School Board Meeting Date July 6th, 2016 Pt. 1

August 24. I would note for those in the community reaching out to staff and the board, summer break is the time for people to take vacation so some responses may be delayed.

Roll call.

Ms. Pham roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Present.

Director Burke.

Here.

Director Geary.

Here.

Director Harris.

Here.

Director Peters.

Here.

Director Pinkham.

Here.

Director Patu.

Here.

Thank you.

Would everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge 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.

We will have no recognition and no student presentation tonight.

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

We might have a little time here.

All right first a reminder for the board members that you have your good news pieces here and so you always do a nice job in your comments of saying good things about schools and teachers and staff.

encourage you to get those written down occasionally as well.

Many thanks to the board for wow over the top service the last couple of weeks a full week of graduations and then a full week of evening meetings so thanks so much for your dedication and stamina and commitment throughout the year especially this last few weeks.

In regard to eliminating the opportunity gaps our strategic work the African-American male advisory committee had their first meeting this is a reconstitution of the African-American male think tank.

And so that was well attended and Dr. Brent Jones and Michael Tolley and Niko Lemons and others did a nice job of setting the stage.

Picking up where we had left off with the recommendations that were made by the think tank.

And then going forward with the charge for the new group which is to help us figure out Hopefully around our four Ps how we want to go forward with eliminating opportunity gaps.

So we'll continue to be working with them and building on the expertise that they have.

The mayor's summit meetings continue.

They met on June 29. Director Patu and I are two of several district representatives on that committee.

We obviously weren't able to be there because we were here for one of our board sessions last week.

They I think are zeroing in on some principles, operating principles to guide the work by.

And then they've been meeting in subcommittees which they did on Wednesday to begin to flesh out some ideas.

The goal is to have recommendations to the mayor sometime, used to be in July, vacation reality set in somewhere along the way and so now it's more like August or September.

when those recommendations come to the fore.

I've been told but I don't fully remember what they discussed on last Wednesday I know that one of the items had to do with ELL services to parents And I know that that has been one of the themes that's come through the testimony that has been held by the various summit activities.

And it's one that we certainly recognize.

We've heard testimony in this room with regard to the needs expressed by our parents who speak another language other than English in the home.

And I would say three things.

I guess one we are making progress on how we can continue to use our school messenger service.

That was one of the services that seemed to meet a particular need for ELL parents.

So that's good news going forward.

We've got some opt-out provisions and some other pieces that we can put in place to make that work for us.

And then as part of the Compliance funding that the board talked about last week, part of that discussion is around increased translations and interpretation in partial compliance of some of the new laws and expectations.

I don't know that anybody, well I don't know I think it is well received in that ESSA does require that state testing will go forward with testing in our top two languages so I don't know if that will happen as soon as next year but our Smarter Balanced assessment will need to be given in Spanish I assume if not next year the year after that.

Current issues, kindergarten enrollment continues to be a little bit of a concern for us.

We've been growing fairly rapidly as a district and enrollment for the last several years.

and we forecast that will continue to grow for this coming year.

Kindergarten enrollment is not a very good analogy in the pig in the python.

It's at the beginning of the cohort.

So kindergarten students if you have a large number of them they continue to move up and they replace smaller classes and so your enrollment goes up overall.

If your kindergarten classes are smaller than they were before you have the reverse and if that trend holds for a number of years your enrollment goes down.

So way too early to predict anything but interesting.

So right now we're making a big push to make sure that anybody who isn't already registered knows that yep school is going to be starting in the fall and we'd be glad to have them so would they like to sign up.

The article that was in the paper a few weeks ago with regard to Garfield was kind of came out the reverse of how Ted intended it.

Rather than eliminating ninth grade honors the idea was to make ninth grade honors available to all of the students at the school.

as part of their work toward our 0030 and something that had been discussed with staff.

So that's yeah a lot more discussion to come and that's a heavy lift to make sure that students and parents and teachers are all prepared for stepping up to that next level of commitment and engagement and hard work.

Schmitz Park we continue to work on that and making the building that we're moving out of to move into the new Genesee building.

Working with the existing child care providers and others to see about how we can continue to make that space available for much needed and wanted child care and maybe some other services.

So, I think we're getting close to having a lease agreement signed and we'll publicize that as soon as we have the lease signed and we know that we can move forward.

Basically, we as a district have very few in this category and they've been somewhat, I don't know, it's just a challenge for us to figure out how to implement policy.

So we have two separate policies.

One is that if you're an after school provider you get to use the facilities pretty much for free.

We might charge you for custodial or something like that but we don't charge you rent.

And if you're leasing a base that you use all of the time then we have another policy that says that you'll pay rent and you'll could qualify for a 50 percent reduction if your services are in line with what we want done as a district.

And so Nordic Heritage Museum is one, Africatown is another, and so this would fall into that category and we're trying to figure out, our goal is to be fair to everybody in that category.

We don't want to treat them any worse than anybody else in that category and we don't want to give any more allowances than policy allows for.

School visits had a few since our last board meeting was on the 15th.

We had a few more days of school after that.

Greenwood I was very impressed principal knew students by name and could talk eloquently about closing the gaps for our African-American students and had some great stories about how just a little bit of personal attention made a huge difference in the life of the student and how parents appreciated that extra effort to make sure that students were remaining on track.

Bagley was celebrating a 90th birthday and 60 years of volunteering at Bagley by one of their longtime volunteers.

She looked quite sprightly and was enjoying the day immensely with everybody in the school coming by to wish her a happy birthday.

And then at Fairmont Park I was introduced to an ELL student that had been in the country a little bit more than one year and they too were working on positive growth mindsets and encouraging students as we walked through the hall for Wow I really like the way that you've worked hard and the principal introduced me to the young man and complimented him on how hard he'd worked and how close he, the progress that he had made and how close he was to being proficient.

Fifth grade student in the country for less than two years.

So yeah lots of good, and they were, out there going get yourself in here we don't want you to be late and so they were enforcing what looked like a very strict tardy procedure to make sure that kids knew that they needed to be there and they knew, they were running, they knew that they were going to get locked out in another minute.

So a lot of good work that went on in schools right down to the last minute.

Well we ended in addition to the evening work that the board was involved with last week we did cabinet retreat on Monday and then we did a retreat with principals on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mike Starosky and the principal PD planning team had done a nice job of bringing people together to talk about what have we learned this year and what's on deck for coming up this next year.

I'm excited and enthused.

You've heard part of this before.

Principals have dedicated the one day per month to PD and half of that time is focused on equity.

Part of that work has been to report on their inquiry plans which are what are they doing in their building to close the opportunity gap.

As part of that and I I have a started list it's not ready for publication or prime time yet.

You've heard me report on some of them at the board meeting.

Is that every time I visit a school, any school, there's some part of the visit that just really stands out as being wow that is really cool.

Does anybody else know about that?

So the idea of replication and how we spread that good news is alive and well.

So one of the things that we did, I won't get this quite right.

Padlets?

Is that what we did?

Padlets.

Sure.

All right we did padlets.

Anyway you use your phone and you turn in your good ideas.

So principals had an opportunity to self-nominate.

nominate colleagues and or say this is what I'd like this is the kind of help I'd like.

And so that was eye-opening to me in that I've been thinking about our outliers and how we can push that work forward and I think that's still good.

But I envision it as stair steps and so yeah we have some people at the top of the staircase that we can all learn from.

But then we have others that are in the middle or toward the bottom of the staircase and they need just the next step.

And that might be what the outliers are doing up here or it might be what one of their colleagues is doing in another school.

It's just I'm ready for that one next step.

Don't confuse me with all that other stuff just tell me who I can go see to move that next step.

So that was exciting work.

and I got to share some of my West Seattle memories about being a three-year-old.

I won't go into that here but it had to do with a wading pool around the corner and after I shared that memory it was kind of like wow that's 65 years ago am I sure that that was correct?

So I drove around the corner and made sure yep the wading pool is still there so hadn't seen the wading pool in 65 years but I was correct.

65 years ago I was there at West Seattle as a very young toddler doing interesting things in the wading pool.

We celebrated at the SLI piece for principals was held at West Seattle high school in their cafeteria.

We celebrated the retirement for Joe Lute Irvin's retirement.

She was recruited from out of state came to Seattle 46 and a half years ago.

and stayed as an African-American leader that's done great work in Seattle most recently at Kimball so it was nice to have the opportunity to congratulate her.

One of the issues that we worked on this year had to do with principal evaluations.

HR under Dr. Clover Codd's leadership has implemented a new process asking principals to bundle up their evaluations to make sure that they are all there.

come in, make an appointment, sit down with HR and somebody goes through them, signs off that they are all there and gives them a receipt for that information.

So it will probably still take a while to get all of those evaluations inputted into the system but we do know that we have received 100% of them back so thanks to our school leaders as well as our EDs and to HR for making sure that that happened.

