School Board Meeting July 5th, 2017 Pt. 1

Director Harris.

Director Harris.

Good evening.

Welcome to the July 5 regular board meeting.

As president Sue Peters will be participating via phone today.

As vice president I will be presiding over this meeting.

Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Director Harris, here.

Director Patu, here.

Director Pinkham, present.

Director Peters, here.

If everyone would please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Harris We do not have a student presentation scheduled for tonight and I will now turn the meeting over to Superintendent Nyland for his comments.

Thank you.

And welcome to the 5th of July right after the 4th so hope you had a good holiday.

We are abbreviating superintendent comments tonight and we will be again having some discussion about the budget and waitlist in that timeframe that we would normally do superintendent comments.

So I will try to be really brief.

Thank you for a great year, lots of accomplishments, a lot of good community support for the Levee Cliff extension which helped us bring back 200 of our staff, city support for moving to two-tier busing, and more schools than ever.

Pointing the way to eliminating opportunity gaps.

Thank you to our school board.

Last meeting you approved for a fourth year in a row our three top goals on excellence, equity and engagement.

So thank you that helps us line up our work.

On the back table tonight we have a handout with regard to superintendent and staff presentations and visits and community engagement highlights.

Tonight I want to repeat- yeah that too- report briefly on the strategic plan and smart goals that we have.

The first goal is our educational excellence and equity.

And we had two days with administrators for an administrative retreat last week so that's That is a heavy lift.

Finish the school year on Monday and regather on Wednesday and Thursday to talk about what we are going to be doing when we start school in the fall.

But I appreciate Director Harris and Director Pinkham being there for part of that time.

It was a good time and again thanks to the boards putting those goals in place it meant that we could carry forward much of the work that has been underway.

Our next steps in regard to the goal one, goal two, MTSS and EOG is to complete the formula for success and the details that go with it by next fall.

Under improving systems, state budget has been front and center on that, and JoLynn will give a bit more detail when she comes up in just a moment, but at long last we do have a budget.

And right at the last minute again, we, I guess jumping to the bottom line, we had proposed at the last meeting some options for restoration 3.0 and 4.0 and the good news is the legislature came through with almost enough money to do what we had proposed to restore.

Bad news is, as we have been saying all along, we are nowhere near restored for the full 50 million in budget reductions that we made.

And we are still analyzing the budget, but we are certainly not… The legislature has done yeoman work, they have addressed many issues, but they have not addressed the full cost of McCleary, and they have not made Seattle whole.

I think we have another year of trying to sort it out with the legislature, special education, compensation, and our local levy and taxes are the big issues that face us in the next few months.

We did celebrate on Friday with the John Stanford Center employees.

A lot of employees that do a lot of hard work behind the scenes and Director Harris and Patu were here to help with the celebration.

We did recognize 14 of our colleagues with fly to the ball awards for the above and beyond call of duty that they had exhibited.

And last week the mayor signed the Seattle education action plan which is really a memorialization of the summit EOG work that the city had undertaken.

Now with the city Council's approval and blessing.

Topics of community interest, I notice that we have a lot of Rainier Beach speakers on tonight.

We do have a cycle of restorations in place.

Rainier Beach was the first high school to get a remodel.

It's currently on the list for the next phase of investments and staff have met with students and community members to begin that visioning with Rainier Beach.

Waitlist is also up for further conversation tonight following the work session that we had in the middle of the board meeting last week.

Our staff has continued to work long hours, many of them were here yesterday and over the weekend trying to get numbers particularly around analyzing option 3 which the board had asked about which pertains to siblings.

Staff is definitely supporting option one.

We know that the definition for policy is problematic for us.

At the same time we have verified that it's the same practice that we have done for the last 10 years.

And now that we've had a little bit more opportunity to analyze the different options we recognize that the cost for option two either heavily impacts our highest need schools and or it becomes very costly for us in a year when we don't have resources to mitigate that.

Magnolia we have continued to work on, we are postponing the Magnolia Elementary bid and boundaries.

while we consider a variety of other things.

A, getting a bid that we think is more affordable, and B, resolving where we might be with regard to the Fort Lawton property.

Staff have continued to meet with the city and we have determined two things.

Many of the parents wanted us to have a school there in lieu of public housing and the city has made it clear that there will be public housing there regardless of whether there is a school there or not.

And second, a school site would have to go through we believe the US Department of Education and we went down that road earlier with the Federal Reserve building.

They have many many hoops that we would have to go through to get to success in that area.

Although we will continue to work on that.

With regard to Seattle Center, we have been engaged in conversations with the city and the Seattle Center for the last year or so.

We have entered into a shared process that will help consider each of our individual needs and the collective needs for Seattle center.

Each of us retaining veto rights as to where we go ultimately with that.

Some good news, interagency was recognized in the media for their graduation and the unique way in which they serve students.

And, we now have our family climate survey data back and it shows good gains with overall satisfaction with the district going up 10%.

We had 10,000 families respond, an increase from last year.

Across all survey questions family satisfaction rates strongly agree or agree went up a minimum of 5% and some went up our communication for example 15%.

So although school is out many of our staff are just getting geared up with a lot of things to do over the summer.

The bus routes for our two-tier system.

Opening five schools along with the ceremonies, ribbon cuttings and all of the equipment and furniture and Internet and all of that kind of thing happening over the summer.

Preparing to implement our new K5 ELA curriculum.

CERB day which union gospel mission helps coordinate with dozens and dozens and dozens of schools over the summer and thousands of our students are involved in summer school and I think almost every one of our elementary schools is planning a jumpstart for kindergarten and pre-K students in the fall.

So lots underway even though it's summer.

So how did I do that?

Did I make it?

Almost.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Assistant Superintendent JoLynn Berge take it away.

Berge Good afternoon everyone.

So there was a request to slightly change the agenda and to talk about the waitlist first.

Is that how the board would like to proceed?

Harris We have consensus for that from my fellow board members.

Given the fact that the waitlist may impact the budget.

Do we need a motion to amend the agenda?

Bergen No, I mean I would say no.

We will just go to part two of the agenda and skip these super interesting slides and move on to the second interesting topic.

So waitlist, hopefully you were able to look at the briefing paper that was included as part of the packet.

So the briefing paper contains three options, and it has a summary of each option, it contains the pros and cons outlined by staff for each option, and then the implications of each option in regards to budget, policy, equity and engagement are also outlined in that staffing paper.

Given that I have 25 minutes tonight I won't be going over the staffing paper unless there are questions from board directors.

So do I have questions comments or concerns on the staffing paper at this time?

Director Burke.

I want to just clarify our process here, so Q&A on waitlists and enrollment is now?

Or are we going to go over these and then there will be Q&A after?

We can go over these slides and then there can be Q&A after.

Okay.

I will defer then on questions.

I'll go over my slides.

So option one remains unchanged is the continuation of current practices, and it would move the fewest students.

We have updated option two, it now includes elementary schools and we are calling this the move everything with physical space option.

And then we've added option three, this is basically option one plus 150 siblings, and that would be for schools with physical space.

So I prepared two slides on the summary of the options really following up on what directors had asked for last week when we met about this.

So for elementary in K8 you can see that in option one there is basically no cost.

For middle and high schools I just want to say you have to take this together with the enrollment changes.

It really makes most of this net out which is why there is no budget impact.

So while the waitlist moves have the total FTE of staff increasing and reducing, once you net that with the enrollment changes, it nets out to zero cost for us.

Okay?

I think there were some questions about that.

Option two has the most movement, it moves the most kids, a total cost of just over $7 million, and then option three is option one plus siblings, and that costs just over $1 million.

Now one of the questions that board directors had asked was what was the impact on equity high need schools?

And so we have teed that up here again option one does not cost anything.

If we were just to backfill the staff, because what our data shows us is that waitlists our equity high need schools, kids want to move out of, not into.

So we are talking about having to backfill staff, and that is the cost sitting on this sheet, is just the backfilling of the staffing costs, I'm sorry it is the backfilling of the staffing costs for the equity high need schools, as well as the additional staff that would be going into the other schools.

but it is just, it is not for every school that is not an equity high needs school, not backfilling staff for every school.

Director Blanford did you have a question sir?

Blanford So that explanation wasn't totally clear for me.

So I'm checking for understanding.

Were you telling us that we would maintain the same level of staffing in our equity high need schools even while the students, even while some students are moving out of those schools into other schools?

Blanford.

And that's reflected on the $1.3 million budget hit as a result of making that decision.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then an additional $990,000 for middle and high school.

Thank you.

Bergen And then just for the equity high need schools for option three there was only five or six sibling moves at the high school level and they did not cause any schools to lose or gain staffing so there weren't any impacts for that.

But there were equity high need schools that lost staff that would need to be backfilled or potentially would need to be backfilled under option three and that would cost $364,000.

So as superintendent Nyland had stated in his comments the staff recommendation is to remain with option one which is past practice.

So this is where we get to questions on waitlist.

And I am by myself tonight, Flip is here in spirit.

He is on bereavement leave let me just say that.

Director Blanford and then Director Burke.

Blanford.

So we would have had a different conversation about this issue last week before we knew what the legislature was going to do.

And I know that the budget conversation is coming up, but can you share any information that is relevant for this conversation around the budget?

Bergen Yes, I think that from my perspective, knowing what I've seen in the budget and we've been able to analyze so far, that our previous recommendation stands.

So the restoration amount minus the $200,000 that we've come last week and talked about a restoration plan of another $7.8 million, given what we've seen in the budget we are now lowering that to 7.6 million in what we would request to move forward as additional restoration.

It doesn't change our recommendation as far as waitlist.

Waitlist, we don't believe spending money here is the right thing to do.

I think when we get to the fall we are going to have other enrollment issues and other mitigation needs once we actually have kids in seats and we know what that looks like for each school, there is going to be a lot of pressure by a lot of schools and a lot of staffing requests come at that time.

We want to take it at that time and say and have a dollars then which we have outlined $4 million in the restoration plan to move staffing for those schools that will need it at that point in time once we really know their enrollment.

Blanford.

If I can follow up, and maybe you are not the appropriate person to answer this question, but I find myself wondering about the implications on, you've articulated how it will potentially impact our high equity schools, our schools that need equity, overall for for the entire district, what would be the impact of moving a number of students from one school to another?

And I would wonder particularly those students, many of them are what we would call vulnerable students to start off with.

If they have been enrolled in one school that is one of our equity schools and then they are moving to another, just the move from one school to another is potentially an exacerbating factor.

Right?

Bergen It doesn't exacerbate, yes I believe so.

And the staffing moves are also issues for our equity high-needs schools.

We and you, we've had this discussion many times about trying to keep stability over our staffing for schools and trying to keep those teachers and working with those schools, those programs stable.

And so this goes along, it adds to the disruption.

And does it not also increase the class size in the receiving schools which could or could not be but probably exacerbates our efforts to close our opportunity gaps just because you've got more kids in a school rather than fewer kids in a school?

Bergen It could, it could.

And the other shifting that we are doing also will create splits where maybe we didn't have them before.

That could be one unintended consequence in particular for Stevens.

That could happen for Stevens as far as, and other schools where splits happen and they maybe wouldn't have it before.

Blanford My final question would be, can you speak to any upside that you would see in option two?

a lot of people on the waitlist would get what they want.

I mean families would get their choice.

Those kids on the waitlist who were able to move because they had a choice where there was physical space would be able to go to the school of their choice.

I don't know that there is another upside necessarily for us.

Director Burke you are up.

So I continue to struggle with the option one being current practice.

And so I'm wondering in terms of detail, one of the things that I had heard that we used to do historically was sort of one-to-one swaps, where if there are kids on a waitlist at school A and on school B, and they are on opposing waitlists, we would just move them.

But then I had heard last year that if they weren't in position one, we did not move them.

Bergen That is my understanding, the latter is my understanding from what Flip has articulated to me when asked that question.

Because I think Director Geary had that question for us previously as well, and what Flip's answer was, and I will speak for enrollment planning.

because I know what he said.

And he said that the practice has been we don't jump them, we don't move one-to-one swaps underneath, that previous boards and previous policy had felt like that did not respect the people in position number one.

that there's too many things that can happen down the line to move positions on those wait lists.

So other kids moving in or out can impact that.

And so they keep to in the number one position, you're in the number one position, and you're the one who gets to move.

There's no swaps.

If 13, 14, and 15 could swap and move, that currently doesn't happen.

It's my understanding that hasn't been happening for a long time.

