SPEAKER_09
Good morning.
Good morning.
We will be starting in just about two minutes.
Two minutes before we begin our session this morning, I want to make sure that our SPS TV crew is ready to go.
We are carrying this session live on YouTube.
Be back in just about two minutes and we'll be ready to start.
Thank you.
I hear you in the back, good morning.
All right, happy Saturday and welcome to Chief Sealth High School.
I hope that you are doing incredibly well.
I am Bev Redmond, your Chief of Staff serving Seattle Public Schools.
Thank you for giving us a part of your weekend to discuss a very, very important topic.
Before we begin, I want to make sure that we have all of our family here, our community served in terms of language needs.
Our interpretation team, would you please come to the front?
You're here?
Oh, wonderful, thank you.
Each will make a special announcement for anyone needing language services at this time.
SPEAKER_02
Hola, buenos dias.
Gracias por acompañarnos.
Mi nombre es Lorena y voy a estarles ayudando en la interpretación de español.
Si necesitan ayuda, podemos tomar los audiculares en la parte de atrás.
Gracias.
SPEAKER_03
Hello everyone.
I am Leni, the interpreter for today's meeting.
If you need an interpreter, please come to the table behind me to receive support in Vietnamese.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01
Assalamu alaikum.
SPEAKER_00
Hello everyone, I am Michael.
If you want to listen to authentic Cantonese, please go to the back and get an earphone, sit down, and you can immediately translate.
SPEAKER_09
Thank you.
Would you please give a round of applause for our interpretation team?
I would like any of our staff members today who are helping to make this event possible, if you would stand or just wave your hand.
It took a lot of moments to get this together for you, and we appreciate them sacrificing their time to help us make this possible.
Again, my name is Bev Redmond, Chief of Staff for Seattle Public Schools.
It is my honor to stand in this space.
And as we begin any of our events, I would like to offer a land acknowledgement.
We would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and the traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.
This afternoon or this morning, we are here to discuss something very close and near to your hearts, our schools.
This is an important conversation, an important set of information that we want to share with you about making Seattle Public Schools stronger for years to come.
Want to go over what we will experience today in this space.
Through our agenda, we're in the opening remarks phase, of course.
Then we will hear from our superintendent, Dr. Brent Jones.
He will speak for approximately 20 minutes, and then we are going to go into conversation on sharing ideas and questions.
Would our table captains please raise your hand?
If you are not at a space, when we get to that portion of the conversation, if you're not at a table with a table captain, it's okay to move so that we can have that conversation with you together.
And then we will have a question and answer session with Dr. Jones and our senior leadership team.
We have a pretty full morning.
We will take the entire time and we will make sure that we get to as many of your questions as possible.
Any questions that we cannot answer just because of time, we will make sure that we have those collected and we will add those again to our FAQ.
It's now's time to start.
I am going to turn the microphone over to our superintendent, Dr. Brent Jones.
SPEAKER_06
Thank you, Bev, and thank you all for being here today.
This is a really important conversation we're having.
And we've had, this is the number three of four sessions that we're gonna have to really share some information, share some context and then get into some questions and answers as Bev mentioned.
And so hopefully we're gonna be in a space where we can convey the why of what we're doing and then we can hear from you all as to just what are some of your concerns and what are you thinking about?
And this is a multi-step process of getting from a place of what I would call instability to stability.
And so again, thank you for your time on this Saturday morning and we'll get started.
So I have about, 20 slides, but I will be here for about 20 minutes.
So one thing I just want to say is we are in a state of instability financially.
And we've had a structural deficit for many years.
But we've been able to kind of mask that a little bit with one-time funds, one-time federal funds, one-time state funds.
But those funds have run out.
And so over the last couple of years, we've been working to really bring balanced budgets forward.
And at the same time, we're working on how do we reduce a structural deficit?
And the structural deficit is one that your expenditures are more than your revenue.
And so we are experiencing inflation, rising cost of living.
We're experiencing our budgets not being fully funded.
We're experiencing a reduction in school age population in the city and simply enrollment decline.
We're not the only state that's experiencing this.
It's all across the nation.
Our sistering neighborhood districts are also experiencing this as well.
And so we're trying to do our best to bring stability forward.
So generally we had a this slide is this essentially we had $131 million deficit for 2324 we went before the board the board gave me direction to come up with strategies to reduce that.
To address that deficit we got we submitted a balanced budget.
During this process, we started to ask community, what is important to you?
What would a well-resourced school look like?
And so as we were looking at the budget crisis, if you will, we said, let's lean into that and say, how do we want to spend our funds?
How do we want to spend our resources?
What is the community saying the priorities are?
And so we talked to We talked about 4,000 people had about 10,000 responses and they gave us some insight into what would a well-resourced school look like.
And so as we get to this year, we have $105 million challenge before us.
And so the board gave me and us direction again, come up with some strategies to balance the $105 million budget deficit that we've had.
And so we'll be giving the board our plan in June to balance the 24-25 budget.
And so in the state of Washington, you cannot submit a budget that's unbalanced.
So we have to balance budgets every year.
And we had to do a lot of things to really get into a balanced budget, but I think we were wise in how we did that.
And now we're faced with the challenge of how do we bring stability forward for the subsequent years?
With that being said, we're at a decision point.
