Seattle Schools Board Meeting March 2, 2022

regular board meeting to order at 4.15 p.m.

This meeting is being recorded.

We would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

Miss Wilson-Jones, please call the roll.

Vice President Hampson.

Vice President Hampson.

Does not look like she's doing it.

Director Harris.

Present.

Director Rankin.

Director Rankin.

It does not look like we have Director Rankin yet.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

Director Sarju.

Present.

Director Song-Moretz.

Present.

And President Hersey.

I am also present.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

All right, this meeting is being held remotely consistent with the governor's proclamation on open public meetings.

The public is being provided remote access today through SPS-TV by broadcast and streaming on YouTube and by phone consistent with the governor's proclamation on public meetings.

For those joining by phone, please remain muted until we reach the testimony period and your name is called.

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

Sorry, sorry, President Hersey and Superintendent Jones.

If you called roll already, Director Rankin is here.

Thank you.

Director Hampson is here too.

I'm having some computer problems.

There's a new reboot thing on the front of the computer.

Am I the only one that has that?

I am not sure.

Okay, you're not.

My computer was malfunctioning for about an hour, so.

Okay, I'm just going to ignore it and hope I can stay on.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Okay, thank you.

All right, Superintendent Jones, take it away.

Thank you, President Hersey.

Thank you, board members.

We have a full agenda this evening, but I want to briefly mention the changes in COVID guidance and our focus on academic outcomes.

I also want to recognize two outstanding figures in Native American learning.

So regarding public health guidance around COVID is evolving quickly.

I want to assure you that we're processing how the news will shape our own policies on COVID mitigation.

We anticipate updates to district policy on masking and we'll share those with you all in the coming days.

Right now we're carefully assessing disparities in vaccination rates across our district and we're beginning those conversations with our labor partners while we're considering changes in state and local guidance.

In the meantime, I'm also honored to work hand in hand with you to fully implement our governance model around putting students at the center of every conversation and decision.

You, the school board, have adopted very clear academic goals and set guardrails for the way we're reaching those goals.

And one important step to that process is really looking at the metrics that tell us if we're making progress towards those academic outcomes.

This week, my team and I are filling in some of those questions around what are we measuring so that you can know that we're better serving students.

So in a few weeks, we'll look at the metrics on how well our seventh grade students are mastering math skills.

And I look forward to bringing you a more informed set of metrics so you can measure our progress.

And of course, we can have the world's greatest academic goals and a treasure trove of data, but what is a school district without quality teachers?

And one reason I'm confident that we'll make progress toward these academic goals is because our district is rich with talented, dedicated educators.

I see them every week when I'm in schools.

I've watched them bring lessons alive for their students.

It's amazing.

And I'm humbled yet to share another recognition earned by an exceptional SPS teacher, Ms. Boo Balkan Foster.

She has been with Seattle Public Schools for 28 years, where she works with Native American, Alaskan Native, and First Nation students.

We honored Boo earlier this year, and yet just last month, she received a Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Achievement in Education.

Another acknowledgement of the value she brings to her students.

Boo, if you're listening, thank you for the joy of learning you inspire in our young people.

Finally, next week is the anniversary of a school board resolution designating March 9th as Billy Frank Jr.

Salmon Day celebration.

Billy Frank Jr. was a Native American leader whose work led to a judicial decision that affirms Washington State tribes that are entitled to half of each year's fish harvest.

Seattleites, Washingtonians, Native Americans, and non-Native Americans alike owe a debt of gratitude to local heroes like Billy Frank Jr. and all of those who fought in the fish wars.

Because of this effort, not only protects cultural lifeways, but also the entire Puget Sound ecosystem.

We enjoy the salmon and their impact on our environment today.

We'll now show a short documentary video, which is available to the public on YouTube.

It's going to help us demonstrate why it was so important for our district to honor Billy Frank Jr. and designate a day in his honor.

Please roll the video.

Thank you.

We staged fishing down here at Frank's Landing.

This was a demonstration to put the problem before the public.

We said that we were going to demonstrate this right by going out and going fishing, which we feel is a passive way of resisting this force used against us.

The state came down in a large force of about 50 game and fisheries wardens to put down a group of 8 adults and about 30 children ranging from 2 years old on up to 17.

We decided we would put our boats on the opposite side of the river to minimize the mingling with the huge crowd of Indians and newspaper people that was there.

And when we went across the river, they started throwing clubs, and so we had to bring in our full force and arrest anyone who had resisted or interfered with us in the performance of our duty.

In 1854, Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens made treaties with all the Indians in Washington.

The Indians gave up all claims to the land and the territory except for special areas reserved to them.

In return, they were to receive payments and were promised that they and their descendants would always have the right to fish in their usual and accustomed ground.

During World War I, the Army condemned the reservation land on the east side of the river for Fort Lewis.

All the families on that side of the river were removed from their homes, and the government decided what compensation they were going to receive.

Bill Franks received six acres, several miles downstream from the reservation.

There's no court to tell that you have jurisdiction on this property.

My father and Sid were arrested off the land in here.

So the following day, to let them know that we weren't going to quit fishing, Allison and I, my younger sister, set a net up there at the trestle, about a mile, mile and a half from here, upriver.

Well, these pictures prove the fact that some of the game department officials that got on the stand and testified had weapons in their possession and used them.

They have belly clubs.

They have belly clubs made out of lead pipe.

The only people that was hurt was our own people.

There was no Indian people hurt at all.

A war dance was held.

The plan to occupy the surplus land at Fort Lawton was announced.

The next morning, Indians stormed the fort from every direction.

Some climbed fences.

Some came up the cliffs from the beach.

Some rushed through the gate.

The army closed in on scattered groups of Indians.

Women were knocked to the ground.

Men were clapped.

Cameras were smashed.

They ain't going to never terminate us.

They can't.

We're who we are.

We're Nisqually people, you know, and we are here and nobody's going to take us away from this land.

Thank you.

I'd like to turn over to Vice President Hampson for closing remarks.

Thank you, Superintendent Jones.

As always is the case, there's so much that could be said and should be said and learned by everyone in Seattle Public Schools and in our communities about Billy Frank Jr. and what he represented and who he was to the people, not just of the Pacific Northwest.

but particularly throughout Indian country.

And there was tremendous solidarity amongst inland Salish peoples and inland Northwest tribes around fishing.

The So Happy family were one family that when I was growing up were imprisoned in the 80s, again, for fishing.

And it's as much as he always insisted and in the if you want to learn more about him, you can go to the Seattle Public Schools American Indian Studies page and also and thank you to Gail Morris and her team for how much information they provided about him and his legacy and then the organization that he started, which is Salmon Defense.

And if you spend any time reading his writings or stories about him or told by him, you'll understand how critical His leadership was toward the protection of our keystone species so that we all might live here sustainably together for thousands of years to come, as his people have for thousands of years before.

And then I just wanted to share again some powerful words that My dad wrote, along with my uncle, whose entire world growing up was Alaska Native fishing rights, and who then became the president of Sea Alaska Corporation, which is a powerful entity supporting Alaska Native fishing rights and resource protections.

Billy Frank was like spring weather on the Salish Sea, now a steady, driven wind with rain, now a small tempest, now gentle with eyes gleaming like sun off calm waters.

When he shook your hand, he grabbed you and made you feel like you were part of something really important, somebody he needed to have help him right now to win the day for the salmon, for all the creatures, for the people, for all the people.

Billy Frank taught us that the gold in the river was fool's gold.

The real gems were the eggs in the reds.

The true light came off the gleam of the sun off the backs of the smolt running to the sea.

The best reward was the salmon coming home to the people who have cared for them since the beginning.

