet in one room.

Every time we have a school assembly, event, or theater performance, we must rent space in Seattle Center, which costs a minimum of $1,200.

Third parties are also competing for these spaces, which makes scheduling difficult.

The current plan for Memorial Stadium is based entirely around sports, and as our school doesn't have any sports programs, we won't benefit from the new stadium despite being located directly next to it.

I strongly urge you to add a theater auditorium to the plan.

Such a space could be used for school gatherings, performances, and student-led community meetings.

Just as athletes need locker rooms and training facilities, art students need a scene shop and rehearsal space.

Such a space could go under the stadium seats.

The chosen partner for this project, One Roof, has experience digging deep to create more space within a building footprint as they did with Climate Pledge Arena.

There should be a way to include all sports areas as well as a space for the center school to use.

A stated goal of the Memorial Stadium rebuild is to create a space that will serve all students.

Spending millions to create facilities where athletes can practice, train, and perform is laudable, but the non-athletic students deserve equal resources.

We've been told there will be community input into the design and use of this building.

However, with the project due to be completed in 2026, we're concerned that all major decisions have already been made and we have not heard anything about dates or invitations for community input.

We don't see anything about it on the SPS website or in the press.

I respectfully ask that the board look into the question of community input for this project and provide an update at the next board meeting.

We will return next month to hear the board's response.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

The next speaker is Chris Jackins.

SPEAKER_01

My name is Chris Jackins Box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4. On the personnel report under separations the report lists Associate Superintendent Concie Pedroza.

I wish to thank Ms. Pedroza for her service to the district.

On the budget three points number one the 10 million dollar cost overrun on the Rainier Beach capital project apparently cannot be covered by the current capital budget which indicates that it is out of balance.

Number two the general fund budget would use all of the current economic stabilization account.

Forty two point two million dollars.

Number three I have received no feedback from the board or superintendent on an alternative plan that would reduce budget gaps.

Please vote no.

On Alki Montlake and Rogers.

These projects should be halted and dialed back on the relocation of one instructional program site.

Five points.

Number one the district proposes to move interagency academy school out of Youngstown in West Seattle.

This site is the old Cooper school which the district closed and then sold.

Number two the district is pretending that it is a relocation to try to avoid public hearings.

Number three, the courts have ruled that a school closure process is required when a school building is closed for instructional purposes quote unquote.

Number four, this fact was asserted by the district itself in a court case that I helped Cooper parents file when the district denied a formal public hearing to Cooper parents.

Number five now the district wants to try to interpret the law in an opposite way again in order to avoid formal public hearings.

Please vote no.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_05

The next speaker is Eric Fredrickson.

SPEAKER_27

Hello, school board members.

I'm here to ask the school board to please, with regard to the current crisis regarding operating income, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

It may be naive to think that I can change the major direction of the school district budget with a two-minute comment, but I have a track record of success.

My participation in the BEX V committee resulted in the school board getting an extra $500 million over what they're planning on asking.

It's an incredible story and I hardly I don't believe that anyone even remembers exactly what happened, but I was a participant in the Facilities Master Planning Committee for BEX V planning and watched the staff plan to ask for $850 million, which was an increase over $200 million above BEX IV when considering the budget for the BEX V Building Excellence Fund.

I was also told at those meetings that they knew this was not enough to build all the schools that they needed because the crisis we faced at that time was more students and not enough space.

And as a business person, as a non-profit person, I said to myself, it's crazy.

Why are you asking for less money than you know you need?

I kept asking this question at three subsequent meetings and eventually convinced the staff members to recommend to the board that they ask for the amount of money they actually needed.

There was fear that the levy would not pass, but the history of levies in the city is that they passed by 70 to 80 percent.

So in fact, in the end, they recommended to the board that they ask for $1.4 billion rather than $850 million for BEX V. This was approved by 73% of Seattle voters.

It seems crazy to think that we have these budget crises when we're in the city that supports education so enthusiastically.

The most recent levies passed by 78 and 80 percent.

So all I want to ask is, with regards to the operating income needs for the future, think long term and ask for as much money as you actually need.

These budget crises seem to be actually self-inflicted.

SPEAKER_05

The next speaker is Blaine Parse.

SPEAKER_24

Good evening Seattle School District board members.

My name is Blaine Parse.

I'm a graduate of American Indian Heritage.

I'm a Senaboy and Sioux from Fort Peck Montana.

Some of you may know I am running for school board district one along with Issa.

So I'm here opposing the relocation of I just had a brain fart.

the interagency program.

So graduating from Indian Heritage I was the last graduating class of 2000 and then after that it was turned into a middle college program and it has been moved a total of five times since 2012. And now the program itself stands with no identity and it is being dismantled.

There's no more no longer Indian Heritage in that program.

And so when you start to merge these programs or relocate them they start to lose their identity and then those programs begin to suffer.

So just very briefly I would just ask you to reconsider and vote no on that relocation.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

The next speaker is Brett Campbell.

SPEAKER_12

Good afternoon.

My name is Brad Gamble.

I'm a custodial engineer at Highland Park Elementary.

I've worked for SPS for nine years now and have two children that currently attend Seattle Public Schools.

I'm also a shop steward for IUOE local 302 serving on a union bargaining committee and will continue to be at the bargaining table with the district.

From our first meeting on day one, the district representatives told us that they wanted to bargain a contract that respect, recruit, and retain employees these jobs that the union represent.

It's the three R's, respect, recruit, and retain, or the big three, on behalf of the students and staff our members serve.

Since IUOE Local 302 began representing our staff in 2021, they have been wholeheartedly committed to being a professional labor partner, working with the district to resolve complex issues.

Our members are asking return to be treated like a good labor partner.

We know that our members play a critical role in the success of district strategic plan, especially how it relates to maintaining a clean and sanitary work environment for students and staff in the district.

The warm and welcoming environment we create that allows students and teachers to focus on the education of our future, providing students with a secure and safe learning environment, Ensuring culinary services consistently meet high service standards that allow students to experience a productive day of learning.

The dedication to work in the face of unforeseen circumstances.

We recognize our worth to the district.

We know it takes all of us doing our best each day to make SBA's strategic goal a reality.

We hope you will count on your We hope we count on your support and our efforts to bargain for the fair contract that meets our common interests of respecting recruiting and retaining our members on behalf of the families students and staff at Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

The next speaker is Michael Beneke.

Michael if you're on the line please press star 6 to unmute.

The next speaker is Julie Sella.

SPEAKER_09

Hello I appreciate the opportunity to address you today.

I had intended to talk about several items on the agenda including transportation standards.

Our school echoes the concerns raised in Director Song-Moritz's question number three in her doc in the questions document and the need for more transparency around the purpose of the community engagement meetings planned for next month.

But as a parent of a student who just finished second grade at one of the 13 priority schools I want to focus on the progress monitoring memo for goals 1.1 and 1.2.

It is very disconcerting to see a decline in the percent of students expecting to meet standards on their future SBA next year over the course of second grade.

My hope is not well resourced schools.

That's a baseline.

What we as parents and caregivers want is excellent schools that help our children reach their academic potential.

Please acknowledge not put aside the challenges and social skills and early literacy faced by our current K to 3 students for much of their early school life attending school in person was not considered essential and deemed unsafe.

We now need direct messaging to counter this.

Please make the interventions described family literacy connectors high dose tutoring out of school time opportunities summer school visible and their intended benefits clear to families.

Please acknowledge that among the factors contributing to declining enrollment is that families from all backgrounds are choosing charter and private schools because there is a sense their child's needs are not being met by the district.

Please make engagement fun and more accessible.

Families and students are well positioned to provide feedback and accountability on specific elements of implementation of this plan.

What I sense is a lack of trust in the district's ability to deliver on this improvement plan.

I look forward to hearing from you all tonight about the significance of this problem and your commitment to a path forward.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

Before we conclude today's testimony I want to go back and check on those who may have missed their turn.

Michael Benecke.

Michael if you're on the line please press star 6 to unmute.

This concludes today's testimony.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

Thank you to everybody who spent your time on a really sunny day to come out and chat with us.

We really appreciate your presence.

All right.

That concludes our public testimony for this meeting.

Thank you for your comments.

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

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

SPEAKER_22

Sorry I forgot that that is me.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

SPEAKER_06

This has been moved improperly.

rather has been moved by director and seconded by.

Director Sardew.

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

OK.

Seeing none.

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

SPEAKER_20

Aye.

Aye.

SPEAKER_06

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Any abstentions.

Thank you very much.

Okay, the consent agenda passes unanimously.

We will now move to the action items on today's agenda.

Beginning with action item number one, resolution of the 2022-23-19, fixing and adopting the 2023-24 budget.

May I have a motion for this item?

SPEAKER_22

I move.

Sorry.

I move that the school board adopt resolution 2022 23 dash 19 as attached to the board action report to fix and adopt the 2023 24 budget.

The four year budget plan summary and the four year enrollment projections.

SPEAKER_08

Sardew seconds.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

This has been moved by director Rankin and seconded by director Sardieu.

I believe we have our new assistant superintendent of finance who's available for questions.

Do directors have any questions on this item.

Yes ma'am.

SPEAKER_14

Not a question but a comment.

Please take it away.

I very very very much appreciate the two by twos that were held.

that explained to us how we are using our funds to deliver services to students with special needs.

If I had a nickel for every legislator that asked me why the heck you guys spend so darn much money on services for special needs or so-called sped services I'd be a wealthy woman and I wouldn't be sitting here.

However dot dot dot.

Those are conversations that I wish that we had had in a work session.

And those are conversations that I wished we had had in March.

because there were extraordinarily valuable conversations and for transparency and accountability purposes and to educate folks and to be able to see those conversations and why we do what we do.

We're not idiots up here.

Our staff is most assuredly not idiots and we shouldn't have to be so darn defensive.

We should be loud and proud and consistent and earlier so that our voters understand in fact what we do and how we got here.

And huge thanks to the staff that conducted those two by two meetings.

Hugely appreciate.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Comments.

Okay.

Seeing none.

Roll call please.

Oh sorry Director Rankin I see I see I see I see I see I saw your hand I'm so sorry my bad.

SPEAKER_22

By all means take it away.

Very much in line with what Director Harris just said.

I found the information presented to us in two by twos to be not only helpful but absolutely critical in supporting my ability to to feel like I'm making a good choice and filling my role in adopting today's budget.

And so I would ask the superintendent is there a way that we can share the breakdown of special education funding of what is a A summary of what we discussed what is one time use what is ongoing expenditures.

I just I found that not only helpful but absolutely necessary in terms of transparency on our on our planned expenditures and illuminating exactly what Director Harris just said showing that it's not money going into a black hole that it's planned for specific purposes and and why the amounts are the way they are.

I would just really.

ask if there's a way for us to share some of that out.

I found it very critical information.

SPEAKER_03

Vice President Rankin, absolutely.

We intend to share that information.

Fred Podesta is here to maybe respond and give some more detail around that.

SPEAKER_31

Yes, we'll work with the board office to post in the budget section.

We have a lot of information there to highlight this and the data we shared with directors through the course of those briefings and I appreciate Director Harris's remarks.

We are trying to shift our calendar on how we develop budgets and have made commitments for this fall to try to get more actionable information in your hands a little bit earlier.

We re-engineered the budget process this year with your support to make some decisions and get more substantive data in front of you.

So that's a trend we're committed to doing because we're facing a lot of challenges.

And by fixing and adopting this budget, you'll have overcome some huge challenges.

So I want to thank you all for your support and thank the team who really moved mountains this year and appreciate your interest in getting this information and getting into the details earlier and with more transparency than we've been able to do.

And I think we've accomplished some of that this year, but we can do better next year and we intend to.

SPEAKER_06

Director Salmuritz.

SPEAKER_10

I don't have a question, but I'd like to make a comment.

I have not followed the good advice I've gotten, which is I've read a lot of comments on the internet in terms of the various theories for why we have a projected $131 million.

Budget deficit and I think the three kind of common Explanations I see is that we have a exodus to private school we have a very expensive teachers contract and we have chronic underfunding from the state legislature and what I would like to say as Your board director.

I have spent a lot of time looking for data supporting data and trying to analyze this and I I don't see the supporting data for a lot of these factors.

I think some of them, they all play into it, but they are not the sole factor.

And I think we need to, you know, I just want to respond to somebody's testimony about self-inflicted wounds.

I'd like to remind everybody that these are trends that we are seeing nationally.

We are one district of 295 districts in this state.

A lot of districts are in this position.

And kind of earlier on my analysis, the one thing I thought could be somewhat self-inflicted was special education spending because we do spend a lot of money on special education.

And quite frankly, I don't see the kind of academic outcomes that I would like to see with that kind of investment in our special education students.

I think the you know to echo director Harris and director Rankin's comment.