And the decision point is we can maintain the current system of schools, continue with 105 schools, 29 schools under 300 students, and we would have to continue to reduce school staffing, to increase elementary and secondary school class sizes, reduce or eliminate preschools, reduce or eliminate athletic and afterschool programs, have additional reductions to central office, which is we're in our fourth year of central office reductions.
Curriculum adoptions, operations staff, all these will be faced with reductions.
And another thing that we'd have to consider is renegotiating contracts.
So if you look at the other side of that decision point, we can look at a transition to a system of well-resourced schools.
which would facilitate expansion of elementary strategies across our district, which would provide us, excuse me, an equitable and consistent mix of services across all of our schools.
We would have consistent, stable, and comprehensive school staffing.
So many of our schools experienced the annual October shuffle where we have to disrupt the school system smooth operations of our schools because we have to shift staffing because of, excuse me, enrollment.
Stable and balanced budget districts, budget for our districts and schools.
It would be nice to have our schools have some predictability and consistency about their budgets every year.
We think we can do this if we think about how do we consolidate our schools into the right sizes.
Next slide, please.
So a system of well-resourced schools is essentially about stability and sustainability.
It's not about creating extra resources, it's about using our resources wisely that we have right now.
And so as we look at this concept of school consolidations, It's in the context of a bigger set of circumstances that we need to make sure that we're looking at when we're talking about stability and sustainability.
We need to look at governance and what are we doing from a policy perspective.
We need to look at funding.
How do we look at our funding fiscal situation from a multi-year perspective?
We need to make sure that our levy passes.
We need to make sure that we have a strong legislative push to make sure we're fully funding education.
We need to make sure that when we're talking to our philanthropic partners, they can help us fund the innovation and sustain the innovation that we've had in all of our elementary schools.
We need to make sure that we have, as I talked about, predictable school allocations so that we're not disrupting school business every year, every October.
Our community told us that they want to have music, PE, and art at every elementary school.
So I think this is a way that we might be able to do that.
As we look at programs, we are required and we're honored to do it, but to have enduring programs around special education and inclusion, our English language learners, they need to experience strong programs.
Our highly capable programs, we want to make sure that students can have access to that on a regular and routine basis.
And mental health is something that we're really working hard to make sure that we sustain services for our students.
And then of course, consolidations is part of a bigger picture, but we also need to be looking at transportation, efficiency, safety is an issue that we have to manage this year and previous years, but it's something that's prevalent right now.
And then artificial intelligence, that's something else that we need to be looking at.
And so when we look at the concept of sustainability, we're looking at a whole lot of different factors when we do that.
So our current situation, SPS has about 48,000 students.
105 school buildings and 73 of those buildings serve our preschool through fifth grade students.
29 of our schools, as I mentioned earlier, serve less than 300 students.
Our proposed plan will consolidate schools serving K through five students and 25, 26. So this is a...
Oh, wow.
This is an area what I want to focus on.
These are guiding principles.
This is what we're using to think about a system of well-resourced schools.
How do we achieve inclusive learning?
How do we achieve special education and inclusionary practices?
Looking at our multilingual learners, how do we provide enduring programmatic services for them?
How do we expand access to advanced learning?
looking at strengthening and stabilizing our neighborhood schools.
Next slide, please.
Building condition and learning environment, aligning to programmatic aligning to projected enrollment, looking at building capacity, service area capacity, equitable systems, equitable regional distribution.
And so these are the criteria that we're using as we go forward in building this model for a system of well-resourced schools.
Thank you, Marty.
So Policy 2200 is really a policy that's driving our operational effort as we develop this plan, along with the guiding principles.
How are we supporting district-wide academic goals?
Looking at placing programs equitably across the districts, across the district where students reside.
One thing that we are wedded to at Seattle Public Schools is equity, and one of the basic tenets of equity is making sure our students have access to programs and services.
We want to make sure we're using our physical space resources effectively to assure that instructional and program spaces are equally met.
And lastly, we want to ensure that our fiscal resources are taken into consideration.
And that's what prompted this in the first place.
Next slide, please.
So a system of well-resourced schools is a new model that will have fewer buildings that serve pre-K to 5th grade students.
Each building capacity will be better aligned with enrollment.
Schools will have more students, but they will not be overcrowded.
And as we think about moving to a system of well-resourced schools, our schools will be slightly larger, but they won't be giant schools.
These will be mid-sized schools, in fact.
And I'll show you a slide coming up that shows how we would achieve that.
So our schools will not, schools not in use, they will be secured and we will repurpose them until we need them again.
So we're gonna inventory our schools.
We're not gonna get rid of our schools.
We're not gonna sell off our schools.
We are gonna keep those in inventory.
Next slide, please.
So this is what the, we have 4,000 people, as I mentioned, give us about 10,000 responses and told us what they'd like to see in a well-resourced school.
Multiple teachers per grade level.
stable support staff, inclusive learning for every student, social and emotional learning support, art, music, and PE teachers, stable operational budgets from year to year, safe, healthy, and beautiful school grounds, and connections to the community.
So this is the essence of what we're trying to achieve when we start talking about what would a well-resourced school look like.
And some of our schools probably could be considered to be well-resourced, but they're not well-resourced with stable funding.
They might be well-resourced with the generosity of some of our communities that have come forward to plug some of the gaps in staffing.
