School Board Meeting January 22, 2020 Part 1

came out to eat something.

Tansi Okimaw Pisinitisi Nikason.

This means welcome in my traditional Cree name is young buffalo leader and so thank you for being here today.

Welcome to the January 22nd 2020 regular board meeting.

We live and go to school in a city that is the ancestral homeland of the Duwamish people the Muckleshoot Nation and the Suquamish Nation.

We acknowledge them as custodians of this land since time immemorial.

As guests and in many of our cases as settlers on this land we extend our deepest gratitude and respect to their ancestors and elders past present and future.

As we begin this meeting tonight I would also like to welcome Lucia Santos who is joining us on the dais this evening from the center school.

Thank you.

And Ms. Santos will have a chance to give comments later in the meeting and I'll we'll we'll keep we'll keep in touch about that.

So Ms. Loffelman do a roll call please.

Director Hampson here.

Director Harris here.

Director Hersey here.

Director Mack here.

Director Rankin here.

Director Rivera-Smith here.

Director DeWolf here.

For those who would prefer to and or are able please stand now for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag.

All right.

It is my extreme pleasure to welcome students from Green Lake Elementary School this evening who will be presenting tonight.

I would like to invite all directors to join me in the audience for this portion of our presentation.

Hi we are third grade from Green Lake Dragas Elementary School.

We are here today to tell you all about service learning project that we did and here's how it works.

We are really happy to have the privilege to be able to present this to you guys.

Before we start here's a little bit about us.

Many of the kids in our class like really like making all kinds of comics.

You will see some of these kids in the PowerPoint.

We decided to make posters to get others interested too.

We even had a silent march around the school.

One day at math, we thought about the question, if you had $100 to help others, what would you use it for?

This got us thinking.

Then we learned about the organization Kiva.org, which lends money to help others.

This is how Kiva works.

So, say you're on your computer, and you had 15 minutes to do whatever you want.

Go to Kiva.

You can read and read about other people that need money to get, say, I don't know.

A flock of chickens.

They need $25 more to get the $1,000 they need.

You can send them $25, and about a month later, they'll send you back your $25.

By number one, buying the chickens, number two, selling the eggs and earning money, and number three, sending it all back.

Some students will demonstrate this now.

We have a lot of hungry children in our village.

If only there was a way to find more food.

I have an idea.

Let's get $500 from Kiva.

Excuse me, can we have $500 for a melon?

What is that for?

We're the keeper organization.

We like to lend money to help others.

Do you want $500 for a melon?

Make a bakery.

Okay, sure.

We'll put it on our website right now.

Let's donate.

I really love the way they're trying to make a bakery.

Maybe $500.

$500 split into $25 is $20.45.

Let's do it!

Our class has been surfing the Kiva.org website, and we found 1, 2, 3 are more people to loan money to and then.

With our partner on groups of three, we decided on one person.

Then we made comics and we sold them to the PTA.

The PTA agreed to fund us.

After after that we got in groups and decided our group wanted to lend money to again and made a poster.

Now in spring we are going to try to do it again.

This taught us an important lesson.

Do not complain about things you don't have because believe me not everyone in the world has the same resources we do.

And if a person in our class didn't learn any lesson they should have.

Great.

Now that you know about Kiva how do you spend your money with that Kiva.

Great.

You're right.

Bingo.

We're all super happy you'll agree to try Kiva.

We're also happy for our PTA.

They let us alone.

Goodbye and thank you.

Here are some ways we can help the earth going forward.

I want to make sure that everyone in the world has a warm bed to sleep on.

I want to stop the rain forest from burning down.

I want to save me and Wilson from getting stranded by the winds.

I want to stop poaching.

I want to make sure I want to give everybody a healthy dinner.

I want to save pandas.

I want to stop pollution.

I want to stop bullying.

I want to stop climate change.

Aviv is going to plant more trees.

Thank you for listening to our class.

I hope this inspires you to make the world a better place.

I have really weak tear ducts so I I'm just so touched by this presentation.

So thank you for being here today.

I'm going to ask if you just give us your first name and your favorite subject and you want to just pass it around.

My name is Annie and I like science.

My name is Aaliyah and I like reading.

My name is Ibrahim and I like science.

My name is Reese and I like writing.

My name is Amelia and I like writing.

My name's Tristan and I like making comics.

My name is Ada and I like writing and reading.

My name is Bryce and I like swimming.

My name is Henrik and I like soccer.

My name is Max and I like math.