A year in review as we end one year we do the state of the district in the fall but kind of interesting is we celebrate graduations and look back at some of the things that have been accomplished and so kind of going down the list here goal one our MTSS work continues to pay dividends as our students overall we know we still have gaps but overall continue to outperform not only the state but our peers, others who are similar demographics to us.

The eliminating the opportunity gap as I continue to say is exciting as schools pick up the momentum on that and then the mayor and some of our foundations have expressed interest in supporting that work.

The board's moratorium on elementary nonviolent suspensions has continued to move us in the right direction.

Suspensions, nonviolent suspensions overall as a district continue to go down as we find better alternatives to that.

And again the potential for board support for funding of some of the goals in that area will continue to help move us in that direction.

Special education continues to reach the milestones that OSPI has set in place.

We have now received $2.5 million out of the $3 million that they withheld from us back.

That means that all five regions qualified for the return of those funds.

One remaining area is district implementation.

And, we're close, we've met most of those milestones.

I'm not 100% certain that we're going to hit 100% of them, but we're going to come awfully close.

Early hiring, we reported to you that lots of early hiring contracts, 100% of our special ed openings are filled at this point.

100% of our nurses openings are filled.

And then goal five, again the board knows that we've had a lot of community input with regard to bell times, start times, kind of one of the first in the nation of a large district moving to the later start times for high school students.

So much much thanks to the board for supporting the goals, doubling down on continuation of many of those goals for the coming year and being open to the discussions about what kind of investments we can make to keep moving those goals forward.

And then, I don't know, kind of a point of personal interest as an old history teacher.

I kind of think about what are some of the milestones this year that maybe aren't goals, they aren't something that we had officially set aside as goals, but kind of for our archivist, what are the headlines for this last year?

So certainly the voter approval for our operations and BTA levy at 70 plus percent, I mean we Thousands of employees basically we say thank you very much and we'll keep on moving and we'll keep on doing good work but certainly important to pause and say wow what a gift from our voters.

The new classrooms again some places more than others probably many places across the district that's ho-hum and kind of like oh yeah I've heard that we're growing.

But for many many of our schools that means major impositions and that means that many teachers are changing classrooms.

It means that we are opening five new schools and they are boxing stuff up and getting ready to move which is all good.

They are moving into better quarters but yeah.

65 classrooms you approved to be invented out of thin air for McCleary.

And so we're busy doing that but that's a heavy lift and does have an impact.

The smarter balance piece is not only a new test with its challenges but it's also measuring student success at a higher college career level.

And part of our, I guess the issue of our times, how do we prepare more students for college career readiness because that's what it's going to take for a family wage job for their future.

I mentioned the opportunity gaps work and the attraction that that's creating.

And then the launch of the Seattle preschool program is small it's in its infancy and it's had its growing pains but wow looking back if they can pull that off over the next 5-10 years and we can have universal free preschool and have more kids coming to school kindergarten ready that means a lot of help to close the opportunity gap.

We celebrated in this room a few days ago retirements for 121 Seattle Public Schools employees.

Heard lots of interesting stories some people were great I'll be back to substitute next week.

And then we heard the others that said I'm off for farming in eastern Washington or reinventing my singing career or a variety of other things.

So thank you to Directors Patu, Geary and Blanford for being there and celebrating with us.

Civics mini units, 30 of our teachers met recently with the King County elections department to plan lessons around the new learning standards for Washington State civics.

16 of our schools were represented.

They are working around essential questions and issues of fairness at the early grades and then working up through the grades for more complex and abstract issues.

This also helps with the mock elections piece that we recognize is timely with regard to our election and having students see a little bit more about how that process works and why it's important.

Our summer learning work doesn't stop.

We've already launched the summer staircase aka summer school work with more than 3,000 students enrolled and engaged.

in a nice, we do a lot with Title I and lap funds as a district and then the city puts in quite a bit of money to add to that.

And we have a nice model with a blended academic focus and then a kind of a hands-on fund-based learning approach that then also partners with the city on providing meals to students.

Administrative hiring, Michael Tolley and I announced a reorganization of teaching and learning at the principals retreat last week.

Kind of phase 3 of the reorganization that we started a year ago when we created the two associate superintendents, one on the operations side, one on the teaching and learning side.

middle of the year we did equity work around Title IX and around our closing the opportunity gaps and our partnership with the community around that work.

And then in this round elevating Wyatt's role to being responsible for quite a few of the services that fit together under special education.

student support services and recognizing that MTSS work all needs to work together hand-in-hand.

And then reclassifying the C&I position that Shawna Heath is vacating as a chief of C&I position.

So kind of giving the rundown.

Principal hires, 21 out of 24 open principal positions are filled.

Closing in hopefully on getting those done although I imagine there will be a few more over the summer.

Interviews are being completed for Executive Director of Labor Relations, Executive Assistant to the Superintendent, Alita is gone and missing her already.

And Director of Policy and Board Relations.

Postings are out or if they aren't they will be out in a few days for the Chief of C&I, the Executive Director of Special Education and the Executive Director of Schools position that is being vacated by Israel Vela.

Not quite ready for posting.

The chief of information services, Carmen Roms position and a director of the 24 credit implementation work.

So continuing to move forward with filling positions so that we are ready to go in the fall.

The Wallace grant is moving quickly although I keep bringing it back to you and letting you know about the updates.

So we are one of 14 sites and I believe that they are aiming at picking seven of those 14 sites for extended multiyear grants.

They will be visiting us in August with the idea of well seeing how we are doing and whether we are a good place to invest.

Hopefully a place where they will support the social emotional learning component as we would partner with some of our community-based partners in terms of what we could do kind of extending our school day to address some of those social emotional issues.

On June 27 we did a community partnership celebration and I didn't get the statistics in here but Carrie Campbell is handing that work off, Brent Jones was on hand to thank our school and community partnership, community-based partners along with our team and talk about some of the successes.

I can't get this quite right but have made major gains in terms of providing professional development for our community-based partners and having our community-based partners recognize that as being a worthwhile endeavor on their part and recognizing the value of working hand-in-hand with the district.

We are currently bargaining with principals association for a new collective bargaining agreement.

Trades and carpenters are also open for negotiations.

609's contract is open for bargaining in two areas, $15 slash minimum wage.

and the work associated with the bell time shift.

And then soon we need to start talking with SEA around the 24 credit requirement and the 20 minute longer day for 2017-18.

Sounds like that's still a long way away but we really have probably until November to figure out what we want to do so that we can start to build that into transportation schedules, staffing, and then scheduling that will need to be done.

TRI days, TRI stands for time, responsibility, and incentive.

In their wisdom the legislature when they implemented a statewide salary schedule in I want to say 1979 said that school districts could not pay one penny more than what the state provided in wages.

And then they relented and said well you can pay more for time responsibility and incentives.

So that's what we do.

We now pay whatever the state rate is and then we add about a third to it under the category of time responsibility and incentive.

Part of that contract, the collective bargaining agreement with teachers calls for some professional development on August 30, 31, and September 1. Some of those are district directed times and some of those are district directed times.

So, Pat Sanders and others are working together with PASS and with SEA and with district level administration to figure out how we can make the best use of that time to talk about our partnership work with SEA and PASS around student behavior.

and social emotional growth and how that can advance our work to eliminate opportunity gaps.

And then the bell times reminder that information is posted so there will be a lot of changes as we move into next year in terms of the time when schools start and dismiss at the end of the day.

And so we will keep working at getting that information out to parents which is I'm sure of little to no interest at the moment but as we get closer to the start of the school year Hopefully people will be aware of that and start to pay attention to that information.

School will start on September 7 however another part of the messaging that is a little challenging for us is that for kindergarten students there will be a delayed start.

in order to give opportunity to do with the new, I guess the good news, bad news.

It's not bad news, although I understand the complexity for parents.

The good news is that the state is now funding full, free, all-day kindergarten.

Free, full day, there we go.

And part of that is that they want to build that relationship between the teacher and the parent and the student and so that means that we've set aside that time at the beginning of the school year for those meetings to take place which will cause some daycare challenges for our parents.

So, as I wrap up, I will be requesting to remove action item number seven, awarding refuse disposal and mixed waste recycling.

And I will invite Bruce Skower to come up and talk briefly about A, why that is.

And then also to talk a little bit about one of the issues that there's been some interest about which is what do we do about summer grounds and what do we have in place and what we might be able to have in place in that regard so.

Good evening Bruce Skowrode director of facilities.

So the day after we intro'd the waste recycle contract to you we got a call from the vendor And apparently King County is going to be raising their tonnage rates which gave them a situation where they didn't feel they could honor their contract and have requested to have it reworked.

So we are in the process of doing a two-month extension on the current contract with the vendor and we will be introing hopefully a new RFP contract for waste recycle with the new King County rates in August.

Also just a note about our summer gardening program.

Taking a little different approach this year.

We were blessed with getting four additional gardeners for next budget year and we decided to take the approach of rather than hire temporary summer gardeners this year we would use any funds that we had available to bring those four gardeners in early.

