School Board Meeting July 5th, 2017 Pt. 2

Okay it's 730 we are off our break.

Director Pinkham would you like to go for your comments now sir?

Okay you have a quorum.

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are listening to your voices.

Decisions are going to be rough and sometimes we will make a decision that supports you but then we also know that sometimes that decision is going to support another people or maybe in a community.

That's been one of the tough things about being up here for me since I've been up here and I know it will probably continue to be so but your comments that are being shared with us makes it easier for me as it goes along so maybe by the time my term is up I'll have it down and who knows.

Maybe I'll have to ask Betty if she's got it down yet.

In regards to the waitlist, voting on the options that were presented before us, I don't know if you noticed a little hesitancy for me on voting yay or nay on the option that was presented.

It was a difficult decision on what to do.

Do we keep on postponing this?

But I know that we have to move forward and for me it looked like the option that we voted on was the best one.

If I understood it correctly.

in that we will move the siblings to the schools that they are on the waitlist for, and as reference to the promises that were made to Whitman, and then just a swap list for the high schools.

So for the high schools, and I hope Rainier Beach shared that information, that we are not going to impact you as long as you are able to swap one for one.

So your FTEs, our staff and stuff should stay the same.

So hopefully Director Blanford was able to share that with the Rainier Beach students that they weren't going to be impacted hopefully by the option that we approved.

If that isn't my understanding I may need to see about reconsidering what I voted for.

Given that we just had a board meeting last week I really don't have much comments to share with the community this time around but I just want to again pass on the appreciation of all the work and one thing that I didn't do last week was to congratulate all the graduates last week for the ceremonies that attended and plus the ceremonies that I didn't and wish those graduates approval post high school, career, college, whatever that leads them to, and that they feel that the Seattle Public Schools did prepare them adequately wherever they decided to go.

If they want to consider the University of Washington, please send me an email.

Look me up on the UW website.

I'm there.

That's all I had to share for tonight.

Again, Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you.

Director Peters are you there?

would you like to make your board comments?

Peters Yes I would thank you.

First of all I want to just say I regret my inability to attend the meeting in person tonight.

I am out of town for a family memorial but I will be back soon.

I want to thank everybody who came to speak tonight And I think we should think about how we arrange our agenda in the future so we can avoid having votes before public comments.

To the community the students and the supporters of Rainier Beach High School.

Thank you so much for your dedicated support for the school.

You know when we talk about Lincoln High School I just want to point out that the two projects are not in opposition to each other.

that Lincoln is a response to some capacity needs in the North End, but we also need to commit to Rainier Beach High School.

And it might not be based on immediate capacity, but it should be based on a vision and a belief in the current and future students of Rainier Beach.

And we need to commit resources to that school.

And I firmly believe that once we do, we will no longer have these conversations about wait lists and helping Rainier Beach with its numbers.

So I did not get a chance to speak too much about the end of the year, but I just wanted to wish everybody a happy summer and a remark on how emotional graduations always are and how wonderful it was to be able to be present at three different graduation ceremonies this past year at Ballard High School, Center School, and Garfield High School and how I wish all of our graduates the best in their futures.

So my next community meeting I'm hoping to schedule either later in July or early in August and I will post that information on the district website when that's available.

Two more final comments.

We all As we all know, the state finally came to terms with a budget, or came to, well, not came to terms, but came, put together a budget, and I have to say, I'm greatly disappointed by the process.

To be honest, I'm disgusted by the process.

It was not transparent.

Very disappointed by the outcome.

You know, appreciative, of course, of any funding that did come in the way of our schools, however, There were some strings attached, some very serious strings, and I'm very concerned about the disincentives for our teachers and the disincentives against our teachers having higher education and having higher qualifications.

It seems to run in direct contradiction to what all research shows about investing in our teachers and their knowledge and their skills.

This obviously is something we are all unpacking since the budget was not presented to us all in a timely or clear manner.

Finally, this is an election year.

It is said that truth is the first casualty of war.

It is often also the first casualty of politics.

I ask all my colleagues to demonstrate integrity collegiality and respect for each other and the institution of the school board and help support the school district.

To rise above the negative impulses of this political era in which rancor and falsehoods are unfortunately the common currency of too many.

As a district we have a lot of work to do.

A lot more we need to improve.

But we have also accomplished things and that should not be understated.

Seattle has a national reputation for being on the forefront of some positive accomplishments.

We are we are we are a district that has a race and equity policy.

We are ahead of the curve in terms of having our students start school on time based on what is best for them emotionally and academically.

And tonight we are going to be discussing an ethnic studies resolution.

So there are many positives to be said about the school district.

Yes there is more work to be done but we just need to keep the facts in line so we can make positive progress.

Thank you.

Harris Thank you President Peters.

My turn.

My next community meeting is July 15 Southwest library 35th Avenue Southwest and Southwest Henderson Street I believe and I'm making lasagna so come on down.

It's good and rowdy and conversations are very thoughtful.

And given our capacity issues in West Seattle and the fact that we have not yet set a date for our carnival of crazy for what we are going to do in West Seattle with our schools bursting at the seams I'm sure a lot of the conversation will be in fact about equity and space.

And though we get a little rowdy we get pretty darn respectful with each other's needs and that's the way that it should be as well as PTSA's reaching out to each other to make good things happen.

This last year I was able to attend auctions by both Concord and Stanislaus elementary schools and I saw a great many faces from other more successful schools helping lift all boats.

And appropriately so.

I wanted to echo one of the things that director Burke said about the hard work that advanced learning has been doing in changing its procedures and advanced learning would also include chief Jesse back there, Kerry Hansen, Stephen Martin and his team.

We have already more than quadrupled children of color who have been identified for advanced learning.

Because we have been testing them in their schools without disruption, without making folks run to the other end of the city to be tested in noisy loud places.

And it's working, and we've also been encouraging teachers to identify potential candidates.

Are we there yet?

Not by any stretch.

Are we making progress?

Yes.

Should that be celebrated?

Yes.

CTE my feelings are well known, it's my hope we can reach out and partner with labor.

They are anxious to partner with us.

They bring funds and they bring expertise to the table.

And we are on the same team.

So we've got to make our circles bigger.

I am absolutely convinced that we can do this a lot better.

And with students in the program so follows the money and so follows their opportunity.

And I'm excited about that and I'm excited to welcome the new director of CTE later this summer.

Again my apologies to the students of Rainier Beach high school who were not advised that we had taken a vote prior to their testimony.

Again let's shout out and help each other in real time in the future.

Last week going to SLI and coming here for the JSC celebration was frankly just a blast.

And the JSC celebration had a part of joy to it that I have not seen in this building and and it was very exciting to see it.

And to see senior staff scooping ice cream on the bulkhead back here, to see a deputy superintendent Nielsen dancing, I wish the heck I had video.

And to see folks having fun and enjoying each other as human beings as opposed to cogs in the big wheel was a pretty terrific thing.

I am privileged and honored to serve and I think everyone in this room, let's move on.

Mr. Burke, could you please address the 2016-17 superintendent evaluation narrative and evaluation instruments please?

Burke I will be brief.

First of all I want to thank my colleagues for their work in this.

It is a challenge for seven people to come together and provide constructive and supportive feedback for our one employee, and I want to thank our one employee, superintendent Nyland, for being receptive and also highly collaborative in the process, helping us as a board understand the nuances of the education system in a way that he has, he is well-versed.

I think it felt to me like a valuable process.

So there are two documents posted, one is a narrative, and one is an evaluation instrument.

These are aligned to smart goals which were identified six months ago.

I want to highlight that this is an evaluation for a six-month cycle.

Normally we run a 12-month cycle.

but the board shifted it from December to December to being a June to June evaluation.

And so this is the work of essentially the last six months, and one of the things that we are going to be doing looking forward is to establish a professional practice smart goal and the intent was that it would be introduced at this meeting.

The board is still working through the final details of that with the superintendent so you might see on the agenda where it was posted but then removed.

So we will be introducing that at a subsequent meeting.

But I just wanted to publicly thank the superintendent for all of his work on behalf of the students a relentless commitment to gap closing, and staying on point, and reminding us what our SMART goals are, and I don't know if you want to share a few words, but thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you to the board, and particularly to Director Burke for shepherding that process.