My name is Chloe and I like science.

My name is Benny and I like math.

My name is Marina and I like science.

My name is Hazel and I like reading and writing.

My name is Antonia and I like writing.

Talk later my name is Aviv.

Thank you all for being here and thank you for your advocacy.

I know I'm going to check out Kiva.

I think it's a really great recommendation for us to do that too.

Have a great rest of your Wednesday.

Thank you for being here.

Okay.

Just want to say again thank you to Green Lake Elementary students and families and parents and teachers really very moved by your presentation tonight.

So thank you.

And I'm going to turn it over to Superintendent Juneau for her comments and for an exciting Native American education update as well.

Thank you.

Thank you so much President DeWolf.

I'm really pleased to be here tonight.

For a big agenda just really excited about what's tonight might bring.

Thank you for being here to be a student board member.

It's super awesome that we get that student voice at this level.

Also thank to the Green Lake students for being here.

That was that's good stuff.

Just always affirms that we're doing the right work for the right reason and that is our students across the district for just to begin.

I would just like to invite Gail Morris the manager for our native education program to share about her team's work as we start this evening.

Hello my name is Gail Morris.

I'm the Native American education program and I am the Chandler First Nations from the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

Welcome new school board directors and returning school board directors.

I am here to give my Native American education board update.

While I give you updates all the time I'm going to give you another update.

So here we go.

So on my staff.

I have two consulting teachers.

I have two classrooms that have two certificated teachers and two IA's.

I have a reentry intervention specialist through the family support workers.

I have a Native American family support worker who has a dotted line to my program.

And I have an IA.

I have a librarian.

So just so you know who we are and who our team is and just moving forward.

No one is here.

Usually I have someone with me but it's just me today.

OK here we go.

Are you ready.

We've had quite a few successes I feel like I just feel like with all the support that we get through Seattle Public Schools I feel like we're really moving forward and I want to highlight some of the successes the curriculum adoption of Senate Bill 5 4 3 3 on June 26th 2019 which was a great day by the way.

And so we started training middle school teachers this year and we've trained 94 middle school teachers.

It's not all of them but it's a really great start and we're going to reach out and ask the teachers that did not do the training to do the training.

In the second semester which is coming up shortly we're going to start training fourth and fifth grade teachers because there's so many elementary teachers there's no way we can capture them all in one year.

So we're just breaking them up and we'll do fourth and fifth grade teachers in second semester.

And we've also been working with librarians I think they've been doing some training up at our classroom at our library at Meany.

There were five languages that were adopted.

This is a huge success for Seattle Public Schools.

We had the Haida language Diné most of you might know it is Navajo Southern Lushootseed Lakota and Nez Perce welcome signs were created by someone on my staff Nancy Bob.

She is enrolled Lummi Muckleshoot and Duwamish and so she's been working on all the welcome signs and putting the.

font in the computer.

So we're excited about that as well.

Let's see what else we're doing.

We're teaching Southern Lushootseed in our after school program at Sandpoint.

This has been a lot of fun for the kids.

We also do STEAM and so through STEAM the kids are learning how to say plants in Southern Lushootseed or whatever they're learning to do and that's out at Sandpoint Elementary.

The library I mentioned is up and running at Meany Middle School.

We've had quite a few librarians and teachers check out our books.

We're super excited about this.

Hoping to find some funding to keep a librarian.

So if anybody gets any information on that kind of thing send it my way please.

Let's see what else.

We do our ongoing summer literacy and culture class.

We do this after the summer staircase so that families can do that and then we do ours in August for two weeks and that and we partner with the Seattle Police Department and Seattle Public Library and I mean.

Miller I think it's Miller Community Center.

Yes.

But meaning it's a great two weeks.

Kids love it.

We also have our ongoing Native American Youth Leadership Academy.

The acronym is NALA and we go out to the Puyallup tribe where a bunch of school districts come together and kids learn how to.

fit into leadership roles and they do a lot of work together just come together just native kids coming together.

So that's great.

Challenges.

Most of you've heard me talk about this over the years is collecting 506 forms.

So 506 forms allows us to work with students and.

Kind of like it lets us know if they're from a federally recognized tribe.

We get approximately two hundred dollars per form.

It's not a lot of money but we do get enough and it actually funds the reentry intervention specialist and a point five of my IA and allows us to take students out to Puyallup or to do some of these other activities that cost money.

Let's see.

We get a lot of referrals to work in schools.

don't have enough staff to meet the needs of all students but we get out there as much as we can.