I do think that staff has worked really hard to Drive better understanding of what that spending is for directors and I'm eager to share some of that information with the public and Where I may differ a little bit from them, I have a good grasp of what the specific increase year over year in special education spending was, but I still feel a little vagueness around overall, what are we spending on when it comes to special education?

What are the needs of our students?

So I am hopeful that we can work together as a team and build more of that understanding, especially since next year's budget conversations are only going to be So thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_25

Sorry about that.

Couldn't find the unmute button.

Thank you to my colleagues for those helpful comments.

Same with the discussions around special education and.

That data the extent to which we have it as of now I know we've we were all very excited to have so that we see the deeper dive that staff is doing to better understand the effective or ineffective use of funds of those funds that are spent.

And I think we owe it to the public to make sure that they also have access to that data.

Obviously that is something that is discoverable, but it'd be nice if we could keep it front and center in terms of how we report on our use of funds, which is definitely a work in progress.

And I know staff is hard at work trying to provide that to us and that we were at the beginning of that.

data collection and research.

And then I also wanted to note thank you Director Summers for bringing it up and circling back about it because I too have listened to comments about the impact of dropping enrollment on the district.

And I mean first of all that you know enrollment the Our primary cost is staff, right?

And the staff are linked to individual students.

And so there are, when we talk about well-resourced schools and wanting to make sure that we're not starving buildings as enrollment decreases, then there's the cost related to that.

And those are the conversations we're looking forward to having starting this summer and then with the board jumping in in the fall.

And at the same time, this idea that the enrollment issue coming out post-COVID is is specifically about people choosing charter schools or home schools.

There there the numbers the numbers really don't support that.

That's not to say that there aren't families going to private schools but that doesn't represent any the substantive blip other than you know more so than a blip it's not the substantive numbers that people are talking about.

I think what's it's a bit of a red herring because what it's obfuscating is the fact that coming out of the pandemic the number of of students who are now enrolled are homeschooled has doubled.

And that's something that we need to be paying attention to.

But more importantly, and even more concerning, is the fact that if you look at the drops in numbers, and this is nationwide, it's Washington state, and I don't believe, I haven't been able to find any data to support anything other than very consistent occurrence of this in Seattle.

And I would quote the study, I was trying to pull it back up, I have it but there's some great data and infographics out about this.

But the full third of the drop in enrollment actually has to do with students that we've lost from our systems altogether.

And this is something we heard about during the pandemic as it was happening.

But it's something that we have not yet as a district or as a state institution or as a nation really focused on other than that thousands of kids are missing from school, where are they?

They're not accounted for by increased enrollment in private schools and they're not even accounted for by increased homeschooling.

And I personally know that from within communities that this is something where kids have just dropped out altogether.

And there's a whole bunch of reasons why, and we haven't even started to look at that, but it is a really, really scary idea to think about that big of a percentage of our population being uneducated adults who haven't had their right to an education offered at all because we failed to follow up with them.

And that's something that I don't know what that advocacy looks like as a board, as a district, as a community.

But I know that we can't just say, oh, well, they're just, you know, yes, we know people are moving out because it's so expensive.

Yes, we know people are choosing homeschooling, which may shift as more and more people have to go back to the office.

But we cannot forget about the students who remain completely outside of the system and are as a something that we need to consider and Director Harris actually brings this up all the time of when students leave what do we as a system because we don't have cooperation about this among other districts and as a state.

It is it is a statewide issue.

It's a nationwide issue.

Where are these students going.

How are we tracking.

How are we making sure that we're actually taking care of these kids.

And so I wish that that would be the focus in terms of the scale of our budget really should be much bigger because we have lost a lot of students.

And there are other issues that I think families have gone through that have kept them in a homeschooling model.

And there's there's ways to bring them back from that and make sure that they're coming back to a warm and welcoming environment.

I know we've had some good transitions and some not so good transitions from people coming back from homeschool.

So it's it's just it's like I said in my graduation speech.

nothing's ever black and white.

There's a lot a lot a lot of gray.

And I hope people will think a bit more about where are the students that we've lost altogether because those are really the students that are that are greatest at risk.

And that's who we're we're we're ultimately meant to to serve is every student who doesn't have the option to do one of the other possibilities.

So sorry I just had to get on that soapbox for a second because it's been on my mind for a very long time.

And as we go into the summer, I come across any kid that hasn't been going to school, figure out a way to get him in touch and get him back in school.

And I hope that we as a team will look at that more seriously.

SPEAKER_99

Thanks.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

I really just want to well first of all thank you Dr. Jones and staff for putting together a balanced budget for us for next year.

And it is it is a remarkable feat but it's also it's almost secondary to what we're all looking towards even as we're finishing this next year's budget we're looking at the following years we're talking about resource schools and engagement and what the future of our district looks like.

And I really just want to make a plea to families that when you see an email that says we need your feedback we mean it.

And please take advantage of the opportunities to be part of this conversation.

It's easy to be jaded and feel like your feedback can't move the needle but it really really can.

And we genuinely need that and want that.

I think a lot of us are driven by fear.

And we're afraid that we're not going to be heard.

We're afraid of what might come.

And please don't let that drive you away.

Please have that bring you in and engage with us as much as you can.

We say that starting in August we're going to have community meetings and that's not the end that is starting that's the beginning of the conversation.

So please don't feel that that's where we're ending things.

This is the beginning of a long conversation to have an important one.

So again I just I just urge families as you're able to be part of these meetings.

As you can see in the emails everyone received will there be interpretation services.

Because I think we want to make sure that these are accessible and available.

There's a virtual meeting.

And again, just please, you know, it's easy to be critical of the process because I think there's a lot of years of mistrust and feeling not heard.

But that can end when you use your voice.

And we invite you to do that.

Please, please do that.

Sometimes I like to think, you know, what would you do if you were your bravest self?

And we're all up here to be brave and make these hard decisions and have these hard conversations.

And we we need our communities to be part of that.

So again please do that as you're able.

And we look forward to having this conversation in the summer and in the fall and ongoing.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Director Rankin I see your hand is back up.

Do you have more to say.

SPEAKER_22

It is it's quick I promise.

I'm just reflecting on what my colleagues have said and also one of the public testimony comments about bargaining.

And I am wondering from the superintendent if if you need any board support.

Well I guess basically I would say that as the person speaking in testimony noted we we have so many folks represented by Labor organizations that are absolutely critical to the functioning and health of our district.

And, um, I guess I just want to sort of put in a plug or ask if you need board support in order to ensure that in planning conversations.

Um, that all 13 of our labor partners.

Are are well represented in in planning because I know that, you know, they're bargaining right now.

Um, as.

we are approving the budget.

And so you know what funds are available to support to support the many essential people that work in our schools and keep our district running every day.

I just wanted to make sure that that that that can be part of the conversation and ask if there's anything that the board can do to support and encourage that all of our labor partners are included proactively in planning and ensure that, you know, we can keep those folks.

Because I know, you know, there's fast food jobs that pay more than what some of our positions pay.

And we really need those positions to support our students and have some sustainability.

So Superintendent, I don't know if you I guess I just wanted to say that to you.

I don't know if you need specific board direction or support but just that that needs to be part of our planning.

SPEAKER_03

I'm always open to board direction and support.

But to Director Rivera-Smith's comments about us utilizing the voices of community.

Our labor partners are part of community.

Our last strategic plan was actually Seattle Excellence was actually driven by community.

We the team came up with the term students of color furthest from educational justice.

That was that wasn't a Seattle Public Schools original.

That was what the community said.

And most of the elements of the strategic plan are driven by what the community said.

So when we're looking at well-resourced schools, we have purposely not defined it because we need the input from community, whether those are our labor partners, our families, interested parties that are residents of Seattle.

We are open to that feedback.

And so I think there's a...

a wide open gap for folks to come on in and give their feedback.

That's going to drive what experience that they want to have for students coming through Seattle Public Schools.

That will design our well-resourced schools.

So yes.

And then you asked a very specific question about bargaining.

I think that needs deeper dialogue.

We have a collective bargaining agreement right now and so I'm not sure what the pathway would be to that, but if I get direction from the board on that, I can follow up.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you all very much.

Seeing no further comments, we will now move to the vote on this item.

Ms. Wilson-Jones.

SPEAKER_19

Director Rivera-Smith.

Aye.

Director Sardieu.

Director Song Moritz.

Aye.

Director Hampson.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Vice President Rankin.

Aye.

President Hersey.

SPEAKER_06

Aye.

SPEAKER_19

This motion has passed unanimously.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you very much.

Kudos all around.

But we ain't out of the woods yet.

No, no, no, no.

All right, so moving on to action item number two, approval of the 2023-24 student rights and responsibilities SR&R.

Can I have a motion for this item, please?

SPEAKER_22

I move the school board approve the 2023-2024 student rights and responsibilities document as attached to the board action report.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

SPEAKER_08

Sarju seconds.

SPEAKER_06

This has been moved and properly seconded.

We have Dr. Torres approaching the podium.

Do we have any questions on this item.

Director Hampson I see that your hand is raised.

SPEAKER_25

Yeah I had put a much more extensive question in the original just so that staff had a heads up.

In the topper that.

I can't think what it's called.

But anyway the questions that we ask in advance about this item and it was mostly redacted.

So I which I didn't notice until earlier today which is is my fault.

So I I will be voting no on this because I don't believe, my understanding is that we have our policy states that we have to approve it.

I don't believe by state law that we have to approve this.

I think we have to review it, but I don't think we have to approve it.

So I don't think we'll be, and my understanding is we would not be in violation of any state law.

I believe this document to be supremely important in communicating to our students in as clear and concise a manner what their rights and responsibilities are.

I believe there have been some pieces added to this document that have made it oh sorry Emma can I get back to you after I'm done with this meeting.

SPEAKER_24

Okay you got somebody to hang out with out there.

SPEAKER_25

Josie, can you grab Eco, please?

Apologies, my mother came in the room.

So let me restart.

In terms of what our policy intends for us, and the spirit of the specifics of the law, I think there are details that are required for administrators so that they can do their jobs in buildings.

And there is also a piece of this, both in the policy and in the state law, and in the ACLU, Washington State and nationally both speak very clearly to students' rights and responsibilities.

The Education Association speak clearly to rights and responsibilities.

I do not believe that this document in any way represents a clear set of rights and responsibilities that is appropriate for us to be sending out to families and students.

And I talked about this last year there was clear intent to work on it.

What I heard at our work session was I think we didn't make good use of that time and we heard about a long-term plan to make it better.

And I personally believe that staff just needs to take the next couple of months and come up to come up with something that is more akin to what's actually just directly stated in state law and by other entities that clearly communicates with appropriate links to more detail about what their rights and responsibilities are.

Something that they can access and digest.

I think it's it's a very clear theme when we talk to students that they don't know what their rights or their responsibilities are.

And I I can't support another one of these and I don't I would encourage any of my fellow board members to also send it back and say hey let's do better by students this next year.

I believe we can take the time to do that.

So I would ask staff to you know counter that and tell me why you think that that's not true and that you know we should approve this now because otherwise I don't know why we would continue to put out a document that really is not functional for them.

I think it's kind of a mishmash of a lot of things at this point that doesn't effectively serve our students well.

SPEAKER_03

Director Hampson, I don't know if we have necessarily a counter to how your analysis of where we are, but Dr. Torres is here along with Executive Director Pat Sander.

And so I do think they have a response.

And so please.

SPEAKER_29

So if I may I'm just going to do a little bit of the intro as to the why of this, as to why it's coming forward.

So we'll just start by saying that the motion would approve the 23-24 student rights and responsibilities which contains the rules and regulations governing student behavior for Seattle Public Schools.

It is annually brought before the board and as Director Hampson noted per policy 3200 written rules of student conduct.

So specifically to address some of the questions, this year's proposed document contains changes to Seattle Public Schools behavior codes, clarification on the provision of educational services to students during disciplinary responses, and updates in policy and procedure language as mandated by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction or OSPI.

These changes demonstrate the district's continued commitment to racial equity, authentic student engagement, and safe and welcoming environments for all students, especially our black boys and teens.

And at this time, I also want to turn it over to Pat Sander for a couple of comments as well.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

Pat Sander here.

The 22 23 revisions to the S.R.

and R.

the student rights and responsibility actually include clarification on the use of disciplinary codes and disciplinary responses ranging from classroom and school based responses to exclusion to increase accuracy on how the district maps and reports disciplinary data to the state.

There are some minor grammatical and formatting changes and updated hyperlinks.

It also updates the school culture and climate language to align with the 2019 2024 strategic plan Seattle excellence as well as the goals and guardrails in support of the student outcomes focused government governance.

The alignment of implementation tools including the Seattle tiered fidelity inventory equity first framework which serves as a guiding document to support school teams in establishing safe restorative supportive and welcoming environments as well as guidance for secondary school staff on the provision of educational services for students after disciplinary responses.

and for secondary school staff on welcome re-entry back to school for students returning from disciplinary exclusions.

