Seattle School Board Work Session - November 12, 2020

calling this board meeting to order in just a moment.

Please hold comments while SPS-TV takes us live.

After a 5-second pause I will call us to order.

This is Director Mack.

I'm now calling the board special meeting to order at 430 p.m.

For the record I'll go ahead and call the roll.

Director DeWolf has indicated he won't be here until 5.

Director Hampson.

Director Hampson.

Director Harris.

Director Hersey.

Hello.

Director Rankin.

Present.

Hi.

Hi.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

And this is Director Mack.

Director Hampson have you joined.

Okay well for the record Director Hampson and Director DeWolf aren't presently on the line but hopefully they'll join.

The superintendent is also present as well as staff who will be presenting as we move through the agenda.

This meeting is being held remotely consistent with the governor's proclamation prohibiting meetings such as this one from being held in person.

The public is being provided remote access today by phone and through SPS-TV by broadcast and streaming on YouTube.

To facilitate this remote meeting I'll ask for participants to ensure that you are muted when you're not speaking.

There will not be a public opportunity.

Staff will be working to administer the meeting and may be muting participants to address feedback and ensure we can hear from directors and staff.

We have two work sessions today.

The first will be the district scorecard and operations dashboard work session.

This will be followed by a work session on the 2020 board evaluation and 2021 board goals.

I'm going to now hand it over to Superintendent Juneau to begin the district scorecard and operations dashboard work session.

beginning with the district scorecard.

But I also want to provide some context that there's a lot of slides here and I understand we're going to hear from five different staff and each of them will present their slides and we'll have an opportunity after their individual presentations to take comments.

So there'll be five different opportunities for directors to comment and question as we move along.

So and we have an hour and a half for this section.

Director Hampson's here.

Yes welcome.

Thank you for letting me know and letting us all know.

And with that I think we can go ahead and hand it over to Superintendent Juneau to go ahead and start us off.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you Director Mack.

I won't take up much time but just kind of want to introduce the work that's happening here.

The these are measurements that.

Our board approved measurements a few as you remember things that cover like culturally responsive workforce safe and welcoming schools on-time graduation college and career readiness.

So staff are here to really discuss that.

But we I want to start with like a disclaimer just because of the situation we're in with the COVID-19 pandemic and the school closures that really has impacted the availability of data.

for several of these measures.

As you know we canceled status or state assessments were canceled so we do not have 2019-20 progress data to share for 3rd grade ELA or 5th and 7th grade math proficiency goals.

We did still produce attendance and discipline measures like that but those are limited to data collected from September 2019 to March 11th to the date that we closed our buildings.

As we go through this the measures that are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic will be marked with an asterisk.

So you'll see that specific targets for student measures are not displayed in this year's report.

There is target information in the appendix but of course that is subject to change in the future.

pending analysis and research about the impact of the pandemic on our goals.

Progress the first section that you'll hear cultural responsive workforce those measures are displayed because they they were not as greatly impacted as the pandemic for this last school year.

So just kind of wanted to start with that disclaimer so we're all on the same page about what you what you will see and what you won't see.

And right now I'd like to turn it over to Chief Codd for cultural responsive workforce.

Thank you Superintendent Juneau.

Good evening everybody.

This is Clover Codd Chief of Human Resource.

As you are well aware there are two goals inside of the priority of culturally responsive workforce.

The first is that we will improve culturally responsive professional practice and the second is that we will increase the diversity of staff in schools and central office at the management and director levels and above.

The data presented here tonight are for the targets that have already been outlined in the strategic plan and I believe those are part of the appendices of this presentation.

So you'll see in this first slide that our staff is becoming increasingly more and more diverse.

As just as sort of you as a benchmark we've got 3,800 classroom teachers.

And so to move the needle on the overall makeup of the workforce We've got to do an exceptional job in recruiting which I'll talk to you about in just a minute.

In terms of teacher leaders teacher leaders are our career ladder teachers.

They're formal leadership roles that teachers take on.

They're paid additional compensation to take on those roles either at the district level or within their schools.

We do have a goal to increase the diversity as you can see here.

It dipped down 1 percent.

But our school leaders we're doing actually quite well with the school leader makeup of our workforce.

And then at central office so any position that's grade 69 or above you will see that we've made significant progress in that area as well.

Next slide please.

Thank you.

So recruitment hiring retention.

There are only two ways to increase the overall diversity makeup of our workforce and that is you've got to do better recruiting and then you've got to retain the people that you have.

So in terms of classroom teachers for this last recruiting class we call them recruiting class of the 2021 school year 36 percent of our recruits and those that we hired this school year identify as a person of color.

54 percent of our school leaders that we hired this recruiting class identify as a person of color and in central office leadership roles 55 percent identify as a person of color.

When it comes to the retention of our classroom teachers and our school leaders we've got the 93 percent retention rate from one year ago and for our classroom teachers and 89 percent for our school leaders.

The 5-year retention rate which is not posted here is hovering right around 66 percent for both our educators of color and all other educators yes in our in our district.

We're not seeing a real differential between in race between the retention data over the 5-year period of time and at some other time we can talk more about that.

Next slide please.

So cultural responsiveness training.

We have two different targets here of which we were trying to make progress on.

The first is that we would look at the percentage of certificated staff that are complete some type of cultural responsiveness training in and we've outlined that as one of the series.

It's also in I believe in the appendices but it's It's the Racial Equity Literacy Series.

It is the Cultural Responsive Teacher Leadership Series.

Could be Foundational Coursework.

Could be Building Leadership 102 with the focus on racial equity.

Or it could be the Ethnic Studies Series.