Before I came to Seattle, Seattle was in the process of looking at world-class superintendent evaluation processes and Aaron Bennett is one of the ones that helps make that process work in terms of making sure that the SMART goals are teed up and reviewed on a regular basis.

I was going to say we couldn't count, I'm sure we probably could count the number of hours that the board spends in setting the smart goals, reviewing the smart goals, and then most recently just this last month or so on my evaluation.

As I shared with the board during that process last week, I think this is the most thorough process that I have ever seen done and so I thank you for the thoughtful focus, direction, teamwork that the board provides to me and to the district.

So I appreciate working with you and I appreciate that collaborative spirit.

OK we are to action items number one.

repeal board policies H61.00 food service H61.01 breakfast and lunch program and H62.00 breakfast and lunch program free and reduced price meals and adopt policy number 6705 food service and student nutrition.

Approval of this item would adopt policy number 6705 food service and student nutrition and and repeal policies H61.00 H61.01 and H62.00.

Pinkham I move that the board of directors repeal policies H61.00 food service H61.01 breakfast and lunch program and H62.00 breakfast and lunch program free and reduced price meals and adopt policy number 6705 food service and student nutrition as attached to the school board action report.

May I hear from the chair of ops?

May I hear from the chair of ops please?

This item was heard by the ops committee on the 18th of May and moved forward for approval.

Do I have questions comments or concerns from my colleagues?

Seeing none Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Blanford?

Director Burke Aye Director Harris Aye Director Patu Aye Director Pinkham Aye Director Peters Aye This motion is passed unanimously.

Number two repeal board policies H63.00 food service for special programs H64.00 providing meals for private school students H65.00 joint use agreement and H65.01 food services for school functions and adopt policy number 6706. food service for school and community programs.

Approval of this policy would adopt board policy 6706 food services for school and community programs and repeal policies H63.00 H64.00 H65.00 and H65.01.

I move that the board repeal policies 86300 food service for special programs, 86400 providing meals for private schools, 86500 joint use agreement and 865001 food service for school functions and adopt board policy number 6706 food service for school and community programs as attached to the school board action report.

I second the motion.

Director Harris this item was also heard by the ops committee on May 18 and moved forward for approval.

Director Blanford only to thank Ms. Fields for her hard work on both of these policies.

It is greatly appreciated.

other comments concerns or questions from my colleagues?

Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Ms.

Shek Director Burke aye Director Patu aye Director Blanford aye Director Harris aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters aye this motion is passed unanimously.

Resolution 2016-17 supporting ethnic studies in Seattle Public Schools.

Approval of this item would adopt resolution 2016-17 supporting ethnic studies in Seattle Public Schools.

Pinkham I move that the school board approve resolution 2016-17 supporting ethnic studies in Seattle Public Schools.

I second the motion.

Harris may I hear from the chair of C&I please?

Burke this was heard in the curriculum instruction policy committee on June 12 and moved forward for consideration.

Harris questions comments and concerns from my colleagues.

Director Pinkham

I just want to hopefully get on the record for a statement by one of our public commentators about mandating some things and that my understanding of the limit of the board the only person that we can direct is a superintendent.

So we can't mandate the schools to do anything.

So I just want to put that out there and I feel that the resolution does direct who we can to hopefully get this ethics studies rolling.

Harris other questions comments and concerns Director Burke.

I mentioned some things about this at the last meeting and I just want to reaffirm the work of staff on this, and this has been fast-tracked.

And I want to take my hat off to you, even though I don't have one, that it's really been admirable how staff has rallied around this, and built bridges with the community.

and had some challenging conversations, held some lively meetings, and my hope to, my request to staff, the community, to our educators, to our students, is to go forward in this with open minds and a spirit of collaboration.

spirit of collaboration, not confrontation.

And that we have the hard conversations that we have to, and that we work to change the minds and impressions that just have deep-seated institutional challenges for Seattle, and all around, not just for Seattle.

And so that staff works really hard to try to figure out how to do this in our budget strapped environment.

This meeting was sort of a microcosm of the urgency for this work, and the support for this work, and the challenge of doing it in our complex environment and scant budget.

So I know that that's been at the root of the the conversations is how we are leveraging existing resources, how we are building off of current work streams, how we are using staff expertise that we have now, successful programs that we have now, and that other people have now, and that we are not creating things from scratch.

Because there is some great great stuff out there to support ethnic studies.

And I'm going to continue to ask staff to be really diligent in trying to reach a shared definition of what ethnic studies really is, because in all these conversations there has been so much enthusiasm built around it, that there is risk that it could be diluted, or co-opted, or lose efficacy by not having everybody on the same page.

So in addition to implementing, stay true to reaching a shared vision of what ethnic studies is, and how it actually supports our students.

Director Harris.

Director Blanford.

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments just made by my seatmate around the importance of a clear definition of what it is so that it so that we can dispense with the idea that it is something that it is not.

The emails that we have seen so far lead me to believe that there are multiple definitions of ethnic studies.

and so that we don't disappoint folks who have been disappointed on numerous occasions.

I think there will need to be really clear articulation of what ethnic studies is.

Secondly I believe that to the point that was made earlier about mandating some sort of implementation plan around this, and to the point I think that Director Pinkham made around our ability to actually do that, I think there is a key element there.

But to the point that I made earlier when we were discussing this, I think that the implementation is going to be absolutely crucial, that it is well implemented, because we are dealing with issues of race and ethnicity and in our classrooms particularly those two issues if not well-managed and well-implemented have the potential to be very explosive and we want it to be a positive benefit for our students actually participating in those conversations as well as our educators who are leading those conversations.

So I think attention and focus on the implementation strategy around this resolution is going to be absolutely crucial to ensure that it accomplishes what we as a board have put forward as the aspiration for the resolution.

Director Peters did you wish to speak to this?

Peters Yes thank you.

Well I appreciate the fact that we are discussing this and we are putting forth this resolution and I greatly thank the community for rallying around the whole concept.

I feel this is to some extent it is supporting what the district has has begun to do, but it's just the beginning.

And I agree that implementation is going to be very important, and also consistency.

It's not something that we should let slip in any way.

And I actually see this as a very positive, constructive step forward to the district.

We are a diverse district.

It is one of our strengths.

And this will help us welcome all our students and make the most of the center education and make the most of the richness of our district.

And so I'm very happy to be able to support this tonight.

Director Patu.

Patu I too am very pleased that we were able to move this forward and actually make this a reality for all our kids because I think it's so important that all our students learn about each other and the different cultures that are actually there within our schools.

So I'm very pleased that we are moving this forward.

Last up, as I said previously I think the keys to really successful implementation here are robust professional development and continuing our conversation with our community and I hope we make this a standing committee and that we report back early and often.

This this has such extraordinary promise.

But the issue of consistency and definition hugely important and I will in fact bring up that the statutorily mandated since time immemorial curriculum has not been fully implemented.

Now mind you the same folks that passed the statute didn't provide the funding.

Which is just a huge shock.

But we got to do better.

We must do better.

I'm very excited to vote for this.

And I thank the community members that brought it forth.

And I thank the students in particular that spoke to this issue.

And Mr. Kinoshita Dr. Kinoshita and Michael Tolley.

Thank you very much.

Ms.

Shek roll call please.

Ms. Shek Director Pinkham aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Blanford aye Director Burke aye Director Peters aye this motion is passed unanimously.

Number four, adopting policy number 2080 assessments.

Approval of this item would adopt policy number 2080 assessments.

And I might add that the action report and attachments have been edited.

Correct.

Kyle Kinoshita, chief of curriculum assessment and instruction.

We need to have the second procedure first sir.

Thank you.

Pinkham I move the school board to adopt board policy number 2080 assessment as attached to the board action report.

Harris I second the motion.

Harris may I hear from the chair of C&I please?

Burke this was moved forward from the curriculum instruction committee on June 12 for consideration.

So I just wanted to very briefly take note of some of the revisions to the board documents.

In the board action report on page two we noted that staff had reviewed language from school board resolution 2015-16-15 resolution to request state adoption of alternative summative assessment framework to reaffirm student opt-out rights.

So that was one change in the policy text itself.

On page three of four we made some streamlining to a sentence which now reads districtwide assessments are those that are funded centrally and used by all applicable district schools.

So that defines what a districtwide assessment is.