The plans that Director Hampson alluded to for the SR&R focus on student engagement and student rights and a commitment to honor student requests this past year to partner with them to center their voices in the rights and responsibilities that are meant for them and accessible by them.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Just to know Director Rankin has her hand up.

So I just want to make sure that I it's clear that I heard everything that you both had to offer.

And I think those are all good things and necessary things.

I don't believe any of them require our approval.

I think those are our changes at the administrative level.

And the thing that we approve I believe has to be something that we can attest to as being accessible for students at this And I don't think this is this document.

And I don't know, and maybe that's not what we approve.

Maybe we approve something that is administrative and staff approve something that is for students.

I know students need something that has a great deal more clarity than what this document represents.

And I don't wanna move forward kicking the can yet again, when we don't yet have that.

And I don't believe it's something should take a long period of time to summarize and provide so that there's some clarity so that just so that families and students know where to go to even get into the greater detail.

SPEAKER_03

Director Hampson, is the main contention around the user-friendliness of this, the language that's used, I'm not sensing that the content is deficient, but more so is this, is this, yeah, please.

SPEAKER_25

Yeah, I mean, there's just so many things, you know, good things, complicated things, simpler things, neutral things, just, and we just keep adding to it.

Right.

And and it's so there's just so much we talked about this last year that there's so much of this that is really just for administrators.

And I hear that.

Right.

I hear that more than anything is that the administrators need these updates.

But the my understanding of the intent of the policy in the state law is that students need to have communicated to them with clarity.

And I don't.

And so if it's whatever it is that we need to approve I'm not comfortable with that us doing this expansive document that doesn't really have a target audience.

Maybe it's administrators maybe it's students maybe it's somewhere in between or trying to be both and not really either.

Let's just get clear and let's at least give students something that they can use readily so they know what their rights and responsibilities are.

Because it's not working.

I mean we know it's not working.

We know it's not.

I don't think anybody's arguing with me about that that it's students where to go to find out what the rights and responsibilities are or their families for that matter.

SPEAKER_06

All right.

So thank you Director Hampson.

Really appreciate that feedback.

The standing order of questions that we have is Director Rivera-Smith Director Harris Director Sardieu and then Director Rankin.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

I want to first acknowledge what a very difficult job you have condensing all this information into a document.

You know especially with an audience that you don't represent its students right.

And I and I appreciate that there has been an ongoing at least hope to engage students more on this because I do know as I've been on the board going on four years now, the board has always requested a more readable document when that engages students more.

I see that there's ongoing efforts for that.

It's not clear to me why it hasn't been achieved yet.

Obviously, the obvious pandemic and everything and whatever, all those different really extreme circumstances.

But I'm actually surprised that this hasn't evolve more.

It's still very it's you know 60 pages of again a lot of information that needs to be shared.

And it's not.

I don't know that students would call this readable and that's part of what I think we're all hoping we could your team could do and.

And I appreciate that I just say starting in the school year you know you're going to work on having it actually written by students.

Some scroll back to the bar.

But so I also I hesitate to approve this for a lot of the same reasons director Hampson said because it does feel like it's been an ongoing ask and for whatever reason hasn't been achieved and it doesn't feel fair to students to just give them another difficult document that we expect them to take and use when we're not really working with them to do that yet.

So again I appreciate that it's a hard job.

It's a lot of information we need to share.

I don't know what that way is but students probably do and that's what we really need to engage them better on and do that work and have that be done before we can really feel confident that we're approving something that's going to serve them well.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_14

I can tell you Director Rivera-Smith that it's been longer than four years that this ask has been out there being the old Grinch on the board.

I have an idea and I need to ask a point of clarification from Chief Counsel Narver.

Is he here or online?

OK I know you don't like being blindsided as much as I don't.

My question to you would be would it be acceptable and or doable that we could amend this resolution until time certain to have a rewrite of this before the end of the year with this current board.

We send it out now because it has to be printed.

We've heard this a lot.

And as far as why staff hasn't done it.

It's been a rough several years.

I think both bandwidth wise and turnover wise I think is a fair comment.

My question is can we amend this to make it in effect until the end of December and then we've got a deadline and when we back map deadlines we tend to make them.

If we get together hold hands include the students.

Make it simpler.

And from my litigation background, I would suggest to you that it's critically important work, whether or not it is in the, quote, RCW.

Just have a really good tort lawsuit, and you're talking millions of dollars.

So my question to you, Chief Narver.

Can we approve this only until the end of this board's term and then back map an update?

SPEAKER_30

Our policy requires annual approval.

I've not been focused on this and I may ask Julia Worth to step in who knows more about what our policy requires in terms of the timing.

But so I'd be understanding you're talking about voting yes now on approval of this document and then amending it amending the student rights and responsibilities document halfway through the school year.

Is that the question.

SPEAKER_14

Making this vote only good until December whatever date it is that you have a board turnover.

Because we have.

We've talked about doing this differently for years and years and I can assure you I have not lifted my heavy pen in editing it and everybody has been slammed.

And I understand that.

No rocks being thrown here.

But I'm looking for a creative solution that puts people in the same room.

Strips it out.

figures out what is legally defensible and meets the communication needs of our extraordinarily valued staff that is often working in muddy and quicksand waters.

And for our students that I suspect it goes straight into the recycle bucket.

SPEAKER_30

OK.

Taking this on the fly I've not confronted this question.

What our policy 3200 says is that the school board will annually approve a student rights and responsibilities document which suggests it's a one time a year vote.

The subject matter experts I think would express concern and I invite them to address this question about the effect of giving notice to our entire school community including students.

Here are your rules of conduct, all the things that the document covers, but there were this, this set of them is only in effect for the first four months of the school year.

Um, I think we're beyond legal issues in terms of what, what issues that might, uh, might handle.

I, I don't, I don't see within the policy and I'm going to pull up the RCW in just a second just to, I don't think the RCW says anything about annual approval.

It does talk about board approval of the rules regarding pupil student conduct.

But the the annual adoption, I believe, is something we've written into our policy.

Julie, can I kick it over to you for a second to talk about how the type of vote that Director Harris is contemplating would comport with policy?

I just think you're a little more familiar with it than that.

And then I'd also look to Associate Superintendent Torres and Director Sander to also address that question.

SPEAKER_23

Yep, thank you Council Narver.

Julia Worth, Director of Board Relations and Strategic Initiatives.

Board policy 3200 as Council Narver indicated does require annual approval of the document.

The other timeline stipulated in the policy is that a condensed basic rules of Seattle Public Schools flyer will be provided to all students and their parents at the beginning of each school year.

when students newly enroll in public schools and so that indicates that we need the student rights and responsibilities approved prior to the next school year so that that flyer can be created and provided to families on that first day of school.

It does not speak to any sort of update that might happen mid-year should the board choose to revisit the document in the next board term.

SPEAKER_06

Do you have more Director Harris now would be the time.

Are you good.

SPEAKER_14

What happens.

Chief Narver.

If this vote fails.

SPEAKER_30

Well we've got to.

Something has to be approved by law and by statute.

If it fails tonight we'd be presumably back in either in a special meeting over the summer.

You know, the next regular board meeting is August 30th, which is obviously cutting it pretty close on taking the approved SRR, turning it into the flyer that's provided at the beginning of the school year, since the next board meeting is presumably just a couple of days before the start of this.

I don't remember the exact start of the school year.

So probably it would mean it would necessitate A rewrite of the document and then a special board meeting over the summer to approve it just so that we comply with the requirements of the policy.

The annual approval and the publication of the flyer at the start of the school year.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you.

I my question is who is this document written for?

And then I have some follow up questions.

SPEAKER_07

Hi I'm Christine Matfeld with coordinated school health and I support discipline.

The document is written for.

Everybody part of this district the folks who teach classes the folks who administer school buildings the students in classrooms and part of learning communities.

It's written for families.

It's written for community partners who collaborate with us to create and again all the institutional language that comes with a safe and welcoming environment.

I'm the person that directly does a lot of the work on this document, a massive document that has a heavy component of it that is very compliance based.

The work that we began this year working with student engagement groups in our high schools over winter and spring provided us with some very valuable feedback and not just feedback in terms of what they'd like to see in student rights but how it's not so much about the content of the student rights.

It's really about the delivery of those contents the accessibility.

They have some very specific ideas but they also have some very specific asks.

They don't want.

adults to filter and shape this work anymore.

It's been done.

What they want is they want a hand at shaping rights and responsibilities.

I think that and I don't want to put words in their mouth because they're not here to express them.

But my understanding is that they would like to see themselves as stakeholders and as owners of this.

If that's to be done The thought that comes to my mind is the difficulty in achieving that without student voice in a timeline that's again that that may not do justice.

What the students would like to see and ultimately I think what everybody in this community could benefit from the work is.

Good work is often methodical and intentional and that is that's the energy that we were part of when we did student engagement this spring and it is what reinforces our determination to want to do this.

And I'm sorry we didn't meet the timeline of a lot of transformation has happened in the four years.

I.

and hoping to be able to provide something that number one students feel proud of and see themselves in rather than what they perceive as adults asking them or subjecting them to be.

I think what I think the words are adults want us to be a certain way.

And that doesn't necessarily embody who we are fully as who we can be in our learning community.

Sorry that's real garbled.

But.

SPEAKER_08

So my my my original question was who is the document written for.

And then somewhere in your explanation was you use the word they and I'm assuming it's students.

So when I look at this document.

The reading level.

Can a second grader read this.

A second grader who's learned who's actually pretty good at reading.

Can they read this and walk away and understand what their rights and responsibilities are.

SPEAKER_07

No.

And that's why we need to.

work.

My thoughts are then to work with students to create versions of this document that's understandable.

So an elementary level advisory or a series of lesson perhaps middle school version high school version so to speak.

SPEAKER_08

But what we're being asked to vote on is a document that supposedly is for students.

We got to get real narrow here.

We can't I can't deal in the broad what happened four years ago.

This is complex for adults.

I can see some parents reading this and saying what what is this what am I supposed to do with this.

And I am not at all commenting or criticizing anyone's hard work.

But this document is not for students.

At least it's not for the students that I know.

And I'm in regular relationship and engagement with I'm thinking about students at interagency.

This does not represent them at all and I they would be three minutes into reading it.

And where's the recycle bin.

It is not accessible to adults much less students.

And so I will be real clear.

I cannot vote yes on this because if the intended people that we're focusing on our students.

This is not a document for students.

This is a document for central office and district administrators.

And that's not fair to students.

SPEAKER_06

Director Rankin.

SPEAKER_22

Thanks.

Gosh sorry.

I mean, I think we're suffering from a multitude of things here, which is that there's a legal compliance that's necessary of what this document has to contain.

And I think that the document does that.

It is technically a document that contains all the things it's supposed to contain.

but the impact of that and the usability is not the same thing and it's not ever going to be the same thing.

So this document, this isn't a criticism of this document.

This is a, okay, we've got this document.

What does that actually mean for kids and how do they understand it and access it?

It may need to have all of those things.

So we may be talking about a separate thing.

And as was noted the policy currently has direction that a condensed version needs to be provided.

So maybe what we really need is a more accessible version of the condensed version.

I also am not really satisfied with waiting four years for the most perfect document that includes student voice at all age levels.

We can still work on that but we need something that students can use and understand also right now.

And I don't think it's fair to students actually to say that it depends on their work for us to produce that.

I think the educational experts and the people with the most control and authority are in the room right now and absolutely have the capability and ability to produce a condensed version that is more accessible.

That could just be a place to start.

We can keep working on it.

We can keep you know in the policy there's something that's noted about school specific documents.

And I actually think that school specific handbooks based on a template that meets the requirement that is created in partnership with students at each school by the building leadership team is probably way more meaningful and effective and can happen iteratively is I think probably a better way to get students to have a say in there.

But we as the people in charge as the adults need to be super it's our obligation to be super duper clear to our students about what rights they have.

and about what we expect from them in our schools in a way that they can understand.

And so the document I think like stop trying to make this huge document that has all these legal requirements into something that it's not.

It is the thing that it is and we can accept that and we need an additional piece of something that's actually usable and accessible.

And that refers to this greater document because there is there is information in there that's important.

So I just please don't make students do this work for us.

And and also please don't.

reinvent the wheel when we just need a tool that students can understand.

This document is not going to be it.

It needs an accompaniment to the document so that students can understand what their rights and responsibilities are.

And I also think that we should probably amend our policy to say it's our policy.

So to say that the board should review it annually.

I don't know why we the board need to give approval to a document to say that it exists and complies with the law when it's the law that it exists.

If that makes sense.

So I don't at some point maybe maybe it wasn't up to par and a board thought it necessary to have annual approval by the board.

But just to be really clear.

That it exists and that the board reviews it is is required by law, but our annual approval and this annual discussion.

isn't necessary and actually I would argue may have taken some authority away from the superintendent to direct staff to instead of bringing this document every year to make something actionable and usable because the superintendent is saying well the board I mean not you Dr. Jones specifically but just generally by the board saying we approve it annually it's being brought to the board by staff instead of being directed by their boss who's the superintendent.