Billy is now casting his line on the Bank of the Saints, and he deserves to be with the best of them, the guys who stood up at Frank's Landing, the stars in the Common Fishers, guys like Joe De La Cruz, Marlon Brando, and Dick Gregory, heroes like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela.

He'll be teaching them how to fish.

They'll be listening, and they'll be laughing.

God damn it, they'll be laughing.

Thank you, Billy.

So I think this year now that you've seen the video, the words make more sense.

And I thought this video in particular really kind of brings it home because there's so many vistas of things that are probably familiar to you in terms of the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge and Fort Lawton.

And I think there's just so much history there that folks don't know about.

So thank you for letting us share that today.

Thank you, Vice President Hampson and back to you, President Hersey.

Thank you very much.

I really appreciate that.

We have now reached the consent portion of today's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

Yes, you may.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Vice President Hampson and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith.

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

Okay seeing none all those in favor of the consent agenda please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

All right the consent agenda has passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

We have now reached the section of our agenda for board committee reports.

We will now hear briefly from the chairs of the boards for committees.

We are going to begin this evening with Student Services Curriculum and Instruction Committee Chair Director Rankin.

Thank you.

We, as you'll see, have a number of items that came through committee last month.

that are for introduction tonight.

Um, something I want to highlight for next.

Or for this month's rather is an update on, uh Are.

Our.

Big body of work moving towards more inclusionary practices and SPS that will come as a special attention item, and I'm super excited for the team to share.

where we are in that work and for us to talk about our our responsibilities in terms of policy and the work that we will hopefully be embarking on together.

That's probably the biggie.

The others, you know, from last meeting, we'll be talking about an intro tonight, so I'll wait for those.

Okay, fantastic.

We will now hear from our Audit and Finance Committee Chair, Vice President Hampson.

Indeed.

Okay, so we last met February 14th in Audit and Finance and had an initial briefing on the progress with the sexual harassment policies And there is, I believe, I don't think I've responded yet, but we'll be doing two by twos with some preliminary language.

There was actually a meeting with the task force that I was not able to attend when I was in Atlanta.

Director Rankin attended that in my stead.

And so there will be more for directors to learn about that and more to come for both the task force and the public.

And then we covered compensation study for non represented staff.

If anybody is interested in that any things that you hear, we can always get you copies of those.

Of these items, and then we had our standard budget updates and accounting updates.

We are.

I have not yet finalized our work plan for the year.

We will do that soon.

the next meeting.

Our at our March 21st meeting, which is coming up.

And there are some items of note and interest.

I know in that, including policy 6114 on gifts that are part of that work plan.

And then the, uh.

Next or the meeting that we the monthly audit and finance.

I'm sorry.

Tuesday was the monthly audit and Finance Committee meeting, and that was a presentation on the update with respect to our.

So I'm just pulling up that agenda so I can get the.

There's been significant progress made in the implementation of the internal audit changes, the implementation of the Moss Adams recommendations to turn our internal audit department into a highly Um, so that's pretty exciting to watch.

And then the plan for this coming year, which I would definitely the audit plan for this coming year, which is also connected to the risk assessment, which was come done and in conjunction with, uh, an outside agency called its crow.

Correct Director Hearst, their president, Hersey.

is the name of the entity that did that work.

A lot of consistency with our interestingly enough with what we heard and from our superintendent search process with respect to kind of the high ticket items that we need to be paying attention to what we heard from community and what we're hearing from auditors is there's a lot of alignment and I think that's pretty exciting that those things are coalescing.

And then we also had an ethics office update.

Additionally, there was audit response reports.

And specifically, with a huge component of that being part of human resources, that work is almost closed out.

Again, if directors want any review of that or folks in the public want copies of that, I'm happy to share.

Our next quarterly audit meeting is on June 7th.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's what I have on my notes, that it's June 7th.

Unless somebody has differently.

And that's all for me, unless somebody thinks I missed something from my committee.

Thank you.

Thank you, President Hampson.

Excuse me, Vice President Hampson.

A little Freudian slip there.

Okay, we are going to go ahead and move on to the committee reports for the Executive Committee.

Our last Executive Committee was held on February the 16th.

We had on our agenda the approval of two memoranda agreements between the Seattle School District and the Seattle Education Association, which we will also be discussing later tonight, if I'm not mistaken.

We received a thorough and robust update from our partners in our superintendent search, our search firm HY8, which we also just heard from earlier this week as they completed their leadership profile.

We got an update on student outcomes focused governance.

We will be having a progress monitoring session coming up in the next few weeks.

And we also took a look at Superintendent Procedure 1310 SP and the development on the policy and procedure development side of that.

Other than that, we had a brief government relations update, and that was the extent of our meeting in Executive Committee.

Our next meeting is going to be held on March 23rd at 8 a.m.

And that concludes the report for the Executive Committee, and we will now move on to Director Rivera-Smith for the Operations Committee report.

Hi, thank you.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yeah.

Okay, let me know.

So our last Operations Committee meeting was held on February 10th, and the meeting was actually chaired by Director Sang-Woo Ritz.

In my absence, I was attending a Leadership OASDA session in Olympia, so thank you, Director Sang-Woo Ritz, for doing that.

Many of the items that were up for approval at that committee meeting are on tonight's agenda for introduction.

Numbers 9 through 15 are all from that operations committee meeting.

There was also a transportation update which is a little moot now since as many of you know we have had to go back to I think we're going to be sending it out again to and our next and we also had an update on the levy which passed yay we did a little celebrating there they did a little celebrating there and also had an update on a superintendent procedure.

So next meeting will be in March I believe it's March 17th again at the new time of 4 30 p.m.

Thank you.

Okay thank you Director Rivera-Smith.

We will now go back to Director Rankin for a brief legislative update.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's quick.

Um, the legislative session is.

Is nearing the end.

I think it's the last day is the 10th of this month.

Um and so, uh, we the Senate and the House have both presented their budgets and we've had the chance to see what may be shaping up for Both look pretty good in terms of us getting some money for all districts, helping do some enrollment stabilization, not the full difference between current enrollment and pre-pandemic enrollment, but definitely going to be very helpful in maintaining some services and staffing for our students, whichever way that pans out.

So thank you to our legislators for their very hard work on that.

As it wraps up, I'm already starting to think about next session being a budget session and things that we may want to have more conversations around activating.

Um.

What kind of discussions we want to activate so that going into that budget sessions, we have some really clear asks and, um and hopefully build, uh, build some strong partnerships and coalitions with other folks around the state.

As we're all a lot of us are in the same.

The same boat and on the on the health side, something I wanted to add to Doctor Jones's notes about health is.

A little bit of clarification about.

The legal or the legislative piece of mandates that the Washington State Department of Health is is lifting their mandate and returning authority to local health authorities.

So local health authorities could still make mandates based on local data and things could change at any time.

We've gotten some emails from people who say, you know, the CDC and Washington Department of State Health says nobody needs to wear masks anymore.

That's not really what they're saying.

The recommendations are changing again and again, as they always have.

And as we always have, and I hope that we will continue to do, we will take our health recommendations from health professionals.

And the Washington State Department of Health, we've been told, is going to be issuing some new kind of guidance, advice for schools in the next either this week or next in light of the end of the masking mandate to help give schools a little bit more guidance.

So I am definitely interested in seeing what comes out from that.

And I let's see.

I think that's it.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

Okay, seeing as directors very rarely ever want to give their comments before public testimony, we are going to go ahead and move directly into introduction items in an attempt to ensure that we can be as efficient as possible with our agenda tonight.

So the first introduction item is approval of two memoranda of agreement MOAs between the Seattle School District and the Seattle Education Association.

I believe that Executive Director of Special Education Inclusion, Dr. Rocky Torres, will be briefing us.

Good evening, everybody, and thank you for the opportunity today.

I'm going to be presenting the BAR for two memorandas of agreement between the Seattle School District and the Seattle Education Association.