And all of these are more than a one-time course.

It's courses where you receive several hours of training throughout the course of the year.

And so we exceeded our target.

We have 41 percent of our certificated staff who have now completed cultural responsiveness training.

And going over to the next part of the slide in foundational coursework you are probably aware that the 101 series is for our first-year teachers and that the 201 series is for our second and third-year teachers.

And so we have exceeded our targets for both first-year teachers and the second and third-year teachers for taking the foundational coursework.

last year which we're really proud of because last year was like the first year that we implemented the 201 series.

So next slide please.

Well actually I'm going to stop and open it up to questions before turning it over to Wyeth Jessee.

Thank you Dr. Codd.

Go ahead and go down the list in alphabetical order starting with Director Hampson.

I thank you.

I think I just had one question on what is included in central office leaders.

Is that what you called.

Yes.

So we are measuring we're really looking at management positions.

So as you know there's there are people that work at central office that work in our schools.

Some are classified represented by unions.

Some are non-represented.

But the real target here and the target that we set in the strategic plan is that we would look at central office management and leadership positions.

So anybody in a grade 69 or above is considered management.

And so when we talk about the diversity of central office leaders increasing we're talking about those management positions.

Okay.

That's all from me for now.

Thank you.

Okay thank you.

Director Harris.

Pass for now.

Thank you.

Okay Director Hersey.

Hey so great presentation on this.

One thing that I have is just a request.

Moving forward I want to start thinking about representation of our staff in relation to the students that we identify as furthest from educational justice.

So it would be really great to see a slide where for our identified target populations that we're trying to uplift we could see how are they being represented in our staff.

just to break it out beyond POC just to see if there are any targeted areas where we could potentially make more gains.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Back.

Yes.

Thank you Director Hersey.

Director Rankin.

I the the leap from 13 percent to 40-something percent I think yeah of the culturally responsive training.

What I mean that's a pretty big jump.

Was that just because there was more opportunity to take that training.

Was there a change in expectation or can you tell me more about that and then how obviously we can keep that number going up.

In the 18-19 school year you'll remember we did not yet have a strategic plan.

Right.

I believe it was approved June of 19 if I'm not incorrect.

And so we did have some ad hoc cultural responsiveness training that was going on prior to the strategic plan.

But when we adopted the strategic plan we were very intentional with the cultural responsive work group which we have to look across the courses that we have and actually wrote them into the strategic plan work plan and kind of codified these are the courses that we need to be offering so that educators are being not just exposed but have opportunities to get that training that's a little bit more ongoing so not just like a one-shot class if you will.

And so there was a concerted effort effort from central office to go out into schools and offer these trainings on what we call those early release green days And so we served 1,355 educators in the 19-20 school year with these courses.

So I really do attribute it to the strategic plan just really bringing some some formalness if you will around it.

That's great.

Thank you.

I would love to see it get to 100. Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

So I'm looking at the same charts here the cultural responsive training and I'm wondering what is what was the target because there's no number next to it for the 2019-20 year.

Yes I know it's in the appendices but let me see if I can if I have it offhand.

So 19-20 for first-year teachers with 27 percent No excuse me.

For the overall cultural responsiveness training excuse me for the 19-20 school year our target was 27 percent.

And you can see we've we vastly outperformed in that area.

For the foundational coursework 101 it was 70 percent and for foundational coursework 201 it was 29 percent.

Thank you.

And so I'm guessing.

I mean I'm pretty sure these are not none of these trainings are required correct.

Correct.

So I don't think I'm alone in saying I would like them to be required.

I think we've talked about this before and wondering how how do we make that happen.

Well that's a really good question.

We've got very limited time in our school day school week school year for professional development.

We do have the early release days and we do have a site-based management system where schools vote on the professional development that they would like to bring to their schools.

So that is part of a kind of a structural or systematic I don't want to say barrier because I believe in site-based management and I do believe that the educators that are closest to the work should be discussing the kinds of professional learning opportunities that they need.

We did do the required course this past Tri-Day.

where everybody it was mandatory and everybody does take the tri-day training.

That is one place where it shows up.

But we and even though that was sort of like a one day six hours we actually didn't count that Director Rivera-Smith because it was a one-time PD offering if you will.

When we talk about the culturally responsive training that's an ongoing series it's usually around 30 hours worth of training to complete the series.

That's what we wrote into the strategic plan.

To make that required would probably take some some renegotiation with the Seattle Education Association to make it required.

Okay.

Yeah I would really love to see that happen because again I don't fault the schools at all for for they have to choose between probably a good list of valuable trainings so.

I see you know to say that they didn't all pick it you know I can see how they had to make some hard choices there.

So finding a way that we can make this available I know clearly like you said it's going to take negotiations and that's that's fine.

I think that's that's worth doing because I I we owe it to the students to make sure they all they all have teachers who have taken these trainings and are prepared to give them the education that they and you know the supports they need so.

So yeah I mean I definitely appreciate the increases.

That is a great leap from 13 to 41 and even 68 to 76. You know that I know these are all steps along the path so I appreciate that.

I definitely just want to see how we can move forward in making these getting them to all of our our teachers and staff.

So no further questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

It's my turn and do you mind flipping back to the one that talked about the workforce.

Is it the previous slide or the slide before.

Kind of tacking on to Director Hersey's comments.

When I look at the numbers here too it it's when it's all combined it doesn't help show the actual diversity and the having I think the definition we've been discussing this in depth in the CM advisory committee about what the definition of diversity is for the district and my understanding is it's the diversity of our student body.