Like I thought I think there's a few things here that are that are messy.

I could go either way and vote in favor of it because it does meet policy it does meet law.

I also agree with my colleagues and you have heard from us all that we absolutely don't have what our students need in the form of anything usable and actionable.

SPEAKER_06

Director Rankin I see your hand is up.

Do you have more to say.

I'm sorry Director Hampson.

Same background.

SPEAKER_25

I do yeah.

Take it away.

I just want to highlight a couple of things that were that were noted that I think are really dangerous and I just they're dangerous enough that I want to make sure to counter them.

Director Rankin talked on talked spoke to them a little bit.

But I want to be 100 percent clear.

This goes for.

community engagement as well.

And we suffer so much from this in Seattle Public Schools.

We cannot use the notion and I say that in the most vague sense the notion of student voice as an excuse to not do our jobs and be clear about what students' rights are in particular but also what their responsibilities are.

That's us.

Those are our words.

The way that we communicate.

to children about our expectations and the rights that they have.

What they can expect from us.

The place where there is student voice and language in terms of what they want us to hear what they want their administrators to hear.

I'm not sure how exactly that fits into it.

We obviously don't have the answer to that but that is not an excuse.

to make information about what happens if someone sexually harasses me and I'm 15. What happens if somebody bullies my child who's in second grade and I go to look at this handbook.

That's what we're trying to communicate.

All of these different pieces are captured in other parts of our policies.

They're captured in state law.

I don't but we frequently shy away from making a hard decision because of some legal boogeyman that's that's going to where all hell is going to break loose.

And at some time some point you know this is the place we got to start letting the other shoe drop.

This doesn't fit the bill.

We haven't been clear about what it what purpose it serves.

How does it connect to what should our policy actually say.

And none of it should be an excuse.

At the end of the day I believe that our approval of this document every year gives us an excuse to not do the work of providing good clear communication to students and families about their rights and responsibilities.

And it has happened over and over and over again.

process will continue and we will now we're using we're saying oh well it's because we have to sit down with students that's why we can't be clear with them no i'm sorry that's that's completely inappropriate uh students don't have time to wait for us to do that that that this is this is where you need expediency and so i i really want to be caution us to um not take there's no looming risk of you know like so okay so we have to meet at a time that we didn't plan to meet okay.

SPEAKER_29

So I do want to provide a little bit of clarity because I feel like what I'm hearing in some ways is around accessibility to a written rules document and that it feels that our students aren't provided that and that is not 100 accurate so I want to be sure to just call that out in the space that Per the way that we do it in policy or in Seattle Public Schools, there is a condensed version, student friendly version that is provided in multiple languages every year to students on what this document is.

Additionally, through the engagement that was done with students this spring, the ask has been, and something that staff is working on and will do, to engage in creating video advisory lessons to provide to schools, to leaders, and to teachers on the main highlights of this document so that it is accessible to more students.

So the idea of accessibility is something that is being addressed and it's something that will continue to be addressed, but I do just want to call back that yes it is a dense document because it has to align with the RCW and the state laws and so we fully understand that and that's why we were engaging with students to figure out how do we create better accessible points and those also exist as part of what we're trying to do at this time.

SPEAKER_25

Yeah okay I think we're all pretty aware of what exists right now Director Sargent, we all get those packets and we get those that information and we still hear.

I mean, we know for our own purposes and for our own.

Working with families and students about them not knowing what pathway to follow.

I think you just further illustrated the.

Conflation of things and why this is problematic.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you, Director Hampson, Director Sargent.

SPEAKER_08

My last this is a last comment.

I'm I'm not looking for a perfect document.

SPEAKER_06

I'm looking for good enough And I don't think we're there yet All right, are there any other comments on this particular item Seeing none miss Wilson Jones the roll call, please.

Oh I'm sorry.

What did I miss?

Okay Miss Olsen Jones

SPEAKER_19

Director Sarju.

Nope.

Director Song-Moritz.

Aye.

Director Hampson.

No.

Director Harris.

No.

Vice President Rankin.

No.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Nay.

President Hersey.

SPEAKER_06

Abstain.

SPEAKER_19

This motion has not passed with by a vote of one yes to five no and one abstention.

SPEAKER_06

No.

Thank you very much.

OK, we have one introduction item on today's agenda.

It is approval of the relocation of one instructional program site for Interagency Academy.

Approval of this item would approve the relocation of the following Interagency Academy school site.

Beacon at Youngstown site located at 4408 Delridge Way Southwest Seattle to its existing interagency sites.

Materials were added to the 6 28 23 update of the packet.

So Mr. Torres excuse me Dr. Torres is approaching the podium.

Do we have any questions on this item.

Go ahead Director Harris.

SPEAKER_14

With the closure the anticipated closure of this site.

And do we have another interagency campus in West Seattle District 6?

SPEAKER_29

Thank you for that question.

I have Principal Willingham here to answer some of our questions as well.

Sharonda if you could join me.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Good evening.

Yes, we do.

The old Roxhill building is about 10 minutes away from the Beacon Campus.

SPEAKER_14

Put that announcement on the crappy billboard in front of the old Roxhill on Roxbury, please.

SPEAKER_02

Sure.

Yes, we can.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

SPEAKER_10

I can you talk a little bit about whether or not there are programming differences between the two physical locations and how you will try to incorporate the students into the new school building.

And what are the plans around the staff.

Are they are you expecting them to move to the new location.

SPEAKER_02

So this decision about the program modification at interagency is really centered around our graduation rates.

So in the next upcoming school year, the graduation waivers will be eliminated from our high school except for the local waivers.

And as our interagency graduation rates, about 59% of our students used waivers this year.

And so with the waivers being eliminated next year, we have to look at our instructional core to meet the needs of our students.

And the way we want to do that is increase our CTE offerings because 26% of our graduating class pass through a CTE pathway.

And so we want to be culturally responsive and inclusive to the needs of our students to create pathways that is in alignment with their talents and their strengths.

None of our students was able to graduate with Running Start.

Only two of our students graduate with the Bridge to College transition classes.

And none of our students were able to graduate with the SAT.

And that's not nothing to say about our students, but our students are hands-on learning.

learners so what we want to do is increase our CTE offerings to be culturally responsive to the needs of our students to have them career ready for Seattle Public Schools.

One of our wonderful program building trades was able to graduate 12 students and get them into a career.

We also are working with director Brian Day our CTE department head to increase our CTE offerings next year we will be offering home health care aid pathway to our students, because again, the graduation data is showing that our students are more aligned with the CTE pathways than any other pathway.

So this restructuring of our program is there to do that to meet the needs of our students.

And relocating our students to our Southwest campus is going to increase more educators there, but we also using the FTE to create a math instructional coach to create CTE classes that are math related, So it gets them certified into an industry recognized certificate.

So we have to look at our instructional programming to make sure that it's in alignment with the CTE, alignment with the graduating needs of our students so we can have those graduation numbers move up for our students.

And staff.

SPEAKER_10

I'm really glad that I asked that question because to be honest when I'm reading the bar it does seem like a mostly financial decision but it feels fantastic that you did the work of looking at the data and what the student needs and are being responsive.

As you may know that I had an opportunity to visit Columbia Center and visit the CTE classroom with Jay Conley and saw the incredible work of our students so I'm really excited to hear that this will be an expansion for interagency and more students will be able to directly benefit from it.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

We have two hands up additionally.

Is this for this item?

Just making sure because I see Director Rankin.

Go ahead Director Rankin and then we'll go to Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_22

Thanks.

My question is more broad about interagency and small programs in that I'm really concerned about the sort of blurring blurring together and confusion around, well, program versus a school, though in this case, it's very clear to me that this is a branch of a school, that the school is still existing, that this is a location.

But when we have interagency, middle college, option schools, and various things, We need to, probably in policy, so this is probably on the board and it has been, define what these different programs do and are.

I'm hearing about an increasing number of students being referred to interagency from other programs, which does not make sense to me because interagency is between agencies, meaning it's students who are involved in another program and are getting access to education through SPS through the interagency school.

And so when we have building administrators counseling students out of their schools to go to interagency that does not make sense to me. and between middle college and interagency too.

And so I think that systemically, we just need to really make clear what the expectations of these different programs are, how they're defined, who they're intended to serve, and how we ensure that we are directing adequate resources to support and maintain those programs.

So I don't necessarily need a response to that right now, but I'm really concerned about moving pieces without the overarching intent for what different programs are able to do and expected to do.

And I worry about the impact on students with disabilities and students of color who may for one reason or another be more likely to be counseled out of neighborhood high schools.

I think for some students programs like interagency and middle college are the absolute best place to go and they get what they need there and that's why we have them.

And I don't I want to keep them that way and make sure that they do that and that they are not places where kids who have been booted from neighborhood schools just end up.

I don't think that that's in support of our students and I don't think that is the vision that any of us have.

I would really like to revisit what that means and how we define those those programs at some point soon.

SPEAKER_06

OK.

To be clear you were not expecting an answer to your statement right or to your question in this moment.

OK.

Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_22

I would be surprised if there was one right now.

SPEAKER_06

Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_25

I don't mind.

Is there a definition.

I mean is that.

I'm.

Is that a question that needs to be answered later or.

SPEAKER_06

So with that being said can we ask the question can we read.

Let me finish.

Can we re-ask the question in a concise way and we can get the information that you're looking for.

So Director Rankin I believe you asked for a particular definition.

I am seeing a request for that question to be asked really succinctly.

SPEAKER_22

So my wonder is if the assumption that we all have for the definition of programs like interagency and middle college is actually what is being carried out.

And if not what we need to do to ensure that those programs maintain their intent support and sustainability for the unique needs that they fulfill.

SPEAKER_02

So I would just like to say under the direction of Director Carter we have been working with a consultant to define what small schools look like in Seattle because there is confusion around that and so I believe that work is going to continue on into the next school year but we've done preliminary work with that with center school, Sugiyama interagency middle college to define what that is because As our school has transformed in the many years the intent of schools have also transitioned.

So it's like we need to have a recalibration of it.

So we have been working on that as small school leaders.

SPEAKER_06

Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_22

Thank you.

I've seen that and I would love the opportunity to support that in policy.

SPEAKER_06

Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_25

I just wanted to thank you for the specific clarification around the CTE opportunities.

And there's the I spent a couple of hours doing a deep dive into our student survey and student survey results climate survey results.

And in alignment with what you shared about the access to and having visited that site which is an incredible site.

The alignment with students positive belief about their access to and I forget exactly what the framing of the question is in the climate survey but it's one of the areas where there's been the most positive growth in the district this year.

And so if folks haven't had a chance to look at that I'm guessing that you have.

because you know this, but that was really, really exciting to see that particular increase.

And I'm glad that I'm already hearing about that being captured in a shift and how we're giving students access to that.

So I just want to say thank you for sharing that and making that part of the focus of giving more students access to that because it's clearly a very, strong need and desire among among our students.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Director Harris.

SPEAKER_14

Please let me say this as respectfully as I can.

This is information that should have been brought up in S.S.

C&I committee meetings or a lengthy workshop with all of the board in attendance.

And if we're sitting on this dais and we don't know the difference between interagency academy and middle college then I am gobsmacked and extraordinarily disappointed.

Both of those programs with extraordinarily talented committed teachers deserve better from us.

deserve far better from us.

And yeah, small schools, and it's nice to hear that we've got a contract out there and a consultant.

But I made a promise to do my fiduciary duty to the voters.

I don't have a problem with moving a site with low enrollment.

I do have a problem though with the fact that for the last six years we've been doing snapshots of small schools and we've been kneecapping them one piece at a time.

Year after year after year.

And then somehow we're surprised that they're small.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We are not educating widgets.

And I would very much like to see Mr. CTE, Dr. Perkins up here presenting as well.

I'm a huge believer in all three of these programs.

And I will fight, fight and fight to save these programs and to make sure that these programs that save lives are not kneecapped, are enhanced and make economic sense.

And anybody wants to know background I'll send you the links to the testimony with 150 people in here where Middle College was going to be closed.

We are not throw away kids.

And we have had such turnover of senior staff in this district and others.

that maybe we have forgotten our history.

And what do we teach our children and our students about history?

If we don't know it, then we are consigned to repeat it.

That's not okay.

I'm okay with you all closing the Youngstown position or program, but I am beyond not okay not being educated as a board member by our extraordinarily talented staff.

What the differences between these programs are and what the history of these programs are and what you believe is the best path for the future.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Director Rankin is your hand up with a question or statement.

SPEAKER_22

It's a question, because my sound cut out for a minute.

Can I ask it?

Sure.

So apologies, Director Harris.

I only caught part of what you said.

But I wanted to clarify that I understand the difference between these programs and what they are supposed to be.