So the purpose of this BAR is this board action report covers two memorandums of agreement amending the collective bargaining agreement between Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Education Association, certificated non-supervisory employees for teachers providing special education vision and itinerant teachers of the deaf for providing those services.

The MOAs remain in effect through August 31st, 2022, and the MOAs include changes to the staffing ratios for the ITOTs, which are the itinerant teachers of the deaf, and the vision team.

Additionally, the MOAs provide some clarifying language.

Ratifications of these agreements occurred during the SCA Board of Directors meeting during the month of January.

The recommended motion is that for the board to approve the MOAs as attached to this board action report and authorize the superintendent to take the steps necessary to implement each district responsibility detailed in the agreements.

So some background information.

On January 4th, 2021, the district and SEA agreed to negotiate in good faith regarding the staffing ratios for ITODs for the 2020-2021 school year and such later periods as determined by the parties.

Following the agreement, the district and SEA determined there was also a need to negotiate regarding the staffing ratios for the vision team.

Negotiators for both the district and SEA engaged in extensive preparation and entered into bargaining.

The parties met to fully understand and resolve the issues which each side had requested to bargain.

These MOAs bring clarity to the staffing ratio for ITODs, which were not previously included in the CBA.

Prior to this agreement, ITODs had been staffed at the same ratio as classroom-based deaf and hard of hearing teachers, despite significant differences in their roles.

These MOAs also aligned the staffing ratios for both groups of the vision team.

Prior to this MOA, teachers of the visually impaired and orientation and mobility teachers had different staffing ratios.

Aligning the staffing ratios will allow teachers that are dual certified in both vision areas to serve a combined caseload of students.

These MOAs also provide clarity regarding topics such as overage payments, FTE for necessary district-wide roles, clarity on the role of Braille lists, preschool assessment, and the use of contractors for unfilled positions.

Alternatives.

Failure to enter into an agreement would result in an impasse in negotiations, leading to further expense in negotiations, mediation, or other impasse resolution processes.

The absence of an agreement would result in a strained relationship between the parties, resulting in the potential for an increase in the number of grievances and other workplace disagreements.

research.

During the course of the negotiations of these agreements, both parties researched and discussed national best practices in the relevant areas.

The goals and provisions articulated within these MOAs are consistent with those best practices.

The fiscal impact of these MOAs will be essentially neutral.

The terms of this MOA will provide the ability to hire a contractor versus paying overages.

And based on the current job market, this provision would most likely be triggered.

Overages are paid based on the caseload.

Contractor services are based on the actual minutes of services and is expected to offset the possible increases from hiring additional FTE.

There is an overage provision in the MOA that hiring would begin at three students over caseload limits and the supervisor is to evenly distribute caseloads.

Additionally, once there is an overage triggering an FTE increase, the MOA allows the district to hire a contractor to cover service minutes until a new hire takes place, which greatly assists us with our current issue of paying daily overages.

With guidance from the district's community, oh, sorry, one second here.

community engagement with guidance from the district's community engagement tool.

This action was determined to merit the following level of community engagement and that is to inform.

State law governing collective bargaining requires that the district and association conduct good faith bargaining.

We sought to center our students and families of color furthest from educational justice as we prepared and agreed to various proposals.

As we agreed to proposals throughout bargaining, we discussed the benefit or burden to students and families regarding our decisions, and we applied a racial equity lens to each of these proposals.

The district believes the overall student benefit is that it brings clarity with the ITOTS and vision team and will lead to more consistent staffing and stable caseloads for teachers.

students will benefit from educators with more stability and caseloads and the ability of the district to use contractors to temporarily provide support when positions are unfilled and to provide consistent delivery of required specifically designed instruction.

And this bar is necessary in accordance with policy 5020 collective bargaining provides the board shall approve this item.

Approval of these agreements complies with Seattle policy 5020 collective bargaining.

Um.

This motion was discussed at the executive committee meeting, and the committee reviewed the motion and approved it.

And I think upon approval, this motion operational decisions to implement the terms of Emily will be will commence.

Any questions?

I see.

I think I am.

Yeah, so we will now hear from Director Harris and other directors.

If you have questions, go ahead.

Dr. Torres, I wonder if you can take a paragraph to talk about the difficulties of hiring folks in this specialty, please.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Are you asking me to add that to this bar?

Would you like for me to address that in the moment?

I would like you to address that in the moment so that we can have context, sir.

Okay, so specifically for these roles, In general now, given the pandemic, there's hiring difficulties for all of our roles, our teaching roles and everything.

These specific roles are very, very specific.

There's a certain level of preparation and licensure that is required for these roles.

So what happens is, one, the sooner we can get the MOAs approved, if you all agree, we'll be able to open up and start the hiring, which puts us in a better position going into next year because then we can get available candidates.

Two, the second part of that that's in here that's important is that if and when we do run into situations where our educators are running into caseload issues, it is becoming a workload issue for them.

And that was part of the reason that the contracting provision made it in there, because what I heard clearly from SCA was they appreciate getting the overage money, but they would rather have the kids serviced and have somebody doing that.

And so that's what that contracting provision allows us to do, is instead of overloading our current educators, it will allow us to go to an outside contractor who is also certified to be able to provide those services for our students.

Did that address your question?

It did, in fact.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions before we move on to our next introduction item?

All right.

Seeing none.

Thank you, Dr Torres.

We will now be moving on to item number two approval of disciplinary Appeal Council appointees, and I believe we will be hearing from Assistant General Counsel Roxanne O'Connor.

Miss O'Connor, are you with us?

I'm here.

Good evening, everyone.

So I'm going to go ahead and provide a high level overview of the bar, and then I will pass it along to Aaron Romanek, who will jump in and disciplinary appeal council members.

Provide some additional details on the council members.

Um the purpose of this bar is to approve the disciplinary Appeal Council appointees.

State law requires the board to approve the disciplinary Appeal Council membership in order to formally appoint those members and ensure the district's Those rights include two potential levels of appeal.

The first is an initial appeal to a hearing officer, and the second is an opportunity to request a review and reconsideration of the hearing officer's decision.

Under state law, the review and reconsideration must be heard by either the school board or a discipline appeal council that is designated by the school board.

The board has chosen to establish that disciplinary Appeal Council through board policy 3201 for the purpose of conducting that review and reconsideration.

Additionally, the dock is recognized as the venue for families to request review and reconsideration in our current student rights and responsibilities handbook.

This bar points 15 volunteers and one alternate to serve on the council and hear discipline appeals from initial hearing officer decisions.

The prior council's membership expired as of January 1st, 2022. Policy 3201 includes additional criteria regarding the council membership.

It states that the volunteers must be approximately 1 3rd principals, 1 3rd teachers and 1 3rd community members.

Excuse me, and their minority, majority and program or service distribution must approximate that of the district student population.

So to meet those criteria, the General Counsel's Office worked closely with Coordinated School Health to identify and recruit diverse and qualified individuals who reflect our student population.

The proposed membership list includes 10 prior members who expressed a continued interest to serve on the council and five new members who will all add valuable representation in terms of their racial background, position, grade, and program experience.

information on how the proposed appointees compare to our student population.

And the attached membership list should also includes more information on the person's position or role and grade level.

So when this bar was introduced initially at committee, um, there were some important concerns raised The existing policy and procedure do not provide any sort of guidance on how to conduct that recruitment and so This is historically been left to staff and it's been a somewhat informal process without specific guidance in the policy.

The committee also discussed some broader discipline issues, um, such as access to appeal rights, which are not within the purview of this membership approval bar.

But they are a critical component of the district's ongoing efforts to ensure equitable implementation of discipline at the school level.

I want to ensure the board that we've heard these concerns, and we are certainly prepared to address them.