And so in adding on to Director Hersey's comments that it would be helpful to see the more granularity I think I would like to see the granularity of the data of our student body next to that so that we can see that comparatively.

If that makes sense.

Yeah it does.

I think it's something I can ask my team to try to put together for a Friday memo in the future.

It's it's not one of our strategic plan targets right.

Like what we're reporting on tonight is really what was already approved in the strategic plan and those targets.

But we do have more granular data and so let me talk with my staff to see what we might be able to produce and and and put together for you all.

Thank you.

And now we can move on to slides 7-9 which are around attendance and discipline.

Mr. Wyatt Jessee.

Good evening Wyatt Jessee Chief of Schools and Continuous Improvement.

Thank you for having me this evening.

So I'm going to present on the next two slides really capturing the work underneath Safe and Welcoming Schools.

In particular the two formal key performance indicators or measures that I'll be discussing are attendance and discipline.

We also know that we have other pieces of data that we use for progress monitoring such as the misinstructional log.

We have survey data.

We also have just the structural data that we have ability to distribute resources.

Those are some of the things that we also use in connection to this and even things like staff continuity.

But for this evening I just wanted to really highlight quickly some of the data points some of this this data in particular is is a lot of that's the data that we've shared previously to the board.

But I also wanted to give you the story behind the data.

So you'll have here on the left is the regular attendance district-wide K-12 for our African-American males and our students of color furthest from educational justice.

over the last four years.

Obviously we had some adjustments due to COVID-19 as Superintendent Juneau was highlighting for us here in attendance this last spring and then also for discipline in the in the spring as well starting in March.

But the the you can see on the attendance that we've been going along and had an uptick this this last year.

And then for particularly for discipline we've been trending with a significant precipitous drop in the number of suspensions for the students we are targeting here in our strategic plan.

That really was what I wanted to get into is about the story of why that that is happening in particular.

We've been focused on discipline for now the last now we're in our fifth year of focusing in particular around discipline as a district.

We did things anywhere from racial equity trainings to the positive behavioral intervention support teams that we have at school sites to reviewing our students' rights and responsibilities and having student voice and their impact and having community give input on that particular tool that we use across all 104 schools as well as things like relationships and the outlay of things like also a ruler Those things got us only so far.

Those are those are items that got us initial jump on some of the lowering of our discipline rates.

And of course they they do help us with some level of our attendance.

But also there really are the two parallel things of where we've been working the last couple of years and that we needed to move forward is in particular around one what are we doing for the services and supports like social emotional learning.

guidance and lessons that were so good in our strong start this year and something that we've had a positive impact including in summer program.

We've just recently heard from SEA saying they really enjoyed those things very helpful for our teachers across the system and most certainly our students.

But with our mental health support the board has been so kindly to help fund mental health supports and interconnected system framework working with our our outside agencies.

Care coordination.

Really thinking about how can we get basic services and work with CBO's across the city.

That's something we've been in joint effort now for 3 years.

And then mentoring as well.

Things that again that the board has been great to support us with.

The work that you can see actually has real impact on students.

And so we feel very proud about that.

And I'll talk about the other piece of parallel work on the next slide.

Next slide please.

So the data that you have presented here are a list of select schools that were identified underneath a program from the Department of Education.

In particular the Office of Special Education Programming.

There is a program it's got this long name Comprehensive Coordinated Early Intervening Services.

It's a mouthful but what it really is intended is to really Help us figure out for districts all across the United States is where do you have a level of disproportionality in particular here for Seattle was around discipline for students who identify as African-American with IEP's.

So as identified 3 years ago by the state and using that information we came up with a comprehensive plan to address the systemic and disproportionate discipline for African-American students.

What in alignment with our strategic plan.

And again if we hadn't done some of that previous work coupled with building out our services and supports we wouldn't be able to get the detailed success that you can see here in this chart.

In light we in particularly have been working with elementary schools the 2 previous years.

And then this last year well basically these last 2 years we've been working with 7 secondary schools.

That is where we've had tremendous impact with those schools in lowering their disciplinary rates.

A lot of our discipline had come from really primarily the middle school at the middle school level and we knew as a system we needed to address that.

This plan further supported us in that work.

And then so what that really did look like particularly was director of school a director within special education and a director within coordinated behavioral health leading learning support teams which is those cross-departmental teams coming in at those 7 focus school sites here 6 of middle schools and 1 high school.

to really think about how can we lower our disciplinary rates.

And I would like to remind us all that disciplinary rates are a downstream measure and really is something that you have to go upstream to really see what are the things that are in place or not in place that really better to serve our students.

Because it is an adult issue a systems issue to really thinking about how we serve our students.

And so within that we knew things like hey you really need to think about how you can build up student leadership.

Where is student voice in your things.

Do you have classroom meetings or advisory.

How are you doing things that are really engaging in your curricular stance.

Do you even have things like position of threshold where you greet students at the door each and every day using student names.

Things like that that we know are super powerful have impacts on our discipline rates.

And so while we have changed and provided training Now we are in a place where we really need to get to those upstream measures those things of exactly how we're providing services the betterment of education as well as again those supports like mental health.

I will lead you here to see the data.

I will highlight a few of the schools.

I will take Washington Middle School for example it's on the second row.

In 2016-17 with 102 separate state reportable incidences which means it was a suspension was for us for students who identify as African-American and did have an IEP.

So 102 separate incidences does not mean the number of students.

And you can see as time gone went on we kept working with them and then so for even the 19-20 34 was our target.

19 incidences last year.

And so we knew we were even trending even though we were coming short on on March we were on track to meet our goal.