I go out to schools myself.

We work in partnership with all the principals and teachers and just do the best that we can working with families obviously and we work with families that need the most care.

But and then we also work with the family support workers and McKinney-Vento and some outside agencies as well.

We would have more people in after school programs but transportation is a problem.

We can't get there's no transportation to take kids to our after school program which is a bummer because there are so many families that want to come and learn the Lushootseed language or you know come in do some of the STEAM projects that we have and they I mean transportation is this huge I think issue district wide for all students.

So I already told you that we train 94 middle school teachers.

Shanna Brown and I facilitate the trainings.

Our trainings go beyond just teaching the curriculum.

Actually we really have to teach about what honoring treaties looks like and we have to really teach about what our government to government relationship looks like and how do we work in partnership with tribes around us because Muckleshoot's a partner tribe and a treaty tribe here as is Suquamish.

And so, you know, we have a lot of people that want to know more about who the city is named after and the Duwamish.

And so we do teach about that to some degree.

But the STI is mostly about the 29 federally recognized tribes.

But then, of course, we then talk about the Duwamish as well, which most of them went into tribes, if you don't already know that, like Muggleshoot or Lummi or Tulalip, Suquamish.

So that's been a lot of work and there's been a lot of people using our Schoology page in our curriculum so that that has been really successful I think so far this year.

More student support is you know the after school program at Sandpoint doing what we have the library and we were encouraging families to come and check out books.

We have the classrooms shakachib a lot of people have a hard time pronouncing that it's sha ka chib and that literally means raising of the hands and honoring our students.

So we greet the students by raising our hands to them all the time and this is like greeted.

you with raising my hands.

Yes just like that.

And so that's really successful at both Chief Sealth and Denny and Nathan Hale and Jane Adams.

Jane Adams and Nathan Hale we have a portable but it's been really great.

We had a great.

Well, we had two really good, we had Indigenous Peoples Day Assembly at Chief Sealth, which always really rocks the house, literally.

And then we had a Native American Assembly at Nathan Hale, and there was a lot of students, and they actually did some filming around that, and it went out on social media.

which was great.

So and they really are taking up issues like around missing and murdered indigenous women and the Dakota Access Pipeline.

And so they're learning a lot of contemporary issues that are actually happening today.

So in looking at this I want to show you this is our student groups.

And how Native students are reported in Seattle Public Schools.

So so when you hear me talk about decolonizing the data and I say it all the time it's this.

So when we look at Native American the federal.

The federal piece right here.

It shows that we have two hundred and seventy seven students in Seattle Public Schools.

So those are only native students that self-identify.

It doesn't capture the two or more races.

You know Hispanic and Latinx.

And then of course the Native American that we have and then our 506 forms and these are something that I've been talking about every year before the school board.

So when we look at data it's really only looking at data for 277 students.

If that makes sense to you.

And so we're just trying to figure out a way again like how do we combine that along with.

our 506 forms to show true data without having to sit there and go through it name by line item by name by line item by line item and calling.

And I think I might have brought this up before we we actually quit calling families because even if they are Hispanic and Native American but their first language is Spanish they often think that we're like ICE or government because we're asking them if they're you know have you filled out the federal 506 form?

And they're like, click, and we lose them.

So we're always working around that.

That's why we're basically a referral.

So you know because teachers and principals know how to contact me or anyone on my team to come out and work with students.

So I you know I really just want you to look at this because this number changes all the time.

I think last year it was like more around 400. Right.

So it's always changing.

So this was if you can see that the if you're looking at the discipline here it's improved with native students.

I have a little cheat sheet here that they wrote for me.

So it's discipline discipline rates improved for both Native American federal and Native American NE students to a rate of 4 percent of students receiving one or more disciplinary exclusion.

The number of incidents also declined with a decline in the total number of incidents per 100 students from 11 to 5 for the smaller Native American federal group and from 8 to 7 incidents per 100 students for the Native American NE group.

So when I look at it I see that it that it is declining and I and I and while I feel like I can't take all the credit for that I do.

I do know that my staff when they do go out and work in the schools they are really truly connecting with students and helping them and mentoring them or just sitting with them and you know seeing how they can provide support for them for whatever whatever it might be that's creating.

havoc or concern in their lives.

So I was happy to see that go down, especially because that's always kind of been up and down over the years.

And then this just speaks for itself, the student climate survey data.

You know you look at it and it tells you right over here the Native American category includes students who self-identify as Native American on who these are students who identify themselves as Native Americans.