So with that in mind, the bar was amended to propose approval for a one year term through the end of 2022 rather than a three year term is originally proposed.

We feel that this will allow us to meet state law requirements while taking the time that's necessary to address those important concerns around the lack of a of a formal selection process.

and to reevaluate the policy itself through a racial equity lens, and then invest in a meaningful recruitment effort for the next council.

There's no question that we are always in a phase of continuous improvement, and we are willing to devote time outside of this venue to evaluate how the policy itself can be improved to really center around those equitable outcomes for our students.

For purposes of this BAR, we are asking the board to consider the proposed DAC membership for a one-year term to ensure that the district meets state law requirements for discipline appeals.

And at this point, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Erin, who's on the call.

I see you, Erin, who will speak a little bit more about the members that we've put forth for consideration.

Hello, good evening.

Erin Romanek, student support services supervisor with Coordinated School Health.

I do want to take a minute just to apologize for not speaking up in committee several weeks ago, just regarding the partnership that we did have with the General Counsel's Office regarding the staff names that were put forward.

Just a couple of pieces I wanted to share.

Roxanne had reached out to our office, who we do work with in partnership often, but had just asked if there were staff members that we worked with on an ongoing basis that we thought would be interested and who have the beliefs and the vision and the aspiration that we do as Seattle Public Schools regarding discipline and behavior.

And again, kind of really pointing to the curiosity around behavior, moving away from punitive approaches and really looking at that problem-solving approach.

And so I was able to go back to several members of our team and just have this discussion and can say that several of the names that are put forward on this list are people who do regularly consult with our office, who reach out to us.

We've seen them in the ways that they've shown up for young people in spaces, in schools as well.

really looking at the behavior as a form of communication and always trying to figure out what else can we be doing besides exclusionary practices.

And so I do just want to share that, again, really fostering the safe and welcoming environments for our young people as well.

And I apologize, I did not speak into that in committee several weeks ago, but I just definitely wanted to share that, that the names that you see in front of you, these are people who we do have a lot of contact with in some cases and really who reach out and are really looking for thought partners on ways to support all of our children and especially the whole child approach as well when we think about discipline.

So I just appreciate the time being able to share that tonight.

Okay, fantastic.

I see Director Hampson's hand up first and then we'll go to Director Harris.

Do we, sorry, do we start with the committee chair?

I didn't put my hand up because I thought it would just come to me.

Oh, go ahead, Liza.

You can go first.

Go for it.

Oh, you were muted anyway.

I know.

Okay.

Yeah, I just I wanted to talk a little bit more about our conversation had about this in committee when I got the the meeting materials for committee ahead of time.

This was a policy that was new to me because it usually comes every three years.

And so I wasn't on the board the last it came up.

And Roxanne is also new to this role.

And so I reached out to her and we met to talk about What is this?

And it seems like kind of a big deal.

And it's been sort of become sort of a routine item.

And I think we need to disrupt that a little bit.

So the recommendation that I made was to to look at it for one year instead of a full year to make sure that we have a panel in place to comply with the state law but it was alarming to me and I think it's probably alarming to other folks on the board that this is very specifically a board duty that has become something that the board didn't actually and not to it's not personal about how it's maybe have been done very well.

But the fact that it is a specific state directed board responsibility that didn't have a good board process around it made me really uncomfortable.

And given that we are looking at a lot of things about discipline this seemed really important and especially having people be able to appeal to a council that that we know.

Is you know, I feel like we as the board need to know that if that if that appeal is not going to come to the board that is coming to a council that's going to represent.

The values and priorities that we have committed ourselves to and in our district and, um So.

for me anyway, is that the policy that has directed the approval of this council is something that we need to take a look at so that there is a really good process in place.

And seeing as how that's a longer timeline to work on than three weeks, Um, my recommendation was for to approve this for a year, and I don't know.

You know, I know that causes discomfort, too, because if something's not the way we want it to be, why would we approve it?

But it is important that a disciplinary council be in place.

Um and that is legally required.

Um So we had we had a really long, challenging conversation.

I think a lot of us.

We all feel very, very strongly about making sure that we are eliminating disproportionality in discipline and reducing discipline overall.

And I would like to float the possibility to you, Superintendent Jones, and to President Hersey that we have a discipline work session of some kind where we can bring some of this policy and some others and look at them together really seriously and just make sure that everything is aligned to our values and the outcomes that we want to see and our goals and guardrails.

I think that would be really valuable use of time at some point.

So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

We will now move to Director Hampson.

Um, so I wanted to clarify my when I looked at the whack, I think the relevant like my understanding is that we have the authority to, but we don't have to appoint.

A committee and am I correct in that?

Yeah, that's correct, Director Hampson.

So the review and reconsideration appeal has to be heard by either the school board or a disciplinary appeal counsel if one is designated.

And so the board has designated a discipline appeal counsel through policy 3201. And that is the recognized venue for that appeal in our student rights and responsibilities handbook as well.

Okay.

So.

Uh, the alternative to this.

Her state law is that those appeals then would come to the board if we don't have regardless of the process if we don't have a committee.

Yes.

Um, okay.

So I think what I want my want some things that would be really helpful to me to see.

I'm extremely uncomfortable with for all the reasons that Director Rankin said.

I feel like it's, for a number of reasons, it feels as though I'm potentially handing our most vulnerable kids over to a dangerous situation, particularly when we're talking about, I think, the quorum of three members.

I mean, I know two of the people on this list, and they're phenomenal human beings, And even with that, I feel like, well, but I'm biased because I know them.

So somebody else may feel differently about this.

This is a really bizarre situation for board members to be in and to have no resumes.

And so a couple of things.

One is making sure that we know, because of all that cascade effect, what's the timeline, making sure it's on the work plan if it's not already.

to if this is going to be a year thing, and how we can be most consistent with everything else that we're doing and look at a restorative.

Because when I look at this, I'm like, why can we just not appoint a group of students as the appeal committee?

Again, not because I don't trust these adults who most of whom I know nothing about but because I don't know anything about them and I value the voice of students in terms of and they're not on here.

There isn't a board member on here and I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing at this point.

You could go either way because we're in this really silly inappropriate position of approving individuals that we may know nothing about for positions that by the way it's not described in the and that's my next request is that included in that if there's a is it possible to update the maybe it doesn't make any sense to update the procedure but the procedure itself is problematic.

And so I would just point out just for the future reference, and I think it might be worth looking at from an equity standpoint, it's not really as relevant whether, I mean, great, they're representative of the proportionality in the district of different student groups, but students aren't disciplined in that proportionality.

They're disproportionately disciplined, and that's what should be reflected.

in the makeup of the group, not how frequently those kids occur in the school system.

So I think that that's problematic, and I understand that that's left over in that procedure.

And then the other part of it that I'm confused about is the law states that the volunteers have to be really knowledgeable, and our procedure doesn't and our policy don't reinforce that in any way, shape, or form.

So I'm really confused that just on the surface, and I'm not saying that this was intended this way, that there aren't things that backstop it, but it felt like, oh, we're just appointing a random group of people.

You know, of course it's not, as Aaron just, you know, spoke about, but it doesn't feel, I'm not, confidence is not something that I feel right now about this.

this process.

Again, if I were able to assume that everybody else on that committee is just as great as the two people that I think are great, then I might feel better about it, but there's nothing objective about that.

I'm trying to be constructive in what I'm saying to move us forward.

to meet our obligations, but make sure that we have a really clear pathway forward, and I think we should probably delineate that in our, you know, because we're doing one year, and so then we need to know what the benchmarks are moving forward so we can hopefully find a way to get ourselves out of this really bizarre situation where we're.

And I certainly wouldn't want to, um, approve it without knowing anything about these people.

I hate this whole thing, so I'll leave it to another director to talk about.