So we are going to have those folks starting hopefully late July, August.

to help us with that summer work.

Thanks.

Sue has a question.

Regarding the people working on the grounds, between now and the end of July and beginning of August, so will there be no maintenance of our properties?

No, our regular gardeners are working.

This is just additional staff that we bring in in the summer.

So our regular fulltime gardeners are out there doing their business, doing a great job.

One of the advantages that we have in the summertime is because we don't irrigate you know the grass is going dormant so we don't have to spend as much time mowing.

But no our gardeners are out there working full-time this is just additional help and the four people that we are bringing in will also help with five new buildings that we are bringing online.

And then how many gardeners do we have currently working?

15.

15 okay.

Thank you.

Thank you that concludes my remarks.

We do not have any student comments for this evening.

So as we have now reached the action portion of the agenda we will address the superintendent's request to amend the agenda to remove action item number seven awarding refuge disposal and mixed waste recycling contract.

I will now entertain motion to amend the agenda to remove action item number seven awarding refuge disposal and mixed waste recycling contract.

So moved.

Second the motion.

Any questions or comments from any of the directors?

Ms. Pham please do the roll call.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

We have now reached the consent portion.

of tonight's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

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

Seeing none, all those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

Okay the consent agenda has passed.

Since we are pretty early we are going to go ahead then and do our board comments.

And I would like to actually call on Director Peters to provide the internal audit reports.

Thank you Director Patu.

As the chair of the Audit and Finance Committee I am required to read an update about the latest internal audit report.

Board procedure 6550 BP internal audit requires the Audit and Finance Committee chair to announce completed audits at the next scheduled school board meeting.

Here is a summary of our recent audits.

At the June 21 quarterly audit and finance committee meeting the office of internal audit presented four internal audit reports.

The first audit was a follow-up to the Fairmount Park construction audit which found that all previous concerns had been corrected.

The second was a capital report for Genesee Hill design.

The third was an audit of the district's procurement function.

And the fourth was an audit of Lowell elementary school.

All findings and recommendations are discussed at a public audit and finance committee meeting and the completed reports are available online at the office of internal audits public webpage.

Click on departments under the district tab and then click on internal audit.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Peters.

Now is the report comments?

Then I will raise your hand at once.

Director Blanford.

I would just like to note that the time that is scheduled for my community meeting will need to be changed.

I am being called away to Washington DC for a meeting and will not be able to attend that meeting.

So as soon as I have a newly scheduled time and place I will notify the board staff so that it can be communicated out to the public.

Director Burke.

Well it feels like we are getting to the end of a school year.

So I will jump in with a few comments.

And I would like ideally to have some of my comments address some of the points of public testimony.

So I think I will go brief here and then maybe there is an opportunity to follow up.

I had the unique pleasure of celebrating the sendoff of our students at two schools over the last month.

I shared the stage with Director Pinkham at Ingram high school and had the pleasure of sending my daughter Allie off to University of Washington so look out University of Washington and congratulations Allie you'll do awesome.

I also had the pleasure of joining the center school for their graduation ceremony which was super personal and very moving.

I got to join Mike Starosky and Michael Tolley as part of that district representation to observe and share a few words and that was a really great experience for me as well.

There was a meeting last month with primarily district central staff and some building leaders regarding MTSS.

It was a realignment meeting that was run by Wyeth Jesse and his team.

And I just want to highlight that that was a really great meeting for me to learn obviously more about what we're doing around the existing MTSS implementation.

We talked about the tools that are being used, existing sites, how to scale that districtwide, and really reaching sort of the common vision of it.

And one of the points that I really want to emphasize is that MTSS although it's talked about a lot as an intervention a really critical component of it is that core instruction is designed to meet the needs of 80% of the students.

So when we talk about MTSS it's not just the 20% it's a way of focusing on the 80% as well.

And sometimes that gets lost in the discussions and so that was a really good thing that I felt came out of this meeting that I wanted to share as well.

I guess I will speak a little bit to the, I would like to touch on some of the hot button issues that are taking place at Thurgood Marshall and Garfield.

It makes me a little bit sad that our communities are not rallying together around some of the opportunities that we have.

I feel like we are not going to student focused issues we are getting stuck on adult focused issues.

And so my ask to the community and my colleagues and staff is As we look at the work that's being done at Thurgood Marshall and Garfield I appreciate Superintendent Nyland's clarification on the ninth grade honors.

I think it's really important that we recognize that we are trying to serve every student in every classroom.

and we're trying to reach them where they are and take them where they can go.

And we want to celebrate our equity and find places where we can really benefit kids that need it the most but we have to be really cautious not to do it at the expense of other families and so that's a tough conversation.

And so we have to be able to have that conversation about how we are doing it for the kids and not just jump to specific language or stereotypes and really talk about how we are meeting the needs of kids and how the decisions that we make in the schools are serving those communities.

So I just want to put out a call to sensitivity as we move forward in those areas.

I have a public meeting scheduled for Saturday July 23, 4 to 5.30pm at the Fremont Public Library.

And then in closing I just want to thank staff, I want to thank Nielsen and his team for the candor and the opportunity to discuss the $11 million one-time funding.

This has been insightful for me.

I've been following the district for quite a while.

Primarily focused on curriculum and instruction not as much on budget.

But I have never in my days seen this level of public transparency around hey there's some extra unspent money here.

How can we apply it in the most productive way?

How can we engage the board?

And this might be some of my my lack of experience with that but I really want to credit the staff for being candid about that and helping us see the challenges that they face.

I've read some of the concerns of people saying oh this unspent money, why is it that we just magically found money?

And so the understanding that this is an annual recurring situation where we have unspent funds but it feels to me like a new chapter in how we manage that money and how we allocate it towards our goals or board priorities or district priorities or high leverage areas.

I believe we've had multiple written correspondence and three public meetings to discuss how to allocate that funding.

And it sounds like we're not quite there yet.

I would like to put in one last pitch around middle school math.

Because I know this was a topic that came up before and we weren't all there.

So I just wanted to share one more point of note that at our last meeting I had made some comments around the value of that.

And our last middle school math adoption was in 2006 I believe.

And so if we go through a process now we will not adopt until as soon as the earliest fall of 2017. This is something that would serve about 11,000 students for a period of 7 to 10 years.

So with a one-time spend we would be allocating resources to serve almost a quarter of our population, I'm stretching a little bit there, for almost a decade.

And when I think about what we're doing with MTSS and trying to provide that solid foundation and the role of the central office and our administration to provide high quality you know high quality instructional materials, high quality standard teaching practices and provide the best possible starting point for buildings to build on and innovate.

I continue to feel that the middle school math adoption is a really high value use of resources and I would ask my colleagues to consider it as well.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ thank you.

I actually want to start out my comments with something that my oldest daughter has been asking me about with the graduation ceremonies that went on.

She graduated from Ingraham high school and then I also was able to go to the Nathan Hale and she She caught me after the Nathan Hale and she said Scott, her dad, she doesn't call me Scott, she calls me dad.

Did you acknowledge the Duwamish?

and I thought no I did not.

So I actually want to take this time while I can to acknowledge the Duwamish people whose land we're on right now.

You know so the indigenous people that thank them in a sense that we're guests here on their land and I just want to take that time so thank you Molly for reminding me to do that so get that on public record just acknowledge the space that the Seattle schools occupy.

I also did want to thank the staff, the six months has been a whirlwind.

I can't believe it's been six months that we've been here for the new board members and thank you to the staff as we get to know you, you get to know us.

I see us going in the right direction.

I see us being more transparent.

balancing those comments that we hear from staff, the comments from the board, the comments from the community that everyone's involved in this and that they feel that they have a voice that's being heard.

And unfortunately I know sometimes as you know the answer has to be no.

But we're being transparent you know that we're going I feel the way that we need to with the school district and I thank the leadership of Larry that you're helping us get those things accomplished.

I do want to reiterate my concerns with the Loyal Heights elementary expansion project.

I still would like to see if we can reduce that and in some of the memos that if we can put those pre-K buildings as an alternative in the bid I think that will help us out tremendously that we are seeing, we are acknowledging, at least for me acknowledge that that site is too big for the acreage that it covers.

I do plan to hopefully meet with the Seattle special education PTSA they've contacted me I'll definitely try to set up a meeting with them.

with Director Burke with the middle school math curriculum you know I am a math, my undergraduate degree in mathematics and math hasn't changed that much but definitely we need to change the approach in how we are teaching it to our students and having that transition from elementary school to middle school and then to high school we need to make sure that sticks with our students and yes I would help support at least some kind of seed fund that we can from our money that we have the 11 million to help with the middle school math curriculum adoption but with that I would also like to see actually more money to go into mitigation.

You know let's help our schools out.

Let's help them so that they can provide what we need for their students.

You know just remember being at that mayor's summit you know one of the students got up there you remember it's about the students it's not about me it's not about you it's about the students.