So it shows over here there was an elementary 246 in middle school there were 82 and in high school there were 59 who identify as Native American who actually took it because not all kids take the climate survey.

But I mean I feel like it's pretty.

I don't know.

I mean I was looking I was looking at it with all students I was like it's kind of the it's kind of the norm with students in middle school to you know have a higher number of or a lower number of not feeling like they belong.

But.

Yeah so you know I was just thinking about all of the things that we're doing and in moving forward and we're just getting ready to things that just recently happened before I turn this in.

We are update we are creating a curriculum page for for us so that.

Anybody can access it from the front page and it'll bring you to what we're currently doing.

So like on the curriculum page there's math and science and so now there'll be American Indian studies.

That's what we're going to call it but underneath it will say Native American education and then we've created a page for our library as well.

So that's currently where we're at and that's it for my slideshow.

Are there any questions for Gail from the directors.

Director Harris.

My usual.

If we had more folks in your department.

Could we spread the word and get the training for since time immemorial spread faster and deeper.

And when was this initial bill passed by the legislature.

In May of 2015. OK.

And now it's January 2020. Yeah.

And the first question.

Well.

I think it's I think it's marketing.

Honestly I don't know how to get it to the principals in the school buildings other than the usual you know principals communicator and we put it out there and we put it out there the whole beginning of the year for the teachers and advertised it and then we put it out on Schoology and then ESS I mean like we put it everywhere but.

Where does it come.

Who does it come down to to make the teacher sign up for it.

I mean like I I actually sent it out to principals.

I I just did it.

I'll admit it.

I just did it.

I just sent it to all the middle school principals which then I found out and included all of you and everybody else.

But I I just wanted them to see that we were doing this training and I actually just got a great email from.

Superintendent Juneau from Chief Leschi that clearly is taking STI training.

So I mean we can see in some of the schools but yes there is some pushback.

And is it more staff or is it how we get them to the to actually sign up and come do the training.

That's that's been my question the whole entire time is like how do we get them to the training.

Is it you know I've even included directors so.

Does that answer your question a little bit.

At some point in the near future.

Can you give us a matrix that shows us which schools are participating and those that we have not heard from.

And maybe we'll post it on the bulletin board like we do at church for those that don't pay their tithes.

Yes I would be happy for that.

I mean you know whatever it takes.

I'm not sure.

And I appreciate sometimes it's awkward for staff to do that but you've got a duly elected school board director asking you for this information.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thanks Director Harris.

I know one of the conversations we're having at exec committee next.

on the 30th is considering our board goals and one of the things that came up during our board retreat just for folks in the audience was to participate in the STI training so that we were also modeling what we're asking for our teachers so Director Hampson.

Yes we as a board need to participate in the training which I believe that's how that ended up on the one of us put that on there.

I want to also highlight however the incredible number of resources that your team has put together and how imperative it is that even when teachers and administrators and other staff have not been able to take advantage of that training.

that those resources are quite extensive and support a tremendous amount of you don't need to Google stuff.

Right.

In this district is what it comes down to.

So please to parents and staff out there Don't Google this stuff that the tribes in Washington state and the educators in this district and elsewhere in the state have done some really hard work and established we we need to lead as a district in terms of when you do have culturally responsive curriculum that starts to finally tell the story that we're accountable to making sure that that gets into our classrooms.

And I know I'm a broken record about it but I will remain that until I don't have to walk into another building and hear about somebody Googling curriculum and and misrepresenting our people to our students.

So thank you for all your hard work.

Thank you Director Hampson.

Any other questions from directors.

OK.

Thank you Gail.

much Miss Morris I really do appreciate your leadership in this district and it's phenomenal and just appreciate you a lot.

I just want to go through the use and I actually was had the opportunity to be in Olympia today with directors Rankin and Hersey and so thank you for traveling down and making your voices heard in opposition of Senate Bill 6282. I was also there testifying and while I was there I actually got to talk to Senator John McCoy who was one of the main architects of the since time immemorial passage and so just thanked him on behalf of the district for his work and his leadership on that and was told I was very pleased to let him know that the board finally adopted STI and that good work was happening across our district and that we would be happy to give him a report at any time.

So he was pleased with that information.

Snow so just beginning with snow.

I would just like to publicly acknowledge the teams of people who made this snow event one of the smoothest as reported by families and staff just really appreciate the heroic lift that happened.

It was cross divisional.

The facilities team worked to ensure that sidewalks were cleared.