The conversations that I had with a former board director that was part of designing the original policy, the original student assignment plan, was that that was one of the easy things that could be done, no cost, positive impact to the community, and was a way to move waitlists in just a, I'm not sure if It was something that was standard practice historically in years past.

I feel it came from a respected authority, and I was wondering if there is a way to dig down into the history to understand, going further back to confirm that, because we've heard it from so many different places that it feels to me like that is something that we owe our community clarity on.

So I did call someone who worked here before.

and ask those questions, and describe what we were doing.

And they felt like we were following current practice, and that we had been following that practice.

Because we had been hearing the same things that you had been hearing, and I hadn't been here that long.

Flip hasn't been here in that position.

So wanting to go back and ask someone who had that historical information, we have turned over the director of enrollment planning a couple different times.

So wanting to go back to those days.

We confirmed, so we felt like we were still following the practice that had been in place, and that was the information that I was provided.

We made that call before the last work session.

Burke the other thing that I'm trying to understand is on the website we have historical annual enrollment reports that show a plethora of fascinating data, hundreds of pages of joy.

going back to 2010-11.

In the enrollment year 2010-11 we had 556 kindergartners that were siblings that applied for choice schools.

By the time we hit waitlists, 159 of those were waitlisted.

By the time waitlists were cleared, there were only 14 left.

So we moved 91% of a waitlist of 159 students then.

and I looked at the trend for all the years and starting in 2010-11 we moved 91%, then 88%, then 83%, then 90%, 82%, 89% and only last year did we move 44% of the kindergartners that were applying for choice seats.

Of 200 applications there were 108 on the waitlist, we dissolved the waitlist with 60 kindergarten siblings on the waitlist.

Which is more than we've had in any year historically despite having significantly more applications.

So it feels to me like something changed.

Because we have an extremely stable data history, including the last three years we've had nominally 200 kindergartners, sibling kindergartners on applying for choice seats.

In 14-15 and 15-16 we moved more than 80% of those students.

So I don't understand why in 16-17 we weren't even able to move half of them, and this year we are also looking at potentially not being able to move as many of them.

I know we were we have been opening schools in other years as well.

Bergen Yeah, when you describe it that way to me, to me it correlates with our budget situation as we've gone through time.

And I can't speak to what's happened in prior years.

This year for 17-18 we tried to have a more transparent process about really every move, what was going on, and we had a much more transparent process about the budget.

And that included reaching out and trying to get rid of the silos between departments.

And so one of the things that is happening for 1718 that hasn't been happening before is budget is working hand-in-hand with enrollment planning as to costing all of these scenarios.

And that is something that we hadn't done before.

But because of the tightness of the situation, having had the board go through a $74 million budget reduction scenario, we felt like that was a way to improve our process to clearly articulate and identify where we were choosing to spend our money.

Director Peters did you have questions?

Peters Yes I do.

So I'm looking at the document here, the briefing paper, and I want to thank staff for But I do have some questions about the way the options have been presented, as well as the history of how the district has operated with regards to wait lists.

So, for example, option two, under cons, it says, if we were to go with option two, is that it implements new policy without opportunity to engage families.

This is not new policy.

that the board is asking for.

And that, I think, is one of the underlying problems here.

We've finally been told clearly that what the district has been doing has been a practice.

But this practice does not appear to be founded in policy.

And Associate Superintendent Berge, can you confirm that this practice is not founded in policy?

Is that a question for me?

So I will reiterate that I went back and I personally talked to someone who has been here in the years that Director Burke just mentioned, and he confirmed that the practice that we were employing, and we talked for 45 minutes on the phone, the practice that we were employing this year for 17-18 was the same thing that had been going on all of those years.

it just hadn't been articulated.

But it was a continuation, and I think the other thing that was stated was that there were three or four board members that worked very closely with staff through this process, and had a lot of hands on and policy direction given, and that a lot of it was discussed in committee, and so From that person's perspective, the board had been giving that direction all along, and had been very instrumental in the language in the student assignment plan, the practice and the policy that was forthcoming from that.

Harris I have a question if I might Director Peters, President Peters.

Since we are creating a legislative record here, could you share with us the name of the person you've been getting your historical information from please?

Peters Bob Boucher.

Harris Thank you so much.

OK, I'd like to continue.

So it sounds like from what you just said, Associate Superintendent Murthy, that this, like I said, this is not an actual policy.

It's a practice.

And the problem with a fiscal year that runs on is it undermines the legitimacy of policy.

And it creates a system where things can look arbitrary and superficial.

And I think that is what the community has been reacting to in the last few months with regards to the waitlist.

So I would propose that if staff believes we need to have codified in our policy stipulations about not moving anybody if it negatively impacts the departure school, then we need to have that conversation.

And that needs to be, that has to go through the process that lands it in policy.

But right now that isn't the case.

That's why we're in this area that it's hard to defend a sort of word of mouth practice that is not grounded in policy.

Now, the intentions of maintaining our schools' integrity so that everybody has the resources they need are honorable intentions.

I acknowledge that.

But there's also the flip side in that they mask potential problems in schools that people are choosing not to attend.

And how do we address those issues if we are artificially impacting enrollment year after year after year?

Harris is there a question there for assistant superintendent Berge?

It was not meant to be rhetorical.

My point is, by not addressing the reason why people are choosing other schools, instead we are forcing people to stay in these schools.

How are we addressing potential problems in the schools or challenges?

How does this actually help improve these schools?

Bergen So one of the things that we've been talking about as we've been developing our budget are equity high need schools.

And we developed the equity tiering model this year to identify those schools.

So I don't think it's masking anything, I think that we know which schools it is that are struggling.

And that have opportunity gaps.

and those are the schools that we deliberately talked about having the $2.8 million, and having the continuity and program, and giving them additional staffing.

So those are some of the ways that we are trying to do that, along with the MTSS initiative, and the EOG initiative.

So our SMART goals are also wrapping around those schools, as well as the needs of all of our students, but trying to address that in that way.

Director Peters, Superintendent Nyland I believe wanted to speak to this issue.

Thank you.

I was just going to concede the point that we agree that the policy given our conversations of the last several months is not clear.

And we have been keeping track of about a dozen, I don't know what to call them, I guess they are policy implications, but they may be practice implications in terms of if we are going to change what our practice has been, what would we change it to, and what is the enrollment of the school, does it… I should have written a list and had it in front of me.

We've got questions about if we are going to move them for capacity, what capacity are we talking about?

Are we talking about the capacity that we have been operating under where many of our schools are well over 100% of capacity due to portables taking over faculty rooms, staff rooms, other things like that.

Are we talking about capacity if you move to portable there?

There's just a whole host of them.

On the sibling end, there's questions about if you get one of your children into an option school, does that then give you an opportunity to get all of your children into that option school in perpetuity?

when you can keep your siblings together in your assigned neighborhood school.

So we are making a list of those kinds of issues and we do need to come back and we do need to clarify the policy so that we are much clearer for the future on what it means and how we implement it.

Director Harris did you have further comments President Director Peters?

Director Peters Yes I have one more question at the moment.

So under this current practice, if a student is attending a school that is under enrolled, but they would like to exercise the open enrollment choice option of applying to another school, based on this practice, that student will be less likely to be moved on the wait list because the school they are trying to move from is under enrolled.

And that being the case, I question the equity of not allowing students in under-enrolled schools to move from them.

Doesn't that negatively, disproportionately give them fewer choices?

So that was one of the great debates that we had as staff.

Because the case in point is really Rainier Beach.

It's Rainier Beach.

There would be 300 kids at Rainier Beach if we had not tried to level the population in the enrollment for Rainier Beach schools, and try to add other programs and staffing to bring the same level of education that is being offered there as at our other schools.

We recognize that we want to make all of our schools places that everyone wants to stay at, and that other students from outside our district want to attend.

and we have been successful with Cleveland and we have made great strides with Rainier Beach where that enrollment is now well over 600 students.

So before a few years ago my understanding it was way down at 300, we have made strides and we have done things to keep staff in place, programs in place in that school, and they are on the uptick as far as enrollment and things of that nature.

And it's my understanding that Cleveland was that previous example before Rainier Beach about how to build up a school.

Director Patu.

Director Patu I would just like to say the reason why Cleveland's enrollment went up because they remodeled that school.

If they did not remodel that school Cleveland would still be at 200 or 300 students.

And the reason why Rainier Beach is that way because we are the only high school that is not remodeled.

So let's get that straight.

The reason why Rainier Beach does not have enough kids is because nobody wants to go to an old dilapidated school.

And that is the reason why our enrollment is down.

Director Pinkham.

Pinkham So going back to what Director Burke had brought up and noticing the changes over the last few years, you mentioned budget being one of the reasons.

So is budget mentioned in the student assignment plan?

Berge No I said that it may have been a correlation.

Budget is not mentioned in the student assignment plan.

We know that budget is not mentioned in the student assignment plan.

Pinkham so you're just bringing that up as a correlation that we had to react to the budget and by that we seem to have adjusted a practice or policy for the student assignment plan?

Berge I was pointing out a possible correlation and then I was stating the known for 17 18.

Harris other directors questions concerns or comments?

Director Blanford.

As I listen to this entire discussion and the focus on a written policy… my understanding and I think I was over on that side listening to it when the policy was created and then the practice aligned with it, there was a little bit of discretion that was delegated to the staff in order to accomplish the goal of being able to balance schools across the district.

and though it's not actually written down, it seemed to be, if I'm remembering correctly, a recognition that our twin goals of excellence and equity in every school require that we do a little bit of balancing of students in classrooms to make decisions like the decision that was made around Rainier Beach and Cleveland high school to ensure that there were enough students to keep the programs at that school viable.

And so I am struggling a little bit with this conversation, particularly the part of it where we are talking about it being inequitable to allow students to leave from a particular school.

But I think that is a piece that my colleagues should be aware of.

That we have delegated some measure of of flexibility to the staff to be able to manage the ups and downs of our enrollment to ensure that each one of our schools is moving towards being that excellent school.

And then one other piece that I will put into this conversation, there is a huge difference in my experience as a school board director but more importantly in my experience as a father who has been in lots of conversations with parents making choices about where they send their kids to school.

There is some lag time between when a program becomes an excellent program and when students and families choose to enroll their students in that school.

I think in my district there are a number of schools that you know were maybe not the most positive, not the best possible schools for kids.

and they've hit a trough and then they've been on the upswing but it takes a while for the reputation and enough kids to actually be in the school to kind of change the perception of that school.

There are at least two schools I can think of that are in that situation right now and a couple others that I would nominate for that attribute if thinking of a better word.

So I think that is something that we have to factor into.

If a kid enrolls in a particular school and they get an excellent education in spite of the fact that the school's reputation is not, has not caught up with the actual performance of the school, it is to our advantage to be trying to figure out ways to encourage enrollment in those schools.

I wouldn't want to encourage enrollment in a school that is tanking, but I would surely want to encourage enrollment in a school that is performing or increasing its performance.

Harris I guess it's my turn.

Excuse me Director Peters did you have something else?

Peters I just wanted to add one thing Director Harris, Vice President Harris.

Harris go ahead.

So Director Blanford talked about the history of the district, and I think that's important, because I think a lot of this is rooted in the history and in past practices.

And so I think, again, coming back to what I think is the underlying problem, is we are talking about, Director Blanford said that we, the board, have delegated some flexibility to the staff to make some changes or decisions regarding enrollment.

But my question is, where is that written?

And then what is the algorithm for how that is decided.

And I think that is the crux of this because the community has realized, has come to us and said, this is not in the student assignment plan.

What is being done?

Why is it being done?

And so whatever we do tonight, I think our work isn't done.

We need to clarify what our policy is and whether this practice should be codified as policy and how to do that in a way that is fair and equitable.

Thank you.

Great segue.

Thank you for that.

Quote a little bit of discretion.

50% cuts in the last two years of moving our sibling waitlist is more than a little bit of discretion to me.

It's the trust and transparency issue that is the most troubling to me.

I think that if we as adults model excitement about whatever school our children go to, some of that will follow with our children but there are a number of folks that feel less than honorably treated in this process.

And it is very difficult to defend when we made statements at the student assignment transition plan in January for things like the Whitman waitlist, no you don't have to grandfather because we've got lots of room.

Yet those statements on the record have seemingly disappeared.

and I think we have come a long way with respect to trust and transparency.

The budget conversations this last year have been rockstar awesome and again thank you and your staff for that.