Thank you, Director Hampson.

We'll now move on to Director Harris.

Well, I have to say that I agree fundamentally, consistently, across the board with Director Hampson.

This makes me very uncomfortable for several reasons.

One, I recall a time when Sherry Carr, who was a former school board member, was a part and parcel of the disciplinary council.

Two, my recollection is this council doesn't meet all that often.

I'd like a little more information about that and the bar amended to address that.

Three, Gail Morris, who I think is a hero and who I've been advocating for six years to get a promotion to executive director as opposed to manager, is listed as a community member.

Now, I well appreciate that staff people don't give up their First Amendment rights to express their own opinions and be side by side as community members, but This doesn't feel right to me.

She should be in a staff position.

That's where she has excelled for oh so many years.

I don't know very much about any of these folks.

Excuse me, please.

I'm still talking.

Thank you.

I'm uncomfortable with the bar the way that it is written.

It is not personal.

I have the utmost respect for Aaron Ramalek and Roxanne O'Connor.

I get that you're in a pinch point in COVID and that we ran up against a deadline, but I think we can do some good stuff in the next two weeks.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Director Harris.

I would just like to clarify that the reason that district.

The reason that, uh, Gail is not designated as a staff member is.

To meet that policy requirement of 1 3rd principles.

1 3rd teachers 1 3rd community members and under the policy, the central office staff members would be considered community members.

So that wasn't it wasn't an effort to, um you know, disregard the

She's also a grandparent in the district, so.

And thank you for that clarification.

I appreciate it.

OK, Director Sardieu.

Did you hear me, Michelle?

You're up.

I did hear you.

I'm gathering, trying to gather myself.

Thank you, Tom.

As I For those of you who were not at the meeting last week, it was a pivotal moment for me.

I was ready to resign my position as school board member.

I was so angry.

This is not about any staff person.

I don't know either one of you.

I have no idea who you are.

I don't know where you come from, and I make no judgment about what you're trying to do in your jobs.

I don't play phone it in equity.

I live equity.

I walk equity.

I don't have a lens.

I don't take him on.

I don't put him on and take him off.

It's what I do.

Any system.

You look at any system.

It will work the way it was designed to work.

That is a scientific fact.

This system was designed to be a school to prison pipeline system for BIPOC students.

Doesn't matter whether you like it.

It doesn't matter whether it's written down.

That's how this system was designed.

And it works really, really well.

And we have the data to prove it.

At every turn, you can pull up any data and see specifically that black boys are disproportionately fill in the blank.

Seattle Public Schools is no different.

Today, in my King County job, I was in an interview and Superintendent Jones will understand what I'm about to say.

We had a candidate who works with Seattle Public Schools who said a principal of one of our schools referred to a group of black boys as a mob of black boys.

These are children.

So I already came to this meeting triggered and then I see this on the agenda again.

This is daily.

I need my board colleagues to speak up at every turn, not just when we're on camera, not just when it's being recorded.

If we are going to change student outcomes, we have to change our behavior.

This is not performative or perfunctory for me.

In good conscience, I cannot vote for this.

I cannot vote for a system.

First of all, I get that it's in the quote-unquote students' rights and responsibilities.

Those of you who are on the call, remember, my nephew was suspended on day two of school.

So I texted his mom and asked her, who is very savvy, very savvy and active parent, did she know?

And she said she was not told until after the expiration date.

And of course, she was angry.

This is a black boy who is a straight A student.

Straight A's.

We cannot do phone-in inequity.

It will not change student outcomes.

Well, actually, it will change student outcomes.

The outcomes will get worse for black and brown kids.

That's what's happening, and that's what's going to continue to happen.

We have to take a serious look at every policy and ask ourselves, how does this positively impact or how will it positively impact are students who are the most marginalized and disparately treated.

I get that there's a code, all that.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

I've seen people find wills when they want to or find ways when they want to.

This is serious.

You want to talk about affecting student outcomes?

This affects student outcomes.

at a profound level that can change the trajectory of families for eternity.

We have to get this right.

It is our duty.

So I'm going on record.

I am asking my board colleagues, wherever you are, it's not just about when we're on camera or if we're trying to get reelected, blah, blah, blah.

Equity is a daily, lifelong activity.

It's not a bucket of work.

As you can tell, I'm still angry about this.

I don't know what else to say other than we have an opportunity.

This is one of the ways we can positively impact students.

That 25% I'm not impressed by that.

Because black boys are suspended at compared to the percentage of the population.

In my opinion, this committee should be primarily.

People represented from the group that's most disproportionately impacted in our district, primarily overwhelmingly And then we have to think about what can we do so that parents know?

Because the system is designed for them not to know.

I don't care if it's in a handbook.

It's just like reading.

You get a manual for some product you buy, and you've got 15 pages of really tiny print.

How many of you actually read every single word with your magnifying glass of that tiny print?

Parents don't have time to do that.

They need to be informed.

We want to change outcomes.

We have to change our behavior.

It is up to us, not to the parents, not to the children.

It's up to us as board and staff.

OK, thank you, Michelle.

And finally, Director Hampson.

I want to be succinct.

And try to help us move this forward.

Whatever this is right, um.

I believe we can do much better.

There are many pieces If the legal compliance is so risk, the lack of legal compliance is so risky that we have to do it without doing it thoughtfully, which is kind of where I feel like we are right now.

We're like, we're saying, okay, we just got to get it done.

And you're hearing that it's not, it just feels Um, like we're kicking the can in the worst possible way about something that is really broken.

I think we all know that I mean a year away.

That's a whole other school year that would be started, right?

Um, so I'm just wondering if if it's not possible to Reframe this really, really important.

Policy and procedure.

in a way that still we would revisit it in a year, but at least.

Make some some kind of substantive changes.

So that we're heading in the right direction, right?

Like.

If the reason to not do it, fellow board members is because, oh, well, we would have to do engagement to make that happen.

So instead, we're going to approve a really, really awful.

that we're not comfortable with.

And that's a version of something that none of us are comfortable with, not because of the people that are being appointed, but just because of all the implications and the.

Some of those issues, and so I'm.

I feel like there is a different way forward and that if we look to.

Our focus on student outcomes, and if we reframe this in terms of what's going to be the impact.

trying to move this forward with the commitment to, yes, revisit it in a year, but at least not leave it so dangerous.

It just feels it's taking an existing dangerous situation and just saying, OK, we're going to let it be remain dangerous for our kids.

And I yeah, that's my question is if we can't use our student outcomes focused governance thinking to move this forward.

Conceptually, and whether or not we can't handle being a couple of weeks out, you know, be out of compliance for a while.

Okay, thank you, Director Hampson.

We will now move on to Director Song-Moritz.

Well, can I get an answer to that last question first?

Yep.

Yes, the answer is that yes, you have the option of taking that approach.

I would also point out that Under state law, you're required to appoint for fixed terms.

It doesn't require any sort of length, but our policy establishes 1 to 3 year terms.

So there is a little bit of flexibility in terms of how we construe one year.

It could be one school year.

It could be one calendar year.

So if and I completely I want to acknowledge that I completely understand the board's discomfort with this, and I'm also new to this policy and this process.

So I would just point out that that's another option if we really want to get the work moving.

I just want to ensure that the board has the time that's necessary to really make it better, to invest in it.

So that's always an option.

Okay.

Thank you.

Now moving on to Director Song-Muritz.

Thank you, Director Stardew for speaking so plainly about this because I'm really feeling the level of emotion that this is bringing for you.

And what I'm going to ask right now, I apologize if it doesn't quite meet that moment.

What I'm just trying to do is to understand what our options are and how we can move this forward in the way that we would like to.

Is it possible in this bar that we can include data in that table where it shows our student population and the proposed appointees, the percentage of our disciplinary actions by race, so we have a basis of comparison?