And then I think we lose a lot by not having a policy that defines that for everybody, opening up the you know, repeated scenario that we have seen where things disappear and reappear and are reappropriated and reused because we don't have that direction in policy.

So apologies if that doesn't make sense because like I said, I didn't hear part of it because I lost, I dropped from the call.

But just, I guess, my, well, so if I misunderstood, let me know.

If I didn't, that's fine and we can move on.

But I was confused by the part that I did hear.

SPEAKER_06

Do you want to respond to Director Rankin?

No.

Not at all.

Thank you.

Okay.

Right on.

Thank you both.

I appreciate it.

Okie dokie.

We have now reached the progress monitoring section of tonight's agenda.

I think we could all use a breather.

So let's take 10 and please actually I'm not going to give you 10. Let's take 5 and please be back at 6 31 p.m.

sharp.

Thank you.

Anyway, so we're going to go ahead and get started.

Given that we have a quorum, if you're having a conversation, I'm going to go ahead and ask you to have that conversation on the other side of that wall right there.

Appreciate you.

Tonight's progress monitoring session is going to be taking a close look at goals 1.1 and 1.2 and goals 2.1 and 2.2.

So directors, just as a reminder, if you could please, please, please, please write down your questions before you ask them.

I'm not really concerned about time as much as I am concerned about tracking and being able to give thorough responses.

And it's also just best practice.

Please, please, please, if you can write down your question before you ask them, I and the folks who might be listening who would probably have the same questions as you would greatly appreciate it.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Superintendent Jones.

SPEAKER_03

Take it away.

Good evening.

Let me briefly outline the agenda for tonight's conversation on student outcome-focused metrics for the third grade reading and the seventh grade math goals.

I want to start by recognizing contributions from across our organization, from the Office of African-American Male Achievement, research evaluation, student services, technology services, curriculum assessment, instruction, all have contributed to this memo.

And a side note on this, we are all learning the protocol for this, and we're working together, and it's become a lot more collaborative.

So in terms of our implementation now, we're getting a lot more technically sound, and so you'll start to see our results be a little tighter.

And so with that said, I'm very proud of how our organization is coming together around this and the other strategic plan goals.

The alignment we're seeing in our system is really unprecedented, and I'm really pleased that we're moving in that direction.

So we'll take each memo in turn.

First, we're going to talk about third grade reading and then seventh grade math by spending a few minutes doing a quick review of the memo to refresh our memories.

I know we've had a long weekend, and you all may not have seen it in four or five days, but this is an opportunity to do that.

And then I'll comment on student outcome measures, and then it's here that I'll pause after each data point for clarifying questions or discussion.

I'll share some brief comments on the strategy SPS is enacting to change these data before we get into our main discussion.

So if there's not any questions, or if there are questions, let me know.

If not, we'll go ahead and do a quick review, like two minutes, just to do a refresh.

SPEAKER_25

Is anyone talking?

SPEAKER_03

No, we're doing just a quick scan review of the target.

Oh, on our own.

SPEAKER_25

OK, sorry.

I thought somebody was going to refresh us through it.

OK, got it.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, you all ready to proceed?

All right, so let's review the content of the third grade reading memo.

And given the limited time we have to cover both reading and math this evening, I will briefly summarize an overview of our work in this area before spending most of our time reviewing student outcomes and addressing your strategic questions.

However, I was remiss in not introducing my colleagues here to my left.

We have Executive Director Toner, and then we have Executive Director Perkins.

and they will be co-pilots on this journey with us today.

So, as you know, to achieve its goals, SPS is pursuing targeted investments, and we've teed up 13 priority schools, and then we're trying to make these investments, the way we're making these investments allows us to learn what's happening across those 13 schools.

We're documenting that, we're chronicling the implementation challenges and opportunities so that we can be in a continuous improvement posture.

All of our investments are aligned to academic research and how students learn to read, often referred to as the science of reading.

This is pretty much accepted across the board as the best methodology for reading.

So when we talk about the science of reading, valid and reliable way to have proficiency and growth in reading.

And so I wanted to just be clear that we're using research-based practices and those are happening in the classroom.

And so we're also doing job-embedded coaching with teachers, principals, schools across the board in those 13 schools and other schools that now have access to the training.

And so we're also utilizing PLCs and new teacher training to really incorporate the high points of the science of reading.

Also, in partnership with the Office of African American Male Achievement, we're investing in strategies that deepen our engagement with families in the areas of earning early literacy.

And we have an early literacy initiative.

I'm going to ask Director Toner to talk a little bit about the early literacy initiative and then we'll talk a little more about some more strategies.

SPEAKER_15

Sure so the early literacy collaborative is a partnership between the University of Washington and Seattle Public Schools to work with a subset of the 13 schools to partner with families and think differently about you know in academia you would think of literacy as reading and writing but turns out when you're a little bit more expansive about what your definition of literacy is there's a whole new world open to you and that means you know intergenerational storytelling It means the language that supports you know a traditional coffee ceremony, much more expansive view of literacy.

Anyway we are working with a couple of schools to partner with families to think about how could we bring that more expansive view of literacy into our classrooms.

SPEAKER_03

So that's just one highlight of many that we're utilizing to try to move the needle.

And so I'd like for you to, well, I want to remind you that we currently use third grade Smarter Balanced Assessment as our top line measure because it's strongly predictive of future student success in K-12 and beyond.

One of the things I learned from Dr. Anderson, Director for Research and Evaluation, is that the smarter balance assessment is an assessment of a predictor of how well you're going to do after 12th grade.

So this has meaning.

And so it's only one data point.

But I don't know if you all knew about that.

Eric told me about this about six months ago.

And I don't know if I shared it with you all, that this is a predictor of success after 12th grade, persistence.

And so to track the progress on an interim basis in grades two and three, which is the focus of this memo, we use the measures of academic progress, also known as MAP.

And this is tightly correlated to SBA outcomes, Smarter Balanced outcomes.

And so I'm going to ask Director Toner to kind of talk about figure two and what this means around where we are in terms of being proficient.

SPEAKER_15

Sure I'd be happy to thank you Dr. Jones.

So as the board knows this is our first year of full implementation of measure of academic progress so that's the map assessment K5 in our school district.

That's a major systems change that we've implemented so that we can have a better idea of just as Dr. Jones was saying some predictability because there's a strong correlation between map success and then SBA success and then future academic success.

That wasn't possible.

So I think about a year ago when we had this conversation we really didn't have many data points to look at, we just were looking at SBA but now we can take a couple of different views into that data.

So if you look at figure 2 what you are going to see is predictability for our current third grade students.

And you can see that we have now data from spring of 2022, fall of 2022 and then spring of 2023. So we can kind of watch to see what's happening there with our different subgroups of kids.

Now, as Dr. Jones also said, again, let's put this into context, this is one data point, right?

But as we have several more data points we get a much broader view of what's happening with our students.

If you look at the second chart down the way on that page you will see that that's our proficiency for second grade kids.

And we only have two data points there because of when we began requiring map across our system.

You'll see that this trend is going down so that actually makes me a little bit curious but one of the folks who was testifying tonight you know doing some public testimony about this memo noticed and brought to our attention reminded us that the second and third grade kids could be the most impacted from the pandemic right?

Because you are in kindergarten, that we may be seeing now as a result.

Would you like me to add more details or is that?

SPEAKER_03

No thank you.

SPEAKER_15

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_03

So while SPS data are similar to state and national trends they fundamentally reflect the failures of our system and other systems like ours to provide black students and students of color furthest from educational justice the education they need and deserve.

And so I'll say this and I'll repeat saying this there's nothing wrong with our students.

There's nothing wrong with their ability to learn.

Systematically, we have not met their needs in a way that has been meaningful, relevant, and tangible.

We are focused on improving our systems and our behaviors and our practices as adults as we move into this space.

So in our strategic plan Seattle excellence aims to address those failures through several high leverage districtwide and targeted investments that are discussed in this memo for your background reading.

We are confident that our core strategies are the right ones.

They're built around proven research, literacy instruction on how to implement change in a large system.

But we have to, we need time.

We need to continue to work this and we need to continue to understand from an implementation perspective where are the gaps in implementation.

So we believe the strategies are strong.

We believe the strategies are solid.

I believe that the gap is in terms of implementation.

We have the great ideas, but if you don't bring it to market, so to speak, it's not going to take hold.

And so we recognize that.

One of the measures that we're going to start looking at are implementation measures, fidelity of implementation, doing some root cause analysis around why we're not seeing the gains in terms of implementation.

Because the science of reading is legitimate.

family engagement we know that's a tool for moving the needle but I believe it's in part of our implementation.

So before we open up to your questions I want to take a moment to let me skip to figure one because as I mentioned the top line results won't be reported again until later this summer and I'll ask Director Toner to explain figure one.

SPEAKER_15

Sure so you can zip back to figure one there you can see our historical trends pre-pandemic 2017 is the far left there just to orient you to that chart.

As you move forward there you'll see spring 2022 actuals so that's the 31.8% and the 40.7%.

Considering the pandemic occurred, right, between 2020 and 21 in there, you could say we're holding steady with our achievement when you consider historically.

Now that's interesting to think about because other districts and other, you know, large systems are really struggling to hold steady and not, you know, further decline.

I want to say that with also understanding that 31% is not acceptable and we have a whole lot of work to do together.

So I just want to put that into context.

We will know more as our data comes to be more clear in the fall and I'm very curious to think about what does our data look like in the context of the other districts around the greater Seattle region.

SPEAKER_03

And as I was looking at my notes here.

One of the big takeaways from this data is that when we include growth in our analysis, about two-thirds of the students represented in these charts are at least making expected growth.

But we have wisely selected growth and proficiency.

And so until we achieve both of those, we haven't met the mark.

SPEAKER_15

Yep, can I speak to that just a little bit?

So figure three actually wasn't possible for us to even look at because we weren't administering MAP, right?

So there are two features that are important when you're looking at MAP and that's the measure of academic progress.

So if you look at the green bits there on the right side, one large group there is the predicted proficiency because there's a linkage that Dr. Jones was talking about between MAP and the SBA.

The other important feature of MAP is that we can actually look at if a child is making what we would say like a year's worth of growth.

And that's really important to recognize that year's worth of growth.

What we probably need to do though is accelerate that growth a bit, because obviously if you're more than a year behind, we need to work in partnership to accelerate that growth together.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so I'm going to pause here for questions, clarifying questions that you all may have.

I'm going to throw a lot at you and really would love to hear your questions and we'll provide some responses to you.

SPEAKER_10

I have a few questions.

My first question was I wanted to know about the progress on implementing your strategy.

So I'm very excited to hear that you will be tracking the fidelity of how those strategies are being implemented going forward.

So one of my questions is on figure two, one technical question.

Between fall 2022 and spring 2023 for those students in spring are they essentially being tested on and kind of end of so the material is getting harder.

Okay so I want to make sure that I understood this.

So does the math test report back to teachers of what kinds of skills students will need more work on?

SPEAKER_15

Yes, you can analyze the results by what we call strands, different areas of...

inside of reading a math like you know maybe geometry or algebraic thinking or something like that so it does break it out by strand yes.

SPEAKER_10

Director Peterson I'm curious because you've also pointed out a trend that I noticed that for the current second graders is kind of trending downward so I'm wondering at a systems level what are you seeing and what could be possible explanations for that?

do you detect any patterns in the strand?

So that may not be a question to be answering at this exact moment but I would be interested to know if you have done that work or plan to do that work.

SPEAKER_03

Let's take a shot and Director Perkins if you have some thoughts on that please weigh in because I think again there's some implementation pieces in here that may be affecting that.

SPEAKER_15

So as a system we're learning about just administration of the assessment, right?

And so in our first year we had to work some things out about kids being able to access the assessment using their devices in the classrooms.

Remember that our previous way of administering MAP would have been to go to a computer lab, have a proctor administer that.

We've changed our practice to have a more familiar environment so those assessments are administered in the classroom but talking about implementation just from a systems level that means training for hundreds of teachers versus what we used to do was just a few right?

Who were proctoring in those computer labs.

So we have some systems learning to do about that.

Now if you look at the third grade data from spring of 2022 you will also notice that the students didn't perform as they are trending up so I'm wondering if there is a connection there between just you know developmental skill and attention or if it could be about implementation, right, for our first couple of cycles as a system.

We will know more though as we continue to collect data together.

SPEAKER_28

I'll just share because there's so many common themes and we've learned a lot from the literacy work.

The math work has learned a lot, and so there's so many things that we could echo in terms of the importance of having the map data and be able to see things in a more specific way.

We aren't yet seeing strand variation that looks important enough.

That said, there is survey data that we've also included that we haven't gotten to yet where we did unpack it more individually and are responding in that way.

The other thing I just want to echo is how important the implementation study is going to be.

We just finished our first year with the math work so again thank you so much for supporting the launch of the middle school math work.