On page 4 of 4 we did two things.

Director Geary wanted to ensure that not only were students not punished for not participating in assessment but not in any way excluded in any way from some of the reward activities.

So we added the word exclusionary.

So it reads students who do not participate in district state assessments for any reason have a right to appropriate learning activities and not be subjected to punitive or exclusionary treatment for non-participation.

We made parallel changes to the procedure as well.

Lastly in terms of cross-references we added the school board resolution that I just took note of.

questions comments or concerns?

Director Burke.

Burke thanks for the work.

It continues to be a work in process in my mind and I would like to actually propose a small amendment which I had shared with staff.

Two words this is referring to page three of the policy paragraph one.

And there is a line which states all assessments for districtwide use will be reviewed by the school board.

The amended language would be all assessments for districtwide use will be reviewed for approval by the school board.

Second the motion.

Questions comments and concerns on the amendment?

Berge Go ahead Madam President.

Berge I appreciate the suggestion by Director Burke.

One of the concerns that has arisen about our assessment is the fact that there hasn't complete clarity and transparency and oversight to various assessments that have been used.

That came up in the past with the M-Class Beacon test and then also the Amplify test and also with the MAP test.

There were questions about when they were being used, who was being used by, and parents did come to board directors and ask about some of these.

And in the case of the amplify I think it did not come to the board originally.

So this would allow greater transparency.

It would allow the board to have the oversight so that it can answer to families about what it is we are administering to their students.

And I think it will allow us all to be able to support whatever tools we end up using.

So I support this amendment.

Director Burke.

I want to bookend this with a little bit of a higher-level discussion.

Recognizing the whole reason that this policy came into existence.

It was part of a probably over a yearlong discussion and about four years of really thoughtful work by the staff and collaboration with individual directors.

And so this topic was discussed in committee.

during that process we didn't really refine it to the point of what is the approval threshold for the board, and what this language does is it essentially says if it's a districtwide assessment, it goes through board approval.

The intent is really what Director Peters was talking about around trust and transparency, and the policy and procedure include an adoption component.

Which is significantly stripped down but in the procedure it talks about the school board district staff, SEA and pass should be informed of the following intended purpose of the assessment, how the results of the assessment will be reported and utilized, and how families and community members will be engaged throughout the selection process.

So again the intent is If we are going to adopt something that we are expecting our kids to commit their time to, we as an institution owe it to our families to demonstrate the purpose and the efficacy and actually the value because we have this challenge especially with the state assessments of maintaining 95% participation or higher.

So we want to build community trust, that we are picking good tools, we are using them for good reasons, and that when you put an assessment in front of a family and say, do you want your child to be able to do this particular thing, this particular problem, or this particular performance task, or know this particular information, the family would say yes.

And we want them to say that.

And we want to say how do you know?

Well we don't know.

Okay this is how you know.

And we want to be able to build that level of trust in our assessment tools.

So that's the basis behind it.

But I really want to make sure that staff has a chance to share because we had some rich discussions in committee around the ramifications of this and impact to workload.

So I want to be respectful of that also.

Harris Director Blanford and then if we could hear from staff.

My question has to do with the clause around approval, board approval of assessments before they can be implemented.

I'm wondering have you done any work to identify if there are complications associated with the board actually having to approve the assessments before they are given to our students?

Thank you for that question.

I just wanted to affirm what Director Burke was saying, that we have taken quite a bit of time to develop this policy and associated procedure with the intent to involve as many stakeholders as we possibly can, as well as of course school board members.

We have worked hard to incorporate much of the feedback that we have gotten from everyone, including the board.

And we truly believe we probably have one of the most comprehensive assessment policies for any school board school district in the country.

At the same time though there are components that were recommended that we have not incorporated into policy.

One being the approval process for specific reasons.

I'm going to ask the chief of student support services wife Jessie to speak to that.

Thank you Board Director, Superintendent Nyland.

So we have had a rich conversation.

This has come about and we've had this also at C&I committee multiple times and one of the things that really has me nervous just even within the current policy and procedures that we do have really does lie around capacity and oversight.

There's a lot of details in this particular procedure that I already am nervous a little bit about because we are hold accountable.

Promises made, promises kept.

And we want to do that and as one professional amongst many who is responsible for that I have to think about some of the things that are going to get carried through.

Many of the things that we have listed as part of the roles and responsibilities for school personnel.

Across the 102 schools that's an incredible amount of work.

And so it took us just as one example around the interim assessments which again kindly you helped us provide.

That process is just wrapping up, we started that process in November.

The incredible amount of time out there on just doing the RFP, we are not even to contracting yet.

Because we did so much stakeholder involvement in getting a lot of people's input and process.

I understand a lot of the practices in the past were not ideal.

I think this policy procedure does get us way in a better position, and obviously does have the accountability language in it.

But I would want to end with a couple points.

Learning as always and I tell this to a lot of school leaders is there is no perfect assessment.

And assessments is a fluid environment.

It's not adopting a textbook.

Textbooks stick around, you can supplement, assessments have a little bit of a change you move through.

You have to change them just even in their own student population across our very diverse schools here in Seattle.

But also as timeline, like I said we want to be ready.

If I put together an assessment calendar and we are stuck in process, and we make some of those processes at schools that something is coming and it doesn't deliver, my name is next to it and so is ours.

So I feel very nervous about that at times.

And then the technical skills I think actually Director Burke did a good job of just listing some of the different kinds of assessments we have.

There is technicality just understanding the differences between the assessments not only just about how the content or the design of them.

So I think that is good too.

So I can see that I will just wrap up there and just say really do stress that we just want to be very careful and thoughtful and our hope was to move forward with what our recommendation is today.

Understanding this is a process of improvement and that we can come back to adding some of those pieces in a later date and time.

Director Blanford.

I had a follow-up question.

Please go ahead sir.

Blanford Has there been any work done with our local districts or around the nation to identify the level of board oversight of assessments?

Are we breaking new ground or have other districts school boards have this responsibility for approving the assessments that are used with students?

I'll let him speak.

I took a look again at the benchmarking districts that we examined.

First of all you know associate superintendent Hawley is correct most of the assessment policies are less than one page.

Ours of course is four and just in terms of how they are spelled out.

And none of the 10 that we looked at have any mention of any approval process.

Other directors comments concerns and questions?

You had a follow-up?

Director Blanford please.

Director Blanford I didn't know if Chief Jessee had something else to add it sounded like you did want to add something to that response?

Director Blanford just because I know the procedure accompanies it, nobody's procedures, none of them were laid out nearly to the depth of the procedure that we have drafted currently.

Most of them talk about really thinking about the state assessments, high accountability, we've added layers.

Again thanks to the thoughtfulness to Director Burke and the team within C&I is just again kind of laying that out that that level of depth is nowhere to be found.

Director Blanford.

And then one final question has to do with the opt out clause.

and I'm interested for the public record in knowing what the ramifications of us falling below the threshold number for students that choose to opt out of our assessments.

I'm talking about the standardized assessment in this case.

I'll attempt to answer that.

And actually Dr. Nyland was right there.

We had our quarterly meetings with the Department of Education and OSPI.

Department of Education was really clear actually with this and had many questions about our participation.

And you know as the awarding of federal dollars it was part of that conversation was hey those are some of the things that you know we are expecting Seattle Public Schools to meet their requirements and hence I don't know if associate superintendent Tolley or Dr. Nyland wanted to comment specifically to that.

Director Harris Dr. Nyland you have the floor.

Unfortunately I know a little bit about this one.

So we have been previously on notice from the U.S.

Department of Education that we were falling below the 95 percentile federally required level in half of our schools.

I have not seen the most recent numbers.

My prediction has been that as we become more familiar with the test there will be Fewer opt-outs and our percentage know that under this current presidential administration that they will follow through with punitive monetary punitive measures as was threatened under the previous administration.

However, it is still the law.

We see it in other ways.

We have some blanks up on the wall over there from schools that are no longer recognized because they did not meet the 95% threshold.

And as I visited with TOPS, Pathways, a variety of our option schools, they note that when their participation drops, then their test scores drop.

And then they are in a defensive posture as parents come to see them.

My student here because the test scores are going down.

So we are in this interesting world, radical middle.

where we are under legal obligations and some of our own making.