And then a lot of our elementaries anywhere from schools like Emerson or Laurelhurst or Madrona we really were working to get ourselves in a place where we could have far less suspensions and we were not having any any of those suspensions all the way up into March this last school year because again we are focusing at those school sites really not only just thinking about oh how can we just not suspend but it really is the services to our students and working with their families and having staff change how they address students and involve students.

that we knew had this kind of power.

So I just wanted to bring those things in light.

We'll continue working forward here during COVID.

Obviously our shift is really now primarily on attendance.

We're not in a position to really doing any suspensions.

So we're really looking to target ourselves to very very low discipline rates this school year.

And so moving forward really teeing us up for the 21-22 school year.

With that I'll I'll take questions.

Thank you Mr. Jessee.

I'll go ahead and start well call and see if President DeWolf have you arrived.

It is 5. Okay not here yet.

That's fine.

Director Hampson.

Yeah.

So do we have any detailed attendance information.

Like class.

a breakdown by in particular for schools or which which kind of breakdown are you referring to Director Hampson.

Well yeah I mean I don't I'm still kind of I know there's some data out there but I don't have a sense of I know what it looks like an individual student level.

But what's the aggregate looking like specifically for African-American male students.

Well that would be.

In terms of class class attendance versus You know.

Yeah.

So that that typically on that attendance it is for us a lot of the attendance and in particular for that even that group of students is at the high school level.

A lot of our issues higher rates of attendance come or our lack of attendance comes at the high school level for us.

And then we can track it like I think you were referring to down to the class.

So we do look at that that level of data as well.

And but we don't have anything to report at this time about this year or.

Well I've given that I've given that previously in some of the Friday memos.

I think there was another session that I gave that outline for the both the attendance and the online usage.

I this was reporting back on the bigger summatives as a as part of the dashboard but I'm happy to to give more more detail out to the board or to you in particular whatever you would like.

Well yeah I mean I think we've definitely had to make when we talk about attendance now we're not it looks different this year.

It looks yeah it's a different it's a different it's it is an apples and orange.

The numbers are so radically different because what I do hear from schools is you know as much as I can have them log in and our attendance rate for you know African-American males can be at 93 percent you know for attendance rate right now is what it is.

I also know that I'm also hearing hey they can log in and then be there and account for attendance.

But are they really engaged.

Right.

Like that comes into some more subjective measures that come in place for that.

Well and they do get attendance for each class.

And so less about from looking at it from a punitive standpoint and more looking at it from a you know being actually being provided education standpoint.

Because this is 2019-20 data that we're looking at here so.

It seems like.

Sorry go ahead.

Well yeah so I'm just I would I'm hungering for some overall data about the current year in terms of where we are on an interim basis.

Just for clarity it sounds like a reasonable request to be making are you asking for a follow-up information in the Friday Memo or something about.

what we've had before and I'll just leave it to other directors to provide additional clarity on that.

But I think you know as we know for middle and high school we we we do need to to look at whether how they're you know trending and I'm I think it's our responsibility to take a look at that quite a bit more deeply this year.

Which is again as we started this whole presentation that metrics are not as we expected them to be and we tried to allow for that you know in the evaluation.

So then we have to decide what what what we do need to look at.

And and may and that may not be the right metric.

I'm just I'm putting that out there as something that I that is of great concern to me on a on a day-to-day basis.

Okay great.

Thank you.

Is is there anything else Director Hampson.

That's it for now.

Thank you.

Okay.

Director Harris.

So do we have an ETA of receiving that information and should that be in the minutes.

I was going to sum up at the end of the meeting.

I'm personally taking notes.

I assume staff is as well.

But I I heard the request for the workforce diversity granularity information and I'm hearing a request for a follow-up on current attendance data.

That's what I'm hearing and I was going to reiterate that at the end of questions in the end of this section.

Mr. Jessee is that your understanding as well or.

That is correct and I got that and I obviously today is Thursday night and won't be getting tomorrow's Friday memo but I most certainly can get it.

I can even hustle maybe try to hustle to get it it's not that hard.

I can even give screenshots.

If you give me if anybody wants to send me an email of some of the details I can I can do that too.

I can get more deeper analysis if you want to give me specifically demographic groups and timelines I can I can do that as well.

Okay.

Director Harris.

Yeah my question is we've we've emphasized these 7 schools.

What do the rest of our middle and high schools look like.

Yeah that's that these are the ones that were flagged because of the longitudinal data.

So these these are based on exactly this student population that we have here.

And so who had the highest rates for 3 years the preceding years.

That was actually Forrest was on those 3 years that you have there.

16-17 17-18 and 18-19.

That's why they had the highest rates.

for this and then all the other schools would have lower lower rates than these these schools if they are talking about their peers at the various grade levels.

So that means Ben in the last three years we haven't had any other schools but these seven with any spikes is that correct.

Uh, well for longitudinal data, there can be a spike in one particular year.

Um, I don't think that's new to, I know you and I have had, you know, those kinds of conversations that, you know, you can have outlier years.

It is about trending.

And so we want to identify where it looked like there was systemic issues.

And so we wanted to address that in a targeted fashion and that's what's mandated by the federal government.

So the federal government says take your top 7. I'm sorry I'm confused here.

I apologize.

No they they say that you do have to take a targeted approach to where how are you going to address the issue.

Where is it.

Why would you target them.

You have to come up with a rationale.

Our rationale was hey a lot of our primary issues are at select schools.

Those are the select schools that you see in front of you.

So it's not just 7. And then we did an additional layer on that was to say hey based on this data we were noticing in particular these 7 secondary schools where where is that.

And then we we just that was another part of this plan in addition to just not just to elementaries.