Yes, I think that we can provide whatever the most it.

I guess it depends on what data you're looking for, but we can certainly amend it between intro and action to provide that additional information to the board.

Okay, Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Um I I think and I know we don't have to vote on this today because it's it's introductory but uh the problem I just want to identify that what what I think the problem is is the policy that guides this and um and that's not the thing that's in front of us that's my kind of confusion about what do we like we all know this is we're all unsatisfied with this we're all very uncomfortable with this and the implications um But the thing that needs to change is the policy that guides this, which is not the item that's in front of us.

And that's where I'm sort of like, how do we address that and how do we make sure that that work happens?

The other big thing that I heard that's a problem is that families don't necessarily know about this.

And that's also not something that is contained within this item that's before us.

And so I think between now and action, or maybe between now and action also, we determine that it can be moved out.

I don't know, but we can keep talking about that.

I think we should keep talking about that, but I think it would be helpful to understand how what work needs to be done to help families be more informed about this option and make sure that building leaders or whoever else is doing discipline understand that they need to present that to families and I know that that's not part of this or the policy that that's procedure but that's part of why I want to have a work session because I would really like us to line up all of these things together to get everybody really on the same page because I never want to hear about a situation where a student has been harmed because one of the adults didn't know or didn't think to tell them about a resource.

Like, I don't ever want that to happen.

And where we run into problems with that is when there's differences between buildings because someone hasn't been updated or they don't have the, you know, who knows, all kinds of different reasons.

But that's where I think the problem really is the policy that guides this, and we need to align that.

But one thing I'm interested in that relates more specifically to this item as it is, is The resolution of the appeals.

I don't know if there's anything you can tell us about the outcomes.

From this council.

Um, if that would be informative, um.

About our our comfort level.

with this specific item or not.

The one other thing I want to say is that even if this ends up being approved for a year, it doesn't mean that nothing can change within that year.

You know, we've seen that happen with other policies where there's work that's coming and the policy itself maybe hasn't completely changed, but things start to be implemented in practice sooner.

So again, I'm just sort of trying to be pragmatic, I guess, and not I guess I just want to identify what problems we're trying to solve, how we're going to solve them and where we go from here today, because I know that this is not sitting well with a lot of us, and it wasn't in committee, and it wasn't, um.

When it came to us meeting materials either, but we also if we.

We also, as Director Hampson was saying, you know, we need to move forward on different things and understand that that's that's part of our role as well.

So I guess I just want to identify that the policy is really.

What?

what I think needs to immediately be part of a more board work with staff.

Okay, fantastic.

I still see Director Rivera-Smith and then we're going to go over to Superintendent Jones.

I just want folks to keep in mind that we're almost at 5 30 and I would like to get to public comment so that the folks who have come to join us can share their perspective.

So with that being said, Director Rivera-Smith, please take it away.

Thank you.

I'll try to be quick.

A, I would like to see the RCW attached to this bar because I would love to have read that myself to understand it better.

I'm trying to understand the make up of the committee is determined by us or RCW.

So it's a combination of the WAC, the legal requirements, and what we've established through policy.

So our policy is much more specific than the WAC.

The WAC just states that the board may appoint these members for fixed terms, that they have to have knowledge of discipline laws.

Our policy is more specific in that it requires that breakdown of one-third principles, one-third teachers, community members, and then requires some level of comparison to the student population.

So it's slightly more specific in our policy.

Great.

I would definitely, uh, second to have student members of this, to have student voice on this committee.

I think that is vital.

Um, I also wonder, since they sound like the, I don't know if I, if we kind of got an answer to Director Hampson's question regarding what are the, what's the repercussions of not doing this now?

If, you know, if we don't do this, how soon are we going to actually have something bite us?

Like, could we just sit on this and not put this through right now, take the time to do the work we want to do and then put something forward?

What's the rubber questions if we wait?

Thank you for the question.

I would not want to provide legal advice in this public forum, but at the same time, I want to acknowledge that that's a valid question and one that I would be happy to explore more with the directors offline.

Because then, again, the other option is kind of like, we could just appoint ourselves, it sounds like.

We don't have to appoint a committee.

We could just say, we'll take on those cases as they come.

I don't know how often they come, but if we want to just, another way to kind of punt it for now is to say, we don't do anything.

We don't make, we don't appoint people.

We don't name people.

We take it on until further notice of which time we come back with a committee for, that we, a committee formed under better guidance and policy.

Yeah, so I think that certainly is an option.

I wanted to highlight that the DAC was recognized as the venue of appeal for families in the Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook.

That's not to say that families are reading it or aware of it.

I completely acknowledge those concerns, but I'd also be concerned that potentially that might create an issue if they're not aware of the proper venue for appeals.

We'd want to make it very clear to families if that's the approach that we take.

It is a legally, it is an option legally for the board to hear.

Okay yeah and I definitely look to my other board members to see how they feel about that.

I'm sure we could set an addendum if we had to for the student rights and responsibilities handbook because we did change it so, but okay I'll go on, I'll let Dr. Jones.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks everyone for all the comments, the passion about this.

This is something that's near and dear to my heart.

This is really about disproportionality and discipline.

And we have a guardrail that says specifically the superintendent will not allow the use of disciplinary actions as a substitute for culturally responsive behavior and social emotional supports for students with and without disabilities.

This, what we're talking about is the back end of what we need to do on the front end.

And the front end is that real proactive work so that we don't get to this place.

We have African American males are three times, 300% more likely to be disciplined than their counterparts.

And so this is work that we need to do in the front end.

I would love to work with Aaron and Roxanna about how do we structure this appropriately going forward, but I think the work that we need to do is in the front end.

Director Rankin, I welcome an opportunity for us to in the future, near future, to have a workshop, to have a work session, if you will, around the whole comprehensive look around discipline.

I think that's where we need to start.

I think we can get we can reconcile these other pieces so that it's equitable and it's reflective of the students that are being disciplined the most.

I think it could be representative like Director Sargent talked about, but let's put most of our energy in this front end so we don't even need to have this disciplinary appeals council.

So I appreciate it.

I want to work with Aaron and Roxanna to to correct some of these things.

I think we need this entity, but I don't think it's all out of whack right now.

I think we can bring it home.

So have lots of notes and have some ideas on how we can move this forward.

So let us take it back, work it a little bit, but I want to just emphasize this front-end work is where I want to put our emphasis.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you everyone.

I greatly appreciate it.

We're going to go back up to our public testimony portion of our agenda.

We have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda.

We will be taking public testimony by teleconference today as stated on the agenda for any speakers watching through SPS-TV.

Please call in now to ensure that you are on the phone line when your name is called.

Board Procedure 1430BP provides the rules for testimony and I ask that speakers are respectful of these rules.

I will summarize some important parts of this procedure.

First, testimony will be taken today from those individuals called from our public testimony list and, if applicable, the waiting list, which are included on today's agenda posting on the school board website.

Only those who are called by name should unmute their phones, and only one person should speak at a time.

Speakers from the list may cede their time to another person when the listed speaker's name is called.

The total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for the combined number of speakers and the time will not be restarted after the new speaker begins.

In order to maximize opportunities for others to address the board, each speaker is allowed only one speaking slot per meeting.

If a speaker sees their time to a later speaker on the testimony list or waiting list, the person to whom time was ceded will not be called to provide testimony again later in the meeting as there is only one speaking slot per person.

Those who do not wish to have their time ceded to them may decline and retain their place on the testimony list.

Finally, the majority of the speaker's time should be spent on the topic they have indicated they wish to speak about.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will read off the testimony speakers.

Good evening.

For those who have joined by phone to provide testimony today, when you hear your name, please press star six to unmute on the conference call line and also make sure you have unmuted on the device you're calling from.