This process however has been clear as mud.

And we are taking a really big hit on it.

And when I say we I mean folks here on the dais, I mean folks on the wall, I mean, principals, boy was that a good idea to go to the SLI on last week.

I got great feedback, both pro and con, move my waitlist, what would it take, this is impacting us greatly, could probably argue both sides of this motion pretty effectively.

So where angels fear to tread, I will make a motion.

and I do so in a Solomon split the baby way.

I move the school board direct SPS staff to move the waitlist in accordance with board policy to keep siblings together as the first priority iterated in the student assignment transition plan the SATP as referenced in option three.

I further move that the Whitman waitlist be moved to allow those who desire to stay at Whitman be grandfathered as was referenced by staff during discussions that an amendment was quote unquote not necessary as there was plenty of space to allow them to stay.

And I further move that the high schools with seat and space capacity be allowed to move their waitlist by the 10% set aside as previously referenced in the SATP.

Director Blanford.

Okay there is a motion and a second on the floor discussion questions comments and concerns.

Director Blanford.

I'm curious as to the implications of your amendment for the three options before us.

Does it require that we, can it be voted on in isolation or does it require, is it dependent on the approval of one of the three options?

Harris I believe it would be dependent upon the approval of option three and it would be an amendment to option three.

General Counsel may we please have your counsel sir?

Good evening Noel Treat, General Counsel.

The way I heard your motion, you wouldn't need another motion.

It read to me… Does it subsume option three?

It does.

The way I heard it is essentially it's an approval of option three with some additional parameters that are set out in the motion regarding Whitman and the 10% set aside.

So I think it stands on its own.

Thank you sir.

Other questions comments concerns?

Director Blanford.

Blanford Do we have a motion on the table that this is an amendment to that motion?

Harris No there wasn't a prior motion that had been made so this is the first motion and it's now on the table because it's been seconded.

Blanford Oh because I heard it is an amendment.

General counsel clarified that option three was subsumed in this motion.

Director Blanford Yeah because the motion references option three.

So the way I read this is it essentially is option three but with some tweaks that are identified in this motion.

You don't need a separate motion to approve option three and then amend that motion.

You can have a standalone motion like this that we want to adopt option three but with these changes which is how I read this.

Blanford.

Forgive me, Robert's rules of order are not my strong suit, but does this preclude our discussion of options one and two?

No it wouldn't.

In discussing the proposed motion you could advocate for instance for one of the other options and then when it comes to vote if this motion is voted down then move on to take up option 1 and 2. And then of course not to complicate things further but someone could also move to amend this motion in any way that they wanted to adjust it.

Director Patu and Director Pinkham.

I guess my only concern with this is that I was told that if we move the list, Rainier Beach is going to lose like 30-40 students.

That would be my biggest concern right now with this motion.

Director Pinkham.

I asked this to you earlier too, can you again just further explain why Whitman, you're calling Whitman out specifically so that people in the audience can understand?

My recollection and it's been referenced in correspondence is that on January 11, 2017 when we were approving the student assignment transition plan and we were talking about grandfathering Whitman and to the students being able to stay there we were told very specifically by staff that it was quote not necessary as there was plenty of space to allow them to stay.

So that was on reliance to a promise we made our community.

Superintendent Nyland and then Director Blanford.

The last paragraph, I'm just looking for clarification.

High schools with seat and space capacity be allowed to move waitlist by 10% set aside.

Does that mean up to 10% of their enrollment that they could accept?

The student assignment transition plan as I understand it had 10% set aside for folks that wanted to exercise their choices to move into that school.

Director Harris do you have a page reference?

I don't know that language.

Director Blanford I'm not familiar with it either and I did have someone just mention to me that 10% is not now in the student assignment plan.

Director Harris so that's disappeared?

I don't know the history of it actually.

Bergen I've never seen it in there.

That's why when you asked me earlier in email I didn't know what you were talking about.

I still don't.

I don't know what that language means.

Director Blanford.

Blanford So I think that answered my question but I will ask it anyhow.

Has staff had the opportunity to analyze this, I was going to say amendment but it's not an amendment, the language of this proposal?

Blanford so we do not know if what the financial costs associated with this would be?

Berge I know the sibling part, we have that ahead of time, we costed that out, I don't know the other parts cost.

And I don't know where the 10% language is, that's why I was wondering if you had a page reference?

Harris I do not at this time.

Thank you Director Burke.

Superintendent Nyland.

Superintendent Nyland While Director Burke is looking, we do know the numbers from option one option two spreadsheets that were included so we can calculate the number of Whitman vs.

Bergen I don't have the to and from information for Whitman, and there's not a one-to-one correlation that we tried to do that Friday and this weekend.

I don't know where the kids are coming from, I know where most of them are coming from, I could guess, but I don't know where all of them are coming from.

And so there wasn't a way for us to identify and cost that.

I have to have that, that's a data set I don't have.

Right and for high schools similarly we have the number on the waitlist but we wouldn't know specifically where they are coming from although in some cases we can guess.

Franklin is probably the biggest one that this would apply to that has space and we do know from earlier spreadsheets that a pretty good share of those students are coming from Rainier Beach.

Right.

I mean that would be the biggest part of that move.

I'm still not exactly sure what you think what the 10% represents.

that was on the initial student assignment plan it may well have disappeared and Director Burke is looking.

Director Blanford you had another question comment concerns?

Director Blanford I did and I guess this one goes to you.

I'm just curious because we've called out Whitman to receive special treatment, if you did an analysis or if you look to see if there are other schools that might be included might have received similar type of promise?

Because my primary concern here is if we make an exception for one school, what are the implications of that for other school communities that are in a similar situation?

may not have been, may not have had a presence at the meeting, or somehow will later on feel like they have been treated unfairly as a result of Whitman receiving the relief that it wants, but not other schools.

Harris I have not done a formal analysis.

This was one that has been brought to my attention vis-a-vis emails, and I cannot recall myself another scenario where staff was here and basically told us you don't need an amendment because it's okay.

There is room there.

Director Peters please.

This seems to be an unusual case because, as Director Harris said, it was stated very openly that there would be room in Whitman.

In fact, before the student assignment plan was voted on, the concern was that Whitman was going to be seriously depleted from about 800 students to 500, and they were going to lose a lot of resources.

But then the families were told that they can apply through our open enrollment process, and there will be space.

And in fact it was an effort to do that a concerted effort at the school forms were handed out staff in the central office and I think at the school affirmed that they would be able to stay.

And so because that was done so openly and so publicly the fact that they are now being told no you can't.

It seems like a promise has been reneged upon for this particular group.

And I think that is why Director Harris is bringing it forward.

And I do remember that being a part of the discussion of grandfathering eighth graders which was an amendment that I put forward.

And so I was also surprised to learn that the Whitman students would not be allowed to stay at Whitman in a school where there is room.

And I'd like to add two comments about Director Harris's motion.

It seems to me that the 10 percent she's talking about would be a cap of sorts.

So we're not talking about.

an endless stream of students to the high school, but a cap?

Is that correct Director Harris?

Harris that is correct.

Then one other point in terms of the cost of this motion, it clearly would be less, it would be more than option one, but I question the numbers related to option one.

Option one claims to have no cost, I find that hard to believe.

I think there is nothing in this district that has no cost.

for Harris's motion would clearly be less than option two, because it does not go into the degree of detail of option two.

Would that be a fair statement, Associate Superintendent Berge?

likely yes it would be, but I am hesitant to say how much anything would cost until I have actually costed it.

And option one, that number comes from my office just like all the other budget numbers come from my office.

So I stand behind it.

Harris did you have anything further?

Director, President Peters?

Director Burke.

Director Burke So I've just been trying to search through policy documents here and I'm not finding the 10%.

What I am finding is the language that says each attendance area high school will have open choice seats available for students from other attendance areas who are applying for assignment to that school.

and so this is in the student assignment plan 2019. So I haven't searched all of the transition plans but looking at this and looking at the superintendent procedure I didn't find the 10% but it's stuck in my head somewhere as well.

Harris may I have a point of personal privilege?

Associate Superintendent Tolley?

Could we have your assistance up here please kind sir?

It is a point of clarification, I believe I heard Director Burke say 2019 when he meant to say 2009.

Thank you so much, good point.

This refers to the original student assignment plan 2009. Thank you for that.

Do you recall the 10% set aside number?

So there is some confusion around that.

I was actually doing the same thing that Director Burke was doing, going back to the 2009 document and looking for that language.

There was a point in time when we were discussing the implementation of this plan initially that at the high school level, the board at the time wanted to continue to allow for a certain amount of choice.

So the language that was just quoted by Director Burke was included.

prior to that though there was a discussion to say okay, how much choice do we want?

And the conversation was no more than 10% of open choice available.

But what the concern there was, even when they did the calculations, That would severely limit the number of students that could actually attend some of the schools, and we would see a major shift in enrollment populations, particularly in the northern portion of the city.

So I think the decision was not to include that language and in fact it ended up being what we have currently in the 2009 version that there would be choice available.

But of course later on as we develop the transition plans it was dependent on space available.

Harris but not staff available?

Well what we've always talked about is that when we talk space available, to actually provide instruction you need not only a seat for the student to sit in, but a teacher to teach the student.

So capacity was defined within both of those taken into consideration.

So my understanding over time, the enrollment planning office has looked at capacity through the lens of both space in terms of physical space as well as space in terms of how many seats per teacher.

So it involved staffing as well.

Harris in the interest of moving this forward I will withdraw paragraph three with respect to high school since we cannot presently come up with a 10% set-aside information.

General Counsel is that the appropriate thing to do to keep this moving?

Director Blanford.

Since the motion is on the table I think you either need to ask if there is any objection to withdrawing the whole thing and then remake the motion you want to make or to make a formal amendment to the motion itself.

So you could just ask if there is objection to withdrawal and then just withdraw and then just remake your motion with the two parts that you want to include is probably the best way.

Director Burke.

Motion to amend.

Please do so.

Current language says I further move that the high schools with seat and space capacity be allowed to move their waitlists by the 10% set aside as previously referenced in the SATP.

Amended language, I further move that the high schools with seat and space capacity be allowed to move their waitlists through waitlist trades that do not impact total enrollment.

basically allow high schools to trade students that don't impact total enrollment.

Harris Well there is a curveball.

I will second it.

Questions concerns and comments?

The amended motion.

Director Blanford Blanford Can anybody speak to the implications of this motion?

Hello, ER Alvarez, enrollment planning project specialist.

Thank you for asking for clarification on this.

So that would potentially invalidate the tiebreaker order of our waitlists and is unprecedented in the student assignment plan.

So all assignments and waitlists are rank ordered by those tiebreakers as approved by the school board.

the first of which is sibling.

So that is, I believe that was your question.

Blanford And by, you use the word unprecedented, by that do you mean that we've never used this type of language in our student assignment plan in the past?

McEvoy That is correct.

Director Burke.

Burke clarification question.

When we think of invalidating our priority, if I am number three on the waitlist and student number four trades with a student on another school.

So the student number four gets in, but my child as student number three does not.

Because there has been a trade.

There was not an open seat.

Seat number three did not lose their position.

I am trying to understand sort of the pro and con of how this invalidates that person number three, I can see both sides of it.

And I'm wondering if there is a way to judge that.

Herndon Sure, so person number three may or may not have a sibling.

So if you're, it may just be a lottery, which would then kind of, you jump to the second tiebreaker instead of the first.

So if you're making a swap from one waitlist to an assignment, because every student on the waitlist, well most students on the waitlist already have a current assignment for next year.

you are then changing assignments for those students.

Does that answer your question?

Burke I guess it's a matter of perspective.

I think it does as well as it can be answered.

Director Blanford

The other answer I think is, excuse me, Deputy Superintendent Nielsen, the other answer is one of precedence in this particular timing, and one of public engagement, and whether or not you'd want to take that action without public engagement to help understand what it would do.

But going back to the point that was made earlier about invalidating and thinking about student four versus student three, and student four somehow jumping ahead of student three, am I understanding you correctly?

and I'm just wondering from my colleague if you anticipated in the language of your amendment that potential outcome and if you still endorse that potential outcome?

I guess I'm still relying fairly heavily on guidance from past board directors that that was an institutional practice, and I recognize that that is a place where there is a potential difference in sources.

But from a customer service point of view, and family satisfaction, it feels to me like something that we can do.

with minimal impact and therefore we should do.

But I also would love if we could have had this discussion months ago to get better engagement from the community.