So, I hope I can have some more comments after public testimony.

Thank you.

Director Geary.

It definitely feels like the end of the year and I will echo with Director Pinkham that it has been an amazing six months.

What a learning curve it has been to try to just begin to wrap my mind around being a director of a billion dollar enterprise.

An immense amount of responsibility that I feel every day.

And I had at my last community meeting which I held in the middle of the day of the week and it brought in a few new faces which was nice.

And the irony is as one person cycled out and the next person cycled in they would say pretty much the exact opposite of the person who had just cycled out in terms of what it is that we as a district need to do what we need to focus on.

And to assure them that even in all the conflicting and oppositional pieces of information that we get, that their voice isn't ignored, but that we're constantly looking for ways to try to meet everybody's needs in some way and get to a place where if it's not perfect for everybody, at least you believe in the decision you've made because you've thought about all the voices that you've had the opportunity to hear from.

And it's hard and I'll agree there is, I've received a lot of information on the contract that we have for special ed tonight.

This is a contract that is for the placement of some of our most vulnerable students.

And ones that at this point, hopefully it will be different in the future, we currently cannot serve within this district because their behaviors are such that they need a very very specialized setting And they are students that are not easy and nobody is welcoming them into their environment and I'm sure their parents are beside themselves with the lack of options that they see for their child if they are involved at all.

And it's so important that we up here remember those students are also in our care.

And that when nobody else can come and speak for them that we have to make sure that our policies are applied to them as well.

And just with the same care that we do with the students who have a lot more support in their life, a lot more adults that show up at board meetings to represent them.

Because every student is valuable and we say that all the time but sometimes making sure that we do value every student is hard.

It means we have to make hard choices and we have to look and see if we are protecting the most vulnerable the most voiceless the best that we can.

And in some ways that gets me to talk a little bit about Director Burke's MTSS analysis.

And while I know there's a lot of different conflicting viewpoints about MTSS in my mind at least the way I've looked at it is that in some ways it is bringing the process of the individualized education that we give to our kids with disabilities to many more of our students.

because it is forcing our teacher teams to look at each student individually to see if they are meeting the needs of that student keeping them moving forward with a year's annual progress.

And that if not they have to be looked at as individuals not as a group.

But when you get into that analysis then, well and the other really great part about that approach is that you don't have to over identify students for special education services.

You don't have to label them with a disability in order to make sure that they are going to get the individualized service that they may need.

to stay on track.

And so that as we move forward with MTSS it is my hope under the guidance of Chief Wyatt Chessie that we will take that approach and that we will look at every student not as a label but as a student who is valued and belongs in a classroom that challenges and meets their needs.

And hopefully, in that world, we won't need as many self-contained environments.

And I just have to say, coming from a special ed world, the term self-contained has never been greeted with a lot of positive aspects.

Because the idea is that every child brings value to the whole situation, and that means that a child who may not be as academically gifted still has value to a child who is academically gifted.

Because there's a whole world out there that we have to be prepared for.

And that we have to have the chance to work with and integrate our ideas and and learn to appreciate the value in every person's voice.

And I share that because I know we have a lot of decisions coming forward that make us choose between whether or not to self-contain, whether or not to meet the individual needs and what does that do to our community as a whole.

So I'm not, I don't need to go into all the details of those decisions but just say that that is the lens that I bring to that and whether I'm right or wrong or do the analysis perfectly it is definitely the approach I take.

I did have a chance to attend two of our celebrations the retirement recognition which really just drives home the dedication that people have brought to our kids for so many years.

I mean to be part of this world as we all know we talk about Seattle Public Schools and how hard and it's this it's that but these are people who have worked for many many years to serve our kids and that just demands so much respect and appreciation so I was happy to be there and I also got to attend the head start year end celebration with Mr. Guzzi and Again another group of people that are so dedicated to meeting the needs of some of our vulnerable you know low-income preschoolers not only getting them ready for school but really the outreach and care that they bring to all the families that they are working with as well.

And so really a great program I have so much appreciation for everybody who does that work.

So thank you to all of them.

I don't have a meeting scheduled right now but I will.

get one out so look on the website.

Thanks.

Director Harris.

Okay then.

My next community meeting is at the Southwest branch library on July 16. from 3 to 430 and that's 35th Avenue Southwest and Southwest Henderson Street I believe.

Graduations, what a blast.

I was fortunate enough to attend three of them, Chief Sealth International High School, West Seattle High School and Middle College High School.

And Chief Sealth and West Seattle's were back-to-back and they had a completely different flavor which was a delight to feel because each school is in fact its own community.

And it was a pleasure not to have to wear a gown that didn't fit at Middle College High School.

Middle College as most folks know is very close to my heart because a great many of those kids and their families have struggled to reach that apex.

And we heard some of those stories and they go straight to your heart and we need to do better on alternative education.

We'll be hopefully passing a bar this evening regarding the alternative learning experience which will assist that.

The so-called ALE.

The tragedy in my personal opinion was how few kids were there to graduate.

Our enrollment at Middle College high school fluctuates between 100 120 and in 2009 we had over 500 kids enrolled.

We can do better.

We must do better.

As folks are aware there are investigations still ongoing but to be continued.

Carrie Campbell and I had the opportunity to meet last week with respect to the next steps on community engagement and the community engagement tool.

So the next step on the community engagement tool is to engage the community and get their feedback.

So that will be happening in August.

I love the alliteration of that.

And I'm excited about that work.

One of the things that has become very very apparent in the last two or three weeks is that the level of discourse regarding highly sensitive issues has devolved and become fairly disrespectful.

And I appreciate that issues of equity and whether or not every child every day needs are being met are as personal as it gets.

But these are in fact adult issues and we need to interact as adults and whether or not you respect the person one would hope you respect the position.

And I and I ask for a little space there in terms of how we deal with each other so that we actually can make progress as opposed to being polarized because polarization doesn't do anybody any good.

And if we are in fact going to have thoughtful deep conversations about this.

We need to come to the table with our best efforts and frankly some decent manners.

And I and I appreciate that there is very much a tension between site based management and accountability.

And we wrestle with it every day and we ask questions about it and we debate it and we have some pretty profound conversations about it.

One of the members of the community did a survey on building leadership teams and found that it was from soup to nuts.

So if we're indeed engaging our communities, hopefully we can do so in a fairly unified fashion.

That's policy.

Policy does need to be followed.

And certainly I'm not a between the lines kind of girl and I appreciate the irony of me calling this out.

But if we don't treat policies and ask for adherence to those policies then we are asking for trouble.

Schmitz Park, I'll second what Superintendent Nyland had to say.

It's my hope I was hoping for today to be able to announce that lease agreements were signed for child care with the city of Seattle Parks and Recreation associated rec council.

We'll be addressing several needs by having child care in the Schmitz Park building.

With a presence in that building vandalism will go down.

We won't be stripping out the copper wiring of a vacant building.

There will be some contribution by the program towards maintenance and there will be extra sets of eyes on that school every day.

And that's a good thing.

And that's been a huge issue in northwest Seattle for years.

Not having enough childcare spaces.

And how ironic when we had to evict childcare centers earlier this year.

Extraordinarily painful.

My hope is as well that we've got another couple of tenants on the hook that we can again fill that building with young people and good learning.

I am absolutely in favor of middle school math curriculum.

I believe it's an equity issue.

I believe that we have to give our kids and our students a solid foundation in mathematics when they go into high school and thereby build in high school to A graduating B passing the test and C not needing remedial instruction in college.

It's a foundational piece and if we as a district can't do a better job of delivering curriculum then we are in we're in serious trouble and our curriculum adoption cycle is in some situations decades out of whack and that's unacceptable.

We've got to find the money.

We've got to go to Olympia.

I think we're at $39.8 million on McCleary fines.

And we need to be able to meet some of our basics.

A big shout out for more transparency in the budget bill next year.

You'll be seeing a PowerPoint on that.

It's my understanding we did reach consensus that there will be more places for the public to interact and to give us feedback earlier in the year when that feedback actually could make a difference in our priorities and how we spend the funds.

Hugely appreciative of that.

Troubling last week was as a board member being asked to intro and action the two issues that are on tonight's schedule regarding the purchase of computers and schoolology.

We pooched it quite frankly.

This was brought up in April.

It wasn't followed up.

We lost a major staff member.

It doesn't look good.

We need to fix it.

We're going to fix it.

But but this kind of thing can't happen again because the trust is too valuable to break.

And it was a painful meeting without question.

And I hope never to sit through another one like that again.

One of the things I didn't bring up the last meeting and which I'm sorry I didn't because it was a very rich experience was invited to Renton to sit in on their sound discipline a community-based organization and managed to grab Pat Saunder and David Lewis to go with and that program has some terrific modeling that I hope we steal their ideas.

Some of these wheels have already been built so that if we can borrow if you will those models then we're that much farther ahead.