The security team helped the school ops team was critical to ensuring we had coverage for employees that could not report to work.

Our John Stanford staff.

Filled in for nutrition service workers who couldn't make it to work and to the two teams with the biggest lifts our communications and transportations team.

Just thank you so much for the effort that was made.

Thanks to everyone who assisted in this work.

And I also want to give a shout out to our partners First Student and the City of Seattle for helping so much during our snow events.

As usual this these are our priorities I'd just like to ground our conversations and our strategic plan priorities.

These are of course as all of you are very familiar our 19-20 focus goals.

It's hard to believe but we are about halfway through this school year already.

We're monitoring the data to see if we need to make any midcourse correction to these goals.

I visited Rainier View Elementary recently.

This staff is committed to modeling the behavior they expect from students just as we talked about the STI training.

They are also engaged in that work.

They often have a quick huddle after school to touch base on important topics.

This circle was a chance for staff to share some positive happenings or as Director Hersey likes to call them the celebrations that we need to share out.

And two things stood out.

First many staff complimented each other for their collaborative efforts in support of students.

And second there was an intentional focus on the rigorous rigorous work of learning.

One of Principal Pinchback-Jones mottos mottos is that we build relationships through the work through the work.

She is committed to supporting teachers in their efforts to provide a rigorous caring learning environments for staff at Rainier View.

And as a result students feel a sense of belonging and they feel that staff is are there for them.

One young man who needed some reflection time in the office shared the teacher planned the lesson for me and I disrupted it.

That was a 10 year old who is very aware that his teacher cares a great deal about him.

Principal Pinchback-Jones and her educators are all about the data all the time.

This academic interventionist who I had the pleasure of visiting with shows me the data that the teams used to determine which scholars were invited to attend zero period which starts at 730 a.m.

She also teaches the zero period and is constantly monitoring student growth to determine the next steps in their learning journey.

Students know what their data means.

They set learning goals and they create a plan to reach their goals.

On the left you can see that Rainier View Elementary staff are committed to model modeling adult reading for students.

This is Principal Pinchback-Jones read a read-a-lution she called it the read-a-lution for the new year.

Her 2020 goal is to finish one book of varying varying genres per month.

She encouraged me to do the same and gave me Jim Collins book Good to Great in the social sectors.

And so I guess I'll commit to reading it.

This school visit was the third in a row that showed a school where everything is done with great intention and attention to detail.

These staff under great leadership are laser focused on building relationships through math and literacy instruction.

Data data and more data drive every move.

As a result they continue to be district leaders at serving students and families furthest from educational justice particularly African-American boys.

Principal Pinchback-Jones has worked very hard to hire teachers that want to be at Rainier View.

She has many newer teachers and paraprofessionals who were intentional in selecting this school and being selected for this school because they are committed to the vision there.

So a huge thank you.

Thank you to this great leader and these amazing educators.

I also visited Licton Spring K-8 last week to enjoy the author and storyteller Joseph Bruchac and thanks to Director Hampson for joining me at this very engaging event.

And thank you to Marcellus Turner our M.T.

at Seattle Libraries for their partnership in this work and the global reading challenge.

Everyone was super engaged in the stories and just want to give a shout out and thank Principal Butler-Genolfi for inviting us to this event as well.

I concludes my comments this week.

Thank you.

President DeWolf.

Thank you Superintendent Juneau.

Now I would like to invite the board directors to share any work they're doing within their committees or liaison work that they would like to report at this time.

And because we had weather related cancellations this month I just ask directors to maybe preview any of the significant items that are coming up on your.

the upcoming committees and I know we did have an ops within the snow kerfuffle but I know also we can do a preview of if you know anything that's particularly critical that's coming up so I will open it up to chairs if Director Hampson.

Thank you Director DeWolf.

So Audit and Finance has still not yet officially met.

We will be meeting on February 10th preparing for that the prior week.

However we do have a budget work session on the 29th.

So for those of you that are interested in this work that's something that is open to the public to.

witness our discussion.

I'm looking forward to an in-depth and lively discussion about that.

We have already had some very good discussions about the budget about the weighted staffing standard.

We're having discussions about PTA funding so there's a lot of.

hot topics as it were and I'm looking forward to doing the good work of bringing transparency and transparency and clarity to all of that work and in conjunction with staff.

In terms of the what I have been up to or will have coming up.

Superintendent Juneau stole my thunder about the global reading challenge author Joseph — Skeleton Man is the book that he that he that is in the current global reading challenge.