You'll hear a chime when your two minutes has been exhausted and your so you can conclude your remarks.

The first speaker on today's list is Chris Jackins.

Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. On the consent agenda, the board is continuing to deliberately vote on the consent agenda prior to allowing public comment.

Please vote no.

On the personnel report, the report shows four certificated substitutes left the district and 74 were hired.

On the minutes of the February 9th board meeting, two points, number one, regarding a roof repair contract, the board report referenced, quote, local independent labor, unquote.

Number two, does this mean that the board is endorsing the use of nonunion labor on these projects?

On the city transportation grant, three points, number one, will this item be affected by the district shutting down bids on a new bus contract?

Number two, without explanation, some of the documents attached to the board report are from 2014. Number three, there is no explanation as to why Northgate Elementary was selected.

Does it have to do with the fact that the district construction project has permanently removed the school's large grass play field?

On the memorandum of understanding or MOA with the SEA, two points.

Number one, with regard to itinerant teachers of the deaf, section five says that using contractor services will save the district money, but will it serve students as well?

Number two, the MOA as posted on Friday seemed to contain a typographical error at point number six, where deaf is misspelled as D-E-A-D.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Holly Decker.

Holly Decker.

Hi there.

My name is Holly Becker.

I'm a resident of Belltown and I have watched with interest the news surrounding the possible redo of the Memorial Stadium.

But in a recent public disclosure request by one of my neighbors in Belltown, it shows discussions with the city about the project were mainly held in private with no public or SDS board of director input.

If you look closely at the LOI from former Mayor Jenny Durkin, the proposal does not put the best interest of SPS students first.

Additionally, ceding control of the district-owned parking lot and the stadium at Seattle Center is a bad business decision.

In the current LOI, there are only replacement dollars for revenue the district already receives, despite the fact that two-thirds of Memorial Stadium uses are city events and recreation.

So let me say that in a different way.

Spending 70 million, almost 10% of the BPA levy, to simply redo a sports stadium is not an equitable use of funds, especially when SPS only uses the stadium one third of the time.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that capital dollars must preciously be utilized to create equitable opportunities for access and learning.

I urge the board to think bigger.

It is in your purview to take dollars dedicated to Memorial Stadium upgrades and apply them to a bigger vision.

Perhaps an all-city draw high school and updated events and sports venues.

Plan a K-12 pathway, one that every student can access citywide equitably, and most importantly, demand that the city pay their fair share.

Please direct the superintendent and his staff to set aside any proposed agreements that give up control of the parking lot.

Our children must come first.

Our students must come first.

It's time to begin again on crafting a deal that does just that.

Put students first.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Scott Shock.

Scott Shock.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Scott.

So board members, thank you.

I have submitted to you via email a written testimony asking for an immediate end to mandatory masking of our students.

My submittal links to a summary of over 167 studies and articles showing that masking is ineffective and harmful, especially for children.

The harms include delayed brain development and delayed learning, exposure to accumulated and recycled pathogens, sinus and respiratory problems, skin rashes and infections, impacts on oral health, exposure to inhaled fiber fragments and particulates from masks that can lead to lung disease, and importantly, oxygen deficiency and exposure to elevated levels of carbon dioxide, which can cause acidic toxification, fatigue, headaches, and loss of concentration.

As an environmental professional with over 30 years of experience, I can tell you that proper use of masks requires professional training and medical monitoring.

One study from the collection I provided concludes face masks should not be worn by healthy individuals to protect themselves from acquiring respiratory infection because there's no evidence to suggest that face masks worn by healthy individuals are effective in preventing people from becoming ill.

I encourage you to look at the science summary for yourself and not rely on health authorities.

I can tell you from review of public records requests that I've received that there is insufficient attention by our health authorities to scientific studies.

This is too important an issue for our children to rely on these others.

Please look at this information for yourselves and please take action to end the harmful masking requirement.

I also want to say a special thank you to board member Michelle Sargiou who helped birth my daughter who's now a 10th grader at Garfield High School.

Thanks.

The next speaker is Rachel Gleason.

Rachel Gleason.

Hello.

We can hear you, Rachel.

Hello, this is Rachel Gleason.

I'm here to talk about community engagement and curriculum changes at Roosevelt High School.

When registration started last month, my ninth grade student came home and told me that Roosevelt had just changed the curriculum so that 10th graders can only take one semester of social studies and the honors math track has been eliminated.

Registration is now over, but there has still been no public announcement about the cuts, which appear to have been made in a hurry.

Among parents who have become aware during registration, we have no idea who made the call.

Was it the district or the school administration?

Even more mysterious is the fact that these curriculum cuts are unique to Roosevelt.

Other SPS high schools have kept honors math as well as the option of taking a full year of social studies in 10th grade.

Personally, I believe SPS students should have the option to take four years of social studies and the option of an honors math track.

Specifics aside, however, it is the unexplained haste and lack of public communication that brings me to the school board with a handful of questions.

What compels Roosevelt to make these cuts to core curriculum in a hurry?

Was this a decision that was imposed by the district?

What is the purpose of cutting the curriculum?

Should Roosevelt students anticipate that there will be more cuts next year?

How does this situation align with the district's commitment to community engagement.

I understand that these questions might be difficult to answer.

So I am here to ask Seattle Public Schools and the Roosevelt administration or whoever else was responsible for these curriculum cuts to maintain the option of a full year of 10th grade social studies and honors math curriculum for this coming school year.

Class registration could be reopened for students who who might like to choose these options.

It is not too late and it is worth the effort.

By postponing these curriculum cuts for a year, it will give faculty more time to prepare and it will allow Roosevelt to engage the community.

Thank you for your time and for the work that you do.

The next speaker is Jennifer Fernandez.

Jennifer Fernandez.

Okay.

Hello.

We can hear you.

Okay, thank you.

Hello, I'm Jennifer Fernandez, a parent of Seattle students for 22 years.

At the start of this year, a grassroots movement of parents across the state submitted identical public disclosure requests, PDRs, to over 60 school districts.

You've already received these documents and should be familiar with their contents.

The Washington Parents Alliance, or WAPA, continues to grow with over 10,000 participants and more districts coming on board every week.

This is not a funded nonprofit organization, and you will not find much information about WAPA online.

This movement of parents is gathered to educate themselves on Washington laws that create and govern our school system.

For too long, parents have been ignorant or uninvolved in matters that influence our children's experience in school, and we aim to take the responsibility for that mistake.

What we discovered in the last two months presenting PDRs at school board meetings across the state was astonishing.

The majority of school board members are just as ignorant of the laws that govern them as we were.

We knew we were not following protocol when we sent our PDRs to your home.

We were using the PVR process to do the job that our county sheriffs and your legal counsel should have been doing, educating you on the laws the schools could be violating as they have forced or coerced vaccines and masks on employees and students.

WAPA served you these PDRs as a courtesy and a favor to inform you of the possible legal liabilities that your own WASDA groomed lawyers did not.

The state agencies that compelled school districts to carry out masking and vaccinating measures knew the safest way to avoid legal liability for vaccine injuries and the harmful effects of long-term mask wearing was to pass the liability down to the lowest local level, the school district.

If you claim that you are just following orders from the state, will that protect you if down the line it's proven the governor's emergency order was based on fraudulent data?

Please, get curious and dig deeper.

Our most fervent goal is to work with you, not against you.

After all, we are neighbors in the same community.

We ought to be looking out for each other.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Jeff Beauvoir.

Jeff Bovoir.

Thank you.

Hello, board members.

Appreciate your time tonight.

Recently, the New York Times said that it's time for students to be unmasked.

Last night, Joe Biden at the State of the Union address said it's time for students to be unmasked.

Just last week, the CDC said it's time for King County to be unmasked.