But we want to make sure that all of our schools have consistent, predictable funding, consistent and predictable staffing as we move forward.
So this is what a well-resourced school looks like.
Next slide, please.
So as we look at this slide really is indicative of four different current elementary schools in Seattle.
And so from the left to the right, you have a school of 515 students, 468 students, 230 students, and 165 students.
And what's interesting about this, or not interesting, is if you look from the left to the right, you'll see that the staffing for a school that's larger gives us the ability to have consistency of staffing.
So if you look at from the top to the bottom, multiple teachers per grade level That's really important for teachers to be able to collaborate, for them to be able to have grade level interventions, for them to be able to think about strategies together per grade level.
Stable staffing support.
Many of our larger schools, if you will, have an AP and office staff.
The schools that are smaller may have .5 office staff and no AP.
If you look at inclusive learning, which is really important, we can have special education intensive service classrooms for those students who need and deserve that type of support.
And social-emotional learning, some of our schools don't have full-time counselors or social workers.
And so as we look at this model going from left to right, I think the allocation that we get from the state is around 400 students.
That's the prototypical model.
And so we're looking at, as we think about consolidation, how do we get to a size of around 400 students?
Next slide, please.
So the bigger picture is we have approximately 23,000 pre-K through five students in our buildings.
They're currently served in more than 70 sites.
And our site utilization is about 65%.
If we transition to a system of well-resourced schools for 25, 26, we'd be looking at accommodating those students, K-5 students in approximately 50 sites, evenly distributed throughout our regions.
And this projected site utilization would be about 85%.
So the math is pretty clear on what this looks like.
And we're trying to really maximize our resources so our students get the services and programs they deserve.
So why consolidation?
Too many scholars that serve our youngest, too many schools that serve our youngest scholars are under enrolled.
Empty seats can lead to fewer staffing resources, more staffing adjustments, inequitable offerings across our district.
If we maintain the status quo, as I mentioned before, this could mean having more students per teacher, reducing core school staff, and scaling back preschool offerings, just to say a few of those.
So we're in the process, we're in the planning timeline here to really bring forward a plan to the board.
Our board has tasked me and us to come up with a plan.
And we're in that phase right now where we're coming up with a plan.
We have several scenarios that we're working on.
We're honing in on what that package is gonna look like.
We're doing that right now.
In May, got approval from the board and direction from the board to proceed with this concept of school consolidation.
Now we're having the community meetings right now to share information with you all around that status.
When we get to June, we're in June now, I guess it's June 1st, we're going to present the plan to the board to say, here's what our response is to the directive that you've given us.
In June through November, assuming the board approves a plan, there'll be opportunities for public review.
We'll have site hearings.
And then in November, that's the point where the board will make a decision that we're gonna go forward with a plan.
So bottom line is, and I think you all agree, every student deserves a well-resourced school.
And as I shared with the other sessions, I get the complexity and the change and the difficulty for change.
I even shared that as a student, I had to change schools four times and it was very disruptive.
However, I count on my teachers.
My teachers, even back a few years ago when I was a student, We developed community.
We developed the things that we needed to do to come together.
Our principles held us together.
I was even a student during desegregation, and I got bused from the south end to the north end.
That was completely disruptive to a lot of the adults.
But us as students, we figured it out.
And so I think these changes can be enduring.
I think these changes can be good for us ultimately.
I know it's gonna be difficult at the beginning, at the outset, but at the end, I think we're gonna have a system a system of well-resourced schools.
And so I'm inviting you all to kind of come along on this journey with us.
You know that this wouldn't be my first choice to decide to look at consolidating schools.
If there was a better, more enduring, comprehensive way, we would have already put that on the table.
Maybe some of you have some brilliant ideas on how we can have a broad-based coalition of folks coming up with a plan that's enduring, but right now we haven't seen it.
So my board has given me the unenviable task, the honorable task, however, of coming up with a plan to develop a system of well-resourced schools.
I wanna just thank you for your time today.
We're gonna move into some question and answers.
So if you all have questions that you've written down, you have burning questions that have come to your mind right now, we're ready to try to respond to those.
And when those we don't have answers to, that'll help populate our FAQs and we'll get back to you with answers later.
So again, thank you all for being here and thank you for being invested in what we're trying to do.
SPEAKER_07
One two, all right.
Good morning, everyone.
We're gonna transition and take just a moment to do two things.
We want to react to what we've just heard, and then we want to surface any questions that you may have that we have not been able to answer as of yet.
So we're going to have our table captains lightly facilitate a quick discussion for about roughly 15 minutes.
This is an opportunity for you to, again, react to what you've just heard and to surface any questions that you may have that you need us to answer for you.
And so we'll take a few minutes.
There are cards on your table.
If you need more cards along the way, let us know.
Preferably you'll write one question per card.
We will have some people kind of roving around, if you will, to collect those cards.
And then we're going to batch those and answer some of the frequently asked questions, as many of those as we can after this time period, okay?
So we'll move into that.
And then after about 15 minutes, we'll come together and a panel will answer some of the questions that we've brought forward.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_99
you
SPEAKER_07
So as you are hard at work with your questions and comments, I do want to point out that we have some light snacks, some light refreshments behind the stairs here, if you're interested.
SPEAKER_99
Thank you.
Thank you.
you Thank you.