If you don't know about the global reading challenge it's the partnership with Seattle Public Libraries that I'm a huge fan of it's my third year coaching in that in that program.

It's really exciting to see how schools come together in teams and compete with each other and then come together as a city and compete around knowledge of these great pieces of literature and it's it's such an enjoyable time every year and it was really fun to see him entertaining all the kids and especially me.

If you ever get a chance to look up this I can't remember the story but it involved something about skunk and coyote and turtle.

What's that?

Oh I don't remember his name.

Slow Giant.

And I was I was in stitches at various points so it was it was enjoyable.

I spent some time in Seward Park speaking with HCC parents.

I have rolled out a list of approximately 200 meeting times that I'm available to come into communities to meet with folks.

and have focused and consistent with our strategic plan on making that available to families that are furthest from educational justice.

Director Hampson can I ask a question.

Are we are you doing your board comments as a director or are you doing specific to the committee.

I just want to be thoughtful that we do have board comments.

You want me to leave that.

If that's board comments there is a section I would love to give you the space to do that.

Later later.

OK that's fine I'm done for now.

Thank you Director Hampson.

Director Mack.

Good evening.

Yes.

So operations did meet last.

January 9th and even though it was a relatively short looking agenda we did take up all the time and then some.

But it was a really productive meeting.

We are from a work plan standpoint we're actually going to be adding three committee meetings so we can have two a month instead of just one a month over the next few months because there's a lot of construction bars and planning coming through.

and wanted to let folks know my fellow board members as well as the public that in those extra meetings there'll be design presentations for three buildings Northgate Viewlands and Kimball.

So it's a preview into the great work that BEX V is going to be doing.

We had a robust discussion about policy 6900 and 6901 this is facilities master planning and levy planning respectively and we made some really good progress I think on agreeing on language and we should have a draft BAR coming through committee next month.

or at the next meeting.

We had updates on two of the advisory committees.

The one is still in formation and then the student and community workforce has been ongoing that task force.

They have two more meetings.

Just to note on the agenda for Ops we like to notice all the public meetings that are going on including that are related to operations.

So if there's any kind of enrollment planning sort of meetings with the community or.

For example there's going to be a presentation at the Ballard District Council on the reopening of Webster school happening and you can take a look there to see all the different meetings that are coming up.

Back to the.

capacity enrollment and facilities master planning advisory committee.

The planning for selecting those members has been delayed.

We've not been able to put that meeting together yet so we haven't done that.

The promise was made to have the announcements out to selected members last week and unfortunately we've missed that deadline.

We didn't have the facilitator on.

board but we are getting that meeting scheduled and hopefully we'll have those members selected.

We did get a sufficient number.

There will be 20 folks on the advisory committee and I think there are 32 applications so I think we're doing pretty good.

Look forward to get that moving.

And our next meeting is going to be February 6th and the rest of it I think is on the agenda today so.

Thank you.

And as you were saying all of our agendas if you go onto our website on the committee pages all those kind of publicly noticed meetings are there.

And the only caveat the only clarification I will say is today actually was the student and community workforce agreement task forces last meeting.

They got through all of their work.

So great news.

So we'll actually have an update to the full board at a work session on March 18th.

So Director Rankin.

You know President DeWolf so we were able to have our pre-committee meeting on Tuesday although my my streets are always especially slippery.

So Dr. DeBacker and Maria we did it via video conference joined by one of my cats.

But so we were able to do that and then the next day it was conditions were too bad and so we weren't actually able to hold our curriculum instruction committee meeting in our pre-meeting.

We talked over what's happening on the agenda and I got some clarification around the cross crediting for Ethnic Studies and then we were going to have an update from Ethnic Studies which I'm disappointed that we missed.

But I know that that will be coming still and nothing else really.

Major was on there so.

Yeah.

Thank you Director Rankin.

No.

So now I'd like to like us to transition to the student comment portion of our agenda.

So again I'd like to welcome.

Oh I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Are we getting a legislative report including but not limited to testimony in front of the legislature today sir.

Sure.

I mean I know our city and state liaisons if you'd like to give any updates from your work in that liaison role.

Director Hersey.

Absolutely.

So for those of you who might not know I have assumed the role of legislative liaison which means I'll be working very closely with our partners down in Olympia especially during this quote unquote very short session.

It's already been a very eventful one and we're really excited about a lot of the bills and there are a lot of the bills that are coming through that we're not so excited about.