We want our schools to look well, do well, enroll well.

And so we try to find that way where we let parents know that yes we will honor their right to opt out.

I know that there's been some issues where that has not felt to the public like we are honoring that to the extent that we should and we are working on that.

I sent a very clear memo to the principals and we will follow up on the ones that didn't quite get the memo yet.

to make sure that they do that and at the same time we are hard-pressed to find good quality places for kids to screw the 15 hours of testing while they are opting out because all hands are on deck administering the test.

So it is, we are trying hard to honor the right of parents to opt their children out at the same time we are trying to communicate all of the reasons why those tests are important and how we use them and how they are valuable to both the student and to the staff.

Blanford And I don't want to dominate this conversation but that comment poses another question in my mind.

We have existing opt-out language correct?

and the result of changing the language that we currently have on the books would potentially have the effect of increasing the number of students and families that choose to opt out of our tests.

The language is strengthened it's not weakened.

Am I wrong?

In actuality we tried to make sure that the language was neutral, you know simply describing you know what would happen.

And again we changed the language and took the words opt out or refusal out and simply said if the test, if students or parents chose not to participate in the test.

But it has not been, I would not say that the language is strengthened, you know simply there to describe the rights of students and parents.

So how would you describe the change that has been made?

Mostly to make the language more explicit in terms of what the rights were.

Director Patu.

So I know I asked one time about the recruitment process, so where are we with the recruitment process of that program?

I need a little bit more clarification of your question.

Well I had asked before about you know how are we recruiting students of color for the HCC program?

And didn't get an answer the last time and wanted to find out where are we with that?

We have made significant progress in this particular year.

We did provide quite a bit of information in the Friday update a couple times this year on that, most recently this last Friday's update.

But what we have seen through our efforts in particular assessing students at school, all of our second graders, particularly our Title I schools.

and actively reaching out to our families more intentionally, we have seen a significant increase in identification of students of color.

Director Harris What percentage would you actually say that you have right now?

Director Pinkham I wouldn't hazard a guess, I would have to get back to you with more specific information on that.

Director Harris Thank you.

Director Pinkham Director Pinkham and then you Madam President

In regards to the 95% participation by the federal, do we advertise?

I don't see it listed in here as far as that we can suffer consequences if we don't meet that 95%.

Is that something we need to maybe share with the community out there?

Hey, we know you have the right to opt out, but federal regulations want us to have a 95% retention rate.

I don't know what impact that may have.

Someone may say okay, we'll do it now to help them out, or they may say well, I'm going to make sure they don't meet that 95%.

But still that transparency that hey here's what we are striving for because the federal government wants to set that participation rate for us.

Nylander I'd have to check my letter.

My letter went on at great length, I think longer than anybody would read it.

But I think it tried to make that distinction without calling it out.

So I didn't want to make it feel like a threat.

While at the same time I did want to promote the positive aspects of why we appreciated the participation.

Pinkham I didn't want to make it seem like a threat but just so they have that knowledge and not thinking that we are just trying to yeah we want to assess you because that's what we want to do.

No we have a certain target we want to reach and hopefully they can help us reach that target.

Director Peters the floor is yours.

Regarding opting out.

I believe what we're doing with this assessment policy is merely affirming rights that already exist for students.

And we're just clarifying that.

As to whether or not clarifying that language increases opting out.

That's a question of correlation versus causation.

And I don't know if we have any actual evidence one way or the other.

There are other organizations outside of Seattle Public Schools I think there's even one called Opt-Out Washington.

They are probably impacting the opt-out participation as well.

So what we're simply doing here is clarifying parents' rights.

And then to Jesse's comments about assessments changing and why he opposes board oversight of assessments, I think about the MAP test.

That was adopted in about 2008 or 2007. We've had that for eight years.

So it's not true that our assessments changed that much.

But the counterpoint could be if they are changing a lot, maybe that's a bad thing.

And maybe if we had a more formalized adoption process, it wouldn't change as much.

And we would give greater care to what we choose and better stability to our students and educators.

So again, I support this amendment.

Last up real quick I think we know more about assessments now than the Secretary of education as Senator Al Franken asked her about during her nomination hearings.

I am in favor of this amendment for transparency purposes.

And if we run into issues then I invite staff to come back and say this is not working for us, it requires too much scheduling issues, resolutions etc., and if we display the kind of collaborative push that we have already I'm not worried about that.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

I will note that I am strongly opposed to the amendment and first off I will start off by saying that I believe that it is a pretty incredible idea that we would mandate board oversight of every assessment before it can be administered to our students.

I feel like we are getting to a place where unfortunately where the recommendations of staff are not heeded, the recommendations of our educators, professional educators are not being appreciated and I fear that we are going down a dangerous path.

With regard to the opt-out clause of this, I've been on record, I've read into the public record a statement made by 20 different advocacy, national advocacy organizations that all advocate for For students of color, for low-income students, for disabled students and special ed students, and all of those organizations came out uniformly and said that opt-out movements and opt-out policies like the one that we are considering right now are not in the interest of closing our achievement and opportunity gaps.

The data that is collected from many students participating in these assessments gives us better data by which we can use to make allocation decisions, educational decisions that work to close our opportunity gaps.

And when we give our parents more ability to opt out than we are exacerbating our opportunity gaps.

I've been really clear on the record about this, many others have written about this As an educational researcher I know in my heart of hearts that assessments are not perfect and that we have to constantly strive to identify the bias that is built into the assessments, but if we get to a place where there is automatic suspicion of any assessments that are applied to our students I think we are definitely impacting what the educational theory says that you have to instruct students, you have to assess them and then you have to retool your instruction to assure that all students have had the opportunity to benefit from the instruction.

I think we are putting another piece in a very cumbersome piece I might add.

into that mix and I believe that it's going to have negative impacts on our ability to increase excellence for all students and for us to close our achievement gaps.

So for those reasons I'm planning to vote in opposition to both the amendment and the motion.

Director Harris.

I respectfully want to appreciate what my colleague said, I think it's, but I want to make sure that people recognize that this policy and this adoption, or this amendment are not about opt-out, they are not about the federal mandated test, they include elements of that to clarify it.

but it's about defining what our assessments, what are our assessment pieces, creating common language that we can use as a board, as staff, as community.

and creating a common understanding of what are the fundamental building blocks under MTSS.

And so just as a case in point, we are working on the RFP that Chief Jessee had mentioned around our interim assessments.

The board and the curriculum instruction committee have not been engaged in that work.

We have been informed, but as far as understanding the true theory of action, staff has done a ton of work And I have heard about the work and I respect the work and appreciate the work but the board has not been brought along with that work.

This policy is our way of saying bring us along please.

In the most recent Friday memo we were notified that the Fountas and Pinnell progress monitoring assessment was purchased and will be used for kindergarten through fifth grade.

Already used in many of our schools, this is not a new innovative assessment, this is a tool that many educators use and trust, but was not discussed at the curriculum instruction committee.

The board has not been brought along with it.

Again, the request, bring the board along with this work.

Ms. Shek, roll call please on the amendment.

Director Burke.

Director Harris Aye Director Patu Aye Director Pinkham Nay Director Blanford Nay Director Peters Aye This amendment is passed with a vote of 4 to 2.

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

Director Blanford No

Director Burke.

Yes.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Yes.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Yes.

This motion as amended has passed with a vote of 5 to 1. Thank you very much.

Number five review and approval of career and technical education 2017 annual plan per policy number 2170. Approval of this item would approve the career and technical education 2017 annual plan.

Pinkham I move that the board approve the attached 2017 career technical education annual plan as attached to this board action report.

I second this motion.

May I hear from the chair of C&I please?

This came to C&I June 12 was moved forward for consideration to the full board.

Comments questions concerns from my colleagues?

Director Pinkham.

Pinkham Thank you for this presentation and the report.

I'm curious because it seems like to me with some of these technical education programs that when they are put just at one school then that makes it either students do I want to stay at the school if that's my assigned neighborhood school because it has a culinary but I want a different CTE and then if they can't get it at the skill center then they may opt to well I want to choose another school.

Is there a way we can leverage current programs so maybe we can build up the skill center so we have more of those programs there that every student can opt to go to versus gee if I stay at my attendance area school I'm not going to get the technical or career education that I was hoping for?