SPEAKER_07
We have about one more minute, one more minute, and then we'll be transitioning into the question and answer panel.
So if you could write your final questions down, I'll come around and collect those from you.
I greatly appreciate it.
Okay.
Rich conversations happening and we greatly appreciate that we are going to transition over to the question and answer panel.
If you have any final questions that you've written down will come around and pick those up.
but I'd like to direct your attention to the front where we'll have a question and answer panel.
Also a reminder that we have some snacks and water right here.
That's important, right?
I'll take that.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_09
If our panelists would please come to the front so that we can begin the question and answer session.
Dr. Bottleman.
SPEAKER_11
Dr. Bottleman.
All right, thank you all so very much for being here today, for bringing your voice.
It's really critical.
I'm Marnie Campbell, Executive Director of Operations for Seattle Public Schools, and we will have everyone on this panel introduce themselves and what they do in the school district.
SPEAKER_07
James Mercer, Regional Executive Director of Schools for the Central Region.
SPEAKER_04
I'm Kurt Buttleman, the Assistant Superintendent for Finance and proud parent of two Seattle Public School graduates, Whittier Wildcats and Ballard Beavers.
SPEAKER_05
Brent Jones, Superintendent.
Good morning, everyone.
Fred Podesta, Seattle Public Schools Chief Operations Officer.
SPEAKER_11
so thank you for bringing your questions here this morning our goal is to make sure that your voices are heard we will read questions and we've sorted them there are many many duplicates we want to make sure that we get to as many a variety of questions as possible we also want to make sure that we are hearing from all of you so we will stick to reading these questions and responding to them until 11 or sorry until 11 55. We have also sorted questions that pertain to the district as a whole.
Many of you asked questions about your specific school, which we will follow up with as well.
But since this is a large group representing a large group from our school district, we will focus on those questions that deal with our school system.
And especially since we're talking about creating a system of well-resourced schools.
We will be documenting and typing up every single question that we get so that we have that information and data as we move forward.
So the first question might be a good one for Dr. Jones, but it's for all of us to really deeply consider.
Change is hard.
Our children deserve better services and more stable services at every school.
Please make a plan to build something better.
SPEAKER_06
Yes, agreed.
And that's the intent of this effort.
You'll hear me be a broken record talking about stability, sustainability, consistency.
And one of the things I didn't mention at the outset is this is about the student's experience.
And we want to make sure that we're centering the students in every decision that we're making.
And so that's a change for us.
Our new governance model has our board focused on student outcomes.
Before we were focused on just activities, policies that may or may not be focusing on students.
Sometimes it were things that were convenient.
Now we're really calibrated to focus on outcomes for students.
And so as we think about this transition, as we think about these changes, we're putting the students' experience first and foremost in how we're making decisions.
So that was a statement that somebody sent forward, and we're in 100% agreement.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you, the next question will we get any transparency into what other options have been considered outside of closing or consolidating schools.
SPEAKER_06
Yes, and so I'm not trying to be flippant when I say this, but we have looked at other options and we have not come up with another comprehensive option.
If there was one, believe me I have, A very brilliant set of thinkers around me people in the Community have great ideas, yet nothing has come forward that would suggest, this is an alternative to doing the reductions that we're talking about and so.
Again, I mentioned that this isn't the number one thing that I would want to do in terms of going forward, yet there hasn't been a plan or an alternative that has emerged for us to go forward.
So we believe in this in terms of it will get us to stability, but it won't get us to the outcomes that we want.
So we still need support, we still need funding, we still need resources, but right now this is frankly our best thinking in order to respond to the current situation.
SPEAKER_11
Anybody else want to add to that?
SPEAKER_04
I can add to that.
I think part of the question was details on potential options.
So on the website, there's a frequently asked questions page.
And on one of those is sort of the left side of that decision point slide that Dr. Jones was showing.
And some more detail around what different things might save for the district in terms of cost savings categorized by, these may save more than $5 million.
These may save between one and five million.
Less than a million dollars so there's some more detail out there on the website around some of the details of some of the things that.
sort of where the left side of that decision point around class sizes and other options.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you, and there was a related question that I'll read.
Will the district show what savings per year will come with all these changes, along with detailed analysis used to calculate the savings?
Is it through fewer staffing?
So there's a couple of questions.
Will we show that detailed savings, detailed analysis, or is it just through staffing reduction?
SPEAKER_04
So this question has come up a lot already.
So part of the answer is when there's a formal proposal from Dr. Jones to the board, we'll have details on those specific sites.
In response to this question that's come up the last few days, we added some information on the website last night around sort of what a typical school cost looks like and what the savings might be for those.
so about two-thirds of the savings of a school so closing a typical school would cost save about a million five hundred thousand dollars in the operations of that school that are unique to that site and about two-thirds of that is sort of the operations of the school maintenance culinary services utilities i.t grounds CUSTODIAL, THOSE TYPES OF THINGS, ABOUT TWO-THIRDS OF THAT WOULD BE SAVED.
EVEN PLANNING FOR SOME OF THE ONGOING MAINTENANCE FOR A CLOSED BUILDING AND SOME OF THE UTILITY COSTS OF MAINTAINING THAT BUILDING SHOULDN'T BE NEEDED TO USE IN PASS.