We just went down and by we I mean myself Director Rankin and Superintendent Juneau to testify in our personal capacity against Bill 6282. I won't waste your time with explaining the details of what that would do.

I'll talk more about that in my own personal updates more than happy to have a conversation about what that looks like.

But effectively what it would do is basically require school districts who have a specific delivery model for highly capable services if that model were to change to.

include some type of plan similar to an IEP but not necessarily an IEP with those students within 30 days of that transition taking place.

So this would be an incredible burden on our teachers it would be an incredible burden on our districts who are already doing the work that is necessary to keep all of our students going in a way that is comfortable for them and that you know we have the means to support them with.

And we will continue to have this conversation with the legislature but that's a brief update with what we've got right now.

And that was in your personal capacity personal capacity.

Thank you.

Any other updates from city.

OK.

OK.

So I'm really going to transition us to the student comment portion and again I'd like to welcome Lucia Santos.

Ms. Santos is an 11th grader at the center school.

She attends running start and also stays actively involved in her school.

Her commitment to equity prompted her to lead centers racial justice alliance through which she planned school wide activities including student panels and assemblies.

This commitment extends beyond center as Lucia plays a central role in why we or young women empowered a local group devoted to strengthening diverse voices.

Lucia joins us today as one of the chief Senate officers at the center school.

Thank you for being here.

I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you.

I will say I.

I'm just very grateful to be here and I have not experienced the school board meeting before so this is very exciting.

Should I talk about center or other questions.

Yeah I think what we tend to really appreciate is just your your kind of assessment and your experience at center school and any things that I think you.

particularly being seated here with us at the dais that would be an opportunity to present information that you need us to hear whether it's feedback or concerns or issues that we think we need to be mindful of.

It's really open to you to be you know you're our ultimate customer if you think about it that way and so your voice is deeply important.

And so that's why we have you up here.

So.

Take it away.

Thank you.

All right.

So I am like you said a junior at the center school.

I've been there for three years and I was saying earlier to you I really appreciate that center is a really small learning community.

But we are definitely like right now one thing that we're looking at is the fact that the budgeting process for small schools is really hard often and I've been on BLT which is building leadership team which you all probably know.

I've been on it for about a year as one of the student representatives alongside Adam Billen who I don't think is here yet but he'll be giving testimony later.

I'm just witnessing like the difference the difference that like disparity between smaller schools like Center and like Nova smaller alternative schools that have Student bodies with a lot of students who have more specified needs because of whatever reasons.

We're all in the small community by choice.

It's hard for us to get the resources that are needed because it's a smaller school and I'm sure you all are familiar with this but we're definitely thinking about how we can like maintain higher level classes and for students that are interested in that like that is definitely a priority and there are a lot of students at center who are interested in taking classes like AP bio and AP environmental sciences AP art and especially art centers and art school and getting those classes I've witnessed becoming harder lately which I don't fully understand the reasons for other than just we have less students and it's harder to get the correct numbers and that kind of thing.

But generally I will say like at center it's the community is what comes first and I really appreciate that about it and I hope that.

It becomes easier for us to get the resources that we need as a small school and the Seattle Public Schools.

Yeah.

I do.

Thank you.

I want to open it up for directors if they have any just questions for you if that's OK.

Do directors have any questions that they'd like to ask Lucia.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Hi.

So why did you choose the center school.

I chose center school because I've been someone who has gone to like small alternative schools throughout my life but was also kind of looking at larger schools like Franklin and like I live actually in the south and so it's definitely like a big commute which is one thing that has been hard but like.

The thing about smaller schools like Center is you make the choice to be there and everyone there has made the choice to be there and being in a space where the teachers are engaged and the students are engaged with the teachers because of the size and that kind of thing and also because of our dedication to being in that community like the teachers I know all like from talking to them and from experience that they are really dedicated to the center school.

Lots of them have been there for many many years and have like serious roots in that community.

I chose to be there because I am really interested in the arts and I'm also like I said I've gone to small schools.

I went to Orca for elementary school and like Washington Girls Middle School for middle school.

So all small communities but getting to witness like The connections that are possible in a smaller school especially for myself.

It's important.

Thank you.

Director Hampson.

I'm so grateful to you for participating in BLT leadership team which is often very dry environment.

So thank you for representing in that way.

And I'm curious what are your where do you see the biggest gaps in terms of the small school funding limitations.

Okay.

I think that one thing that.