Yes and thank you for having me, Dan Goldsman principal for the skills center and I'll do my best to speak for CTE in general.

Yeah that's an interesting question and I think something that we are exploring and working with district leaders and staff at the schools and community members and partners is thinking about other ways to do a little bit more of what you're talking about.

One you know just a model we've explored is you know what if some of our halftime skill center teachers could teach introductory versions of the same courses or other CTE courses that would offer electives that you know we don't have a lot of these days or we have fewer and fewer of to give a little bit more in the way of choices for students.

Another thing, and forgive me for bringing up summer school again but that's my job, summer school is one of those ways that we can get those students in lots of different experiences and explore career pathways and get those CTE credits as well.

Harris other questions concerns or comments from my colleagues?

Director Burke.

I've used up more than my share of airtime so I will be brief.

Obviously one of my favorite topics, I want to bring to my colleagues and the public's attention two points.

One of them, in support of what principal Goldsman had just mentioned, on page seven is a table that shows the skill center enrollment.

And this is one of the things that staff has added which I think really helps tell this story of some of our challenges around our skill center.

And this relates to our six period day, our 24 credits, the requirements, graduation requirements that we have to fit in that are squeezing out opportunities for electives for students, and squeezing out the ability for them to be able to do skill center programs.

There is a column that shows the historical enrollment in skill center during the school year, which is essentially flat for the last four years.

There is a column which shows the summer enrollment for skill center, that shows a consistent climb over the last four years.

Because summer enrollment is not limited by high school schedules.

And so, it's an opportunity that our kids want, it's a place where kids are going, They are getting those credits, they are getting those classes, and so again it's a call to the board and staff to figure out how we can do our high schools to open up some of these options during the school year.

The other thing I want to do just to bookend that.

On page 8 there is a table of participation in CTE and skill center coursework by demographic groups.

And if you look through the demographic groups that are participating in our CTE classes, there is CTE participants and then concentrators which are those that do two or more CTE courses.

And I challenge anyone in the district to find a better demographic match in our programming.

When you look at the demographics of our district and you look at the demographics of our CTE programs they are so well represented that we have to figure out how to replicate it and grow this program.

That's all.

Harris comments questions concerns Director Pinkham.

Pinkham For maybe leveraging also our local community colleges.

Has that been an idea for this since they have running start students going there to take like math and other classes but a lot of the community colleges have these kind of current technical courses as well.

Is that also being considered?

Absolutely yeah, and you know one of my favorite examples these days we are starting a new maritime operations course, the director at the Seattle Maritime Academy which is an annex site for Seattle Central.

She and I have been working together all year and working with partners like the Port of Seattle, other folks.

think about how we can do a great job of starting our students in high school, getting them interested in that career pathway and moving them into Seattle Central College program like Seattle Maritime Academy that would just be one example but yes Dan Gallagher and I and Jane Hendrickson have been meeting with and working with folks from Seattle colleges and want to strengthen those partnerships for sure.

Yeah thank you because I think that would be great because we are getting some students that can graduate with an AA degree in the future we get students graduating with a certification as well in some of these career technical programs.

Thank you.

And if I can just add to that to make sure folks know that actually we do provide college credits through some of our courses as well in the high school like the tech prep program as an example.

Director Patu.

I'd just like to echo what Director Burke has said in terms of how important it is for us to really support our CTE programs because not all students want to go to college.

A lot of them are actually looking for jobs right after they finish high school so I think this is a great opportunity for us to really look at how creative can we be in terms of actually supporting our CTE programs.

Director Blanford.

Director Blanford Because I'm experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance I will just share that and this is no reflection on the hard work that you're doing.

I too celebrate the fact that CTE is as diverse as our district is as a whole.

We heard testimony earlier today about the need for our highly capable program to be similarly diverse.

And I believe that that should be as higher priority as the other programs that we are looking at.

Because ultimately we are making decisions about who gets to go to college, who doesn't get to go to college.

I believe that those decisions should be made by the students and families, and that we should offer maximum opportunity for kids to explore their passions and discover what their passions are.

In my mind it's, we celebrate on one end and on the other end we look at work that still needs to be done and particularly the work around our highly capable programs needs to be done.

Director Burke.

Director Burke I would not want to bring this up but since two of my colleagues did I feel that I have to… make sure that we as a district recognize that CTE is not a division between kids that go to college and kids that don't.

CTE courses are an opportunity for our students to touch things that is more than a textbook, more than a computer, to be creative, to learn skills that they may use in a job, they may use when they are remodeling their house, they may use when they are sewing clothes.

It's an opportunity for them to do things that they are not necessarily going to do after their high school career.

And so I want to be really, my ask to everyone in the district is that we work really hard to recognize that every CTE course is an opportunity to do something beyond that CTE course.

And it's not a mandate that somebody is going to go into a particular career, or a particular track, but rather that it's an opportunity that opens up a wider set of possibilities.

And I know I've heard that from colleagues as well, but I just really want to go on record that that's an important part of our messaging as a body that's leading this district.

Director Patu.

Director Patu On that note I would also like to say that yes we encourage all of our kids to go on to college but not every student want to go to college.

They want a skill that they can actually utilize to be able to get a job.

I know this because I worked with a lot of those kids in the past.

So when I say that we want to make sure that our kids have an opportunity to get a job These are for students that actually do not want to go to college who really wants to start making money and be able to support themselves.

So we have an opportunity to do both.

Kids can go to college and we are having programs that actually support that so they can continue on to further education but we also have opportunity for kids who do not want to go to college but want to get a job so they can actually be able to support themselves.

May I add a comment there?

I would agree and I think just to make sure everyone hears different examples of pathways that students have, we have students who are going straight into jobs at Boeing and Orion and other places like that the day after they graduate from high school.

They might go on to college, they might get that paid for by Boeing and other organizations.

We have other students going on to nursing school right off, right out of our program in West Seattle, the nursing assistant certification course, or our firefighting course.

One of our students, Katie Lipkowitz, I believe is up at Fairbanks University with her firefighting training from skill center, taking that on to college.

So yeah, it's absolutely… wide range of opportunities and a really wide range of pathways that students can take.

I'm not going to comment because I think my views on this are very clear that we need to make the circle bigger, find more mentors, experiential learning is I think outstanding and I look forward to hearing from you next year on your annual report to see how much progress we have made.

Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Director Burke aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters This motion is passed unanimously.

Director Harris.

Thank you sir.

Number six approval of Seattle Public Schools 2017-2021 affirmative action plan.

Approval of this item would approve the Seattle Public Schools 2017-2021 affirmative action plan to be submitted to OSPI and implemented by the responsible parties and human resources.

Pinkham I move that the school board approve the Seattle Public Schools 2017-2021 affirmative action plan to be submitted to OSPI and implemented by responsible parties detailed in the attached plan document in human resources.

Harris I second this motion.

Harris This matter came before A&F on June 8 for consideration.

Questions comments concerns?

Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Burke aye Director Harris aye Director Pinkham aye Director Blanford aye Director Patu aye Director Peters aye

This motion is passed unanimously.

Director Harris.

Thank you.

Number seven City of Seattle families and education levy FEL and Seattle Public Schools SPS personal services contracts PSC for Seattle Parks and Recreation City Year of Seattle and University tutors of Seattle schools.

Approval of this item would authorize the superintendent to execute contracts for a combined total of $1,876,382.

with city of Seattle's parks and recreation department.

Peren $543,492.

University tutors for Seattle schools $522,890.

And city year $810,000.

For the school year 2017-18 for the purposes for the purpose of providing families and education levy funded activities.

I move that the board authorize the superintendent to execute the contracts for a combined total of $1,876,382 with the city of Seattle's parks and recreation department.

$543,492 university tutors for Seattle schools $522,890 and city year $810,000 for the school year 2017 2018 for the purpose of providing families and education levy FEL funded activities in selected elementary K-8 middle and high schools with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contracts.

I second the motion.

This matter came before A&F on June 8 for consideration.

Questions comments concerns?

Director Blanford.

At the last board meeting I asked that this to make sure that this item did not end up on the consent agenda.

The reason for that is I'm just wondering for the public record if you can make a brief brief presentation on each one of these items so that we know what we are approving.

Stone Director of grants for compliance, I will do my best.