SO NETTING THOSE OUT, ABOUT TWO-THIRDS OF THE SAVINGS WOULD BE FROM THOSE TYPES OF THINGS.
ABOUT 25% WOULD BE FOR THE OPERATIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE.
SO THE PRINCIPAL'S JOBS, THE OFFICE SUPPORT JOBS, THOSE JOBS And staff jobs would be saved in closing the school.
And then teaching support.
So some of the things that go along with operations for the school and the classroom supports for that individual site.
They wouldn't need to be duplicated at a larger site with the consolidation of schools.
So there's more detail on that on the website now.
And going forward, once there's more detail on specific sites that are being discussed, they'll have more and more detail on that as well if that's needed.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you any further on that.
What is going to happen with the schools that are closing down and what are the conditions of the closing schools.
SPEAKER_05
So maybe i'll take the second question first the building condition is one of the guiding principles that Dr Jones described so.
You know, buildings that are are too small to ever support all the services we want to offer in a building or their condition.
You know the.
BUILDING CONDITION IS NOT GOOD OR THE BUILDING DESIGN DOES NOT CONFORM TO THE BEST EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT, THAT'S PART OF THE FACTORS THAT WE'RE THINKING ABOUT IN WHICH BUILDINGS WOULD BE CLOSED.
IF A SITE IS CLOSED, AS DR. JONES MENTIONED, THERE WILL REALLY BE A SHORT-TERM PLAN AND A LONG-TERM PLAN.
SHORT-TERM PLAN WILL KEEP ALL OUR BUILDINGS IN INVENTORY SO WE CAN MAKE SURE WE UNDERSTAND IN THE DISTRICT'S INVENTORY SO WE MAKE SURE you know, over our long term, if we need any of these sites, which buildings or sites we may repurpose later to be back in school.
In that period, there would be an interim use identified.
We will maintain all the buildings, we'll maintain all the grounds.
We understand Our buildings, the grounds around our building are recreational sites for the city.
Those green spaces are important.
We have a great partnership with the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department who helps us make those play fields available to neighborhoods in the community.
That is completely oversubscribed.
There's more demand for our fields than we can accommodate now.
So we'll continue to, you know, and there'll probably be more availability if we're not operating a school there.
But we'll assess each site and see, you know, long-term, do we need to keep it in our inventory?
What kinds of programs could exist at the building?
Could it be auxiliary community centers?
Could it be perhaps opportunities for childcare and other types of programs?
But we will work with the community in each, you know, surrounding each school.
So what's the highest and best use for this property?
And as enrollment, we're still a growing community.
You know, over some long period of time, enrollment will increase.
bounce back and so we'll study the carrying cost of those buildings and which would be, if we need to bring more schools online at some point, what is the timing for that and when would that occur?
As Dr. Jones pointed out, even with 20 school consolidations at them elementary level, we'll still be only using 85% of the capacity of our buildings.
So we can accommodate a lot of growth if we right size to about 50 schools.
SPEAKER_06
Another point is I've had the fortune to talk to Mayor Harrell about us partnering to make sure that we're standing up these buildings as community assets.
And so he's been forthright in trying to reach out and make sure that when we get to this point, if we get to this point, that we have this collaboration with the city.
So that's an important feature as we go forward.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you next question is how to option schools factor in so in our considerations in our modeling.
you've seen on the slides we've talked about all schools serving students K through five so that means we're considering all schools as part of how we are modeling out potential.
shifts closures and consolidations to create a really a system of well resourced school, so they are part of the considerations.
So we're gonna, thank you so much, appreciate it.
We're gonna stick, so I will add the question is, is that a good consideration or a bad consideration?
It is a consideration.
So they are on the table.
Does the school board have the opportunity to amend the presented plan and when can that happen within the timeline?
SPEAKER_06
I'LL TAKE THAT ON.
SO THE SCHOOL BOARD ABSOLUTELY HAS THE AUTHORITY TO AMEND THE PLAN.
THEY CAN REJECT THE PLAN.
THEY CAN SAY GO BACK AND DO MORE WORK.
BUT THEY'RE GOING TO BE KEEN ON THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES THAT I SHARED WITH YOU.
AND SO IF THE PLAN THAT WE ULTIMATELY BRING TO THE BOARD IS NOT ADEQUATE FROM THEIR PERSPECTIVE, THEY CAN SEND IT BACK AND SAY DO MORE WORK.
yes, the board has full authority to make adjustments on that plan.
SPEAKER_11
Will each student receive a 1.0 counselor, a 1.0 librarian, and nurses?
SPEAKER_04
This each student know potentially in the future, the school can each have that it depends on the size part of the consideration here is.
For those who are somewhat policy walks of this yellow pick schools there's the weighted staffing standards model which drives.
The staffing in the schools, the way the funding is allocated to the schools.
There's a group of principals and teachers who've been meeting this spring to revisit what that might look like going forward with a different system of schools.
And so as that group is prioritizing its work, that would sort of be...
coming out of their work as to how the new staffing would look in this smaller system of smaller number of schools.
And so I don't think there's in the current system with the new, if the current weighted staffing standards model were in place, there would be some schools with a full-time counselor and the other nurse, but not all schools.
And so I think it's a function of that group's work as to how that sort of manifests in the future.
SPEAKER_06
Yeah, and part of this entire effort is to bring the stability to staffing.