Personally I will say I do not know a lot about like the terminology and like hearing like FTE get thrown around a lot like doesn't mean too much to me but I do know that watching teachers have to like put together these kind of like crazy contracts and like do so much to just spend time at the school that they care about.

Like we have a teacher who.

has been teaching graphic design for a really long time and this year she wasn't able to but she still wants to be in the space that is center school and spends a lot of time anyway working in the school and that kind of thing and just witnessing the impact it has on teachers who really have put a lot of work into the center community is hard.

And I would say arts are getting hit by it, which is really tough, because the center has a reputation as an art school.

And when we don't have those classes to back it up, it's really hard.

And retaining people who came for the arts and aren't getting the resources that they could get even at Garfield and other places like that, but still want that small community That's really hard to witness.

And like I said AP classes I am about to be a senior and like just thinking about you know the future of things that I'm interested in doing and we do have AP environmental sciences and like I'm interested in environmental studies which is a good connection but there are people who want to go into like bio things and stuff like that and we had to like switch off our AP calc and AP stats for the year which is It's just watching corners get cut in that way is disappointing.

Thank you.

I do have one question.

Particularly are there kids in your school that you hear stories about that maybe of how they found the center school.

I think I think we can certainly own that.

We could do a better job of making sure people know about the center school and obviously that I think we can certainly take that responsibility.

Do you do you do you hear ways or things that worked for other students or how can we kind of replicate what's working that it's getting students there to make sure that we do have good enrollment so you can have all those classes.

I think that one thing that is good for center is definitely reputation and I know that there's a lot of kids who have tried out like larger schools and like this isn't really for me and like maybe their friends have gone to center and they've been like this is a good place.

I do definitely see a gap in like outreach to the south end like I definitely my friends from the south end like who may have wanted a smaller learning environment did not get necessarily like the resources to that and like schools like my actual my zone school is Beach and like that is a small school but just like the difference in community is really interesting to witness and like alternative schools are often primarily like white schools and just I would say like one thing that I think could be.

built on is expanding what an alternative learning environment looks like and means.

I do think that open houses have been a great thing.

We have good open houses.

We have one on Thursday, and everyone's getting excited for that.

I don't know if I'm answering your original question.

You did.

So to that point there is an open house.

Yes.

And it's tomorrow.

Yes.

And can you tell us a little bit more about it.

Yeah.

So we have open houses and they're primarily run by ASB.

I won't be able to be there but many volunteers come off ASB and we all just spend the evening at the school families come in a lot of families I would say from.

There's definitely like a good West Seattle contingent and some definitely there's more South Bend people coming centrals like pretty much from all over coming to center often also looking at Nova you know that kind of demographic of people who just want a smaller alternative.

So tomorrow people can show up where and when.

Yes they can.

Center school at I believe it's at 6 p.m.

There will be an open house if you're interested to come look at center school.

Hi, Conti.

Yes, please come.

It'll be great.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you.

I really appreciate being up here.

Have you read Azure's book?

I'm actually good friends with Azure, yeah.

Okay, well, because Azure mentioned in their book about why we as an organization, and I thought that was kind of fitting.

We met at Why We, actually, yeah.

So I just want to encourage you know we are going to have public comment in about 15 ish minutes and then after that we could do some business items.

So I encourage you to stay up and ask questions and be just as engaged as us and don't.

Tonight you're with us.

So if you have any questions or if you feel like we need to ask staff something from your perspective please do speak up and we're happy to have you here.

Thank you so much.

I have to head out around 530 but understood understood.

So we have now reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.

So may I have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move for the approval of the consent agenda.

Second the motion.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

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

Director Mack.

Yes I'd like to remove item 4 BTA IV approval of capacity management actions for the 2020-21 school year.

OK.

Are there any others.

So I'm ask I'll ask the vice president to read a new motion with just the amended consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda as amended.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

OK.

So that item has been removed from the consent agenda and will be taken up for action after public testimony.

So seeing as we have 17 minutes until public comment I wanted to open it up to directors who wanted to speak any board comments before the 530 public comment and I want to make sure we start right on time.

So if any directors want to do their board comment section now.

Encourage you to use this time.

And I think the only other caveat I would say is just be thoughtful that if it's on the agenda tonight we can save that portion for that.

But if there's any other updates or you know community meetings you want to advertise this this would be the time.

There might be some poetry.

Any directors want to speak now.

OK.

Well seeing as there are no directors that would like to do any board comments before the public testimony I will adjourn us for I'll actually put us into recess for 15 minutes we'll return promptly at 5 30 p.m.

for public comment.