Thanks to Superintendent Jones for prioritizing that.

The trick now is how do we learn from what happened?

And I'll just briefly preview.

We need to get much clearer, much higher, and much fewer in our expectations of what we're asking school leaders.

And that's how we've changed the work.

So that's just a little preview, and I'll share more when we get to the math part.

SPEAKER_03

clearer, fewer, higher in terms of expectations.

And so our system capacity to take on multi-layered strategies and triplicate is not ready to receive it yet.

And so we're finding where those gaps in terms of implementation are.

So that's really important.

So moving on, unless there's other questions, I want to, oh, please.

SPEAKER_08

I'm in.

If you don't have an answer or it'll come later that's fine too.

But when I see downward trends you know one of the things that comes to my mind is what we do with children before they get in school by you by doing universal developmental screening because you catch sort of the areas where they're they might need attention and then you provide an intervention or an enrichment.

What.

what is is that part of the implementation plan is to look at strategies for interventions or enrichments to begin to move these numbers in the right direction.

SPEAKER_03

So a couple ways.

SPEAKER_15

Seattle Public Schools has been building our early learning infrastructure for the last several years and I think now we have about 1400 preschool seats in combination between developmental preschool and all Head Start and all the different kinds of preschool which of course does to your point have a universal screener.

Now, that's one pathway.

There's another interesting trend that I've been noticing in other data that's not included here, but just more globally, are the referrals for what we would call child find.

Yep, so this is a regional issue.

And we have been responding the best we can to offer additional screenings.

So that would be a screening for a child, you know, before typical preschool age, three, four, five years old, that their family or community, someone has a concern and would like to have more information about the developmental trajectory of the child.

So we've expanded as many slots as we possibly can in partnership with student support services to have more accessibility.

But it's something we're going to need to think about how do we balance that capacity as many children maybe weren't referred during the pandemic times but now are really coming forward.

SPEAKER_06

Director Hampson I see your hand is up.

SPEAKER_25

It is don't sound so excited Brandon.

SPEAKER_06

That I did the first time so go ahead.

I'm just kidding.

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_25

I just wanted to ask a question.

I appreciate what you said.

Are you a doctor Caleb.

SPEAKER_28

Yes.

SPEAKER_25

Dr. Perkins, as a follow-on to the strands question, because that is something I was very interested in the answer to that question and what I understood you to say is you don't yet have that data.

This is year one with MAP, the full year.

And is that correct?

SPEAKER_28

We don't yet see interesting variation or trends that are worth reporting into this process, but we're absolutely keeping an eye on that.

And then for the survey information, we did, in fact, unpack that more specifically, as you'll see in figure four.

SPEAKER_25

And when you say you mean like overall, are you looking at school to school, group to group?

Is that what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_28

Yeah, all of the above.

And in particular, within MAP, you can look at different strands of math in particular.

So just see, for example, is the Envision curriculum that we're using connecting well for certain students on specific strands?

That's what we're examining.

SPEAKER_25

OK.

So thank you for that.

And then the piece about building leaders and PLCs and teachers have greater focus on the strategy, I think is what I heard you say.

When I look at the series of strategies listed here, it looks like a lot.

And so I'm just wondering if, is there, and you talked about refining and getting much more clear about the strategies, which I really appreciate.

And so I just wanted to ask you to expand on that a little bit because that initial list of strategies, which was from the original strategic plan, but kind of really lacked specificity in terms of implementation expectations.

How are you, are there things that you're kind of saying, okay, we can't do all of these things.

And, you know, you're, I imagine the sort of hitting teachers over the head with all this stuff and how can I change all of these things all at once?

So what is, can you speak to that more about how you're creating that greater focus?

SPEAKER_03

If I'm understanding correctly, we have MAP, which, excuse me, in reading we have DIBLS, which relates to MAP, which relates to SBA.

And then we have training on the implementation of science of reading.

And then the last real strategy that we have is around connecting families so that they have agency and efficacy in helping students read.

Director Toner is going to correct me.

I think there may be one more central strategy, but we're bringing all those together and trying.

And that's when we talk about the fidelity of implementation.

If we let those things exist independently of each other, we miss the opportunity to have the highest leverage opportunity.

So please speak to it.

If I left something out.

SPEAKER_15

And I can give an example of changing classroom practice and really helping teachers have confidence in the research around science of reading that took us a little time, right?

So also setting the expectation that these are adopted instructional materials and the expectation is that educators will utilize them when they are working with kids.

not to be prescriptive per se but that's the best resource that we have selected as a district and then there's also consistency across classrooms vertically and horizontally so it's that kind of expectation to remind folks that these are the expectations.

Now also you know when we did implement map this year we monitored completion rates.

And we had to do some course correcting across the school year to make sure that all of our students had the opportunity to participate in that assessment for various reasons.

Understanding it's our first year of implementation but really kind of resetting to Dr. Jones' point the expectation that that is a systems expectation and that all kids need the opportunity to participate.

SPEAKER_03

So another feature, if we go to figure four, is the climate, the sense of belonging, the spirit, if spirits are not dampened around reading.

And we don't have a direct correlation or a causal effect on this yet, but we're exploring this and we believe that If there's positive responses, students are in better position to intake the learning in a stronger way and become proficient quicker.

So we ask questions such as, I enjoy reading, reading is easy for me, I read outside of school time.

And these are all kind of assessments of what type of environment is this student in and what is he or she feeling like as they are becoming proficient in reading.

Are they reading to learn or are they learning to read?

And I think this kind of speaks to that.

I'd ask Director Toner to chime in on this as well.

SPEAKER_15

Sure.

So this is another example of the large systems work that we've been doing, developing questions to put on the survey, staying consistent with those questions over time so that we can monitor and see what's happening with specific subsets of kids.

What we are learning is that there are three questions that are really important.

This won't be a surprise to lots of you.

But if children respond positively to, I enjoy reading, I read outside of school time, and reading is very easy for me, they're more likely to have proficiency with MAP and with SBA.

So that's something that we can mirror back to our educators and talk about, you know, which specific students are answering and how their identity relates to reading proficiency.

SPEAKER_03

All right, so please.

SPEAKER_25

Sorry, can you still hear me?

Yes.

We can circle back to this.

That wasn't actually the question I had, um, but if you want to, I think this survey data is really important.

So if you can, if I can please just come back and I'll re ask my question about the strategies.

SPEAKER_03

Uh, Director Hampson, please go, uh, try it again, please.

I, we, I didn't catch it, obviously.

SPEAKER_25

Well, I'm just trying to align when you just mentioned strategies and you talked about signs of reading, debols, um,

SPEAKER_03

there's the, uh, what's the W one map and, um, SBA Guido.

SPEAKER_25

Uh, well, so my question was about the focus that Caleb spoke to.

The strategies are listed.

There's five strategies, which seems like a lot excellent teaching and joyful learning, strong relationships and connected families, et cetera.

And so I'm just trying to, but what you're speaking to specifically when we're talking about strands, those are within the data that we get from map.

Those are much more specific strategies connected to the data that we have.

And my question is, are you narrowing in or honing in on these kind of super high level strategy?

It just seems like a lot, I would feel overwhelmed as a teacher, like, okay, I gotta do all these things and I gotta, Like, how are those things connected?

And I think that there's some explanation of that.

I'm just trying to get a sense of related to that comment about focus, which I think is really important, where you're really focusing in terms of those higher level strategies.

So if it's the combination of strong relationships and connected families, and equitable measures and student supports, right?

Is that where most of these things are connected to?

That's what I'm looking at.

That's what my question is targeted at.

SPEAKER_28

Yeah, so I appreciate you zeroing in on that, because that's one of the biggest ahas around the math work.

And it actually follows the learning from the literacy work.

This year, with our first year, we tried many, many things within those five areas.

And it was the school leaders themselves, the six that we're working with, Danyaki Mercer, Washington Meany, and South Shore, who said, we don't know, we're a little unclear about what to focus on.

So when we met in May with them and really narrowed down the specific expectations, we got into, they actually pushed us to be clear and higher and then coupled that with the fewer.

So one example is Don't just give us guidance about teaching InVision.

We're actually going to have everybody using the same three curriculum-embedded assessments over the course of the year in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade.

Use that data to inform PLC work.

Don't just say, come and observe classes and look for particular mathematical practices.

Look for the solve and share component, which is a particular part of the InVision lesson that gets students to collaborate, which is so critical for success.

So it's that.

Interestingly enough, they wanted higher, they wanted clearer, and the only way they were going to get there is if we pared down some of the other things that we were asking them to do.

So that hopefully clarifies.

SPEAKER_25

It does.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

All right.

Director Rivera-Smith and then Director Harris.

Huh?

You don't have a question anymore.

Director Harris.

SPEAKER_14

We've mentioned the climate surveys several times here at this table and I believe that Director Hampson mentioned climate surveys.

Have the student climate surveys and the staff climate surveys been shared.

That's critical information isn't it.

SPEAKER_25

It's just on the website.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah and I'm going a little deeper with that.

Director Harris are you implying that the student climate survey and the staff climate survey has some correlation and there may be some richness in those data.

SPEAKER_14

Otherwise why the heck are we doing.

SPEAKER_03

OK.

Yeah yeah.

They're available but we have not done that analysis and I think that's worthy of us taking a deep look at that.

SPEAKER_14

Okay and then another question, are we working with any other school districts on this?

I understand that Oakland has a program, are we exchanging information?

I get lots of information and input from community folks.

Right to read or some such, can you talk about ways that we aren't reinventing the wheel but we are taking the best and stealing it and improving it.

SPEAKER_03

And can you touch on some of the partnerships that we also have so not just the school districts but some of the partnerships?

SPEAKER_15

I'll try my best and if I miss something you all can help me out.

So to start we launched with the 13 schools principal improvement network where we came together nine times this year and really had that narrow focus about the instructional priorities.

This kind of gets into the weeds but stick with me for a second.

The instructional priorities for inside of the science of reading are foundational skills fluency and a thing called text dependent questions where you ask a question after you read something and then get back into the text to use evidence because that's a skill you need for the SBA and just good for comprehension.

Anyway, we launched that literacy improvement network with Kareem Weaver from Oakland and Margaret Goldberg.

And Margaret Goldberg is the founder of the Right to Read project, and so she's one of the national experts right now around science of reading and foundational literacy skills.

So she was able to work with our principals and our coaches to take video of Seattle teachers and Seattle children and then have common look for us linked back to those instructional priorities so that principals and school leaders could calibrate around that and then have some to do's before we came back for our next cycle together.

But long way around.

Yes we've looked to our national experts and thought how can we capitalize on the digital opportunity and bring people virtually to work with teachers and principals.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Take that off the screen please.

All right, so what are some other strategic questions?

We're in that phase now for strategic questions, please.

SPEAKER_10

technical I apologize.

So in this memo there's a point about for every average point increase on the agreement scale from these three literacy items student SBA scores are predicted to increase by 15 points.

I mean the climate score surveys are relatively high but the actual map scores are not quite high.

So why do you what was the analysis that yielded this conclusion?

SPEAKER_15

And now oh there it is.

I think for a more complete answer about that I would like to ask my colleague Dr. Anderson to maybe give a written response to the board if that's OK.

OK.

SPEAKER_03

So we're still open for strategic questions please.

SPEAKER_06

I think we're good.

SPEAKER_03

All right, let's transition.

Thank you, Director Toner, but stay tuned because some of this work crosswalks and we can benefit from your knowledge.

So now we're pivoting from third grade literacy to seventh grade math.

We are grateful for the time that we have to discuss this important work promoting our African-American male students ability to succeed in mathematics, ultimately gain access to STEM based pathways that we know are plentiful in the Seattle area.

And let me remind you their success is dependent upon what we do as a system to give them the right opportunities, give them the right strategies and do this with fidelity so that they are the beneficiaries of it.

So we're going to follow the same sequence as the reading goal, at the same time I will remind you that this goal is different than the other two goals in that we just started the strategies and interventions to improve outcomes in this 22-23 school year.

It's not an excuse, that's just reality and we still need to meet the mark.

We will spend the first five minutes doing a, excuse me, we'll just do two minutes again, doing a quick scan read over the math memo and then we'll go through the same process we did with reading.

Directors Hampson, Vice President Rankin, we're doing a read right now, just a quick scan over the math memo now.

All right, now that you've concluded your review, I will take a few minutes to orient us to the conversation to the data.

As you saw on the top of the first page, we are not on track to meet our target for 7th grade math goal.

As it states on the first page, as well as in the data figures, we are at the orange level because our interim metrics indicate results are unlikely to be delivered without significant changes.

Our preliminary SBA results indicate that the fall map projection was accurate, and thus we are not on track to meet our target.

Moreover, the spring map results indicate that our student outcomes are still well below where we want to be.

You know, our baseline results before the onset of COVID-19 pandemic were trending downward with African American male proficiency decreasing from 31% in spring 2017 to 26% in spring 19. And so there's some urgency around what we do to mitigate that.