So as part of the family and education levy the city has set up their own request to allow CBOs to come in and work with the schools that the funding is provided to.

Parks and recs comes into many of our middle schools and our elementary schools for out of school time to provide before and after school programs academic support as well as enrichment activities that can be from sports activities to also… Let me go into a specific one of the addendums to highlight something.

Sorry about that.

They provide site coordinators, volunteer coordinators, and bring in tutors at parks and rec.

University tutors is also the same.

They will be in elementary schools, middle and high schools providing tutoring services throughout the day before and after school.

And of course City Year has been coming in and doing strong academic programs in our 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classrooms and our middle schools in the feeder pattern towards Denny, Mercer and Aki.

They are providing 8 to 10 core members who are working directly with identified students academically and with after school activities beyond academics.

Thank you for that.

I primarily didn't want this on the consent agenda because I wanted to have the opportunity to thank our community partners for the critical work that they do helping to educate our students and get them ready for their future.

So I wanted to be on record saying that.

I do want to add City Year has actually done a lot of work this year in expanding their tutoring programs and working directly with my department for Title I and LAP.

Helen Finch who actually retired this year has been providing professional development to City Year core members in working with the leveled library intervention kits that some buildings are using specifically for academics.

Thank you for that.

And thank you for bringing that forward.

Much appreciated.

Other comments, questions?

Director Patu.

Patu Do we have an evaluation or assessment piece on each one of these programs to kind of tell us exactly what they've been, the success that they've had with our students in each of these schools?

The Department of Education and Early Learning with the city has that data and they provide it in their yearly report that they bring to you in the fall.

Okay for all three programs?

It's compiled data of how students are doing.

I could ask them, I'm actually meeting with them tomorrow, I could see if they could bring that information forward with all three of these programs.

All right thank you.

Thank you for that.

Any other comments questions concerns?

Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Burke?

Aye.

Director Pinkham?

Aye.

Director Harris?

Aye.

Director Patu?

Aye.

Director Blanford?

Director Peters.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Number eight approval for contract amendment with school data solutions for school-based implementation of MTSS student data portal RFP 09615 approval of this item would authorize the superintendent to execute a contract amount with school data solutions in the amount of $366,750 for the student data portable portal excuse me homeroom.

I move the school board authorize the superintendent to execute a contract amendment with the school data solutions in the amount of $366,750 for the student data portal homeroom in the form of the draft contract amendment dated May 23, 2017 and attaches school board action report with any minor additions, deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract amendment.

I second the motion.

Harris may I hear from the chair of C&I please?

Pinkham this came through C&I on June 12 was moved forward for consideration.

Harris questions concerns comments on this action item?

Director Pinkham.

Pinkham can I hear from any of the other directors that might have seen the demonstration on their thoughts?

I was unable to see the demonstration, the timing didn't work out for either of the opportunities.

Harris Well when I went to SLI last week, and I sat at one of the teacher tables, I was about assaulted when we started talking about this.

They were beyond psych.

Dr. Kinoshita you remember that?

you said you were going to hire me to do the rah-rah on it and I came into this conversation as a significant cynic.

But these teachers were really really pumped about being able to build their own data profiles and that was about as real as it gets for 45 minutes zipping off of that.

So I'm still a cynic but I'm a believer cynic now.

Yeah because when I arrived at the meeting it was just wrapping up their presentation but I recall that one of the schools that was in the principal I was presenting was all hyped up about you know they were very thankful that they got to be one of the 15 schools to try this do the trial for this program but I didn't really get to see how this program actually worked.

It's Roxhill and she'll walk you through it.

Other questions comments concerns?

Director Peters.

Peters I remember when we had a demonstration or presentation from the vendors of homeroom at a work session and I did have some student data questions about that and how they treat student data.

I don't feel that my questions were fully answered and because I was not at the meeting where this item was I feel I don't have enough information on this item to vote for it and so I'm going to have to abstain from this vote.

Harris Thank you.

Other questions comments concerns?

Excuse me Director Burke.

Burke along the lines of what Director Peters was asking about, I had a community member ask me what if I don't want my students data in this system?

Do we have a mechanism through our beginning of year forms?

Is that built into our existing process?

That families who do not want their students data in online is covered?

What would be my advice to that person?

We already have that data.

This is just a different way of really formatting that data.

So those pieces that we had for the students, we already have existing in the system.

Power school is really where it's drawing directly from.

So to say not in power school would create all sorts of other issues.

Obviously emergency contact information, educational choices.

Burke and is it safe to say that one of our goals here is to greatly reduce the use of spreadsheets and what not in the school-based processes and save our educators the challenge of creating their own and maintaining their own?

that is a pretty big threat that we are currently facing here in Seattle is when people use Excel spreadsheets and then pass them all around.

Harris And we exponentiate data breach opportunities?

Pinkham Abound, yes.

And so we have reeled back, DOTS has been really great about that, reeling back on the Google docs, this is just another next layer of pieces, let's start rolling it back so we don't have to do that.

Exactly.

And so everybody, and also just the opportunity.

everyone knowing every student's story strength instead of some people only having access especially our classified personnel.

They are really critical.

Well I'm excited about this as a tool and you tie this with stability of assessments it's going to be great.

Roll call please Ms. Shek.

Director Blanford aye Director Harris aye Director Burke aye Director Patu, aye.

Director Pinkham, aye.

Director Peters, abstain.

This motion is passed by a vote of 5 to 0 to 1.

Number nine award contract RFP 04772 to thought exchange by fulcrum management solutions Inc. for the community engagement platform.

Approval of this item would authorize the superintendent to execute contract RFP 04772 with thought exchange in the amount of $325,725 for a districtwide engagement platform over a three-year period from 2017 to 2020.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to execute contract RFP 04772 without exchange in the amount of $325,725 for districtwide engagement platform over a three-year period from 2017 to 2020 in the form of a draft agreement attached to this board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent to take any necessary actions to implement the contract.

I second that motion.

Director Harris may I hear from chair of ops?

Thank you.

Director Blanford this item was heard by the ops committee on June 15 and moved forward for consideration.

Director Harris questions comments concerns on this action item?

Director Peters can I ask why it was for consideration instead of approval?

Director Harris did you not have the RFP number?

Director Peters so the reason it was for consideration at that time is we had not finalized a vendor.

Harris thank you.

Other questions comments concerns?

Director Burke.

Burke thanks to the team for putting together a web conference.

I had the opportunity to see the tool to hold the puppy as it were and it's a cool puppy.

So one of the things that I came out of it with is that this is not a silver bullet that will reach our marginalized communities or communities that have been typically underserved or under communicated with.

This is something that we are going to have to have as an explicit part of our strategy to engage to make sure that the data and the relationships that we are building with them are reflected in the tool so that we have balanced data.

But it's really neat in terms of reporting and the conversations that it can create and the way it can pop certain themes and certain trends to the surface.

So I'm excited to see what it yields in upcoming months and years.

Director Blanford.

Director Blanford And I am on record also sharing that concern around making sure that we are reaching out to our communities that have not been addressed well in the past and knowing that an electronic software program is not going to be the solution to that issue.

But hopefully, particularly by disaggregating data, the data that it does collect, that will allow us to have a better sense of who we've talked to, and what they have to say about decisions that are pending before the board.

So I'm planning to support this, but my hope is that that can be as robust as possible.

and over time that we can discover new and more innovative ways to reach out to our underrepresented communities so that we get authentic feedback across the spectrum of the city that helps to inform our decision-making processes.

Director Pinkham.

And again public testimony brought up some concerns as far as I think one just the safety of any comments that are put in there, what the vendor can use those for, hopefully we will see that the FERPA and other things will apply to this at the vendor can't use anything more for it than what we are contracting them to do.

But also given that Director Burke has seen the demonstration, how do we know when they analyze it what they give us is what we want to see I guess.

And then the other thing about you know the comment about Spokane using it to help promote a levy.

Do you have where we looked at Spokane when they used it what kind of feedback do we get from them?

So that was a couple questions I'm going to ask my colleagues to answer.

So community engagement, do you want to speak to Spokane?

Hi Rachel Nakanishi, internal communications specialist.

So it was Highline that used this tool to pass a bond that had failed twice previously.

And I think they really wanted to increase trust with their community and also increase visibility about a lot of the concerns about why the bond had, the levy had failed.