Harris as I'm sure staff would have as well.

Questions concerns comments from other board directors?

Director President Peters did you have something to add?

So just to clarify, Director Burke's amendment adds an element pertaining to swapping this, is that correct?

Yes that is correct.

And it is limited to high schools correct?

Yes.

Thank you.

Harris seeing no further comments questions or discussion, excuse me Director Patu.

Director Patu just for clarity does that mean that we are not talking about the 10% are we?

Director Harris we are no longer talking about the 10% it's been amended.

Director Patu okay thank you.

Director Harris Ms. Shek roll call please.

Whoops excuse me General Counsel coming to the podium.

Director Blanford Just to make sure we follow the right process you have a motion to amend on the table so you first vote on the amendment and then you go back and assuming that passes you then vote on the motion as amended.

Director Harris Thank you sir.

Ms. Shek roll call please on the amendment.

Excuse me?

I seconded that amendment.

Not a problem.

Thanks for the help.

Use all I can get.

Director Blanford Director Harris, aye.

Director Patu, aye.

Director Pinkham, aye.

Director Peters, aye.

This amendment has passed with a vote of 5-1.

Ms. Shek roll call please on the motion as amended.

Director Blanford.

Nay.

Director Burke.

Yes.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Peters.

this motion as amended has passed with a vote of 5-1.

Harris Thank you.

We have four minutes for public testimony to start and then we will take up where we left off to discuss the budget.

Let's take a stretch so we can move the furniture.

Thank you.

So, Oh

As we have now reached 530 PM we will go next to public testimony.

The rules for public testimony are on the screen and I would ask that speakers are respectful of these rules.

I would note that the board does not take public comment on items related to personnel or individually named staff.

I would also like to note that each speaker has a two minute speaking time.

When the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

Ms. Shek will you please read off the next three speakers.

Thank you.

Shek First up for public testimony we have Essence Robinson, Mark Ibarra, and Erin Rosario.

If they arrive before the end of public testimony they will be called up within public testimony.

Thanks for asking I appreciate it.

Harris, Gerald Hankerson, Carol Simmons, after Carol will be Chris Jackins, Eric Blumenhagen.

There are some wonderful things happening in our district including the opening of a new building named after an exemplary native principal Robert Eagle Staff.

Many thanks to UNEA for being instrumental and leading the way in making this possible.

There are also many things we still need to work on in our district including the remodel of Rainier Beach high school which is long overdue and the publication of a data profile document that will be accessible to all of our stakeholders.

Today you vote on a resolution to include ethnic studies in the curriculum.

This resolution should be implemented in grades K-12, include monitoring and evaluations and be mandated.

This resolution is the same one that was made by the disproportionality task force in the 80s.

Passed by the board and never implemented in the schools because it was not mandated.

40 years later we are still waiting for the implementation of this resolution and if you pass the resolution without a mandate it is most likely that we will wait another 40 years.

Seattle school boards have been reluctant to mandate anything and therefore have not always acted with the courage of their convictions.

While the board's good intentions are reflected in this resolution based on the historical precedent set 40 years ago, good intentions are not enough.

Research illustrates the positive impact of ethnic studies in the curriculum by contributing to the elimination of the opportunity gap.

As this is a goal of the strategic plan, you have the responsibility to support this goal.

I have one more sentence.

You must not wait until another 40 years in hopes that the resolution may be implemented, but demonstrate your courage and commitment today by mandating that it will.

Thank you.

Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124. On the solar energy contract the original contract had goals for minority owned business of 10% but the plan would provide 0%.

On the school bus camera contract three points number one cameras would be used to issue $419 tickets to motorists.

Number two I oppose automated penalties in the proliferation of video surveillance.

Number three, the district should not promote fear and loathing at the site of a school bus, including among its taxpayers.

Please vote no.

On the contract for community engagement, four points.

Number one, the contract is for a communications platform hosted on computers.

Number two, Spokane used the program to help sell a levy.

Is that what the district intends to do?

Number three, the vendor would analyze public comments.

Are there limits on the use of the data?

Number four, this contract money would be better spent providing accurate information and giving families on waiting lists their school choices.

Please vote no.

On native murals, two points, number one the district posted the following on its website, quote, the murals were designated as a city of Seattle landmark in 2014, unquote.

Number two, the murals are not landmarked.

In fact the Wilson Pacific school buildings which the district tore down were landmarked.

and the district sued the landmarks board.

Please fix the website notice.

It's hard to resist mentioning something about waitlists given your action today.

I think it's good to take action on waitlists.

The action today was not a very good one.

Thank you.

Hello again.

Thank you for your actions on the waitlist.

I just want to point out realities on the ground.

North end high schools are running on the ragged edge.

Until Lincoln and Ingram additions open up.

Until Lincoln opens and the Ingram addition opens.

Some students are not getting their classes, and counselors don't have in-building solutions.

Next year per your latest projections in the new portable accounts, Garfield is adding 60 more students than capacity.

and they are already overburdened.

Ballard is adding 50 more students than capacity.

They are already overburdened.

Roosevelt is about even.

Ingram is adding more capacity than students.

So here is the question, do you want Garfield and Ballard students to get full schedules next year or not?

Just a straightforward question.

Because if you do you would move the Ingram waitlist.

Because otherwise they will not get full schedules, or many students will not get full schedules.

and that includes moving the HCC waitlist which are most effective at getting the moving students out of Garfield and Ballard.

If you don't move those waitlist you are making a bad situation at Ballard and Garfield worse.

Students will be told to go to community college or running start.

I know you are concerned about equity and where does that burden fall more heavily?

On privileged or disadvantaged students?

Finally, two more points.

The current waitlist documents from staff say that students will be notified and they have 48 hours to respond to their opportunity to move up on a waitlist.

That is absolutely ridiculous over summer vacation.

The students are on the waitlist because they want to go to that school.

Just move the waitlist.

And finally, waitlist should dissolve after September 15 so that you can deal with problems that you find when students actually show up.

As assistant superintendent Berge noticed.

Thank you.

Next up for public testimony we have Ariane Rosario, Gian Rosario, and Mark Ibarra.

Hi my name is Saeeda Noor and I'm an ongoing sophomore at Rainier Beach High School.

I'm speaking here today to help sway your decision to option one of the waitlist options.

You members of the school board are going to be voting for either option one or option two.

If option one is used then RBHS's FTE full-time educator will stay net neutral, i.e. no losses in staff.

But if option two is instrumented then RBHS will lose staff.

In my eyes option two shouldn't be an option at all.

RBHS cannot afford the consequences of option two, the biggest consequence being losing staff, which means fewer people.

Fewer people helping you in high school.

With less people guiding students in their high school careers results in less opportunities, less support and less likelihood to gain a better future.

Voting on option two would put RBHS once again at the bottom of the totem pole which we are not standing for.

By voting for option one the students of RBHS and their community would be taking steps forward in their education and their future instead of steps back.

We would have a better chance at being successful and happy.

With option one there would be less chances for opportunity gaps and more for self-achievements which is why option one is really the only choice.

Thank you for your time and hopefully you put my testimony into consideration.

June Rosario Rainier Beach high school student.

At our recent community meeting regarding Rainier Beach high school renovation there was a lot of tension because parents and community members have not been assured that Rainier Beach high school will be fully renovated.

Mr. Richard Baskin vowed for this and unless parents and teachers know that Rainier Beach high school is at the list and will be renovated they won't put time into it.

In the previous BX we were renovated but not fully renovated.

The community feels exhausted and not listened to.

So I've read the contract and from my understanding it is a draft so hopefully things can be changed.

Right now in the contract Rainier Beach high school is listed as modernization I'm suggesting changing the word from modernization to full modernization.

If the directors won't promise to have Rainier Beach high school on top of the BX 5 list then they should change the wording of the contract to full modernization and also guaranteeing that Rainier Beach high school will receive between 90 to $120 million in renovations.

Which is about the same amount that Lincoln high school and Garfield high school received in renovations.

Lincoln high school received about $93,316,928 in renovations and that is not counting extending the budget which the board recently approved and Garfield high school being the most expensive project that I know of and again this needs to be added into the contract that Rainier Beach high school will receive $90 to $120 million in renovations and should have board approval and community approval if the renovation budget is going to be reduced.

And considering that the new downtown high school is in the Bassetti architect contract which means that it will be built no matter what.

So before the downtown high school and Lincoln high school joined the list of high schools that have been modernized or renovated before Rainier Beach high school this is the list, this is the least that we could ask for.

Thank you.

Mark Ibarra, Erin Rosario, Hani Ahmed, Leah Alcon, after Leah will be Naj Ali and Avey Ha.

I am acceding my time to Borea.

Hi I'm Berea Hayman and like my colleague said that it should be full modernization.

Also there's actually no fire sprinklers in our working building which honestly is dangerous and I think that should be illegal because if a fire does happen since our building also has no AC.

Easily it can overheat during the summer it's actually legally too hot for us to be in there and I've said this like time and time again because I have sickle cell anemia and that's bad to me and my cousins health who also has it.

So apparently, I mean Rainier Beach we've been talking back and forth at the school board meeting for a long time about what we need and what our school doesn't have and what our school does have.

And I'm kind of like, I have my notes right here, but I'm really just kind of tired of saying what we do and what we don't need because now it's just down to the basics of like what your school looks like and do you want to be part of it.

I feel like the school board and other people only use Rainier Beach when it is beneficial to them and when it has to do with sports.

Our basketball team is amazing and our football team is amazing but we have the IB program too but it's kind of like when it comes down to the building the foundation the fundamentals it's kind of like eh, like Rainier Beach We don't really have time for them.

We have time for Garfield.

We have time for Lincoln.

We have time for Cleveland.

And I get they're all great schools too, but at the end of the day it's kind of like, you want to be proud of where you went to school.

Like you want, you know, you want to do downstreet, I went to Rainier Beach, I went there, I repped there because like that's where he went.

But if you have the building where it looks kind of like, like you don't want to say you went there.

You want to say I went to a nice school like Garfield or something.

But it's like, I don't know it just kind of makes me frustrated because we've been hearing all my friends and my peers and our communities right behind us and we've been doing this for so long it's like what more could we possibly say to convince you guys that we need a new school.

Because at the end of the day I'm still a lover of the beach but it's just not what to do what to do.

Peters Thank you.

Erin Rosario, Naj Ali and Avey Ha.

Hi my name is Aaron Rosario I am a student from Rainier Beach high school an incoming sophomore and I would like to suggest changing the boundaries for Rainier Beach high school and its feeder schools.

For Rainier Beach high school our school boundary has this gap where it goes around Aki middle school neighborhood.

I suggest changing that boundary so that it includes Aki middle school, MLK elementary middle school and its surrounding homes.

I'd also like to suggest changing Aki's borders.

Aki is one of our feeder schools and right now it accompanies a quarter of the district seven map.

The smaller population that Aki has the small population that Rainier Beach will also have.

We are not counting South Shore as one of our feeder schools because South Shore is an option school.

For Aki, we should suggest that it also accompanies the South Beacon Hill neighborhoods.

Or Mercer have the entire Beacon Hill neighborhood and Aki receives the neighborhoods along the MLK and Rainier Avenue.

We come to this conclusion by looking at the bus line.

Rainier Beach neighborhood is one of the youngest neighborhoods in the city.

Right now Rainier Beach high school has 649 students.

It is projected to have 711 students by the year 2020. We are a growing school and we need to be able to sustain that growth.

There is also a food skills center that is coming to Rainier Beach that will attract more students.

And Rainier Beach is being designated for low income housing which will attract more students.

The district needs to be prepared.

I think we agree that Rainier Beach should be approved.

But I think we're having communication issues.

Being number one on the BEX V list ensures that Rainier Beach will be renovated.

That's why we are pushing for it to be number one.

Number one on the BEX V list.

I'm suggesting that Rainier Beach high school be guaranteed 90 to $120 million in renovations.

We can live… Please conclude your remarks.

With not living, not being number one on the BEX V list, if you can promise that we fully be renovated.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Naj Ali, a student at Rainier Beach High School.

It's already known that the incoming students have a bad impression of Rainier Beach High School.

But this is not true, let me tell you that.

As a Rainier Beach High School student I remember before my freshman year complaining and telling my mom that I don't think Beach is the right school for me. because of all these rumors and all these things they said about the high school.

But you know what they say, you find out when you see with your own eyes.

So I went to Beach my freshman year because I was on the waiting list for Franklin high school.