But we pivoted again to these seven secondaries because the timing is right and we were able to wrestle with them and to address that issue as you can see so far so far successfully.

And it looks really impressive.

I guess my next question is then do you pick another 7 school cohort to focus on that is one layer down in terms of data.

What happens next.

What's the system here.

I I love that question for sure.

That question is that it is you know we're really in a stance now to do all schools for two particular reasons.

One we are now lowering the rates of discipline so that we're no longer in a more emergent right now like I said downstream just reactive mode.

We're going to move to a proactive and then we're also again in those learning support teams cross-departmental.

You know you got special education.

You have cross you have the coordinated behavioral health.

You've got other curricular experts that are there.

Those things those folks working together can address these issues.

So to me it is now about being able to get on it for all 104 schools.

It doesn't have to just be targeted in the previous fashion that we've done it.

But does that mean then that a year from now we'll see 104 schools instead of 7 emphasis schools.

Well one we do have to write a special fantastic report for both the federal government and OSPI.

So I have to continue along those measures but for reporting to the board we're happy to pull out the data for all 104 schools.

These are just the focus from this plan.

Look forward to that.

Thank you.

I'm done.

Okay.

Director Hersey.

Thank you.

Yes.

So a similar request to my previous questions of Chief Codd but then kind of in a sense echoing some of the statements made by Director Hampson.

I think just for me In thinking about you know the current situation that we're in I know that this was not an explicit conversation before the development of these slides or was or was it necessarily in the scope of the presentation.

But I would really like to see some more drill down detailed data especially around our Black boys and what access to education and attendance looks like for them from the beginning of the year to now and then like when we I guess you could say delivered the majority of our devices.

I really want to see longitudinally as much as we can over the past few months with the implementation especially of one-to-one with all that we're doing with getting hotspots to families seeing some type of longitudinal growth you know to see okay are these measures actually getting our kids to log on.

And I again I want to make sure that I'm very clear I know that that wasn't necessarily anticipated for this presentation but I really would like to start using these opportunities to have data to get more into a real-time scenario additionally with and then like also using it as a means for us to be accountable in a front-facing way to community.

The Friday Memo is great for people who have access to our system but for folks who might be listening in from community or for You know anybody who's looking for detailed information such as this is such a rarity that we get to have these types of presentations.

I think that our community would appreciate it if we came or at least start to consider what it would look like to have more real-time data especially for these follow-up conversations that we're having because if we have you know your average family who might really care about this but not as plugged into our system might not even know where to go to access the Friday memo.

So that would be my only request again is to just you know think about how could we get more more current information in these types of presentations.

Thank you.

I'm really you know this is really encouraging.

And yeah I think I am I think that really does it for me.

Appreciate it.

Okay great.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Great to see these numbers go down but I bet Chief Jessee that you know what I'm going to ask next.

I'm wondering what is happening.

So state reportable discipline incident you mentioned but other folks might have missed it.

That's an out-of-school suspension.

So there's a lot there's a lot of disciplinary actions and incidents that wouldn't be reflected here.

And I am really interested to know I mean as much as it's great that we're not sending kids home for stuff that you know is especially with an IEP is is something related to a disability and they're being actually punished for for that instead of supported.

So it is good to see these numbers go down.

that there is still significant time when students are removed from the educational environment that just because they are not sent home is not reflected here.

And then also incidences of restraint or other disciplines.

So I know that at the state level what's reportable is one thing.

I would really like to see us as a district develop our own internal reporting.

I know it's very inconsistent from building to building and then very inconsistent from district to district but actually makes it up to the state level.

So some of this discipline data is really hard to see what's actually going on especially with things like restraint that may not that don't have as clear a reporting process which is something you know that we're talking about with the isolation or restraint policy.

Basically what I'm getting at is when students particularly Black students with disabilities are being removed from their educational environment we need to know about it.

We need to know how often it's happening and we need to know what is missing in terms of supports that is leading to the student being removed from the environment.

And so I'm wondering how or what it would look like for us to have a district expectation of reportable of district reportable incidents.

If that's something that we can do or if that's something that we do do that I'm just not up on because it's it's the loss of instructional time.

I mean among many other things but the loss of instructional time is is really critical.

So thank you.

We this state reportable counts in-school suspensions as well Director Rankin.

It does.

It does.

Okay.

Our standard is higher.

So we count in school and out of school for us in our metrics.

So that is how we that is the rule that we use to report to you and on the strategic plan.

Because that is exactly right.

Any kind of misinstruction that is through the form of discipline needs to be recorded and reported and so we want that that transparency.

But we also want to make sure that we in turn have an ability to go in and have inquiry and work to figure out what is going on at school sites so that we can help you know change our practices and our structures.

The notion of the myth we have adopted it's been five years we have a misinstructional log.

It's really a tool for at the elementary level for if there's misinstruction.

Incidences at the elementary level I mean at the secondary level really only include more you know state reportable stuff to your point Director Rankin I think you you're very familiar with the ins and outs of of elementary schools that you know when students are outside in the hallway or they're even a neighboring buddy classroom you know are they getting instruction and what is part of that.

And that's that is part of our work and we do work with our elementaries to record that data.

I think it's pretty consistent.

I don't think it's completely reliable just because you know we we continue to you know harp on hey that that is actually if your student has been out in that hallway you know for a meaningful period of time 10 minutes or so then they missed enough instruction that we would want that recorded and that's how we train up on that for all our elementaries and K-8's.

Well I would love to see that data.

Okay can I can you clarify quickly what that data is and does that tie into the previous request or is this something new and different.