And so I think what it really helped them see was the values that the community holds and it really promoted sort of interaction and engagement amongst community members rather than just the school district pushing out information.

So we wouldn't be using this tool specifically for that purpose but that was one demonstration that they shared with us, an example where they really saw increased trust.

Other questions, comments, concerns?

I'd like to address Director Pinkham's comments around data security.

So first of all there is going to be no FERPA related or private sensitive data in the system.

That said we do have in our contract that any data that is posted on the system is going to be owned by Seattle Public Schools and cannot be used by the vendor without our consent.

At this time I also want to address Director Burke's question from last meeting around the pricing and why it was different from San Juan's unified school district.

So the key difference between their contract and our contract is that they had a five-year term with a limited number of engagements.

Our contract is structured so that we have unlimited engagements over the three-year term that we have.

Additionally, we also have access to 100 professional licenses to their professional tool, which gives us some additional capability in terms of using the tool with a smaller group rather than always doing a full-out community engagement, for example, being able to use it with a smaller group, such as in community group meetings.

I want to say thank you to your team and I want to ratchet back and say thank you to the community engagement task force that started vetting these and I appreciate your tenacity in making this happen.

One of the things that is most exciting to me is that folks can use this on their cell phones.

And that opens up a very wide opportunity for engagement with folks that we have not had in the past.

And I don't believe in silver bullets.

I believe in well targeted initiatives and review of those initiatives and you put a hell of a team together and thank you for that.

Roll call please.

I apologize Betty I did not see you.

Director Patu.

Patu I also want to say thank you for another new two but I am an old-fashioned person I still believe that personal touch in terms of reaching out to our community and especially our underserved community parents that we really need to reach out to.

Thank you for the work.

Roll call please Ms. Shek.

Director Blanford.

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Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek.

Ms. Shek $2,494.66 annually or $2,411,983.90 over a three-year term of the contract.

I move that the school board authorize superintendent to execute the contract for ecology cleanscapes covering the period from August 1, 2017 to July 31, 2020 in the amount of $803,994.66 annually or $2,000,000 $411,983.90 over the three-year term of the contract for refuse disposal and mixed waste recycling collection in the form of the draft agreement dated August 1, 2017 and the attached to the school board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract.

Harris I second the motion.

Here from chair of ops please.

This item was heard by the ops committee on June the 15th and move forward for approval.

Comments questions concerns Ms. Shek roll call please.

Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Blanford aye Director Burke aye Director Peters This motion is passed unanimously.

Introduction item resolution 2016 17 dash 27 fixing and adopting the budget.

Approval of this item would adopt resolution 2016 17 dash 27 to fix and adopt the 2017 18 budget.

This matter was heard in A&F June 13 for consideration.

Ms. Sebring take it away.

Sebring budget director we have a short presentation for you tonight but I would be happy to answer questions as you go along.

I know typically in the past we've had a budget book at this time but due to the very late legislative session we are still working on the budget book and will have it to you as soon as we are able to get it done in the next few weeks.

So what we have for you here.

Is me hitting the button the wrong way?

Sorry.

I just want to go through this first slide is the high-level summary of the four funds that we asked the board to vote on.

The expenditure amount as I am sure you are familiar with in the past is the amount that we are discussing and that you will see on your resolution.

The beginning fund balance and revenue for each of the funds is to help demonstrate that we have the resources available to authorize the expenditures that we are requesting.

So we are showing the general fund budget at 857.7 million, the associate student body fund at 6.7 million, the debt service fund at 2.6 million, and the capital program at 258.5 million.

The only one with transfers out is the capital fund at 21.1 which is its reimbursements that it provides to the general fund when it uses services and staff on the general fund.

So the next couple slides are just some demonstrations of what's been happening with our enrollment.

Because of course our major driver of our revenue is our enrollment.

So the first slide here is the October headcount which is the highest count of students for the district in October.

We've been going up, we had a little hiccup there where our curve changed slightly but we are still increasing in student counts.

This other slide is a comparison of what we call the annual average full-time equivalency.

This is how we get funded for students.

So it's how much of a 1.0 is a student in our schools for the 10 months that are counted.

So the blue bars are what we have budgeted and planned on.

and the red ones are what is actually been happening to the district.

So we've gotten better, we've been overshooting enrollment a little bit at a districtwide level but we've gotten a lot closer in the 16-17 school year.

So we are happy about that, that the money is aligning a little better.

We know we still have some challenges with when kids are not at the schools we sometimes anticipate them at.

So next slide is general fund resources over time.

Some history for you, the 15-16 school years actual revenues, what the adopted budget for 16-17 look like, and what is being proposed for the 17-18 budget.

As assistant superintendent Berge said, we have some capacity we have built into the budget.

So, these numbers here that you are seeing, the state and other revenue sources, we made some guesstimates, some very educated guesstimates with a lot of discussions with the legislators as to what might come in for additional revenues.

We weren't correct on all phases so we will be making some slight changes between now and when we bring, actually ask you to vote on this on July 26. And we will give you a summary at that time of where some changes occurred in what our assumptions were with the legislature and what our guesses were here.

We still anticipate that we will remain within the expenditure amount on the previous slide which is what we are asking you to vote on.

If, for whatever reasons, as we go through the school year in 17-18, and determine that we won't stay within those bounds, we will come back and ask the board to do what's called a budget extension.

We don't foresee that at this time, but just wanted to let people know there's a lot of uncertainty that was thrown into the budget with the legislators.

So we've broken out on slide seven here, again, views of history where we've been.

Our 16-17 adopted budget, 17-18 recommended.

I'm going to show you a couple different views of the budget.

This is by state programs.

We've broken out into a little bit more details of some of the programs that we find people ask questions about.

So it shows where we have a $68 million increase that's occurring in the budget we're bringing forward.

And the majority of that increase is coming in through regular instruction.

And when we look at it from different perspectives you'll find the majority of the increase is coming in through compensation increases.

There is a cost of living adjustment through the legislature, we have contractual, we have a slight increase in staffing, and we have also a slight increase in medical coming through the legislature.

We are as big as we are and we have I think we ended last year with 10,500 employees, any changes usually drive the biggest cost there.

On this we anticipated a slight decrease in vocational education, that will be one of the areas as we discussed that the legislature gave us a very nice surprise of a little more money for vocational resources so that will turn that number positive.

After the tables on the different views of the budget we've also put together some donuts.

I'm evolving, my staff is teaching me to evolve from my pie charts to my donuts.

But this is just another visual of how to see how the budget spreads out across our different programs.

And the one that I know we've talked about before is regular instruction, which in the 16-17 budget was 48.8% of the budget, so it is moving up slightly to 49% of the total budget.

Another view that is very popular is the expenditures by state activity, showing our teaching, teaching support, principal's office, other student supports, the slide right after this has the donut view, and then after that there is definitions for folks.

So if you want to go two slides ahead, this is to help our public and everyone understand what is made up of teaching.

These are definitions and categories that the state sets, so when we are trying to be comparable with other districts, we look at how much is Seattle spending on our teaching support, central admin.

And I'll just go back briefly actually to this one.

Central admin is something I know we talk about a lot.

We are at about 6% which is between other districts we've looked at a 5 and 7%.

So we are about right in the middle of where administrative costs are for a lot of our peers looking at Portland, trying to equalize Boston, and looking at some of the other larger districts in the state.

Third view of looking at the budget, this is called by objects.

So this is where you see that the majority of our funding appropriately goes towards our certificated salaries, our classified salaries, employee benefits for both groups of staff, supplies, purchase services, and travel.

capital outlay, again these are categories the state has, the negative number you have there in supplies is caused by the reduction in textbooks.

That we had a significant budget in 16-17 for textbooks and currently we have pulled those funds back to help balance the 17-18 budget.

Just another visual of how things lay out.

The majority of our funds is people.

People are what makes the school district function.

The slide 14, and I can pause if anybody has questions.

I'm not seeing any.

Slide 14.

I'm not able to go back and crosscheck this because we are going through it quickly and I appreciate that.

Salaries make up 46.1% certificated salaries make up 46.1% and then when we roll back to the previous it's almost like 49% I want to say by activity group.

teaching.

Oh 62% okay.

So that 62% is that salaries and benefits?

So that's where the… Director Peters Correct.