We want to make sure that the right adults with the right professionals are in front of our students.
Again, I talked about the student experience.
We want to make sure we have the right mix that's predictable and consistent as we go forward.
So this whole plan is predicated on making sure that we have adequate support for our students.
And so that's our goal, and we're going to try to maximize the resources as much as possible.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you.
The next question, what does inclusive learning look like?
And I'm going to take a moment.
This is something as a long time middle and high school principal, director of schools, and also director of special education in Seattle Public Schools.
Inclusion, that is creating humanizing spaces where all students are general education students first and foremost, is absolutely essential to our mission and vision.
The way we make that happen is by having strong professional collaboration Alignment in terms of what we're teaching and so some of the things we've talked about having multiple teachers per grade level actually facilitates that inclusion, so you can have both supports and extensions for every single student in every single classroom.
Because you've worked with your third grade colleagues you've looked at the math lessons you've developed those those extra.
opportunities to extend learning and support learning together and that's what inclusive learning looks like it looks like having.
people who are strongly aligned, people who are working together, and being able to have all of our students learning together with the supports they need, but also the opportunities to grow.
Dr. Mercer, did you want to speak to that?
After school closures, will the budget be rebalanced?
If not, what is the next plan?
SPEAKER_06
So after school closures, school consolidations, trying to create this system of well-resourced schools, no, the budget will not be balanced.
However, we will be in a stronger position.
We'll be...
We'll have to rely on the legislature.
We'll have to rely on our more cuts, I'm sure at some point, but the bottom line is we need to do this for longer term stability.
So we'll get the balanced budget for 24, 25. We'll get that submitted.
But as we go forward, we need to make sure that we're again, using our resources wisely.
We'll probably have about a $40 million gap still as we go into 25, 26, but that's our intent to really have this be part of a set of actions and activities, but we're gonna need that gap to be closed through our work with the legislature.
SPEAKER_11
Why are we building a new school, Alki, when we are closing schools?
SPEAKER_05
We need to consider building conditions.
Buildings get older.
The buildings we designed decades ago aren't large enough to accommodate a well-resourced school.
So in considering school size, school environment, and building condition, Seattle Public Schools will still be, if we pursue this proposal, still be operating 50 elementary schools.
There will always need to be maintenance, buildings will need to be replaced, but we need to have the capacity so each school has the learning environment that can offer this comprehensive services in each neighborhood.
And so we will still be constructing some new buildings.
SPEAKER_11
Do you anticipate consolidating middle and high schools in coming years as our K through fifth graders move through middle and high school?
SPEAKER_06
So this would be enough right now.
So I can conceivably see that years out, but not in the short term.
So I can say emphatically, not in the near term.
That may be something that's required, but for the time being, this would be enough for us to do right now.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you, and I think we've also discussed the fact that our suite of elementary schools doesn't balance our middle and high schools.
So what we're really doing is right-sizing the elementary component of our district.
Right now our middle and high schools potentially lose a little bit of funding because we are running so many smaller elementaries.
How will you address the loss of funding due to families unenrolling to private or charter elementaries that are smaller?
And I will just say that in our studies and in our research, that there typically is a smaller number of folks that as other districts have closed schools have seen that effect.
But we have calculated and factored that into all of our planning in order to be responsible as we've been modeling.
I don't know if somebody else wants to talk to them.
In the past, families were told that teaching students in their home language would hurt their children's learning.
Now we know that multilingualism is an asset, and cheers to that.
It is truly an asset to be someone who is multilingual.
Intellectually, cognitively, to be able to learn a content in two different languages, there's measurable neurological effects on the brain.
How will Seattle Public Schools continue to support dual language instruction programming?
This is an equity and trauma healing issue.
Absolutely.
So we are aware of and in support of the positive impact of students who come to us with that superpower of having two and sometimes even three languages, being able to learn those languages.
So we will continue to have dual language programming throughout our district.
We are looking, and I saw there was another question about the racial equity analysis tool.
We are looking at those spaces where dual language is not accessible to our heritage speakers, to our students who actually speak another language.
So we are looking at as we design our new system, making sure that we are providing services and supports in those spaces that students have access to throughout our cities.
So I would say that that's something we wanna make sure is built into the design of our system so that it truly is equitably accessible throughout the city.
SPEAKER_06
I just want to add something about, we've had questions about racial equity analysis.
We do that ongoing.
That's part of our DNA.
Someone rightly approached me a couple weeks ago and said, how come that's not listed in what you're doing?
And it's become second nature to what we do.
I think we do need to be explicit about talking about that.
But I know there's been lots of questions about how will this impact our students of color for this educational justice?
And we do this analysis ongoing.
It's formative analysis.
We do this summatively.
we were one of the nation's leaders in identifying doing racial equity work.
And so what we haven't done is given ourselves credit for the work that we do on an ongoing basis, but I just want to reassure this community that racial equity analysis is something that we do across the board in all of our programs in Seattle Public Schools.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you, and a term, as I opened a middle school in Seattle Public Schools, we used the phrase, we want to be equitable by design.
We know that we have a school system that has evolved through the years and not always with a singular purpose and a singular vision, as Dr. Jones just described.
So we have an opportunity to build back better and to build back with equity in our DNA and equity at the heart of all that we're doing.
Will resource schools take into consideration staff skills?