I went in, experienced it, and I remember my sophomore year my mom coming up to me and was like, do you still want to go to Franklin?

I was like oh God no.

I'm happy where I am right now and I'm proud to be a Beach student.

And she was like, okay, well, all right.

And then three years later now, soon to be a senior, I'm happy to be at Rainier Beach High School.

What I'm trying to tell you all is, many of the students share the same story as mine, but some never get to experience the high school.

They never get to go to the high school.

Some don't even have the choice to go to the high school.

You know why?

Because when you look from the outside, like wow, it is the 21st century and this building does not look like a 21st century building.

It does not look like a high school that is capable of holding 1200 students.

That is not capable of doing such things as other schools.

But the truth is, don't judge a book by its cover.

But then how are we going to tell these students, these young folks to come into our school and experience what I experienced?

I think it comes from you.

You guys the district.

You guys can make a change.

You can make a difference by helping our school get its renovation.

Because it's about time.

Don't you want to change the world?

Don't you want to see a diverse Don't you want to see a world where we can walk side-by-side not being like yo you are different from me, hey you are different from me, no we are not different.

Our indifference should make us unique.

So why not renovate a beautiful school like Beach?

Why?

Why wait?

You can make a change my friends.

Thank you.

I'm Ivy and I'm an incoming senior for Rainier Beach high school and I'm like not the only one who is very concerned about the waiting list especially the impact of option two for Rainier Beach high school.

For everyone who doesn't know in option two all high schools gained full-time education with the exception of Chief Sealth which is reduced by 0.2 full-time education and Rainier Beach which is reduced by 1.8.

But if you choose option one all high schools gain full-time education except for Rainier Beach high school which is net neutral.

If you choose option two you are going against your pledge to support growth in enrollment at Rainier Beach high school.

A school that is the school board has been trying to grow for years.

The enrollment number shows that we are a growing school.

Why stop now?

Students at Rainier Beach high school would be hit the hardest.

Especially students of color and low-income students.

Students that are at the most risk are Rainier Beach high school with the population of 93% of students are students of color.

And high reduced lunch which is at 73%.

This is a quote from Seattle Public Schools quote, we are committed to equitable access, closing opportunity gaps and excellence in education for every student.

Why is the board considering option two?

This is also an equity issue.

Most of our students and students that live within the surrounding Rainier Beach neighborhood are English language learners.

Losing two of the four students would mean losing a bilingual teacher.

that helps translate languages such as Swahili, Vietnamese and Arabic.

Those two to four teachers can make the difference between success and failure.

For those reasons the school board members must vote for option one because option two is implemented that Rainier Beach high school will lose our needed staff.

Please understand.

Thank you.

Next up for public testimony we have Gerald Hankerson followed by Patricia Borman and Patricia Killam.

First of all let me just say thank you for having me today my name is Gerald Hankerson I am the president of the Seattle King County NAACP as well as the president of the NAACP for the states of Alaska, Oregon and Washington.

Now primarily I come in for one other thing, but I just really want to applaud these students for standing up for something they believe in today.

That's what activism is really about.

Good job.

Good job.

But I want to bring something, I know it's going to be hard to squeeze it in two minutes but I'm going to just put the board on notice.

That I wasn't going to do this until last week that someone came to this board representing interagency, that seemed to have a lot to say about the NAACP when it came to targeting an investigation of black coaches particularly at Garfield high school.

We have the oldest civil rights organization in the country.

And I personally investigated this matter, and let me just be clear, I do not appreciate nor respect the fact of how your school district is teaching principals, black teachers, black faculties, and black administrators throughout the entire district.

We have been trying to work with you for many of years, particularly under the leadership of my education chair Rita Green, and it seems like everywhere we go we get nowhere.

I can identify and I actually met with Dr. Nyland even though I know several members on this board advised him not to meet with me but yes we did meet.

Because as what we expose is the inner workings of an agency that does everything to talk good talk but when it comes down to get to the business you don't fund it, you don't respect it, you don't treat it with the same urgency that our community is calling for.

There's a lot of black folks throughout your district that are scared to talk because of the internal stuff that's going on and I'm going to name them off by now.

Your general counsel Noel Treat.

Clearly knew that this investigation that was in the Joyce-Thompson was flawed.

We don't deal with personnel matters by name sir.

This is a personal.

We're talking to the board we're going to deal with this personally tonight.

I'm sorry the rules of the board sir you do not call out people by name.

You're one of the same people your name came up to.

Let's talk about what you said at the board about two years ago.

About the ghetto.

So we can go all the way there if you want to go there but we're talking about names.

How are we going to talk about a system that you try to put it together when you can't even identify who's the corporate responsible for undermining?

Because these are the people that we need to hold accountable to either remove or make sure they don't have a job there anymore.

Now I know this but I'm saying for the entire board this is exactly how you do institutional racism behind the scenes and act like you don't want to talk about it because it's insulting.

What you're doing to our community and our faculties of color is insulting.

Let's talk about that.

And the fact that you know this is a problem.

I sent every single one of you on this board an open letter about one month ago and neither one of you responded.

I'm telling you what we feel what's going on.

Investigating this matter.

You use two young boys of color who clearly had a problem to open up an investigation because you primarily know that interagency is really after Ted Howard and they're trying to go after the coaches who are some of the big people that help our people in our community, our kids who are really struggling in the community.

They're not killing each other.

We're trying to rescue them in the street.

and I'm really putting this board on notice and everything I'm describing right now you'll probably be reading the newspaper the next three days so I'm down here really to give you a notice and it might not be long before the NAACP national local and state launches a civil rights investigation into Seattle school district.

Thank you for your time.

Wow after that… I'm a proud new member of the Rainier Beach high school PTSA, recently retired Seattle school teacher and I taught for middle college high school for 17 years, taught math.

I am speaking today to encourage the board to maintain the current student assignment plan referred to as option one that as I understand has been in place for the past 10 years with one definition of what capacity meant.

The new proposed plan known as option two would not only be disruptive to all Seattle schools it would result in Rainier Beach losing almost two full-time teachers while all other high schools except for Chief Sealth which would lose would gain FTE.

Rainier Beach has the highest number of students of color at 96% and the highest percentage of kids on free and reduced lunch at 76. Choosing option two directly contradicts the district policy on equity and race relations and would paint a very negative picture of the district's commitment to racial justice.

This deliberation only came to our I guess I'm wondering why you're shaking your head at me.

Okay.

This deliberation only came to our attention on June 28. There's been no community outreach.

I only heard about it because I was here in support of our students.

I asked the board to consider the negative ramifications of introducing a new untried assignment student assignment plan at a time when the school community is energized and when Rainier Beach is making great leaps forward in the arts and academics and CTE.

It was honored nationally for its work on closing the achievement gap.

Rainier Beach has moved attendance from roughly 300 in 2010 to currently 700. Under option 2, 52 students will not be placed in Rainier Beach, their own neighborhood school.

48 of those are incoming freshmen.

These students who have never attended Rainier Beach I believe these transfer requests are based on outdated negative assumptions about the school.

Data supports that previous incoming freshmen who requested transfers withdrew their request after spending a year at the school.

Once these students experience the ways in which Rainier Beach has improved and continues to improve they and their parents want to stay.

Taking away teachers would send the exact wrong message to a local community that is energized and willing to put their attention, donations of time and money towards supporting Rainier Beach students.

In closing I ask you to honor your pledge to grow Rainier Beach's attendance.

Vote no on option two and three as I understand it.

Help promote the positive work going on inside of the school and address the outside and the building and place Rainier Beach high school number one on the BEX V list.

Thank you so much.

Hello my name is Patricia Killam and I am not in the education field, I'm a nurse, pediatric nurse and nurse practitioner in Seattle for the last 25 years.

And so I've been trying to bring myself up to date, I'm a neighbor, bring myself up to date on the issues of the various options.

I've come to think that that I don't understand how one could choose a different way of doing things without first doing a sort of diagnosis, if you will, excuse me, I'm a nurse, diagnosis of what your problems are, in other words what the conditions are that you need to solve.

And it sounds to me like your current plan has evolved without much direction.

And so it sounds like before you adopt a new option you might want to go back and actually do your diagnostic work and come up with a potential diagnosis and then you could figure out what would actually be the treatment.

So I apologize for the medical jargon.

Also from looking at the statistics for both option one and option two, which is all I had until just now, I don't know how you could not have Rainier Beach high school as number one on your, I forget what the list is called, but obviously that is the most school that is most in need.

So it would seem to me to be a no-brainer.

Thank you.

Peters Thank you.

Next up for public testimony we have Brian Terry, Kate Poe, and Mark Zimmerly.

Good evening.

I support the affirmative action plan.

Another important way to advance educational equity is to dismantle the lie that giftedness is white and demand equitable access to advanced learning.

Today students are identified as highly capable by their test scores.

The provided OSPI data shows that privileged students score much higher on these tests.

It is no surprise that a white student is 20 times more likely than a black student to be recognized as highly capable.

However, there is a better way.

Advanced learning can be a program to serve students with a high academic potential that would not be met without help.

Underprivileged, highly capable students look different than their privileged peers.

They may need additional support before they reach their academic potential.

Finding and helping these students could easily make enough of a difference to get them into college and dramatically impact their futures and all of our futures.

We can find these students by looking for kids who excel relative to their underprivileged peers and circumstances.

They may not yet be academically advanced but they show unique potential.

Fortunately this is not only allowed but mandated by state law as highlighted in the provided documents.

We must act now to show our students that giftedness is not white and make advanced learning accessible to students of all colors and backgrounds.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm here today as a parent of two daughters in the highly capable cohort program in Seattle Public Schools.

I support the district plan for affirmative action and another place where crucial SPS equity work must happen is in our advanced learning programs.

Advanced learning program composition is in violation of district policy 0030 which names underrepresentation of students of color in various advanced learning programs as a prime example of racial predictability and disproportionality.

It states a commitment to provide every student with equitable access to high-quality curriculum and support.

This policy was adopted in 2012 and we have seen no significant improvements to equitable access to advanced learning programs.

State law via the Washington administrative code states that highly capable students are students who perform or show potential for performing at significantly advanced academic levels when compared with others of their age, experiences or environments.

We want eligibility criteria that considers student potential, taking into account students environments and experiences, and to not focus so much on current academic performance.

Under current advanced learning program configuration we are far more likely to find gifted students of color sitting in the principal's office than we are to find them sitting in an advanced learning classroom.

A letter from the ACLU suggests that the district could be exposing itself to potential lawsuits from students and parents.

The letter concludes that if the vast majority of students within a highly capable program are from one geographic area, or represent one or two racial groups, this suggests that the admissions criteria may be inappropriate.

Neighboring school districts who have achieved greater diversity in their AL programs enforce a mandate to be rabid about barriers.

We want our school board to be rabid about dismantling all cultural, academic, and resource barriers to advanced learning opportunities.

Thank you.

Good evening SPS board.

I am also here to talk about equity.

While I support the proposed affirmative action plan for SPS staff, it does not go far enough to ensure that our children experience racial equity in the classroom.

My son Elijah started out at a neighborhood school where his teachers were diverse, his friends were diverse, but he was bored and he was under challenged in that program.

Since my wife and I are white, we learned quickly and easily how to get him into the HCC program by talking to other white parents.

And so he transferred to Thurgood Marshall where he now loves his studies and he is thriving academically going into the fifth grade.

But now the problem is that Elijah's peers are mostly white like him.

And so he is now being presented on a daily basis with the untrue and damaging stereotype of white students as being more capable than students of color.

And this disparity is inappropriate and it is unacceptable.

I know and I think it is clear tonight that there are many other children of color from our neighborhood of Rainier Beach.

who should be on the bus with Elijah to that program every day.

But they are not going there because these students are not being adequately identified or encouraged to become a part of the HCC program.

Families should not have to choose between advanced learning opportunities and a racially integrated environment.

The proposed affirmative action plan may help put more people of color in staff positions where they can help address this inequity but it is not enough.

We need you, the SPS board to ruthlessly dismantle all cultural, academic and resource barriers until the HCC program is as diverse as the rest of the SPS population.

Thank you.

Shek Thank you.

Shek Next up for public testimony we have Brandy Flood and Allison McLean.

Okay thank you.

So my name is Brandi Flood, I am a resident of Rainier Beach community, I am an alum of Rainier Beach high school, I am a PTSA member of Rainier Beach high school, and I am a parent of a Rainier Beach high school student.