It would be more no it's new and different and it doesn't I mean that could like I'm happy just to look at that.

Yeah.

With you at some point.

It's very school-level data.

Happy to look over it with you Director Rankin and you and I can talk about it at length about that.

Sure.

Thank you for that conversation.

And the other directors please.

First of all sorry I want to note that President DeWolf joined us at 507 I noticed but I didn't note it now.

So for the record if that could go in thank you.

And your question President Harris is whether or not this data would be shared.

I would too have the same kind of question about that data is that data that's reported in OSPI in that OSPI report.

No that data doesn't go to OSPI.

Yeah it doesn't go to OSPI.

All right.

It sounds like there's not clarity on whether or not that would be reported out to the board or would is just an individual board member request.

I'm not sure if there's clarity on that.

I mean I think the rest of the board would like to see trends and an overview I assume.

Something reportable.

But I also want to quickly echo the request from Directors Hampson and Hersey about current attendance.

I know that's a little bit off target of this but the I know that folks are looking at the current status of D's and E's that will become incompletes if not addressed by the end of the semester.

And I would be interested in seeing that data with what we're calling attendance data and how how those things are are related in terms of trying to measure engagement.

With all due respect Director Rankin what I'm hearing here in terms of those requests that are kind of piling up is a fair amount of information that I think probably warrants its own work session or attend a special attention on say C&I committee because I it it's a lot and something that we probably do need to have a conversation on.

So can I put a pin in that one as we move forward.

Making note of time it's 520 and Director Rivera-Smith is next on the attendance and discipline.

Two more sections as well as the actual scorecard before 6 o'clock.

So Director Rivera-Smith please.

Thank you.

Yeah I'm feeling like maybe I should cut my question short.

I hate to do that because I do have some questions.

But in respect of time I think I can just check in with Chief Jessee via email later.

I want to make sure we keep moving so.

I will I will email to communicate my questions with him.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

My my question one question is about the clarification at the bottom of the slides about students of color furthest from educational justice.

It says African-American Latinx Pacific Islander Southeast Asian and Native American students.

Does that it doesn't explicitly say African.

And so I'm wondering if say Somali students are being or Ethiopian are being excluded from this list.

They are within that data set as identified for the strategic plan.

So when we say African-American that is include in your reference East African or students from East African descent.

Okay.

So African-American does include East African.

Thanks for that clarity.

And so then in the interest of time going ahead and moving on to slides 10 and 11 regarding equitable access.

Nancy Prodosta.

Yes thank you.

Thank you.

I'm just going to build off of what Chief Jessee's talking points about the CCIS work and how our special education department continues will continue to coordinate our supports for school teams around this work.

And that will continue this year.

And additionally we will build build off this learning regarding CCIS strategies to build upon our strategies for our goals this year.

So in the in the realm of targeted universal approach this is my moment of putting that stake in the ground around our division's goals.

Student Support Services will be zeroing in specifically to prioritize identification of students furthest from educational justice with special attention to Black students.

with IEP's and then Black Students in Highly Capable Services.

Our division everyone in the division they are targeting this goal as identified by 0030 equitable access and each department lead will prioritize equitable access for their goal setting for their students and then also the goal of leading others for anti-racist actions for the adults in this in their departments.

And the system has designed and we just a reminder how the system has designed.

These are things that we have to work on undoing because the system has designed and I'm talking the system not only from the state level to our own system how we label programs and services.

And it is our job to work at systemically and institutionally and individually to undo those impacts on our youth.

So I'm going to move towards intensive service pathways.

Right here you have some slides in front of you and you can make meaning from some of the data that you see in front of you.

And in looking at the data I've decided to these are the goals that we're moving forward.

We're going to target these specifically in these areas.

But I did want to show you the 3-year trends.

So in looking at the data that you can see that there are overall increases for students identified for intensive service pathways.

in the majority of student groups with the exception of Native American and Pacific Islander students groups.

The Special Education Department is setting the goal to decrease the number of students as mentioned before with the focus of students furthest from educational justice.

I want to share that in 19-20 the department added additional components to their data system.

This was last year to begin analyzing in order to target supports trainings and skill building for IEP teams.

One of the systems that we are trying to do is really think through what we're looking not only at actually those numbers of students identified in terms of their student categories but we're also looking at trends in terms of different service pathways.

So for example we've noticed an overall increase of students identified for access services as one of those trends.

And so we're beginning to look at it through a variety of lenses.

Additionally I want to share that last year the case managers were provided a flowchart as a guide to support the database change of placement processes.

Since the implementation there has been a 25 percent increase of school teams following the district's process and there's been also our next steps are in reviewing actually how those outcomes are supported that that work.

And additionally we need to work on building up and increasing from 25 percent of students following the process to hire.

And then I just also want to additionally share that the SEA special Seattle Public Schools Special Education Task Force also has a goal in their work alongside so the the members include past members SEA members and department members and they want to support the work at the practitioner level and they're reviewing intensive service pathway placements with a goal to do a deep data dive into service placements with race disability and regional trends.

Also one of the goals is to mitigate for implicit bias stereotype threat in order to support practitioners when they're making these very important decisions.

I'm going to go ahead to the next slide please around advanced learning and then we'll do questions at the end.

And if you look here again and where these were showing you 3-year data for the last 3 years and the you'll notice that the data this is data in terms of our students and that is the referral data presented.

This is not the referral data.

This is the service data but this is pretty accurate in terms of the last 3 years.

The efforts that we've had last year in terms of referrals have been very positive and there's been an upward trend specifically around students from educational justice.

But as you can as you note very little movement in terms of the outcomes for identification.