And so we need to better support students so that they can realize their goals in math.

And I'm pleased to share that we've launched initiatives across five areas that are described in this memo.

At this point, I'll pause to see if there's any clarifying questions on the overall statement of our progress.

All right, so let's spend a minute on why we're seeing these outcomes and what we can do about it.

Before we move on, excuse me, these strategies are also grounded in research and engagement with students and families.

And through our universal and targeted strategies, we believe our students, particularly our black boys and teens, will not only improve academically, but will feel more connected to the math they're learning.

But before we move on to strategic questions, I want to see if you have any clarifying questions on the data in the memo.

SPEAKER_06

know if directors need more time to review, but I'm not seeing any questions at this time.

SPEAKER_03

No, I think it is time for strategic, or you asked for clarifying?

We can move on to clarifying.

We can do clarifying questions, and then we'll come back to strategic.

SPEAKER_28

What hopefully helps is that it follows the identical pattern of literacy.

So you have the top line measure, which is just grounding us on where we're trying to get to.

Then there's the new data in figures two and three, which is the map data cut two different ways.

as Cashel helpfully explained earlier in terms of, and the bottom line is that we're well below where we need to be.

We have a lot of work to do.

This is a system failure, not a student failure.

Unfortunately, it's a national issue.

And to Director Harris's point, we're fortunate at least that we have a number of folks who are working with across the country, particularly through WestEd that Dr. Anderson has set up to try to make sure we're learning as much as possible about how others are addressing this unacceptable state we're in.

And then finally, big figure four is also about student survey data, which is interesting.

I think it gets to your point, Dr. Stong-Moritz.

There's some real positive sense of students and their belief and their belief in what the teachers can do.

But there's also a lot of work we need to do.

Yeah, sorry, figure four, if you wanted to scroll down to that.

that the lower, you can see in particular, my math teacher believes I can do well in math.

So we know how important identity is that's connected to the work that we've been doing.

So we're encouraged by that.

But to go one over, we're alarmed by the math I learn is relevant to my life.

Not a new message we've heard from our students.

You might recall from our voice, our vision, calling for more things like financial literacy.

This is some things that we are actively doing to respond to that data by making sure we are highlighting those points in Envision that are really practical and more engaging for students.

So other than that I will say thank you to Executive Director Toner for setting us up with the other pieces.

SPEAKER_03

So Dr. Perkins can you speak a little bit about our implementation issues in math even if they are the same as literacy?

Can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_28

Dr. Jones wanted to be so brief that he had feedback in my microphone.

And what we're doing about it.

Yeah, so to echo what we were sharing earlier, it has been enormously helpful to meet regularly with these six school leaders and the coaches that they work with, because they've been pointing out some of the basic things that we're just not connecting on.

So as Executive Director Toner pointed out, with his first year learning how to use MAP, And in a wonderful way that a lot of educators have asked for more guidance on how do we use this to actually improve instruction?

How do we use this to communicate with families?

And so one of the basics that we've noticed is that families are very interested in growth.

And MAT provides a helpful growth measure.

And so that's one way that we're trying to make a better connection between our educators and the families is just a conversation about growth.

which is often more accessible than some of the more complexities in Smarter Balanced but we want to do both.

So that's one area.

And there's many others but I highlighted them earlier in Director Hampson's question.

We're just trying to be much more focused learning really a lot from the literacy work and making sure when we bring people together we are getting very clear about what we expect to see during the next cycle of learning that we are going to be doing and so just huge credit to Executive Director Toner and all that work because it's been great to be able to track that and actually develop a very specific calendar of work that school leaders can plan around and anticipate.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Director Burke.

So how much time do we have President Hersey?

SPEAKER_06

It's currently 722. So take that as you will.

Got it.

Director Summers.

SPEAKER_10

I do have a question.

So my observation about this relative to the third grade one is that a the kids are older so they've had more years of essentially grade levels are trying to catch up over.

And also when I'm looking at how are the actual outcomes of our kids.

They are at a much lower level of meeting proficiency than the third grade.

So the work here is a lot in order to meet our goals.

I'm curious like how are you thinking about these goals differently from the third grade reading goal given my, granted I'm not an educator but those are kind of my two observations and then I have a more specific question which is I had asked a question about success maker but I'm just curious are we tracking if kids are using it?

And what kind of feedback are the kids giving us about successmaker?

SPEAKER_03

So I'm going to ask Dr. Perkins to maybe speak in context to that question about how we're looking at positive responses on climate surveys for 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds versus what we're doing for 8-year-olds and 9-year-olds.

Can you speak to how we're looking at this a little differently as one response to the question?

SPEAKER_28

Yeah, in some ways they're connected to the literacy work in the sense that if there is the higher belief and the stronger identity, we do see lots of research that shows the correlation between greater math achievement.

So that's what's encouraging about that second set of data.

To your specific question about success maker we are seeing 12,000 students are at least accessing the tool and that's one of the things I don't know if we've stressed enough.

One great thing that you've pushed on as a board is targeted universalism.

What about the universal?

And so we included a section in our memos to talk about we're not just working with six schools or 13 schools we're already starting to build these out.

So one thing I'd note in terms of maybe the difference between math and literacy although there's probably a parallel.

We know we have a lot of work to do in math, and it is critical given all the opportunities in STEM that we need to give students access to.

And we're going to continue to work in the 6th and 7th and 8th grade year, but at the same time as you hear about the opportunity pathways and you read about those, that's trying to make sure students have multiple opportunities in math over the course of their careers, at least 6 through 12, to get accelerated if they want to so that they can take advanced coursework by the end of high school.

So any, this is the thing that I hope the community hears as well, is that we are working on and we already have implemented a system so that any student who wants to access advanced coursework, advanced placement in calculus, advanced placement in statistics and those things, they can do that.

So that yes this data is concerning and we have a lot of work to do but there's going to be other opportunities to continue to accelerate.

And I would point out Nathan Hale recently did an amazing job and got some well-deserved praise for how they are providing more access to advanced math to all students in that way.

So other things you should please do.

SPEAKER_15

To your point or to your question Director Someretz the growth we need to make as a system for 6th, 7th, 8th grade math is work we need to actually begin preschool through 5th grade so huge thanks to this board for investing in a new instructional material to be able to refresh our practices in K-5 so that children don't have to make up so much in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade.

There's a lot of identity connected to that, especially by 3rd grade and 4th grade at the early years.

But just for some context, we trained 1,300 educators this year with the new instructional material, with 54 professional development sessions, and this is just our first year of implementation.

What's really interesting or exciting to me about the connection between the Tier 1 instructional material, which is Envision, and the aligned tier two tool which is success maker is we actually haven't had that alignment before.

So it's been really confusing for kids if you are getting instruction from your homeroom teacher and then you go some other place to have you know enrichment or additional instruction with a totally different instruction material, that's really confusing.

So pairing those two materials together brings much more coherence for students and for teachers.

I think it will take us you know a year or two to really get our feet underneath us with that new tool but we should see significant improvement as children you know have experience with that in third, fourth and fifth and then up to sixth, seventh and eighth grade.

SPEAKER_03

Let's see a couple of hands up here.

SPEAKER_06

Doesn't really matter.

We're going to get to everybody so go ahead.

SPEAKER_11

I don't know if this is time for strategic questions.

I want to be patient.

So 7th grade math has always been, I remember when we set this goal two years ago I think it was right?

And I remember at the time I had actually suggested maybe we have a progress goal as opposed to an achievement goal and I'm just trying to think of lessons learned from this because we are going to have to do this again in a year when we renew these goals or set new ones.

Do you from your experience so far would we be better served with progress goals as opposed to achievement goals?

Because I know you said we have progress goals but we really don't, it's an achievement goal.

The interims are progress, they show the progress and obviously you don't reach the achievement without the progress but I just again I'm trying to think of just as we go forward and we need to look at this again if maybe we'd be better served and set ourselves up for more success, students up for success if we look at it from progress as opposed to achievement.

SPEAKER_03

So based on trends nationally at Seattle it looks like our goals are absolutely impossible to reach.

And I accept that and that we still need to go as hard as we can no matter where we set the bar.

We've had discussions internally around isn't it discouraging that we have a target that's so high that is 40 points higher than where we are right now.

But why not?

That's what we're about.

That's what we do.

And it's a struggle internally.

We've had some debates.

I've had some people in this room knock on my door and say, Dr. Jones, these goals are too – we can't get there.

Not with discouraging, but just the reality of where we are right now and where we need to go.

I'm not an advocate necessarily of lowering the bar because we need we need to both be proficient and have growth.

And we will see that soon.

But in terms of a statistical prediction we won't get there.

But in terms of having faith in our educators and our school leaders and our very powerful strategies, yeah we will get there.

But it's not just faith, it is we reason strategy.

So I'm not an advocate of changing the number unless you all as a board say we need a new number that's a little more attainable.

SPEAKER_11

Yeah I'm not recommending we do that.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm not even but I'm just deprivatizing internally.

We've had we've had a lot of debates about should we recommend to the board or ask the board to for a little bit of relief on the on the on that mark.

So no I think I think growth is great but we also need to be proficient.

SPEAKER_11

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I wasn't even trying to think of it as lower in the bar because we can only do so much.

Our students can do it but we need to obviously have the resources and the and the strategies to get there.

Because you know we look and I really appreciate all the you know the explanations of what the factors have been that have deterred that and kept us from getting there.

Because obviously when we set these goals and we haven't reached them yet what we hear from public is well where is the accountability.

Yes.

And should there.

So I'm not I guess.

Where is the accountability and what is the accountability?

If there is any to be had because clearly there are greater factors going on here than simple our staff failed to get there.

It's more than that I know it's way more nuanced but to answer that question is there accountability that needs to be had and where is that and what is that?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, so we look at multiple measures in terms of assessments, and now everyone's accountable to that.

That's obvious.

We've even built dashboards, and we have a scorecard that we review.

But then there's now, as we talked about, accountability to implementation.

And that's not something that we've looked at before in earnest.

We've kind of known, but now we're going to be measuring it.

We have a new accountability officer, Ted Howard, and Ted, that's one of his jobs, to figure out how we are closing the gap in terms of implementation.

So that's, we're trying to, and one of his roles is also is to, and I'm putting pressure on Ted, don't worry about it, you're gonna do fine, but to build in a more robust accountability framework.

So we need to be able to plan and come up with our strategies, then we need to have solid implementation, and then we need to have accountability on the back side.

And so that's the cycle.

And so the other piece is accountability to understanding how these measures around climate and sense of belonging and identity also matter.

And so welcoming environment, we've been doing that work for a long time, but we haven't really had made that connection to academic outcomes.

So those are, so it's environmental, climate accountability implementation accountability and accountability to our metrics.

And so we're trying to build a system of accountability going forward.

And so I don't know.

Are you all are you all with me on that.

I mean because if that's not if that's not where we're going please correct the record.

I don't want to be very transparent.

SPEAKER_28

Multiple levels.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

Thank you.

Director Hampson.

SPEAKER_25

I'll get a bad mark from AJ for this, but I did want to say how pleased I was to see this climate survey data and these reports.

It really.

I know we're just getting started with that, but.

Yay, it's it really makes the conversation richer and deeper and tells us more about what you're doing.

And that is my question.

I was.

I also noted on the the math I learned is relevant to my life.

The first question is, Are those students also experiencing, or those that have positive association say that the math is relevant to their lives?

Do they have higher scores?

That's the first question.

The second question is, I don't know how to answer it and get good credit for it, but it's curious to me that the, Is is the actually I guess it is the specificity of the question is for other middle schoolers in the district on average those are lower.

Is that true across these math questions in middle school.

So those are the two questions.

One is is there learning associated with students that say it's relevant.

The second is. about the fact that the, another director mentioned that, I'm sorry I forget whom, but that the survey data is more positive than the actual map data.

I mean the map data.

SPEAKER_28

Yeah, so I'm going to lean on one of the things that Executive Toner said about I want to connect with Dr. Anderson and he helped pull out these specific items because they were connected to learning but I want to give you a more precise answer than that so I'll commit to following up with how specifically they're correlated.

In terms of looking at the data across This isn't quite answering your question but we looked across student groups and we did notice the same pattern across all different types of groups of students.

So in other words the math I learned is relevant to my life is particularly low across all groups that that I remember coming out.

But in terms of I don't think I'm answering your question about another connection.

So if you could say it again I'll make sure to note it and get back to you.

You're muted I think.

SPEAKER_25

I can look it up, too, just whether or not you don't have to.

I can just look it up, Caleb, but I was curious if you knew whether in the other categories, it was also higher than average.

The positive response is higher than the average middle school response in the district.

Thank you.

That was that.

But the other question is whether or not the performance in math is correlated to that.

SPEAKER_28

Let me get back to you on that.

That's why these were selected, because they were there was a correlation.