Burke I mean just in terms of adding together course pieces of the pie, employee benefits it's 21% here.

Director Peters Correct.

And all of our certificated staff are not in the teaching category.

So again it's multi-dimensional views of looking at how we are planning to spend our resources for next year.

So slide 14 is another view that we added in last year in the budget book, and people seem to continue to have an interest in it.

So we go through and we add up all of the costs that our staff and resources that are directly in the schools, which is more than just the school funding formula, it's our nurses, our custodians, our food services, and take out all the people that provide the support for them that may be in this building for their professional development, their supervision.

and find out where the dollars lay.

So we are still looking at over 80% in direct services compared to about a little under 20% for support services and last year it was exactly 80-20.

So it is 80.4 in the schools now and 19.6 support services.

Slide 15 is a legal requirement for the district.

This is our maintenance supplies and operating costs.

So the state has a formula where they give us funding based on the implicit price deflator and where they've put in the prototypical school model how much they're going to provide us per student for these different services.

Technology, utilities, insurance etc.

What's interesting I find very much about this comparison is looking at you know we do a really nice job on our utility costs are lower than the state average, our insurance costs are lower.

Our technology costs are lower, but some of our other costs are higher.

And this is the first year in, I think it's the two years we've been asked to do this report by the legislature, all school districts have to do this, where we have to put a little caveat on the bottom.

From the state's perspective, we are getting more money in maintenance supplies and operating costs than we are spending on maintenance supplies and operating costs.

And again I hate to go back to it but our main cause here is that we've had to eliminate textbooks to help balance the budget and that's the big difference you'll see of curriculum and textbooks was 7.6 million of funding, 0.7 of district expense at this time.

That number may change as you go forward with further analysis of the budget.

Director Peters, please go ahead.

Yes.

Well, thank you for this presentation.

I have a question on the item you just mentioned.

So are you saying that the state provides $7.6 million in funding specifically for curriculum and textbooks?

And as a district, we only spend 0.7 of that for this year or next year?

So the state is allocating us 7.6 million under that category.

They allocate us funds under a lot of different categories.

It is not restricted to that particular area.

That is just a way they do an allocation through the prototypical school model.

Director Harris Well then what does it mean?

What is the significance of it being called out as curriculum and textbook on this slide?

Well the significance is again it is a funding formula from the state and it is for curriculums and consumables that the students use as well.

It is part of the prototypical school model.

So there are different factors that are part of the prototypical school model.

The major one is the different staffing factors.

So class size, number of nurses, principals per their school sizes, and then there is the non-staff resources they provide us.

These are the non-staff resources they provide us.

But as we have discussed before, they are still working through the issues of fully funding staff costs.

So even though they are allocating the funds and they are saying that we are funding these types of resources, we still have that challenge of they are not fully funding the prototypical school model, so we need to make difficult choices as to where our resources go.

I'd like to delve into that a little bit more at a later time with you.

Director Blanford.

Director Blanford So to the point that was just made, I think what you're telling us is that though the state has made an allocation of 7.6 million dollars that are I don't want to say designated because that implies that we have to use it for that purpose.

Allocated.

We have the flexibility to use those dollars for other purposes.

It's just a blanket amount of money that is given to us without restriction and then we can allocate based on our own discretion?

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Superintendent Nyland please.

There is an awful lot of complexities in the budget.

I would just remind us that we pay 33% of all of our salaries.

$100 million we pay.

So the legislature does blame us partly for this is that we gave you money for MSOX and you spent it on salaries.

To some extent we did.

We owe our employees a decent competitive wage that the state is not funding.

So the bottom line, and that's what it is.

It's an allocation, and another quick correlation you can see is the minimal amount of nursing that the state allocates in the prototypical school model right now, and that's insufficient for the school.

So that's, we have to find other sources, and you guys make the choices as we go through.

So we have to say at the bottom of this, and then I'll just move on, as to what do we do with the money?

Well we used it to help balance the budget and to protect our other programs that we considered critical to our students and provided resources back into the buildings.

So next steps.

We have two weeks from when after the governor signs the budget to get our, what's called our F-195, which is the actual form we send into the state, filed and loaded and filed.

Well, OSPI has not released it.

They need a little time, too.

So by July 17th, we have to have these thousands of items in our, to make up our budget, all summarized and loaded up to the state so that they can start doing some error checking, which they do for all school districts.

July 19 is our public hearing.

We've put notices, I think our first notice already went in the newspaper, there will be another one going next week.

The public hearing for those interested will be at the John Stanford Center, I believe it's at 430?

530. Thank you.

530 on July 19. And then July 26 we will ask the board to vote on the budget and as I mentioned we will be bringing back a summary to the board prior to that as to changes we may need to make in the budget like the learning assistance program is getting more resources and we will need to make that change in order for it to pass all the edits with the state.

and then in August we load the budget into our financial system so everybody can start putting expenditures against it for next school year and September 5 it is approved by the approved budget goes to the ESD.

So you have a couple of appendices, both online, and I think you have a hard copy, one is what people are very interested in, which is a districtwide staffing FTE, a comparison between our adopted 15-16, 16-17, 17-18, and we also have a link on the webpage of the school allocations for people who are very interested in what is going on with the schools.

Superintendent Island.

I want to thank our fiscal staff.

This has been, I don't know what a polite term would be for this year, but it has been a challenging year.

Umpteen budgets on our end, many many work sessions with the board, thank you.

And they have been providing support to the legislature trying to figure out what the different scenarios might mean.

And, in case you missed it earlier, came within $200,000 of guesstimating what we would get in terms of funding from the legislature that would be available for our restoration.

So thank you very much for the work and I would add another interesting timeline begins ticking on the day that the governor signs the budget.

And that the state then has 30 days in which to respond to the Supreme Court to explain to them how they have developed a plan for a sustainable, fully funded, basic education system that meets the McCleary requirements.

And then the news lawsuit will have 30 days to respond to that and then the Supreme Court will take it under advisement and who knows how long they will take.

That's right.

Well true.

It will be very interesting to know whether they've already anticipated this and they already have a decision waiting.

Last year they acted on October 6 I believe.

Or whether they will give it due consideration because of the gravity of the situation.

I think they have acted as late as January of the following year.

So again thank you to our staff for great work this year.

Director Blanford.

Director Blanford I saw an email from counsel Treat I believe that said that we, that news has already responded and said that it was insufficient.

We are not surprised by that are we?

We are not surprised by the fact that the funds that have been allocated are judged insufficient by news?

Oh we are leaving the pack.

That's good to know.

Thank you.

I want a round of applause for you all.

Thank you so much.

Director Burke before we adjourn.

Burke just to clarify, thanks for the brilliant presentation.

It's super clean, super easy to follow even at this late hour.

So my question, does this or does this not include restoration 4.0 whatever x.0 we are looking at we just talked about earlier today?

so it doesn't include the details of it, but back to the very beginning what we are asking the board to vote on is the initial expenditure amount.

So it will it will fit in with this 857.7 million.

As the superintendent mentioned, we anticipated where additional funds might come in.

Categories are off a little bit here and there, but it will fit in with that expenditure, which is what we are asking you to vote on.

We will be coming back with a little sheet of changes we are going to be making to the finer details.

So, said differently, the activity breakouts, the object breakouts, the program breakouts, are going to shift a little bit.

Not a major amount but they are going to shift a little bit between the percentages.

Burke I guess to clarify we were looking at whatever 7 million of restoration funds that is included in this expenditures amount already, but if it were not included then our net operating activities would not be as negative.

we would be in a better position in terms of a higher existing fund balance at end of year.

Per the budget.

Bergen That's right.

I mean there is always capacity that is built into a budget.

You don't budget down to the dollar, that wouldn't be very smart of us.

So there was a little bit of budget room that we built in, not knowing exactly what would be approved, but enough that we had capacity to actually spend money and didn't have to come back around just for that purpose.

Director Patu.

Director Patu Actually I just wanted to follow up on what Director DeLeon had said earlier about how she would like to actually look at programs and evaluate programs that have been around for a long time whether they are good or bad.

I think that is a great idea.

I think we keep programs for so long that we don't know whether they are working or not and that is one way of saving money.

so I am with you.

Director Harris.

Okay it is 928 this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you very much.

Director Peters safe travels home.