Excellent observation.
Many of our SPS teachers speak languages other than English.
How will we use these skills to the benefit of our communities and the future of our children?
I think that's an excellent question if anyone wants to speak to that.
SPEAKER_07
Absolutely.
You know, in a perfect world, obviously everybody has choice where they want to be.
In a situation like this, which it's not the most popular thing and nobody wants to do it, but it is necessary, unfortunately, to think about consolidating schools.
I do believe that our teaching staff will still have a choice in the matter of where they go to work.
and where they choose to serve, and the particular sets of skills that they bring with them to the learning communities that they serve.
And so this is an ongoing, takes lots of thought, lots of preparation, lots of planning, lots of conversations with our labor partners to make sure that if this is something that we are moving forward with, that we make the correct matches and the proper fit so that everyone benefits.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you, Dr. Marshall.
What engagement, if any, has there been with state legislature?
What is their response?
SPEAKER_06
Yeah, so we have a legislative delegation that we meet with and we try to bring them up to speed on what we're dealing with internally at the school level.
We also give them insights as to, from a policy perspective, what kind of support we need from them.
And then we give them the clarity around the funding challenges.
And so our legislative delegation has been responsive.
They understand what we're trying to do, what we're trying to get accomplished.
But this is one thing that I think we need you all to come partner with us in trying to speak boldly to our legislature around what are the needs of Seattle Public Schools?
We're at a point now where we're talking about consolidating 20 schools.
If that's not an alarm going off to say we're in a situation where we need that support, I don't know what is.
And so I'm hoping that you all will think about your voice and how you can elevate that as we try to make sure that basic education is funded.
It's simply not.
And so we need that legislative support.
It's been that way for a long time.
We had the McCleary Act a couple of years ago.
That didn't fully fund it.
We're still in that position where we need legislative support.
Our legislators are listening to us.
They've been supportive.
I think they're aware of what the challenges are.
Now it's really time to bring some resource forward so we can make sure that we don't just balance budget, but we have adequate resources so our students have optimal experiences.
And so we have been in touch.
We probably need to push even harder, but they've been responsive in terms of understanding what the challenges are.
But again, I need you all to raise your hand if you are all willing to make a plea, if you will, to the legislature.
So if you all are willing to do that, let's make it happen together.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_11
So we're gonna, thank you.
Appreciate your voices.
SPEAKER_06
Yes, so hold on, hold on.
If you wanna make a speech, that's one thing, but if you want the answer.
So we've been to, we've been to, I personally have been to the legislature.
I personally have testified around things like regionalization funding.
So I'll lead the charge with you all.
There's a role I have to play in terms of superintendent.
There's a line that I can't cross in terms of advocacy, but in terms of if you all want to go arm and arm around the things that we need to have happen, absolutely.
You asked the question, will I be there?
Yes.
So I'm gonna answer your question.
Absolutely.
I've been there.
I've been there.
I get it.
I've been there.
I don't know about that strategy around tax the rich and all that, but in terms of the ask of the legislature, I'll be in the front of the charge.
So we need that.
Yeah, so thank you.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you.
Thank you for your voice.
Thank you.
And we really do appreciate it.
We appreciate your presence.
We are trying to make sure that everyone who's here today has their voice heard and their question read.
So thank you.
SPEAKER_04
Can I add a little bit to that?
Please do.
So part of the engagement that just happened, so I met yesterday with some members of the Appropriations Committee and some legislative staff, and one of the things I was able to do was to, and I was telling my table back there, the questions that are coming up in these forums, I'm passing those along to the legislature and having them...
hear what the folks are saying what the concerns are we're meeting i think with the seattle delegation on tuesday sharing some of the things that are coming forward in these discussions and so the engagement that's happening is making a difference and will hopefully help fully fund education for the citizens of seattle going forward so thank you for your engagement on that
SPEAKER_11
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you.
We've seen education levies not pass this year.
What is the plan if the upcoming 2025 education levy in Seattle levies don't pass?
And will there be additional consolidation?
SPEAKER_06
We are in denial about our levy not passing.
That's not something that we're considering.
However, we're not taking it for granted.
We've had our citizens, our residents vote for the levy, almost 80%, the last two levies that we've had.
Again, we're not taking that for granted, but we are not factoring in a levee failure.
A levee failure would be devastating to us.
Levees do so many things for our foundational work that we do from our preschools to our buildings.
It's essential for us.
And so one of the things I mentioned earlier, talking about the concept of stability, levies was one of those pieces.
And so we want to make sure that we're communicating what the value proposition is, why that's so important as we go forward.
But a levy failure is not in our calculus.
We cannot claim that.
We have to pass our levies just to keep the lights on.
So that's my position on it.
And I'm hopeful that you all will find that this is essential for us to move forward.
So thank you.
SPEAKER_11
Please elaborate on how the equity lens toolkit is being used to guide your decisions.
SPEAKER_06
Yeah, again, I spoke to that earlier.
We have a policy, 0030, it's around ensuring educational and racial equity.
Part of that, what that calls for is us to use an equity analysis.
And as I mentioned earlier, we're doing that across the board.
But I know that there's a phrase that's being thrown around a lot now, show your work, show your work.
I keep hearing that.
I think we can be explicit around what we're doing with our equity analysis.