I want to be more precise than that.

SPEAKER_25

And then the strategy question about that is, if in fact there is a correlation, and you wouldn't be able to answer this question yet, I assume, what is the strategy related to creating more relevance?

It's a, we are in a crazy moving target.

I've noticed that in both places.

And so I think the next time around I would be interested to hear what have we learned about how do we even go about this given how quickly things are moving.

SPEAKER_28

Yeah I think just one quick answer is that one of the positives of having this data and socializing it with you and with our small cabinet and with school leaders is that you know we're sharing this with educators as well and they're intrigued by this so they're looking at the STEM applications that exist in Envision and we're looking at things like financial literacy and trying to enhance those pieces.

We all want to have those numbers be much higher especially on the math I learned is relevant to my life questions so that's some of the initial responses.

SPEAKER_06

Awesome.

Thank you Director Rankin and then Director Harris.

SPEAKER_22

Thank you.

My question is about some of the well there's a high level summary of targeted strategies and I like the way this conversation started out with asking providing schools and educators with fewer directives higher level And I think that's very much in line with you know looking for support of outcomes and creating conditions.

So I really appreciate that.

But I wanted to ask specifically about the tutoring program at one of the middle school sites this spring because I was curious especially connected to what Director Song-Woods I think asked earlier about students who have a large amount of catch up to do.

to meet grade level, how tutoring, if we have data from that to show if that did or didn't have an impact, and then if there is a plan in place to increase access to tutoring or what other kinds, how else we're providing resources aligned with that, well, I guess how we know the efficacy of that last strategy, and then if it is effective, how we might expand it or if you need you know the board to resource that.

And then if there has been something like that at the from the district in the past I know we have tutoring programs in and out of our buildings.

SPEAKER_06

Sorry I'm so sorry to interrupt Director Rankin.

Can we please break those questions up into separate pieces because I'm having a hard time tracking.

SPEAKER_21

Okay yes I can try.

SPEAKER_22

So in the targeted strategy strategies there's a tutoring program.

Do we have data about if that was or wasn't effective yet and if it has been.

Do we have the resources to expand that?

And has something like that been done in the past?

Sorry, I can't hear you, Brandon.

I'm sorry.

The mic, I can't hear myself.

SPEAKER_06

No, I'm not saying anything.

It's just you asked the same three questions in succession.

So let's ask one question, get the answer, and then we'll move on to the next question.

SPEAKER_22

Okay.

You asked me to break them down.

So that's what I was trying to do.

SPEAKER_03

So Vice President Rankin, I'm going to ask Caleb to talk about some of our high dosage tutoring and the things that we're doing that we think are going to have a tremendous impact.

One of those investments, that's a projected investment that we need later on, but right now we're piloting some of that and I'd like Caleb to talk about that.

SPEAKER_28

Yeah so in brief we don't have a concrete analysis about exactly how much that correlated with say map score increases but we are studying the implementation just as Dr. Jones was saying as we are getting tighter on.

That's actually happening at Meany and one of the things that's interesting about these six middle schools is that a number of them receive levy funds and a number of them have been doing tutoring on their own for a number of years so none of this is fresh snow as it were.

And so we are trying to build a foundational level that's true across all these six schools and then ultimately bring it across all of our middle schools in the district.

So that's kind of what we're looking at is trying to figure out what are the core principles of tutoring that work or don't work.

How to make it as efficient as possible given our financial realities.

And so that's where Meany has been really helpful.

How do we do this in a school that doesn't have levy funds.

That's mainly been the focus.

I'll sneak one more piece in because I saw a number of you at the recent Nesholm family foundation piece around literacy at Denny Ockey and Mercer.

Just as another example of this not being fresh snow we're trying to learn from how these schools have been collaborating and what's been successful and what hasn't been.

And this tutoring piece is just one example of that.

But I look forward to the opportunity to answer your question Fuller in an upcoming update about how it connects to improved outcomes.

SPEAKER_06

OK.

Director Rankin what was the next part of your question.

SPEAKER_22

Well sorry I tried to organize to get them broken down and now I can't remember.

SPEAKER_06

Director Rankin I understand.

It is not a problem.

Do you have additional questions at this time.

I apologize thoroughly, but if we are going to transition to trying to follow the best practices here, at some phase, we have to do this.

So I want to make sure that you get all of your questions answered and that we can track, because we are all asking four or five or six questions in one go.

It's not just you, but if we're going to do this, let's do it.

SPEAKER_22

That's fine.

I'm trying to do what was asked, and now I'm just frustrated because I don't remember what my questions were.

SPEAKER_15

I'm not sure who asked the question but I do I did hear someone ask what are you doing in response to the student data and so just for an example for the third grade literacy goal you can see in the on page two of the foundational building block section that we've actually undergone a replacement text in response to the student survey question that asks you know do I see myself reflected in the texts and And we did sort of a scan of the instructional material, realized that we could do some work there.

And so we've replaced 30 texts this year and then trained teachers on how to use them and implement them.

So that's an example of how we can systemically respond to data that we see from the student perspective and kind of build that into our strategies.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Director Harris, do you still have a question?

SPEAKER_14

I do indeed.

SPEAKER_06

Take it away.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

I have read I haven't read the dissertation deep dive mega crawler literature but that music and art make a difference in math.

And what are we doing with respect to music and art.

And can we start referring to STEM as STEAM please.

SPEAKER_28

Like everyone here, I'm a huge proponent of the arts.

I'll say this, and this gets at the piece of fewer, clearer, higher.

As you probably know, the state mandated starting next year for all middle schools to offer the arts in all grades, 6th, 7th, and 8th to all students.

It's a significant challenge.

It's a wonderful challenge because it's great for students.

But I just want to point out that that is intention at times with our overall effort to try to balance and make things real and manageable.

But your points are well taken.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you both for this presentation.

And I I want to respond to something Dr. Jones said in relation to director Lisa's engagement around you know the fact that we've set the bar high.

When I sit and listen to these conversations It feels like people don't understand history.

It's working exactly the way it was designed to work.

And I'm going to call out Dr. Rocky because the other day he in the two by two gave a presentation and one of the things that I believe is going to begin to get at The system that is designed to marginalize and put black boys on the school to prison pipeline is the way they quote unquote diagnose black boys with behavior disorders.

That puts them right in the special ed.

And this is very personal to me because it is the reason why I pulled one of my kids out of public school.

Our native kids had the lovely system, and I'm being facetious, of boarding schools.

And then black folks, it was illegal for us to read.

So just because we're not there anymore doesn't mean the impact of those systems and structures do not have lasting value and continue to impact our kids, because they do.

So when we talk about targeted universalism, I hear people what's a nice way of saying this.

Criticize it, poo-poo it, which tells me you don't understand it.

And you don't understand the system that was set up to keep churning the way it's churning.

And so setting the bar high, how many of you want to go set the bar low and then want to tell the black parents, oh, well, we hit our goal?

Because Dr. Howard and I, we can set up a meeting in Quincy Jones Auditorium and you all can come down and you can explain to black parents why we continue to set the bar low.

So what?

We don't make it.

But you know what?

If we had set the bar low, the percentages would be even less because we would have worked towards that low bar.

We have got to stop thinking about black and indigenous kids this way, period.

It is time.

It is time to put our money where our mouth is.

I cannot live out the rest of my life and not express strongly.

It is not about whether we look good as elected officials because we've met this target.

It's about serving kids who've never been served, who've always been left behind, who continue to be marginalized in our classrooms every single day.

They want the adults to do something.

And if it means setting the bar high and then providing the necessary supports, that's what we do.

We're not telling them because you don't get here, you failed.

We have failed.

We have failed because we think it's OK to dibble over little things while black and indigenous kids continue to fail in our system because we've set it up that way.

That's going to be my legacy that I leave.

I may not make any friends.

I don't need to make any friends.

I got a lot of friends.

I don't need to make no more friends.

But I will not sit idle.

while we play games with black and indigenous children.

I won't do it.

I will speak loudly.

I will speak clearly.

You don't even have to agree with me because I don't really care because you ain't walked in my shoes.

You haven't walked in Blaine's kids shoes or her ancestors kids shoes.

We don't care.

It's time.

It's time to start acting.

So thank you Dr. Torres because that strategy of reducing these crazy quote unquote whatever they are that basically install kids in the school to prison pipeline.

Changing that is a game changer.

It's not the only answer but we got to start somewhere.

So I'm giving you your public flowers on record because that's important.

That's actually putting your money where your mouth is.

You're saying I'm no longer going to play games with kids lives.

That's what it looks like.

It doesn't matter if we don't get to the 70 percent.

Because if we get to 40 instead of 20 we've reached twice as many kids.

SPEAKER_06

Director Burke.

Do we have any other questions at this time.

SPEAKER_03

Take it away.

Well I'll end by saying that we need to continue skilled execution, have a sustained focus on a few core strategies, and then provide the foundational support that's necessary.

And so I'm hoping that you all will hold us accountable to what Dr. Perkins said, clear, higher, fewer, so that we can meet the mark.

And I think that's what we're trying to do.

And this team is ready and willing to do whatever.

And Director Sardieu, I'm inspired by what you said.

You're right about Dr. Torres in terms of what he's doing, and hopefully you'll see evidence of all of us taking that level of care and specificity around our interventions and preventions as we go forward.

We have a long way to go, though.

Nobody on this side of the table is satisfied, either are you as board members, and so we still have a lot of work to do.

And I can't remember what that testimony was around.

We're not where we need to be.

Absolutely not.

But we're being honest and transparent about where we are.

But that's still not good enough.

And so with that said, thank you for your attention today.

And I don't know if our coach Craybill is on the line, but if he is, I'll give it over to you to work that, President Hersey.

SPEAKER_06

And I'm going to give it right over to AJ.

AJ, do you have anything that you'd like to share with us?

SPEAKER_04

Good evening.

Always a joy to be with you all.

Just a few high-level comments.

I'll share most of this in writing with you all so that you don't need to take notes on this.

There was one particular question I wanted to point to.

It asked if students say that math is relevant to their lives, does that correlate with them having higher scores?

I've seen, first I think the intention behind the inquiry is very strong.

Certainly ask more questions like this, but this is a question you're definitely going to have to ask in advance.

This is why you want to ask your technical questions in advance because the way that I most often see schools, districts respond to this is they will look at the percentage of students who answered yes, and they'll look at the percentage of students who are proficient, and they'll look for a correlation between those two, which actually is not a very useful data point to give you.

So instead, what you'd want to look at is, what is the percentage of students who both answered yes, or what was the percentage of students where both their perception and their reality matched?

And I think that's going to be a more useful insight for you.

If students say, yes, we think we're doing well in math, and then the reality is that that seems to correlate with them doing well in math, then that is really, really helpful information.

But if there's no correlation between those two, it's actually just noisy data.

It might be useful for other things, but it's just not useful for predicting math.

And so, again, that's why I mark that as a really what specifically are we digging into.

The other questions that were particularly strong, as normal for you all, were looking around really strategic level issues of how do we understand the impact that we've been having and how are we using that impact to help drive iterative decision-making.

You asked several questions.

You'll see them marked in my notes as essentially 100%.

Those are some of your strongest questions that help you understand what is the strategic decision making that is being made on behalf of your students by your administration in real time.

the more of those type of questions you ask, the more you will incentivize your administration to behave in that way.

And so I just want to look for the questions that are marked 100% and just lean into more questions of that caliber.

There's a lot of opinion sharing, and I understand this is a norm for you all to have a really strong desire to use this as a forum for sharing your opinions.

about things, but I would really just urge you, use it as a forum to get clarity around what is and isn't working for our students, and specifically what pivots, what adjustments is staff making?

When you see that 100% next to the questions, my suggestion to you is that those questions are more likely to accomplish that.

When you see 20, 40, 60% next to questions, I'm suggesting that those questions are less likely to accomplish that.

As always, if there's any way I can be supportive outside of the session, checking in with folks in between meetings and helping unravel some of the data or the reports that you're receiving, I'm always happy to be of service.

Any questions for me?

SPEAKER_06

Not seeing any in the room.

Go ahead, Director Sargent.

SPEAKER_08

Pleasure to be of service.

SPEAKER_06

When is the conference?

You can ask that question.

You can ask that question offline.

SPEAKER_04

Come on.

We certainly have an annual conference in October that will be in San Diego.

It's the third, I believe the fourth week.

of October and there's still a little bit of time.

You all have a really compelling story to share and so if you want to sign up to present any of you who already intend to be there, please email me today or tomorrow so that we can try to get that in the agenda.

SPEAKER_06

I am.

We have two written updates attached to tonight's agenda.

The first is the monthly budget status report, and the second is the compilation of questions submitted in advance of today's meeting by board directors and the staff responses received and posted last week.

There being no business or further business before the board, the meeting stands adjourned at 7.57 p.m.

This is the last one, so see y'all soon, but not next week.