And I want to say what an honor it is to be your board director.

Frustrating many times a week.

Learning lots.

I feel really honored to serve with my colleagues and respect them all greatly and keep the testimony coming, keep the emails coming, keep the good ideas coming.

Because we do read them all.

Whether or not we respond in 24 hours is another issue.

But a great many of us work 9 to 5 plus as well.

And onward.

Thank you.

Director Peters.

Okay I am going to reserve some of my comments for after we hear from the public but I have a couple of small things I can bring up.

My next community meeting will be either July 16 or 17 I am going to confirm the space and then I will post the specifics on the district website.

So earlier today I had the pleasure of participating as a panelist in a discussion about the arts and creativity and education as part of a conference that's going on in the city right now called Unlikely Allies.

And the focus this year is the future of cities.

And it brings together people from 80 different countries and each year they have it in a different city and this year obviously we are having it in Seattle.

It says on the site local thought leaders, changemakers, inspired citizens, activists, corporate innovators, so a big group of people.

And so we met at center school.

And that was also great to have a tour of one of our schools, a school that has a very specific focus that serves a very specific need and to see all the great stuff that's going on in there.

So one of the things they showed us was there's actually a new CTE class that's being piloted at center school that's specific to specifically focusing on computer graphic design.

And the class is very popular it's you know all the seats have been taken.

It is a free class it's a service that's being offered by the Seattle school district for our students and so it's another example of using our resources really well especially during the summer.

and the amount of interest in creativity and arts-based applications.

There was one student there who said that she is going to use this to do something in engineering.

And other students were interested in doing more like computer design, graphic design.

So a couple of the topics that came up in this discussion of interest were Well I should back up a little bit by saying some of the other people who were there.

We had from Seattle Public Schools, we had Gail Sellhorst from our arts department here.

And then we had Laura Davis from the Seattle's office, the city's office of art and culture.

And then Elizabeth Whiteford from the arts corps.

And so in addition to talking about arts and education one of the topics that came up was how the accountability measures that public education has been tied to in the last, well ever since No Child Left Behind has had the downside of focusing our curricula our curricula too narrowly on things that can be tested.

And so because of the focus on standardized testing certain courses have been dropped especially for certain schools and certain students.

And so the arts, the arts have been the victim of lack of funding and also the inability to narrow these into a standardized test format.

And so as a result the students who have suffered the most have been low-income students of color.

And so this becomes an equity issue.

And so some of the people who were there today, we all talked about how important this is and some of the people who I mentioned have been working very closely with the Seattle School District to try and bring the arts to all of our students.

Because for those who do not have the resources at their schools it needs to be supplemented somehow in a way where PTAs might not be available to do that for them.

Ideally as a district we should be funding all our schools fully and recognizing that the arts are an important component of that but until we can do that we need to take a look at where there are students who aren't getting access to the arts.

So and there's initiatives like the creative advantage initiative which is a cooperative program between the district and the city that is trying to address just that.

An interesting little tidbit apparently there was Dave Ferraro was also one of the panelists he's from Vulcan's philanthropic branch.

And he said that Paul Allen attributes his Microsoft success to the fact that he for many years was a guitarist as a young man.

So he saw a direct connection between music and his life into the creativity, into the entrepreneurial aspect of his adult life.

And so it was great to be amongst a bunch of people who recognized the value of the arts.

Yeah so that's how I spent my morning and I will bring some more comments to you after we hear from the public and I want to thank the public for coming out on this day after the long weekend and I look forward to hearing what everyone has to say.

Thank you.

I actually would like to say that I also attended five graduation ceremonies which it's always a wonderful way to celebrate the end of the school year and to watch the various schools and how they actually are able to do just a mixture of things for their graduation.

Franklin actually had Principal Wiley actually created a wrap with our staff and I thought that was quite interesting.

It was very entertaining and so it was just really great to see real celebrations of schools and teachers and principals in terms of the success of the kids that actually made it.

For many of those kids Franklin had quite a few honor students which was amazing.

But just to see the fact that all these kids finally made it and on their way to the next chapters of their lives so it was very enjoyable to see that.

I also appreciate the fact that I actually attended a middle school graduation at South Shore and to watch those kids getting ready to move on to high school and how exciting it is to actually be able to go to high school.

I also want to say thank you to all the teachers and staff, administrators for the hard work that you've done through the whole school year.

Providing opportunities and actually educating all our children for them to get them ready for the next chapters of their life and I appreciate all the work that you do.

I know as board directors we don't have a chance to come down to every school and thank you personally for all the work that you do.

But I want to say thank you so much for the work that you continue to do.

I also want to say thank you to all the central staff because without you there would be no Seattle Public Schools.

All the hard work that you do because each person has a special job that they do and it brings it all together for all of us to make sure that that work actually is very meaningful because it brings all, it takes all of us to make a difference and to make things work so thank you so much.

We don't get a chance to say thank you all the time.

Sometimes we do more demanding than asking than telling you thank you but just want to take this moment to say thank you so much for all the hard work that you do.

And now I actually wanted to save some comments for the next one and I think We are now at our time for our testimony.

Just wanted to remind the rules for public testimonies 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 comments on issues 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.

And now we are going to call the first three names.

Frank Sward, Chris Jenkins and John Ellison.

Please excuse me if I screwed your name up.

Okay, today's comments will feature my own sculpture.

The first rule of architecture is that it begins with the site.

This board represents the site for Loyal Heights Elementary and this is the current building built for 261 kids back in 1932. These rubber bands represent the kids at play at recess.

I've passed out a BEX IV brochure that was put together for the vote a few years ago and that proposed adding 200 to 350 capacity for a total of around 540 for the building.

Would that be adequate?

Well it would exceed the current enrollment by 130. It would also exceed the district's long-range growth forecast by 30% for the area.

And it would more importantly exceed the Puget Sound Regional Council's 2040 forecast also by 30%.

So let me get that building up here.

First let's move the kids down a little bit and take that.

Thank you.

that's what we voted for right there.

Okay so post BEX IV what happened?

Well right off the bat we increased capacity to 660. Let's move the kids here first.

Oh and I forgot we have to add more kids too.

There they go.

Alright then in April 2015 brought before you was an additional six flex classrooms for another, bringing the total up to 830 so let's make room for them.

Some more kids, alright.

there it is.

Alright and then after this it's just reckless construction.

So we have you know the special ed and OTPT rooms that are generally smaller.

Well those got supersized, they are full size so let's get two of those there.

I don't think I have time to move the kids but we will add more Oh, and then we also have the preschools, throw them in there and also we have, what else do we have?

Oh, two computer labs.

That's kind of an anachronism.

Daddy, what is a computer room?

Don't all rooms have computers?

Okay, and then finally we have a rain garden for the kids to splash around in.

That's there.

There we go and a few more kids.

Alright, so now where are they going to have recess?

I forgot.

There is a little courtyard right in the middle.

that the Department of Neighborhoods said we could put some kids in there for recess.

Oh but wait the board said no that is not allowed.

There is a board resolution that says we are not allowed to have kids in there so let's take them out and have them splish splash in the rain garden and just bring an extra change of clothes perhaps.

Okay so actually let me put this aside for a second.

In all seriousness I would like to take a step back and there is a broader issue at play here.

and that is the poor relationship that the district has with its communities.

As you probably know there are projects to improve the relationship with the Seattle communities.

A special endeavor and I don't think much will happen from this.

Why?

Of course you will see new outreach campaigns, you will see new documentation and measurements and checklists but you are still going to get community members right here that are so frustrated because they can't work with the district.

And why is that?

Because there are a few checks on the central office's power to harm communities one after the other.

They are staffed with career construction folks who are predisposed to build even if it is not justified by their own enrollment forecasts.

We fought this project every step of the way.

Please conclude your remark.

Oh yeah sure.

Let me handle that by putting a building on there.

on the red light.

So how is it, this project has ballooned to a $44 million project so how is it that the board remains uninvolved when you are involved in petty cash and ASB fund audits.

There is a void and the best way to improve community relations is to exercise the authority voters have given you.

Send the signal to the staff now.

Follow your intention when you first ran for office.

intervention at Loyal Heights would be an excellent start at rebuilding trust in the district.

Thank you.

Chris Jenkins.

John Ellison.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124. On the Webster contract the district does not know whether Webster will be an elementary school or a middle school.

Please vote no.

On the 2016-2017 budgets five points.

Number one please direct funds toward publishing data profile district summary.

Number two, direct more funds toward Pacific Islander and Native American programs.

Number three, direct funds toward a separate director for deaf and hard of hearing services and a separate director for blind and sight impaired services.

Number four, direct funds toward textbooks which students get to keep.

Number five, the district should allocate funds to reopen schools including Indian Heritage High School, African-American Academy and Middle College at High Point.

On Loyal Heights, three points.

You have been provided with a letter requesting that the district immediately halt the expenditure of funds on the Loyal Heights school construction project.