So that's work that we began started to build off of the task force work with the final report came due in January 2019. So we're still building our processes.

Some areas that we're working on is professional development to address racial bias in all parts of the system including identification.

We've actually just hired a specialist who has a background in identification and racial equity and they've been doing deep training every week with the Advanced Learning Department to really understand the interplay of identification and its roots in systemic racist practices.

They're also utilizing site-based eligibility decision-making.

And so part of that work is coaching and supporting the MTSS structures within the schools.

and also supporting the schools in their decision-making processes.

Working with coaching and providing some supports for school teams through that process.

And then I just want to add in there that we also are really thinking because due to the closures as you can imagine in March a lot of assessments pieces happening that the department is beginning to utilize and really rethink through a variety of qualitative and quantitative data measures.

to medicate the impact of some of the in-person assessments that that will be happening for this year.

So I am going to pause there.

And are there any questions.

And I'm sure there's lots.

Yes thank you.

I'll go ahead and start with Director DeWolf.

Thank you Director Mack.

I don't have any questions at this time.

Director Hampson.

Can you come back to me.

Director Mack can you come back around to me.

Yeah I was speaking on mute.

I said I actually I was making a joke.

Yes I'll try to remember but I'll also try to remember to actually hit the button and unmute myself.

So yes thank you.

Director Hampson.

I'll come back to you.

Director Harris.

Director Harris are you with us.

I just took myself off of mute.

Thank you.

I appreciate Team Concept.

I appreciate the goals.

But what I'm having trouble connecting the dots with are the fact that we have so few students with IEP's in buildings getting hands-on and and then I have trouble with the fact that Training is going to be offered to special ed but aren't inclusion students general education students first.

So so this is retrospective data and I'm having trouble with it given where we are at this moment in time.

Thank you.

Was there a specific question that you wanted to was that just a comment just to clarify I wanted to make sure if You wanted a response.

Well I guess I just want to register my frustration that that we don't have a whole heck of a lot more of our inclusion students getting services right now and it and it seems very frustrating to me at least from what I hear from parents.

What I hear from the special ed PTSA and what I see in social media.

This is all interesting information but where we are right now is problematic.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Director Hersey.

No questions for me at this time.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Is it possible to go to the previous slide please.

Thank you.

Dr. Pedroza I wonder the increase in identification.

What do you think that comes from.

Is that is that more students being referred because needs are being better addressed or is that more students being referred for intensive service or going being identified for intensive services And meaning less time in a general education classroom or is that maybe maybe we can't say right now.

Well I can say that we we can actually spend some time looking at that more but it's a mix.

When we're looking at the different types of pathways right there it's different.

Some of it's for example it's race-specific right.

There's some trends about race and then some of them are not.

And so I think we have to look at that and we have to look at the programming and services that are being provided.

Some of the same students are actually going.

So for example access we said an increase of access but as you know many of the access students participate for much of their day in general education classrooms.

So we have to look at it and take a look at more broader data.

But we have that data and we could spend some time looking at that or maybe I could bring that to a C&I committee.

Yep.

And along with that in the the SEA and SPS workgroup that's taking the deeper dive once that's sort of examined is there any discussion of looking at what our service pathways are and how to I guess better better better better serve students in with supports instead of these boxes.

Yeah I believe that is the goal.

I can share with you and when we do the C&I committee I can share with you even if you look at their vision and mission work.

Their goal is to decolonize special education.

That is one of their goals.

And so they that's work we started last year.

It's very exciting work.

It's it is a bargaining group so they there is going to be some shifting back and forth but this is a group that really wants to dig in and really rethink through how we are serving our students with a focus of more inclusionary practices.

So that is the goal of the group.

And so we are working on that.

But as you know a lot of this work is outlined in the CBA.

So it's actually pretty good that it's it's pretty perfect actually that this is the group that usually sit on the bargaining teams with our staffs that actually are all aligned in their thinking about really thinking about how do we really have our students move more into the general education setting to the and to really be a school a district of inclusionary practices with really for least restrictive environments for our students.

So I think that's exciting work.

But as you know it's really outlined in the CBA those pathways and those numbers and.

So there's a lot more work that has to be done with this.

So but right now it's started.

That's great.

Thank you.

And I might have had another question about the next slide but I will pass for now.

Okay Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

So I'm looking at this information and it's great to have this and I'm thinking so the title of this is equitable access to services.

So I'm trying to bring it back to that for my questions.

Because for special ed students right now very few are reserving their services correct.

I mean they're they're identified for it.

Great.

I mean that's that's part of the halfway there but then getting it.

So then I'm wondering do we this is only you're only showing us the intensive service pathways.

Does that include 504 students.

Are they in this or are they separate.

And do we have data on them.

I yes we do have data on all of our 504 students.

We have them broken down by race.

Actually I will even share we even when we went into closure Mia Williams and I worked through a plan of when we targeted supports at the secondary level.

All the 504 case managers had a list of students African-American students that they identified to really target and bring in supports for so.

And we've coordinated very closely with that office.

I have that data.

It is separate.

It is separate.

But I can if you we can figure out how you also are a member of the C&I committee SS C&I committee so we can talk through how you would like that data brought forth in one of our updates.

If you would like to do that we can we can work that through.

I would I would.

Thank you.

And then I'm wondering too how are we How are we defining right now access and services because is this is it measured by by logins by engagement.

How how are we how are we measuring that.

What are we calling access right now.

Okay.

So well this data is to talk about our whole general education programming and this is regarding programming for the last several years.

Our students are in when we talk about an intensive service pathway we're talking about students who most of the time is spending their day in a more restrictive environment.