But again, I just wanted to reassure this community that we do equity analysis on everything that we do.
And so I know it's second nature, but I do think there's an opportunity for us to show our documentation and show our analysis regarding that.
SPEAKER_11
Thank you, and one thing I would add, we think about the pain of school consolidation and school closure, but in reality, in many of our schools, particularly our smaller schools, that pain is being felt right now.
So as much as this might seem hard, throughout our system, we have students and families who do not have access to some of the things we think every student and family needs and deserves.
So that's a critical foundational piece.
Also, any recommendation that we make, we are required, but we would do it anyhow, to do a demographic integration analysis of the impact of those changes.
So what I can tell you is that in all of the scenarios that we've run, if we have seen a scenario where there is a disproportional impact to our students and families of color, students and families furthest from educational justice, we have moved off of that particular model and looked to another model where that impact is not disproportional.
Assuming our school will be consolidated, will students and teachers be able to move together to maintain our school communities and relationships?
Also, please describe transportation plans.
So I can speak a little bit to that.
There is likely not a school in the city that won't be impacted in some way.
Some schools will be receiving new students.
Some schools will be closing.
So we will do our best and I see our assistant superintendent of human resources here to make a plan where staff can travel and families can travel in a way that maximizes their strengths, maximizes relationships.
Again, we're still, we don't have a finalized, the school board will finalize that list, but when we do, those will be plans that we will put into action in terms of where staff, students and families are traveling and if they're able to travel together.
As far as transportation goes, we are not changing our walk zones, we're not changing our criteria and our basic transportation service standards.
Students will continue to qualify for transportation based on those standards and those things will remain the same as we transition.
And when will new boundaries be announced for schools that are closing?
So at the time, again, remember that we have a timeline that we're going through where we're making final decisions.
But as we present a possible plan, we will also be sharing an updated address lookup tool on our website so that you will be able to look that information up.
SPEAKER_06
Let me do a process check.
These questions, are they reflective of what you all wanted to hear?
Is this accurate or are we wanting a whole different set of responses to some different questions?
Is this adequate?
Give me a thumbs up if this is okay.
Okay, I'm seeing some both.
All right, so I'm gonna ask for folks to submit more questions if you have them.
We don't have all day to be here to talk about the questions.
However, we wanna be responsive to that.
We also have an FAQ that we're working, that we're populating, that we're maturing.
Each session that we have, each question that we get, we start to include that in our FAQs.
So our goal is to be responsive, and so that's why I wanted to do the process check.
If it's not adequate, we want to make sure that we're responsive.
So we're going to keep going for another five minutes or so, but we want to make sure that we capture your questions as we go forward.
Oh, I love this.
Yeah, come on.
We're going to answer this question.
Did you write this question?
All right, here, I'm going to figure out which one you answered.
Let's see.
What is a real-life example of a well-resourced school?
See, that's why student engagement is so critical.
So, we don't have, I don't know if we have necessarily a singular well-resourced school, but we want to have a system of well-resourced schools.
And so we had a slide up earlier around having stable staffing, having PE, art, and music.
You know, these are the things that community said was a well-resourced school.
I think we probably, if we did an analysis, we could point to some well-resourced schools.
But the point I'm making is we need to have a whole set system of well-resourced schools so that the whole district has those the student experience that they can walk into our school and have the adequate services and programs and so I'm sure we have a well-resourced school or tour two or five or twenty in our district right now but we want to make sure that that's consistent across the board so thank you for your question sir and I think with that we're having one more question possibly one more
SPEAKER_11
Thank you.
Which decisions about consolidations have not been made and therefore do you seek suggestions?
Go ahead, Fred.
SPEAKER_05
I know we distributed the slide deck and Dr. Jones talked about the guiding principles that we're using to drive a potential recommendation.
Again, we're not making decisions right now.
We're just trying to assemble a recommendation.
So I think one of the most helpful things would be any feedback you have on those recommendations.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES.
IF THERE'S SOMETHING YOU THINK WE'RE OVERLOOKING IN TERMS OF IS THERE SOMETHING NEED TO BE ADDED TO THOSE GUIDING PRINCIPLES WHILE THIS RECOMMENDATION GETS REFINED AND FINALIZED.
AND AGAIN IT'S ONLY A RECOMMENDATION.
WE KEEP HEARING THE WORD DECISION.
THE SCHOOL BOARD OF DIRECTORS WILL MAKE A DECISION ABOUT THIS AND THAT IS PRETTY FAR DOWN THE ROAD.
WE'RE JUST REALLY STARTING TO TEA THIS UP.
SPEAKER_11
THANK YOU.
SPEAKER_09
Thank you everyone for all of your questions.
Thank you for the concerns.
Thank you.
We understand the passion.
We understand the importance of this particular moment and we don't take it lightly.
As we are preparing to wrap, want to make sure that we draw your attention to a survey that we do have going online.
That's another place for you to add additional input, those guiding principles that Mr. Podesta just spoke of, as well as what would you like to see help us through this particular process.
That email has been sent.
We will continue to send it and it will remain open through the life of these particular information sessions.
Again, thank you for giving us your Saturday.
Thank you for giving us your time.
Please be safe and we will see you soon.
We have a Zoom session coming up on Tuesday.
It is our largest session.
We're expecting about 500 attendees.
Thank you so much.