Such expenditures will result in allowing play use in the school internal courtyard in violation of school board policy.

Number two, members of the public are reviewing their options to bring legal action against the district to resolve this issue.

Number three, the Loyal Heights playground would shrink by 30%.

Please fix this project.

Also, the district today is looking a bit like a runaway train.

Out of nine action items on the agenda, three have been pulled.

And two are newly introduced for immediate action.

Also you just passed consent item number seven which was listed as incomplete with two placeholders.

Supposedly you are approving $81 each on those.

Please slow down and do things right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi my name is John Ellison and I'm here to talk to you about the Law of Heights elementary remodel.

I'm going to give you a less theatrical version of basically the same thing.

And I gave to you as a handout this is what the current enrollment looks like on the current playground.

There's 425 students here with a handful of staff.

lots of space.

This is the remodel proposal as it stands with 660 students and 22 faculty staff members and 20 preschoolers.

That's the space that they would have open to play in.

And to address the more extreme version of things if there is in fact indeed intended to be flex capacity in the 660 this is what 825 students look like on that playground.

That's not enough space.

No one is suggesting that we make the school the same size as the school today but this is ridiculous.

This is a lot is much too small for this.

Children need space to play.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nidhi Agrawal, Manoj Agrawal and Jim Orser.

I'm Nidhi Agrawal.

I am a professional in the area of how consumers process information.

I have a Ph.D. in marketing from New York University, and I am a tenured professor at the University of Washington Business School.

I'm here to offer my professional assessment of the information on Seattle Public Schools website.

The SPS forms and website are drafted from the point of view of a policy expert employee rather than a novice parent.

Consequently they poorly inform novice parents in making their decisions and penalize them for the lack of policy expertise.

You should have handouts from me that illustrate several examples of information that have been misleading, at least to my family.

I also have attached several studies that I conducted to support my analysis of this information.

And let me give you an example.

If you look at the choice form and website, they offer no explicit warning that you will lose your spot at your current choice school if you fill out the new choice form.

Now, aside from the no explicit warning issue, there is also research by a Nobel laureate named Daniel Kahneman, who shows that human beings are averse to losses.

So when you keep showing people information that highlights what they can get, like a new school, or that they can keep their spot, which is how the current information is framed, people are less likely to take into account, and their brains are less likely to evoke the thoughts of losses.

This leads parents to make suboptimal decisions.

This will happen all the time because policy experts write the forms.

And so they unconsciously fill in the gaps using their abundant knowledge.

So when they read the forms that they've written, they see that the form communicates what they intend to.

But when a novice parent reads the form, they get a completely different set of information out of that form.

So this information gap between the policy expert and parent needs to be reduced.

And I'm here to advocate that we work on providing better information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Manoj Agarwal.

The previous speaker made a point about a policy issue.

I'm going to put a personal angle on that.

So our daughter Mira is a second grader, actually she just finished second grade at McDonald's International.

And back when she started at McDonald's three years ago McDonald's International was a neighborhood school for us.

Now it is a choice school.

For the past two years she has been learning Japanese every day, half a day.

Our family is invested deeply in this school.

We live a block away.

Her little sister is in the chart during the fall and she is also going to be learning Japanese.

We are an integral part of the community.

These people are our neighbors, they are our friends.

And it just so happens that Meera has won a few minorities in her class and it's taken her almost three years to feel like she fits in and she finally has.

But due to these social issues and difficulties we looked at other options.

We looked at other schools and we had her tested for the HCC.

And well the lack of accurate and clear information from the Seattle Public Schools has gotten into a situation where Meera is going to be forced to move schools this fall even though we don't want her to.

And this all started off when my wife filled out a choice form with the understanding that we could choose schools because it's called a choice form.

So we filled out the form and we assumed that if she was accepted to Cascadia we could choose between Cascadia and McDonald's.

And when we finally got news that she was accepted we sat down as a family, discussed it and concluded that it was best for her to stay where she was because she was finally accepted.

Well it turns out her spot has been given away and she can't get back in now and so I'm here to ask for your help in getting her back into McDonald's because it's not fair for her to suffer as a result of mistakes made by adults.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jim Orser, Mary Ann Ferbo and Mike Giancola.

My name is Jim Wurzer I live in the Loyal Heights neighborhood and we've talked to a number of you about this issue of the Loyal Heights redesign.

And pretty much we've come up to a brick wall from you folks and from the central administration about the design of the school.

And you know just in history I mean there's been things like Betty Patu you talked about not wanting to support mega schools in 2012 but you completely have disappeared on this issue for us.

And I just wonder what those words meant then or what they mean for you now.

And for Sue Peters you said well You know I understand your position but I have 60 emails or signatures from the school people at Loyal Heights backing this redesign but do you know about the intimidation that went on at the school from the principal to people that were stand-in teachers that don't get assignments anymore because they didn't like the design.

To people in the parent teachers association that couldn't speak up they felt intimidated because they weren't going to get classes next year because they opposed the design.

Or we talked to a person who used to teach at the school who supported us in building the park we did 10 years ago.

We still works for the school district in some capacity who doesn't even want to use her name because she feels intimidated.

So it begins to question the 60 signatures when we can offer at least 300. And Rick you know I know you like your preschools but we've got tons of preschools okay and all I can say is it's just a real big disappointment here and our one director who represents us has supported us but as his position has fallen upon faults, I mean you are not listening to him.

You are not respecting our director in terms of the information that he is providing about this school and our district.

Hi my name is Mary Ann Firpo and I am here to talk about the remodel at Loyal Heights.

Some of what I plan to say you've already heard so I'm not going to repeat certain things but there are many compelling reasons for you to take action against the proposed expansion and I just want to briefly mention a few.

Seattle Public Schools has a facilities master plan that goes through It forecasts elementary enrollment growth in the Loyal Heights area of 208 students or 4% from 2016 through 2023. 4%.

Yet the expansion calls for a 60.5% increase in enrollment.

There is some kind of serious disconnect there.

Seattle Public Schools own budget documents for next year show an increase of a meager 55 students for the 2016-2017 school year.

Not the 1000 student increases that have been used to justify the size of the expansion.

Another disconnect, as Mr. Swart mentioned the Puget Sound Regional Council forecast that Seattle Public School enrollment growth will be biggest in Lake Union the Central District and North Great.

So yes let's build to meet enrollment capacity issues but let's do it in the neighborhoods where the issues actually occur.

The district had admitted that it did not consider the reopening of Webster Elementary with the addition of 450 students as it was planning for the 660 model at Loyal Heights.

Just another disconnect.

The Loyal Heights community has repeatedly heard from staff members that this is what the voters approved in that 2013 levy.

However as Frank mentioned the levy increased only 200 to 350 students.

Capacity in the building capacity of Loyal Heights is somewhere between 200 and 300.

Please conclude your remark.

We could do the math together but it's not going to get you to 660. I know you're all serving on the board because you care deeply about our communities.

You wouldn't be here if you didn't.

And we're asking again for you to show your concern.

Please conclude your remark.

And do the right thing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Michael Giancola.

I live at 8314 Jones Avenue Northwest.

I am also here to speak about the Loyal Heights Elementary remodel.

Thank you for hearing my comments.

I apologize if there is a little bit of redundancy with the other speakers today.

I have spoken twice before about opposing the size of the rebuild.

I can come up with a lot of different things to say in opposition to the project but it all boils down to one thing.

an extension of a single argument.

The current plan is too large for the lot size.

Today I'm here for two slightly different reasons.

Number one voters approved the BEX IV levy.

I still approve it but if you look at the text as Mary Ann was saying it was 200 to 350 students in addition to the base building which is a capacity of 261 which brings the total new numbers 461 to 611. I just have to ask why is the current plan for 660?

This is not what was approved.

and I support any appeal and or legal action in opposition to the current plan.

The second reason I'm here is I wanted to speak for my wife.

She's at home with our two Loyal Heights children.

I can't get home early enough to allow her to come here and speak but I'm going to share her comments directly from her.

So I quote I am worried about the safety of our children.

With the expanded zone there will be more buses and more parents driving children to school.

This exposes our majority population of walkers to additional risk." I would add that the additional children simply cannot play safely on the vastly reduced playground as demonstrated by some of the other speakers. The current four class plan for Loyal Heights has extra rooms for programs not paid for by the district. Please revisit the plan and remove the extra rooms or have the architects design for a three classroom program. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Patricia Bailey, Kathy George, Sonia Hartenbrook.

Good evening.

I'm Patricia Bailey a Seattle teacher.

Six months ago I filed a complaint against my principal citing several incidents of bullying and intimidation.

I am still waiting.

I naively believe the school board's adult anti-bullying policy when it said all incidents will be taken seriously and investigated within 60 days.

That sounded good to me.

After all the intimidation acts were in email and indisputable so I figured I could put up with the harassment a little longer.

Believing that it would soon stop and that peace of mind was just around the corner.