And a homeowner in Rainier Beach community.

So I hope that matters to you if our kids don't matter.

But I want to start off by saying Rainier Beach is not a joke.

You guys continuously and continuously look over our community and it hurts.

We are not a joke.

You guys send Richard Best out to our school to give us nice specs of what our school can be, but yet you are not putting us at the top of your list.

We need to be at the top of that BEX V list.

We need to have it in writing to assure us that you really believe in the equity you preach when you are running for office for the school board.

It makes no sense that you guys are about to renovate Lincoln just to accommodate northern parents.

It makes no sense that you guys are going to build a school downtown to accommodate downtown parents.

Those parents don't look like our parents.

98% of our families are people of color.

Most of our kids are getting free and reduced lunch and you are letting them know that you don't matter by how you vote.

You are also letting us know how you vote in putting communities together.

One of the parents last week said, and it really hurt my feelings when she tried to use the border of Carlina Lyles to push her agenda for ethnic studies.

She said the time is now, we can see it by our community climate.

Well if the time is now for Queen Anne, the time is overdue for Rainier Beach.

Renovate our school.

And for all the students in Queen Anne and all the other neighborhoods that are looking for ethnic studies, if you walk down the halls of Rainier Beach you will hear at least 10 different languages being spoke.

We have enough room in our classrooms, bust some of your kids down to our school so they can get the ethnic studies they need instead of spending more money out in the North End and Queen Anne and all those other schools.

Renovate our school, put us at the top of the list.

Hi I'm Allison McLean and I apologize for my slipshod remarks because I had a different thing before you voted on your waitlist thing.

I'm here on behalf of the Stevens families waiting to hear if they will be allowed into the Stevens community.

I have no doubts that each one of you on the board would say that you care about the needs of children.

Studies and experts corroborate that moving schools can cause lifelong problems with happiness, both short-term and long-term effects like bullying, low self-esteem, depression, suicide, academic failure and even hallucinations, delusion and psychosis.

I have seen some of these effects firsthand in my daughter who is on her third country and fourth state that she's lived in.

And I don't think that there's a parent in the room who doesn't want to spare their children this type of pain.

So thank you for moving the waitlist for some of these children's siblings.

Unfortunately your amendment does not seem to cover the children who are on the waitlist at Stevens as a matter of choice.

And do not have a sibling.

Last year you drastically reduced the school by falsely limiting the waitlist.

Now you are trying to falsely limit our population and staff claiming that we don't have enough resources as a result of your false enrollment last year when you cut the waitlist acceptance from nearly 90% to just over 40 including cutting siblings.

Children should stay in the school where they begin attendance.

Family should stay together.

Please follow your own policy for the families who are already members of the community.

You made a promise via your policy that you would prioritize student moves if there is room.

You owe it to families to uphold these practices and if you want to make future changes you need to officially change your policy for newly admitted students rather than go through the he said she said that we saw today.

At least five children on the Stevens waitlist will for sure be transferred into private school unless you move the full waitlist.

Using Using kids like pawns for tax dollars will not work.

Adhere to your stated practice for current families and amend it for future families if you deem it necessary.

Finally I went to this school and many of my friends I would have never met because of the tiny zone which is in place now.

None of the kids I grew up with can afford to buy in the Stevens zone and those of us who are there are living in our parents homes.

I don't want to see my school closed because of your false limitations.

I think Children deserve to be able to come to our wonderful under enrolled school and increase our wonderful loving community.

Please release the full waitlist in accordance with the language in your policy and your promises in earlier meetings.

Thank you.

This includes a list of those who have signed up to speak tonight.

There are three remaining spots to reach 20 speakers.

So if anyone in the audience would like to speak you need to come up and check in with Ms. Shek.

Going once.

Going twice.

Public testimony is concluded this evening.

Thank you folks for coming to stand up to speak your truth.

Much appreciated.

Assistant Superintendent Berge can we continue with our meeting and discuss budgets.

Director Harris assistant superintendent Berge how much time would you think this will take on your agenda?

Depends on how many questions we ask you.

What are you aiming for?

Well in my mind it's five minutes.

Let's go with 10 and we can extend if need be.

All right so what we are looking for is consensus on a final piece of a restoration plan for 1718. The legislative session we haven't delved into all components of the budget but we have identified $11 million that we can use for restoration.

The per pupil inflator we actually received $9.6 million.

We had earlier estimated an earlier estimation of $6 million so that is an increase.

And then the legislature increased allocations for the following three programs and it is basically backfilling what levy has been paying for.

So in highly capable we have been about $1 million out of levy, ELL were $17 million, $16 million out of levy, skill center it has been going down but we have been $700,000, $400,000, $200,000 out of levy.

So we've identified those resources.

This is the restoration summary to date that's been consensus has been reached on this to date.

So again, similar to last week, staff's recommendation for additional restoration are $2 million for equity slash mitigations, $2 million for fall enrollment adjustments.

The $1 million for central office actually needs to be reduced to $800,000 and we will talk about that more in a moment.

$1.8 million for middle school math and $1 million for smart goals.

That total $7.8 million, you can see that in the blue section of the slide, the column titled column B.

So the K5 ELA, the consensus reached for the gap was $3.4 million.

We had approved that with anticipated revenue.

The proposed additional restorations of 7.8 totaled $11.2 million.

We have actually identified $11 million for restoration.

So we had a $200,000 gap and we are proposing that the central administration restoration be reduced.

So the additional restoration plan tonight would be for a total of $7.6 million that could be restored and planned for.

That would conclude my remarks and I'm happy to take questions.

Harris questions concerns and comments from my fellow colleagues?

Peters I have both.

Harris go ahead Director President Peters.

Peters Thank you.

First of all I want to thank assistant superintendent Berge for the information.

So regarding what the state established in their budget did they not also increase the funding for special ed, or at least raise the cap on special ed funding?

Bergen Starting in 18-19, so in 17-18 there were pretty limited changes that will happen.

That briefing will be coming forth later after we've done a full analysis, there's still a lot of questions that are floating out there.

around the state right now frankly.

So they are not really for 17-18, they increase the number of students we are able to identify, and they have increased the funding, but the funding is related to how much they increase basic ed funding.

So special ed, all boats float when basic ed comes up, special ed comes up with it, but that really starts in 18-19 when they do the levy swap and they start funding additional dollars for compensation.

Okay and then I also have a question about recommendations regarding the central office.

Is that written down somewhere?

Because on the initial document it says one million.

Director Peters you need to speak up you're cutting in and out.

Try again please.

Can you hear me now?

Can hear you better.

Okay.

How about that?

Is that better?

Much, much.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

This is again, a question for Assistant Superintendent Berge.

Regarding the recommendation to restore funds to the central office staff, you said it's 800,000 and yet on our documents, it says 1 million.

So where will that correction be made?

It's written down on slide nine.

So that $200,000 is that what you are referring to?

Correct.

Not completely clear.

My next question, we are also being asked tonight to approve a personnel report in which there are a number of reductions in force and as part of this whole budget situation we have had to reduce staff at our schools and of course this is part of our waitlist discussion as well.

Everybody has been imploring us to maintain our teaching staff, our all of our staffing at our schools.

So how do we justify restoring staff in the central office instead of in our schools?

Bergen So the staff for the WSS was restored early on.

In addition to that the previous restoration plan identified $2.8 million to provide additional staff to our high-need schools.

This restoration plan would provide for another $4 million between the mitigations and the fall enrollment adjustments for even more staff to be deployed to schools in the fall.

So Not every RIF is going to be directly related to budget cuts.

Some of them are site-based decisions that budget dollars may or may not factor into.

I think the other thing is there are some things about CTE and that is a class load issue as far as having four kids in a program.

So there are some things that are budget related.

We believe that those are taken care of.

There is not going to be a one-to-one correlation with who is on the rift list with who comes back.

Again those are some site-based decisions that go on, but there is enough money out there.

The last thing I would say is while school staffing is critical, there is a balance that has to be achieved when you are running a billion-dollar business.

And part of that is balancing how much central office staff can be cut, and how much has to remain.

So we are trying to be very thoughtful about that balance, but central office by far is still taking the largest reduction, and I am assuming that as we start talking about 1819, we will be back at it trying to identify what else can be cut.

So there is a balance to be struck would be my response.

We believe this is a fair balanced approach to in favor of schools and giving them additional staffing.

Director Harris.

Okay thank you and just one clarifying question.

What we are being asked to vote on tonight is this just the final restoration or is this the whole budget?

This is the final restoration piece taken separately.

We will be introducing the budget later on as the last item I think on the agenda tonight.

And that budget was built out prior to the legislative session being passed.

So we will talk more about that and what that means tonight during that agenda item.

But the budget is just being introduced tonight, this is a separate component, we are just asking for consensus, which really just means we need nodding heads.

As far as the final piece for the restoration plan.

Or in your case, well just I don't know what else.

Maybe just Director Blanford.

Blanford So the consensus that you are seeking allows you to continue to build out the budget.

And it doesn't preclude us from making potential changes.

It just allows you to present the staff's recommendation for a budget going forward.

Right.

That's right.

That's right.

There's going to be other things that we talk about and we're going to be dealing with both 17 18 as we continue to move through that year and then we're going to start in on 18 19 and have just as many discussions about 18 19. Because that's when the big changes that the ledge just passed are all in 18 19.

questions comments concerns from my colleagues Director Patu, Director Burke.

Director Patu So when you talk about staff that are actually going to be not coming back in some of the schools, can you tell me about the two staffs that are coming out of Beach?

Bergen Not having seen the amendment before you made it, I don't know that there would be staff coming out of Beach or not at this point in time.

I need time to try to analyze it.

I mean the sibling, the waitlist amendment, the sibling move would not be occurring.

It doesn't impact Beach.

So we have the sibling movement, the high school you are swapping back and forth but there is not any ends to Beach so there is no kid moving in that regard there.

And the Whitman doesn't impact Rainier Beach either.

So I'm not sure that there is impacts to Rainier Beach.

That I could say right off the top of my head, I don't know that there are any.

But maybe I'm wrong.

Director Harris assistant superintendent for human resources Dr. Clover Codd.

Yes so if you're looking at the personnel report there is an assistant principal who is being cut from Rainier Beach high school and is on the RIF list for tonight.

But that was due to the choices that the school made when they did their WSS BLT process.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

Burke this is a tough one because in light of the conversation that we just had around for example Rainier Beach, we can support Rainier Beach by the choices we make around waitlist and what we do, we can also support Rainier Beach by not you know in terms of operations and helping them support their staff.

I struggle with this because I believe this impacts about nine CTE educators.

And as you will see from the CTE annual report that we are going to be approving today, Seattle is drastically behind our peers in terms of career and technical education enrollment, both in CTE classes and in our skill center.

And so I am not going to be able to be a party to a consensus that grows, or that restores the $1 million to administration if we are cutting CTE staff, because I believe that our role, centrally, is to get that enrollment up.

And I think that further undercutting our infrastructure, it's hard to get CTE teachers that know their material, and that have a proven track record, and so I'm really disturbed at the idea that we could be looking at a restoration centrally when we haven't been able to figure out how to grow these programs to that point.

Bergen So the budget does contain additional increases to CTE.

There is a significant increase to CTE that is in the budget, and there is a decrease to central admin as far as the indirect rate.

So I believe that your needs are being met through what the legislature just gave us as a budget.

Burke And so the other point is that I have been Hearing some of the comments from my next-door neighbor colleague here about fiduciary responsibility, and recognizing that we are making decisions that have long-term consequences in terms of budget.

I guess I wonder if we should really be looking at a restoration schedule like this, and so I was going to make a proposal.

That this may be the only time you'd hear it, but my hope would be that if we try to conserve money now, that when we have a better view of what the budget looks like for overspend and for 18-19, 17-18 and then also for 18-19, that we will have opportunities to touch this again.

I'm willing to let middle school math come off this list.

I know that is scary to hear from me, but I also believe that we should not be putting the restoration on central office, and it would be really nice if we could get that restoration down to under the $4 million or around $4 million and save a little bit of that money as a rainy day fund.

Director Blanford

The few comments that I heard on this subject, particularly with regard to Rainier Beach, I am struck by the fact that one of the best things that I believe that we can do for Rainier Beach and other schools that have been challenged in one way or another is to not add to our budget challenges.

We have a finite amount of money.

And every time we add, as we just did in an earlier decision that we made, makes it harder for us to actually benefit those schools that are struggling the most.