So their service provider typically is their classroom teacher in most cases.

And so that is part of the scheduling that happens at schools.

And so they are just as well as part of any of the regular attendance similar so they that those are all being recorded.

Those are all those when we talk about intensive service pathways we're talking about the students that are in most likely in more restrictive environments.

And where many of their case managers or their teachers are actually their teachers serving them in those settings.

So they are in their classes most likely for most of the students.

Does that answer your question.

No kind of.

So is it measured then by by log-in by attendance by just.

Yes all of that they are measured by log-in and attendance especially if they're in those classes.

Yes.

All right.

No thank you.

And then I think for the next page was the highly capable page.

I had a question on that because you said it when we were looking at this you said that this is showing identification but not outcomes.

So are these students who it says referred into do you actually get placed into highly capable pathway or is this are these what are we looking at here.

These are all the students that actually have been that.

So I made wanted to make sure that we have a difference between referrals right and then students being served.

So if you look at the right hand side it says count of referrals for highly capable students.

So you notice that there was an increase of referrals.

So those are two different measures.

So they're not the same slide.

So those are the number of students.

And as you can see what I was referring to is we've huge effort on referrals.

And so if you look at students furthest from educational justice the increase of changes African-American males by 90 percent.

Students furthest from educational justice 48 percent.

So our referral process all of our efforts around referrals have been really great.

However if you look at our outcomes these are students that actually went through the referral process then actually were identified and then were then placed into highly capable services.

And if you look at the left.

very little change within the last two years.

So what I'm saying to you is through this presentation is yes we've we've got one thing down the recruitment pieces the referral pieces are down but we need to really be focusing on the identification process.

I'm showing you this data because this is the work that the department's going to be honing in on this year to get that right.

Got you.

So the left is the outcomes as you show.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

No no further questions.

Thanks.

Okay I think my I hope my question is relatively quick and then I'll circle back to you Director Hampson.

If we could flip back to the other one on the special education that Council of Students identified for intensive service pathway.

The questions that were raised I think by Director Rankin and Director Rivera-Smith around current services and support is also something that's really fresh on my mind.

identifying students for a certain pathway there's there's two sides to this coin.

One is you know potentially pigeonholing a student into a pathway that's inappropriate and isn't going to be the right level of service for them.

But the flip side of that is actually having equitable access to the appropriate level of service.

The services that I can think of and about the top of my head are you know specific accommodations like you know an IA doing a check-in daily with that student or you know specialized assignments sheets et cetera et cetera.

And I'm wondering whether or not we actually have data around that and the focus on are we appropriately providing the right services to students.

That's the question I'm I'm not I kind of feel like there's a disconnect between this metric of identifying students for intensive service pathway and whether or not it's are they are more students that need appropriate special education services to meet FAPE Are they getting those services.

And I don't know that this metric actually gets to that.

So I'm and maybe that gets to Director Rankin's question.

Ms. Pedroza can you.

I hope I'm being somewhat fair enough.

Do you understand what I'm trying to get at.

I think so.

So let me let me let me.

So so the one is when you're talking about you're talking about two different things.

So what I'm this slide that I'm presenting here is talking about because we we have talked about for many many years and it started with the conversation and I want to bring us back to the CCIS you know slide that you we had we had a problem right.

An over-identification of African-American students identified in disciplinary actions right.

And specifically we had over African-American students with IEP's that were being disciplined at a higher rate than other students.

So that's like the problem of practice that we were dealing with right.

So the slide in front of you in terms of special education which I will flip to the next slide please which is the special education one.

This is also addressing that problem of practice.

So we have we have our our Intensive Service Pathways right.

So these are our most restrictive environments including SEL.

So many students who get disciplined also end up in SEL services.

So I'm just going to use that as an example.

And our SEL classrooms if you look at that have a higher higher higher number of African-American students in those pathways.

That's one example.

Right.

And those are very restrictive environments.

However if you we look at access programming that actually has a trend of more the other students are White students actually trending higher into those access programs.

And most of those students are serving getting served in general education classrooms.

So this data is to sort of analyze all of that problem of practice that we have around A race and also service pathways right.

So if we know that our goals are to have students access more general education curriculum then we really have to not only look at how we're identifying students which in some service pathways can be attributed to race to bias of all these things.

But the other thing is to look at how are we actually serving students in those pathways.

So there's it's a two-pronged problem.

You're right.

And it's something that we have to dig deeper on.

And so I wanted to sort of show you the problem of practice that we're digging into because it's something that's just like CCIS that's been a 3 more than 3 years of work to get to the place that we are.

This is work that we're starting.

I wanted to be bring you the data in front of you and I want to share with you as we move through our progress some of the work that we're doing to sort of attack and sort of really work on both both problems.

It's it's twofold.

No I I I that helps explain a bit more.

I think my comment to feedback to the C&I committee as this work progresses is that the goal is to ensure that the appropriate least restrictive environment is provided.

and that it's not disproportionately restrictive.

And so I hear that that's what you're trying to pay attention into and dig into the why of why we may have more students being focused into a restrictive environment.

I'd like to add the thought that question why is that environment restrictive and whether or not it's actually restorative appropriate services for students and whether or not it's anti-biased and culturally responsive.

I think like digging into whether or not the programs themselves are supportive and appropriate.

So thank you very much for kind of clarifying that.

Director Hampson.

Thank you.

No I was just going to say I appreciate seeing the desegregation of Asian-American and specifically here as Southeast Asian.

So I just wanted to and I apologize if I if you mentioned that earlier and I missed it I did take a call.