Unfortunately the bullying didn't stop and although I documented several additional instances with HR 180 days have passed and still no findings.

No one told the principal to stop.

No one told me when I could expect resolution.

No one offered support despite my repeated inquiries over the last six months.

Apparently the superintendent and staff either have no respect for board policy or simply choose to selectively enforce it when it comes to their own administrators.

Because of this experience I suggest a modification to your adult anti-bullying policy indicating that if the alleged harasser is an administrator this policy will not be enforced.

That way the employee or whistleblower will know up front there is no need for false hopes that someone will actually help or care and the teacher won't waste time seeking your assistance.

It would be so much clearer that way.

Either the employee must put up with them bullying or leave the district.

If you are not going to hold the superintendent accountable for enforcing the policies please as a courtesy let the employees and citizens know that policies are merely suggestions and not actual directives.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi I'm Kathy George I'm an attorney in Seattle and I was one of many children's advocates who worked to enact House Bill 1240 which is our new restraint law.

I joined the Seattle special education PTA the director of the autism Washington autism alliance and advocacy and one of the leading autism doctors in our state Dr. Rafe Bernier in submitting a letter to you regarding the proposed contract with the Northwest School of Innovative Learning also known as SOIL.

SOIL is a private school that is controversial in its physical approach to behavior management This year Northwest soil was still using the same physical management policy that predated our new restraint law and your new policy.

And that Northwest soil policy permits the physical management of students even when they are not doing anything dangerous.

Now you have authority over large contracts like this for a reason.

Because you are the policy makers for the district and anything that is consuming over a half million dollars of your limited resources should reflect your adopted policies.

You can influence the practices at Northwest soil and I thank you and especially Board Member Geary for your attention to this safety issue.

Thank you.

Good evening my name is Sonya Hardenbrook and my son is a classmate of Mira's.

And I am here to ask you to make explicit warnings on the Seattle Public Schools option forms.

Warnings on the forms themselves, warnings on publications you send out and warnings on the website.

because this has not been done yet my son might lose a cherished classmate.

McDonald might lose a family that is super dedicated to our school and an integral part of our community.

But we can fix this.

You can fix this.

I've come up with three ways that you can fix this.

You might have better alternate solutions.

I'm open to any of those.

Let's start with mine.

The first is that there are some empty seats in third grade.

They happen to be in the Spanish side.

Mira and my son Cole happen to be in the Japanese side.

But in the past as you can see in one of the slides from Needy's packet it has been done.

There have been uneven class sizes in the Japanese and the Spanish classes.

There is precedent for this.

Another way you could solve this is by maintaining the class size as it was in second grade.

After Mira lost her spot the class size was reduced.

Had it not been reduced she would have been able to reenter take her spotted school and continue learning Japanese with all of her classmates.

This also has precedent.

Previously class limits set by the district have been bumped up a little bit and incoming classes one or two kids over the limits have been allowed.

This past year it happened in kindergarten incoming Japanese.

And attrition will ultimately reach the class sizes that we all want for our kids, particularly in the Japanese program.

We suffer from a lot of attrition as the kids get into the higher grades.

There is also a slide in Needy's packet that shows that.

Often by the time our kids get to fifth grade there are 19 kids in the class.

You can solve this.

Let's fix this together.

Let's fix it for tired families that don't have time to scrutinize forms.

For families learning English with their kids.

For families.

Please conclude your remark.

For working parents who don't have time to come and speak at Seattle Public Schools meetings.

Please solve this.

You can.

Thank you.

Mary Griffin, Yolanda Bedella, and Sylvia Swanberger.

Good afternoon.

My name is Mary Griffin.

I am the parent of a child with disabilities.

I'm here this evening to talk to you about the private service contract with NW Soil.

I have many concerns related to the contract and I think Kathy covered many of them.

So now I'm going to talk to you about the use of prone or face down restraint on the floor that is used at NW Soil.

Several years ago my foster to adopt son was placed repeatedly in prone restraint by a teacher at Seattle Public Schools who was unknowingly reenacting the abuse my son suffered at the hands of his biological family.

At the time my nine-year-old son weighed 45 pounds.

He reacted to this repeated use of prone restraint by regressing.

He wanted to wear diapers, he wanted baby bottles and he wanted to be carried everywhere.

he had been re-traumatized by this abusive use of prone restraint.

This was predictable.

Prone restraints are traumatizing.

Also prone restraints are widely recognized as unsafe.

This school district recognized this when Superintendent Nyland signed procedure 3246 restraint isolation and other uses of physical intervention which states no restraint which holds a student against a wall or floor is permitted.

No restraint which holds a student against a wall or floor is permitted.

NW Soil uses prone restraints.

We know this because its staff is trained by the handle with care which advocates the use of prone restraint which it calls PRT in the neutral prone position.

So here is an emotional plea.

All of you are parents.

If you can, I want you to imagine yourself in a difficult situation of having a child with emotional dysregulation and being told by the private school that your school district has told you will serve your child that you have no choice but to sign a form which says that you have received information that restraint will be used on your child.

Every single child Every single family who has a child there has to sign a form that acknowledges this use.

I know that you, like me, would say absolutely not.

I urge you to vote absolutely not on this contract.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Yolanda Padilla and I am a parent at McDonald International with two children in the second grade Japanese side.

And I am here to support the advocacy, to advocate for Seattle Public School District to design its information on the school choice forms in a way that makes, helps novice parents understand its policies more clearly.

The children and their friends should not be affected by the lack of clarity or misinformation that one gleans from those forms.

I am also here to advocate that Mira Agrawal be offered her spot back at McDonald.

Mira represents everything that is international about McDonald International.

She is the all-American daughter born to a mother from India, a father from Nepal and who is eager to embrace a fourth culture and language, Japanese.

Moreover our school McDonald is actually not very racially or ethnically diverse.

So her presence as the only minority girl in the class and one of the few in the school has helped my children learn and grow certainly and has been a really important benefit for the school as a whole.

We do not want to lose her.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi I'm Sylvia Schweinberger.

I'm here to talk about the Loyal Heights elementary remodel also.

My kids used to go there.

My son plays at the playground still.

He's a middle schooler and all his friends play there.

It's a community place not just a school playground and we don't want to see that open space go away and I think it would not be I mean I've heard, I haven't been involved long but I've heard these guys say that they've been told that it will cost over a million dollars if there is any design change and I am a mechanical engineer and I've worked on big programs and I know that would not be true.

And during the design process they did a whole bunch of design changes during that process so I think it would be just looking at that plan it would be simple to accommodate all the kids in a more compact design and save the open space and also I want to point out that There is a preschool in the design which the school never had a preschool there before.

They have had private ones I should not say that but our neighborhood has a whole bunch of preschools.

Five blocks away there is a community center that would be owned by the city that has had preschools for years and has many large classrooms that could be used for city preschool.

There is a preschool right across the street.

One block away there is a preschool.

All these preschools have signs right now, now enrolling.

There are private preschools.

I mean we are loaded up with preschools but there are a lot of schools in the south end that I saw in a newspaper article that they need things and why not put the preschool at one of those schools that really needs a preschool, a city preschool.

We could save our open space, they could get their preschool.

I also wanted to mention that 300 signatures have been turned in to you guys that are also against the Loyal Heights remodel.

We just think it's too big for our neighborhood.

Please take a look at it.

Ask them to do a redesign.

It's simple and everybody will be happy.

Throw these people a bone.

Come on.

Please conclude your remark.

Thank you.

I just want to ask if anyone here would still like to who have not spoken yet we still have space for someone who wants to actually to testify.

Seeing no one this is the end of our testimony time and now we are going to ask board directors to finish up their comments.

Director Burke.

I'll give it a go.

As always thanks to everyone who came out and shared their thoughts, their feelings, their experiences.

A couple of specific points around the Northwest soil contract.

I appreciate the insight in that.

I'd like to learn a little bit more about it during the discussion about that item.

For the families from McDonald.

This is a little personal for me so I'd like if you know that we'll have a break coming up I'd like to just check in with you before you leave.

Thanks for bringing both your concerns and some really specific solutions that help us make the system better.

And for the team from Loyal Heights this has been a unique challenge because we do have enrollment challenges or capacity challenges.

And we are impacted at a lot of schools, some more than others.

We also have class size reduction mandates which whether we agree with them or not they are our mandates.

And so I have a couple of points that I'd like to share.

First of all I'm It saddens me a little bit that we are still having some of the same discussions like around 825 students.

I will say publicly that if we put 825 students in that school I will eat my hat up here on the dais on video although I am not wearing a hat.

I think that the concern around filling the school to that level is feels like it's sort of an overstatement of the problem.

However, in meeting with you individually the heartfelt concern that you have about the district stonewalling does give me pause because I've been in that role.

Trying to share ideas, information, concerns with district leadership and feeling like it wasn't being heard.

Now I'm on the other side and so it's a place where I want to continue to try to learn how to hear those concerns, how to apply them as lessons learned.