And so I think to my colleague to the right, I think it is very important that we always look at the decisions that we are making through an opportunity costs lens, which is if we make a decision particularly to add to our budget, it comes at a cost of something.

And in my mind, my understanding of the budget, and I've spent a little bit of time with it, and spent lots of time in the last three years with the budget, every change that we make to the budget has an opportunity cost associated with it.

And I believe that we need to try to figure out when we are adding over here, what are we taking away?

And frequently, all too frequently I believe, What we are taking away is our efforts to close our opportunity gaps and our efforts to ensure academic excellence for all 54,000 students in Seattle Public Schools.

So I will step off of my soapbox on that point but I think it is an important point for all of us to be thinking about as we contemplate these budget decisions.

Director Harris other colleagues comments concerns and questions?

I'd like to add one comment.

Go ahead please.

To the conversation that was just had between the last two board directors I'd like to add there are many ways to address opportunity gaps and there are many tools to do so.

But I don't think it's always a cut and dry equation in terms of how we fund things and what is closing the gap and what isn't.

you know CTE funding, curriculum adoption, staffing, these are all various tools that can address any kind of gap.

Particularly our opportunity gaps.

So I don't think it's always a zero sum game.

Thank you.

As I think about how this school has actually been struggling for so many years, it really gives me pause for us not to really look at what can we do to actually make this school a better school for all our kids.

Especially the kids that actually go to Rainier Beach and really take that school as their school, their home.

And as I think about that I realize This has been going on for so long that to the point where these kids actually have to come out and fight for what they believe in.

To get a better education and for them to actually have a great school.

So hopefully as we think about that let's remember that we are here because of the kids.

Not because of us but because we are here so we can provide a better education for all our children no matter what color or ethnic group they are.

But every one of our children deserves the best that we can give them.

So hopefully that we can be able to look at that when we are making decisions in terms of everything that we do.

Budget comes down to buildings.

Let's look at what kids are going to benefit through all of this and how do we able to make sure that all our kids benefit.

That these kids who continue to come and fight for their schools are not taken in vain.

Director Harris.

I have a question, excuse me Director Pinkham go ahead please.

Thank you for all the work that you've done here and doing this.

I wish things were just so simple that we can say we have these many students with this much money but when we have many different high schools, many different middle schools, then the money gets split up between all those different schools and if we overload one school or under enroll another it seems like again we are pitting schools against each other so it is a very tough process that we have to go through so I appreciate all the work of the students and the staff and everybody here in the community to come in and how can we come up with an equitable solution for people?

It's tough.

I wish it were simple.

Rainier Beach is suffering.

The reason I'm up here on the board is because our native students were suffering and I'm glad that we've made some progress but we have a lot of progress still to be made.

And it seems like we always look at that money seems to be getting in the way.

If we just had the funds if we just had the money.

How can we start changing this to say here's our priority and that's where the funding will go to.

Just listen to think about this.

David Letterman used to watch his TV show late night for quite a while, and he told this story about how he was in Las Vegas and he ran across a guy coming out of a casino and asked him, hey can I borrow 50 bucks for food?

And he said, how do I know you're not just going to take this 50 bucks and go back and gamble it away?

He said, well I got gambling money, I need money for food.

So it seems like we have money in some places, but lacking in others.

so how do we balance this so we have the money where it needs to go most?

That's the struggle I think.

Harris but we don't do it in a locked dark room in Olympia that's for darn sure.

On a Friday night.

One of the things you said earlier was that we are getting more money for CTE, yet we have CTE folks on our rift list.

Help me understand that, the two comments that seem to… Bergen So as I understand it, as I understand it, there is some… Partially it is about program viability.

No matter how much money we have, we cannot afford to run programs that have four and six kids.

That is part of what this is about.

So if we had, we are going to have people on riftless and programs changing in CTE and skill center as we move through time.

I mean that is going to be a normal course of ebb and flow of technology and the courses and the content that need to be offered for CTE and skill center.

So I think some of what you are seeing there is just that realization that we need to reprogram and direct our resources to attract kids and offer programs that kids want to be enrolled in.

Harris and does that also talk about an enhanced and more robust offering and engagement process for CTE?

So that folks are aware of it?

Bergen Well I will say yes.

Now as the budget office I am not really primarily responsible for that but that is what we are talking about and we do a lot of analysis with them.

Analysis that I am hoping that you can rely upon and believe in.

Because, like everything, we are constantly trying to find that proper balance between what program has what resources, and how do we strike that balance of wanting to offer educational programs that help all of our kids, especially areas where we have those opportunity gaps, and how can we grow those areas, and that is constant readjustment and refining of program.

It is not going to remain the same, and that means sometimes people will be on risk lists, even though we don't want them to be.

but that is moving our educational program forward sometimes.

Director Harris I see the CTE principal moving to the front of the podium.

Would you like to speak to him?

Director Peters I think he is here for backup.

Do you agree?

Or are you going to say yes?

You agree?

Dan Goldsman Hi Dan Goldsman principal for the skills center.

I don't know that I can add much more than what assistant superintendent Berge was just saying.

JoLynn, thank you.

But yes, I think in short, we are trying to do our best to right-size skill center and offer courses that students need and want, and we would love to offer full-day opportunities, both halves of the day, morning and afternoon, but it just becomes incredibly expensive to do that when there are only as she said four or six or much fewer than 14 kids in a class.

Harris Director Burke, Blanford and then Patu.

I want to wrap around that because we've had many of these discussions already and so I don't want to have a public perception around dissent on this particular item because obviously I'm a huge fan, the challenge we have is sort of a chicken and egg problem.

And if you have under enrolled programs you can't fund them, and if you don't have funded programs it's hard to enroll them.

So it requires some level of commitment to programs that meet the workforce demands, and they are also engaging for students, and providing the promotion around them, and all of the things we've talked about before and the work that is going on now, and it feels like we are on a trend where we are going to be growing in that direction.

Based on so many different areas of support, and it just concerns me that this portion of our infrastructure at this time that we were not able to stretch it out a little bit longer while we get the enrollment up in those programs.

And that's really the position that I'm hoping that we can take as a district is to figure out how to strike a long-term strategy around programs that have a demonstrated demand and need for students outside and proven success in closing gaps in other districts and that we can leverage that work here.

Director Blanford.

Blanford.

Blanford I think that's a good point that was made.

I think there are many programs in Seattle Public Schools that could attest to the same types of challenges, operational concerns.

Our immersion programs would qualify as one that has a different set of operational challenges but also needs the support to build it out appropriately.

I will note to the point that was made earlier about engagement and marketing the program so that people know that it is available, that I have received two separate documents at my home attesting to the availability of CTE programs in the last, you know since the beginning of the year this year.

So I think there is some work that is being done to market the programs and make sure that people know that they are available.

It just takes time for us to actually build it out.

I appreciate the chicken and egg analogy of how do you put something in place that requires that it have enrollment in order to justify the funding, and you know you need to have the chicken and the egg at the same time.

So I think those are two pieces to factor in.

I just, I continue, continue, continue to hope that we make decisions recognizing all of the interdependencies that are woven into each one of these decisions, when we make decisions in isolation and particularly when we make decisions that are based on the loudest group screaming for something, then we end up losing sight of all the other dependencies that are associated with that.

And sometimes we make a decision and it pushes us in one direction and then we have to unwind that at some point in the future and I believe that we are doing that now and I hope that we can be disciplined in the future so that that doesn't continue.

Director Patu.

To add to what Director Blanford already said, I've heard this so many times that we do a very poor job of actually recruiting students for our CTE programs.

And my question is whose responsibility is that?

Is that the school or the person that's actually over the CTE program?

Yeah I think that's, that answer depends a little bit on which programs we are talking about, but in general I think we could say that the CTE department and me, the principal of the skill center and my team, and counselors, it's a shared process.

And I would say, to go back to what Dr. Blanford was just saying, as far as I can tell we've actually done more advertising of the skills center this year than in previous years.

I've heard some say combined.

Many people here may have heard my too many robocalls from me this year as well as some printed material.

So we are doing a lot of work to advertise and recruit, and I would say that our enrollment in summer programs is one indicator that we're kind of winning on that.

We're doing well.

We've got 500 kids.

In fact today was the first day.

I just got back from Ingram, so I think we are doing well with that.

Enrollment for next year is looking pretty good compared to previous years trends at this time of the year.

So I think we are seeing evidence that we are making, as you said, good effort there, and getting some good results.

We can always do more and we can do better, and we are looking at how to build our systems to do that better.

Director Patu Is the summer program only at Ingram for the CTE program?

No, we have several sites around the district.

We've got, I should have that written in front of me, but I want to say a dozen sites, and 22 or 23 different courses offered.

Some are doubles, like culinary arts is one of our most popular.

We've got four full classes.

We're also running a little more efficiently this year.

In past years we ran two sessions, and often one of them or both of them were sometimes unenrolled.

This year we're just doing one session of each, and we've got almost all full classes.

Thank you.

Okay I believe that assistant superintendent Berge would like a motion or an indication of consensus or an amendment to any of the above.

What do I hear from my colleagues?

Director Blanford.

Director Blanford I would only, I support consensus, I don't believe we can do a motion, but I do hope that we can carve out space for a richer discussion and potential amendments or changes to the proposed budget.

Acknowledging the fact that there is not as much clarity this time around as we would prefer.

Assistant Superintendent Berge how would you like us to send our concerns and our questions to you but what is our tool to use to address those concerns?

Berge So I guess I'm happy to say that we are okay with this list and walk away and have you email me those lists and we are going to keep coming back.

We are going to be talking about the budget every month.

Every month as we go through and figure out where we are going from here, what needs to be changed.

Part of the biggest problem that we have is that the legislative action just came too late for us to turn on a dime and flip on a switch and do something new for 17-18.

So we are actually going to be talking about several million dollars that we are going to be saving, waiting and banking for 18-19 or until we can get together and have a plan of strategy.

So all of this, this recommendation still stands, but we have given thought to all of those different things.

Do I think this plan is 100% you know nothing bad is ever going to happen?

No, no budget is ever like that.

But do I feel comfortable given all the work that we've done throughout this entire year with the information that I have today going forward, yes I feel comfortable with this level of restoration and that this work can continue.

If something comes off and we are not able to meet these projections or something else happens, we are going to come back around and say this part of restoration isn't going to be able to happen, or we are going to have to tweak this or things of that nature.

Harris so do we build into our regular board meeting then if we don't have a work session or report and update from you?

No thank you.

I'm looking for transparency here for our community who is as confused as we are, and then some, from Friday's actions in Olympia.

And they are valid concerns.

Bergen So we will have more information and we will be providing that as we have, you know we are going to intro the budget tonight, talk about it at a high level.

It's not a, it's a very much a moving forward, baseline budget, carry forward as we have been doing business because of the late action by the ledge.

When we come back to action we can talk about some of the bigger pieces that we are kind of banking on and some more information.

But I believe that we are scheduling work sessions discreetly so that we can have a chance to really just focus and ask those questions.

And I would offer that I'm happy to take your questions whether you like to call me or email me if there are certain things you want us to dig into, because part of the other work that we are going to get to do together is we are going to have to dig into what other areas in our district do we need to look at for potential changes in programming.

we need to continue to refine and move forward.

And it is great for everything to stay the same, you want to give programs a chance to grow and mature and be successful, but at some point you also have to make changes.

You can't keep going forever like we've always been.

So with that

Director Patu.

Director Patu So on that note, how much changes are you looking at in terms of like if we needed to ask you a question about certain parts of your budget?

I mean is this the final budget for right now?

The restoration plan uses capacity that we built in.

When we tee up and introduce the budget tonight, it's pretty well cooked.

I mean there's not big changes so I don't know in particular what you might have in mind, but between the $2 million for mitigation and the $2 million for fall enrollment adjustment, there's a lot that fits under that umbrella as far as staffing changes for our schools.

So when you say it's very well cooked, does that mean that's it?

I mean this is your final budget?

Bergen Yeah.

If we are going to get it done on time, within our statutory requirement, we have to move at this point.

We've talked about it, we've had a plan all year, so we are pretty well set.

It's awkward timing at best when the ledge ends at the last minute.

It's awful.

Thank you very much.

I would like to move the consent agenda.

I have a motion for the consent agenda please.

Pinkham I move approval of the consent agenda.

Harris I second.

Harris does anyone have anything on the consent agenda that they wish to remove and discuss?

don't wish to remove anything but I do wish to make a comment.

Please continue.

I have concerns about some of the decisions that are reflected in the personnel report and so I am unable to support that.

Do you wish to remove the personnel report from the consent agenda Madam President?

Yes I do.

Okay that's been removed.

Director Pinkham you had a comment.

Pinkham Yeah public testimony came up on item number 15 on the solar photovoltaic systems project in regards to its goal of a 10% minority women owned businesses to be involved in it and seeing that there is a 0% I'd like to get some more information as to what happened there.

Do you wish to remove it from the consent agenda so you can address it separately sir?

Pinkham Yes I do.

Harris Okay.

Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended?

Pinkham So moved.

those in favor of the consent agenda as amended please say aye.

Aye.

Okay the personnel report has been pulled off the consent agenda as has item number 10. 15 excuse me thank you sir.

Would you like to address your concerns Madam President?

Peters Thank you yes.

I understand that the personnel report is a complex documents that reflect many decisions.

I am concerned about some of the decisions that have been made that have resulted in cuts to our schools including to CTE investments.

But I also understand that we as the board do not have a role in making those decisions.

However I can't in good conscience approve this report so I cannot support this report.

Did you, we have both general counsel Treat here and assistant superintendent Dr. Codd ready to speak to any questions?

Did you have any specific questions?

No not specific questions.

I have already discussed some of this with them and they explained some of these cuts.

But as I said I have difficulty standing behind some of these decisions.

Okay do we have a motion to move the personnel report separately?

Looking towards my colleagues?

Pinkham I so moved yes Harris I second Harris any other questions comments or concerns about the personnel report as written?

I'm unclear as to what we are we voting on approval of the personnel report?

We are indeed.

It has been taken off the consent agenda by virtue of a director's choice and right.

Director Burke.

This is a question for general counsel.

What are the ramifications of approval of or the board vote on this particular item?

Yeah, Noel Treat, General Counsel.

Under state law, the board is required to approve a host of different types of personnel actions, as you are aware.

So if you didn't approve those, then it could call into question a lot of the personnel changes, both additions of staff, staff retiring.

Anything on that report that you don't approve would then sort of be up in the air as to whether that could move forward.

Any other comments questions or concerns from my colleagues?

Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Blanford aye Director Burke nay Director Harris abstain Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters Harris this motion has passed by a vote of 3, 2, 2, 1.

Harris next issue is number 15, Director Pinkham did you wish to speak to that?

Pinkham yes.

Harris do we have somebody from facilities to come to the podium?

Thank you Mr. Best.

So my question is about the minority and women-owned businesses goal of 10% and then they state that there is only one subcontractor and that subcontractor didn't meet any of that criteria.

Do they know how many subcontractors actually bid for their services?

Or how they selected that one subcontractor?

can you give me the contract reference that you are noting?

Pinkham.

Pinkham It's the BEX II BEX III approval authorization number 27217-089 it's the solar photovoltaic systems project.

And I had it up here earlier.

And it was referenced in the public comment here.

Because I went and looked at it.

point of personal privilege?

Contract number would that be beneficial?

Best yes I got the contract number I'm looking for the reference.

It's on page 27 of 48 diverse I section I are diverse business participation goals for this project.

And in the contract look it's page 12, but what's submitted is page 28.

I'm not familiar with that.

Director Pinkham might have to look into this and get back to you.

I see the requirements here from the original contract percentages and I see that Amoresco does not meet those.

It could be in their business makeup that they don't meet those.

I do know that they are going to have subcontractors performing this work.

Harris.

Mr. General Counsel, now what?

Director Blanford I was just going to point out I think the bullet down at the bottom of that section explains the reason that they are not meeting their goals.

And again these are just goals as you know under initiative 200 you can't state in school district contracts you can't mandate a certain percentage you can only have goals, aspirational goals.

In regards to the saying that they will only use one subcontractor for a construction, and the solar contractors don't meet the criteria, I was just wondering, is there only one such subcontractor that can do this work?

And that by chance doesn't meet these goals?

That's kind of the question I was going to get.

Best That's correct.

It probably is only one subcontractor who would do this installation.

And they are not a minority owned business, they are not a woman owned business, they are not a veteran owned business.

Pinkham Okay so that helps clarify that.

They weren't purposely, or not even purposely, inadvertently didn't hire this it's just that there wasn't any in existence to do the work they were looking for.

Harris So Mr. General Counsel if we vote this down are we violating initiative 200?

No I don't think so.

So the next steps are to put this to a vote is that correct?

Yeah I think that's where you are at this point.

Ms.

Shek roll call please.

I guess the only thing is if you think people might be voting no do you want to have any questions for facilities about the ramifications of not being able to move forward with a contract at this time might be the thing you'd want to ask.

One more time Mr. General Counsel.

I want to be clear here.

If there is a sense that you might vote this contract down, you might want to just ask Mr. Best what are the ramifications of not getting this contract approved now in terms of being able to get the project done in a different way, and what kind of timeframe or financial implications might be involved.

All that and more Mr. Best.

Best Well I know that we have a meeting set up on July 27 to begin the finalization of the design.

We are hoping to do three projects this fall.

Submitting grants to Seattle City Light for the three projects we are hoping to implement this fall and we are hoping to complete this project next spring.

I will note that we did receive $500,000 from the Department of Commerce for this project I will also note that we have an interagency agreement with the Department of Enterprise services, they would have reviewed this contract as part of that interagency agreement.

Director Harris other questions comments or concerns?

Director Blanford.

Director Blanford I'm just wondering what the implications of potential no vote, I understand what you said before, but the potential implications of a no vote, is this a situation where a contractor has a piece of work and has bidded out no minority or women owned businesses have responded to that and therefore they just want to move ahead with the contract?

Am I understanding that correctly?

And that is the question that I would have to review with Amherst.

That is the interpretation of the question I had, Director Blanford, of what Director Pinkham was asking, and that I do not know.

And because you shared that there are ramifications of us not moving forward with this vote, now I am trying to understand based on what you know, given the fact that you have been involved in this industry for quite a while, could it actually be because there are no minority and women owned businesses that have bid for the subcontract?

yes it could be, but I would have to confirm that.

I am fairly certain I could bring this back at the end of August with minor schedule implications to the work that we hope to get done in the fall, probably postpone those projects to the spring and then the spring projects postpone to the fall of 18. Harris.

Mr. General Counsel how would one move this forward to address it at a later time with more and better information.

Director Blanford Okay yeah the reason I just come back up is that you were about to go to roll call and Nate pointed out that you actually had not made the motion itself yet.

So one thing you could do at this point would move to postpone it to the August meeting and vote on that and that would do that.

Director Harris I so move.

Director Pinkham And I second.

Director Blanford And I'll get the information you've asked for.

Director Harris Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Blanford Aye Director Burke No Director Harris Aye Director Patu Director Pinkham Aye Director Peters I'm sorry, Director Peters?

Peters Yes.

Can you hear me?

This motion is passed with a vote of 5 to 1.

Harris Thank you Mr. Best.

Okay we can take a break now for 15 minutes or we can do board comments and then take a break before our action items.

What is the will of my colleagues?

Director Blanford.

Blanford.

Blanford I am going to endeavor to be very short.

There are only a couple of things that I think are warranted.

The first is an apology.

I believe we did an incredible disservice to particularly to the Rainier Beach community that came to testify about the options that were presented before us for the waitlist.

And my understanding or my recollection of that was several of them came in after the vote had already been taken.

and they continued to make their testimony when a vote had already been taken and their testimony was therefore mute.

I think we did an incredible disservice to that community.

And that was the reason that I walked outside and shared with them that that vote had already been taken.

Several of the folks that I spoke to, I couldn't tell if they were more angry by the fact that we didn't do what they wanted us to, or if they were more upset by the fact that we didn't inform them that the vote had already been taken.

And so I believe that we again should have handled that in a different way than we did.

And at least on my behalf I apologize for that being the case.

Secondly, last week at the last week's board meeting I neglected to appreciate particularly Lisa Love who works for Seattle Public Schools and was responsible for a very enthusiastic representation of Seattle Public Schools at the pride parade, the Seattle pride parade that had occurred the Sunday before.

If you remember it was about 95 degrees that day, it was blistering hot.

But it was a rambunctious group of people who were in the bus, they were rocking and rolling the bus, and we got a very enthusiastic response back from the thousands of people who were lined up on 4th Avenue.

And so I want to be sure to thank Lisa Love, and all of those who were responsible for organizing what was a fun event.

I was pretty sweaty at the end of it, but very happy to have had the opportunity to participate and to see lots and lots of our fellow citizens out celebrating our very strong position in support of our LGBTQ students.

Thank you.

Next up, Director Burke.

Burke So I'll keep this very brief because it feels like we've just spoken a week ago.

I want to appreciate what Director Blanford said and thank our Rainier Beach students who have visited us regularly and shared their message which is just getting better and better.

More refined schedule specific things.

specific dollar ask, so I think it's, you continue to demonstrate through your words and your actions that Rainier Beach is doing amazing things with its students.

And I would say from the point of view of this director it has been impactful in how I think about things in my own district, and my focus previously had been on Lincoln high school as a project which was set in motion significantly before my time, and I was given the opportunity to help shepherd it towards opening.

Which as people have been able to tell from my comments is extremely exciting and what your testimony has really helped me understand.

some of the history and your individual feelings around you know, Rainier Beach has been left behind.

So I visited Rainier Beach, I've toured some of the sites.

I wish as a kid that I could go down there and spend some more time in the aerospace program.

There's some really really neat things going down on a beach.

So I continue to be a fan and an advocate, and your messages have really gone deep for me.

And so I hope that you don't feel that you are not being heard, but that you do recognize that the machine here moves slowly, and your persistence is paying off.

I also wanted to put out a word of thanks Thanks and just general notice to folks that are, I think it's relevant in light of some of the testimony that you heard today.

In the recent Friday memo that came out I believe on June 30, there are preliminary reports around program evaluation relating to advanced learning and international schools.

And there is specifically an update from the advanced learning department talking about over a dozen strategies to improve access for underrepresented students.

And so I think that that work is definitely underway.

It would be great if it was underway a long time ago.

but I know that from the conversations on the board, in the community, around how we identify programs that are adding high value for students, and also how we are improving access for underrepresented students.

Both of those are topics of conversation, and I think they are really well represented in this Friday memo.

So I want to thank staff for that work, which I know has been months and in some cases years in the making, and I want to thank the board for supporting it as well.

And there's a...

I think I'm just going to wrap up there.

I want everyone to have a great summer.

Thanks.

Director Harris Okay one more board comment and then we stop.

We take a break so they can change the tape.

Director Patu First I want to say thank you to all the Rainier Beach students who are here today.

Continue the fight for what you believe in and you guys are doing a great job.

Things are not moving as fast as Director Burke is saying but We are hearing you loud and clear and we are supporting you in whatever it is that we can do to make things happen.

Also I want to follow up on what Director Blanford was saying about the parade.

I actually didn't get to walk the parade but I did walk around.

They were taking too long so I decided to walk on down and just checking out what was at the parade but it was pretty packed.

And Lisa Love did a wonderful job of recruiting, there were so many people that actually walked behind the Seattle school bus.

So that was fun but it was a very hot day.

Also I want to say that it's been a wonderful year and also in some ways and it was a bad year in some ways.

I think that the work that we continue on to do as Seattle school board directors has been very busy and been very at times been very what's the word for it?

It's been very stressful at times but I think that overall in terms of visiting our schools and making sure that We, that everyone in the schools know that we are doing what we can to move forward in our individual district.

I know I visit Rainier Beach, someone says that I visit Rainier Beach more than I do any other high schools, that's not true.

But you know it's just great to go and see what's happening in the schools because it gives us a better picture of what's going on in all our schools.

And hopefully that we can continue to do the work that we need to do to better our schools and provide our kids the best education that we can and be able to just be able to work together so we can be able to make things move forward and hopefully that one day that we will see Rainier Beach being fully renovated and that students who are actually working hard to make that happen will someday come back and see the work that they have done has been paid off.

So have a wonderful summer and hopefully that we can continue to work together to make a difference in fighting for beach.

Harris and to the Rainier students you have my personal apology for not calling out the fact that we had already taken a vote on the waitlist prior to your all's arrival.

My apologies.

And I would suggest to both staff and to my colleagues shout out point of personal privilege and let's rectify that in real time next time.

Thank you.

We are taking a break until 730.