And the feedback that we have so far that the idea of throwing a bone.

There's been you know some, the board has been notified that the pre-K daycare classrooms can be removed from the design to free up play areas.

This would be, before you clap, this would be an option that would be would have to be down selected further in the build process.

And if for some reason capacity did increase at the school that would be the first place where portables would go.

But I think that would help free up some of the open space.

And that has been provided to us by Flip Herndon and Dr. Nyland as a possible alternative.

The other thing which has been shared with us is that the landscaping design is not yet finalized.

And so the rain gardens if we were to prioritize as a board as a district whether we want play space or rain garden I think the answer from my point of view would also be play space and so there will be opportunities I've been told for the community to help optimize the space you know the space that is there from the current draft design.

And so while I recognize that that isn't the level of redesign or the three up classroom model that would really be ideal in some of your testimony.

We have to recognize that although the capacity numbers the growth areas for that region have been flat or slightly declining when we look at it citywide and we look at our you know the overall needs of the district we do have to consider that there may still be need to bring more students into that space.

And so I'm really reluctant to try to downsize the project to the point where 10 years from now or 20 years from now we may regret it.

So that's my kind of middle ground.

And I wanted to also build on what Director Harris said and Director Geary about, because I forgot to mention it earlier, what an honor it's been to meet and work with everyone on the board.

Some really really cool people, some really unique perspectives and not just her, some really interesting conversations that I think will eventually get us a better school district for our students.

Director Peters.

I want to thank Director Burke for his thoughtful response regarding the Loyal Heights project.

The plan to not put in those pre-case sites, I thought that had been conveyed.

Has that not been conveyed publicly?

Okay, that is something that we would need to do because that is the good news so far.

I share your concern about using up all that playground space and we definitely need space for the kids to run around and so I would ask staff if that information has been confirmed if we can share that with the public as soon as possible.

You know I am torn on this because I first got into public education advocacy when my own child's school was going to be closed and the district was planning on closing lots of schools and a lot of us were saying no enrollment is going up don't do that.

So I am an advocate for us having enough space for our kids and for not closing schools but for building nice ones.

Of course there has to be a limit, it has to be proportionate to the size and I think that is one of your concerns.

I will say though the district did remodel for example Hamilton Middle School.

It took an old building and added a modern part to it and we've already outgrown it.

And so that's an example where I think the district probably didn't go far enough.

That's another space that's not very big.

But I think it's hard to look ahead and make these projections accurately and to find the right balance in terms of having enough space and predicting what the population is going to be doing.

So, I'm hoping that we can have that balance here.

It's also my understanding that because of the K-3 class size reductions we're not going to be having classes that have 30 kids in each one.

We're going to have some smaller classes so it won't add up to the biggest numbers of kids.

It will be a big building but it won't have 800 kids in it and it might not even have 660. So, those are the considerations as well on that.

I appreciate your coming to us with your visuals.

They were very compelling.

It's very helpful too.

And like I said I would like staff to be forthcoming on the status of this and to share the information at least about the preschool and what we can do with the playground.

On some other issues the testimony regarding the Northwest school of innovation learning I found that very troubling and so I'm looking forward to having that discussion later on for some more details.

I'd like to know how we choose which providers we contract out with and I think it sounds to me like we cannot be working with organizations whose practices don't match our own.

who are not aligned with state law.

That seems very clearly problematic so we will be having that conversation I think shortly.

Regarding middle school math I too support this for lots of different reasons.

You know it's an outdated math materials that we have right now.

I've seen a lot of students suffer through this directly and I've also heard of many others who have.

It's you know it's outdated and it doesn't prepare our students for the rigor that is being demanded of them in terms of being ready for algebra.

It also doesn't comply with our policy but again we will probably be discussing this a little bit later in terms of the budget but we do have a policy that says that our materials have to be accessible to all our students.

There cannot be barriers in there and the current math materials are very wordy, very language intensive and so for any student for whom language might be a challenge it becomes a barrier for them understanding the math and so that is one of the problems with this.

It's also an equity issue because this is a case where with one fell swoop we can provide new materials for every single middle school student in the district.

And it will not be, so it's something that we can do for all our students.

So and then regarding, let's see.

Oh the Hib complaint.

I would like to ask staff for an update on that particular issue and I know this has been brought to us many times before by this teacher.

I also know that there is a history of this going on in the district.

I have seen it happen before and it is something that we have to work hard to root out of our system.

We do have a culture that has lent itself to bullying and we need to eradicate that.

So, I ask you know I ask staff to give us an update on the status of this particular complaint.

I know that we are limited in what we can say up here but it does deeply concern me and I know the situation, the story is unfortunately it's not a new story and I know the situation is real.

And then I also appreciate the comments by my colleagues earlier on about the discussion going on right now around equity issues and some choices some schools would like to make with regard to how they meet the needs of diverse groups of students and different kinds of learners.

It's a complicated conversation and so I make the same appeal that my colleagues did.

Let us have a conversation that is mindful of the fact that we are talking about children.

Let's not pit children against each other.

Let's not play a zero-sum game.

Let's handle these complicated issues in a thoughtful, careful manner and let's find some resolutions that helps all our children.

Thank you.

I would actually like to comment on one of the speakers when he had quoted what I said a few years ago about looking at building size.

When I made that comment I was mainly directing my comments because alternative programs and small schools are being closed because of the limited amount of kids.

And my comment was it didn't make any difference whether we had 100 kids or 50 kids those schools need to be open because those kids are important as 10 or 15 kids or 100 kids.

And that was the reason why I made that comment that we should not close any program or any buildings that had students that we were serving presently.

And that was the reason why I made that comment because it still goes today that no matter how many kids that we are serving those students still deserve a building and a program to be served throughout the school year.

Also I wanted to make a comment on, there was a comment that says that we need preschool in the southeast.

Southeast has preschools in almost every one of my schools.

We have preschools in every one of those school buildings so just for information that we do have preschools at the southeast.

I have a community meeting coming up which is July 16. I normally have my community meeting at the end of the month, last Saturday of the month because I won't be out of state.

My community meeting will be on the 16th of July.

Same place, same time.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

Thank you I just want to add a few more comments.

I did want to thank Robin Wilson at Northgate Middle College she invited me to come out there to her school so I got to go on site at Northgate mall and unfortunately what kind of concerned me she said one issue they had there was Internet access so they have to rely on what Simons the owner of the building provides as Internet access for their students which is inequitable to other students that are in our school buildings that have you know higher speed Internet.

But she did say oh they are moving up to central link fiber optics so that will help mitigate some of that but I thought it was just kind of a shame that for Northgate Middle College because of where they are at they don't have equitable access to the Internet and sometimes their system is slow and they can't get their work done.

But thank you to Northgate Middle College, Middle College at Northgate for inviting me out there.

The Northwest soil contract yes these comments we need to look into this if we are going to contract with someone that has stated this is how we are going to discipline or restrain students that is against our policy we need to look into this.

I can't see us approving such a contract if there is someone that is out there saying we are going to use restraint on students as far as the discipline or whatever needs they deem fit when it is against our policies and you know also against the law.

For the, and found from McDonald's you know yes we do need to see how when sites are built the language that are put into it we may understand it or another person beside us may understand it but if families were English is their second language or even their third or fourth as well.

Do they understand it?

And we need to put it through that lens again so that race and equity toolkit.

What did we miss here?

And let these things kind of be learning moments for us.

Let's not just brush them aside and think it's just another family complaining.

Let's look and see what kind of happened here so it doesn't happen again.

And that kind of relates to the complaint issue and the HIB that let's not put stuff off for so long when pretty soon it's going to seem like nothing is going to matter because unfortunately I went through that as a parent you know where I felt I wasn't getting the response I needed from the school district that it took almost a whole academic year we finally kind of got a resolution to it but the result you know they said it was too late to do anything now.

The learning moment has passed.

Let's not wait too long where the learning moment is going to pass where we are going to improve our district the way it runs.

Loyal Heights redesigned still with you guys.

They've said that yes maybe the preschool would be something that pre-K buildings go out but I still have an issue where the landmark stopped putting a third floor on that site which would have saved more playground space.

So if we do truly need something where we need a site for 660 students and then we're coming back and saying oh we can't go to third story so we're going to have to expand on the site.

We need to probably fight that landmarks issue a bit more.

Say no we need to put a third floor on this building so we can recover the playground space and not overall reduce the playground outdoor play space.

I don't want to include the indoor gymnasium that they're including or the courtyard there but the play space where students can run around and enjoy themselves.

And I understand that yes not all 660 students are going to be out at that playground site at once but still if it's just a third of those students right now I think the spot would be too small for just a third of those students to be out there.

So I'm glad that you're still sharing your concerns and hopefully something still can be done.

Is it going to cost us money?

Are we going to do the right thing?

One reason I ran for the board was to see how we can switch from being so budget driven to be more priority driven.

Thank you.

The board will now take a 15 minute break.