Governor Jay Inslee has said it's time for Washington State to be unmasked.

and the parents have been saying it's time for their children to be unmasked.

By the way, I'm a Seattle parent talking here now.

So we're just asking the board, where do you stand on this issue?

We're looking for action.

Do you believe that the New York Times is wrong?

Do you believe that Joe Biden is wrong?

Do you believe that the Centers for Disease Control is wrong?

Do you believe that Jay Inslee is wrong?

Do you believe that parents are wrong?

Please make a decision to end these mask mandates.

The kids don't deserve this.

It's not good for them.

They don't need it.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Mark Becca Burdick.

Mark Becca Burdick.

Mark Becker Burdick.

If you're on the line, please press star 6 to unmute.

Looks like I can see the phone number, so if you could press star 6, then we'll be able to hear you.

Hello, I'm sorry.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Hi, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

My name is Becker Burdick.

Yeah, it is urgent that SPS allows children to unmask inside schools.

Using the vaccine percentage discrepancy between schools as an argument is not strong and does not rely on the data.

SDS has promoted vaccination and allowed access to all SDS students at this point.

I personally volunteer at lunch and kids have been eating and talking all year, which I love, and there have not been outbreaks associated with this.

I'm a pediatric ICU nurse, and if you really want to talk about viral particle transmission, unless the kids are fit tested with an N95 and wearing eye protection, any of the masks being used are not effective enough to justify the risks of wearing them.

And recommending wearing surgical masks or K95 masks is not acceptable either, as breathing in the chemicals used in these masks is another unstudied hazard.

There are too many harmful effects of mask wearing in children.

There are significant mental health implications of masking children, among the many, many other harmful effects that cannot be covered in two minutes, but which another parent earlier touched on.

Thank you for that.

There are no long-term studies of masking in children, and it is unfair and unjust to force them to wear them when the long-term effects are unknown and to ignore the current effects, which are clear.

I guess to close, requiring students to continue to wear them without the data to support their necessity is unacceptable and inappropriate.

I realize that there are some adults who will never feel comfortable having kids unmasked, but as a society and a school district, we cannot follow adult emotions over following the science, and it's always been that way.

It's time to do right by our kids.

Thanks for your time, everyone.

The next speaker is Kurt Benshef.

Kurt Benshef.

Kurt Benshef.

If you're on the line please press star 6 to unmute.

I'm not seeing that phone number listed.

Jeremiah Blond.

Jeremiah Blond.

Go ahead, Jeremiah.

We can hear you.

Hello, my name is Jeremiah.

I'm a parent of a junior in Rainier Beach High School, and I'm also part of the Washington Parents Alliance.

As described in the PDRs, we said the Social Security Act is codified in federal law appears to provide a federal Religious exemptions from all medical treatment or testing based on religious objection.

How many teachers and staff applied for religious exemptions from the experimental COVID-19 vaccine or masks and were denied?

How many invaluable teachers and administrators were forced to quit or be coerced into getting medical product they had hesitations about or having to mask?

Every state in the union has a law on informed consent which outlines that medical doctors must inform a patient of risks and benefits of any medical product or device and receive a consent to administer the drug or device without coercion.

It is possible that threatening one's job if they do, I'm sorry, is it possible that threatening one's job if they do not take a vaccine or wear a mask could be considered coercion?

Medical doctors did not mandate your employees to get vaccinated or wear a mask.

The district did.

Is the district comprised of medical doctors who have the ability to carry out informed consent?

This year the South Seattle community lost arguably the most exemplary exemplary and loved kindergarten teacher in the Seattle School District Marletta Iwasik.

Marletta had 53 years experience seeing experience ushering in students to kindergarten and taught children reading writing math science and many other concepts bringing them to a first grade and beyond level.

Marletta was a kindergarten teacher for my twins last year, effortlessly transitioning to online school, even keeping five or six girls to date and learning when they had no kids.

Please unmask our kids and let Marletta come back to teaching without a mask.

She has asthma and the children in South Seattle need her.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Whitney Mack.

Whitney Mack.

Hi, my name is Whitney Mack and as my fellow WAPA member Jen stated a few minutes ago, we sent PDRs that alerted our school board members to the legal liability that their own legal counsel may have been too nervous or ignorant to share with them and to work with you, not against you.

It's important to note how many of the requests we made in those documents were, in a sense, rhetorical questions.

We asked for specific documents on safety data for COVID-19 vaccines that we know do not exist.

We did this to point out that these documents should exist.

How can vaccines be mandated to teachers after Pfizer has been so reluctant to share safety data with the public and there are no informational inserts in the vaccine packages?

On top of this, vaccines offer no, quote, community protection as originally claimed.

Even the CDC, the WHO, and Dr. Fauci have acknowledged this, although Pfizer's data has shown this from the beginning.

The vaccine does not stop transmission, nor does it decrease the viral load that spreads.

The vaccine only offers a possibility of decreasing severity of symptoms for an individual alone, which strengthens the fact that injecting it into your body should be a choice.

I encourage you to look at the scientific data that does exist versus trusting health officials, including a recent study that found that the Pfizer vaccine was only 12% effective in kids 5 to 11, and that 85% of children 5 to 11 have already been infected and hold natural immunity anyways.

According to both the American Academy of Pediatrics website and CDC data, the risk of COVID death in children ages 0 to 19 is statistically zero.

With absolutely no long-term safety data, no level one studies, and the vaccine doing zero to decrease risk to fellow students and or teachers, the question of whether or not to mandate this vaccine for school-age children or teachers should be a hard no.

The fear mongering and coercion by health officials for a virus that has an infection fatality rate of 0.61% needs to stop.

And this begins with parents and school board members standing together against vaccine mandates for our children.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Alex Stein.

Alex Stein.

Alex Stein if you're on the line please press star six to unmute.

Moving to the next speaker, Carla Sugitani.

Carla Sugitani.

Hi.

My name is Carla Sigitani.

I'm a parent at Mercer Middle School.

I'd like you to ask to stop the mask requirement for all our students and also all our staff and teachers in our schools.

We know that community masking does not work.

We can see readily there's no difference in the spread of COVID between places with or without mask mandates.

We do know as we all experience every day for the last two years when we put on a mask no one can see our facial expressions.

For soft spoken no one can hear us.

There's quite a few soft spoken children in our schools and as one of the other parents noted there's never been a study on the safety of masks and there won't ever be one.

It would not even be ethical to ask children in a study to wear a mask for six or seven hours a day with only a break for water or for lunch.

It's just wrong to have these mandates.

And now that we're free from the governor and our local health inspector, there's no reason to keep these in place.

Please end the mask mandates.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Manuela Sly.

Manuela Sly.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Good evening, this is Manuela Sly speaking on behalf of Seattle Council PTSA.

With Governor Inslee's lifting of masking mandates for the state, including public education, we stand in support of teachers and students in Seattle Public Schools to keep everyone healthy and safe by continuing the masking mandate in our district.

The focus of our schools must be the education of our students.

In order to show up fully and prepare to learn, students must be safe and healthy.

Vaccinations are not universally accessible yet.

Children five and under are not eligible to get vaccinated.

People with certain health risks may not be able to get a vaccine and older people remain at a higher risk of major COVID complications.

Many families have younger siblings under five and families of color are more likely to live in multi-generational households.

The data also shows the vaccinations are not equitable, accessible, nor distributed.

Distribution and accessibility of vaccinations continue to follow the systemic patterns of racism in the United States, making it such that people living in poverty, communities of color, and students furthest from educational justice have lower vaccination rates.

To stay true and committed to Seattle Public Schools' strategic plan and accessible mitigation strategy to ensure students can learn, thrive, and remain safe and healthy at our schools.

As an organization whose mission is to advocate for all children, Seattle Council PTSA asks respectfully our school board to continue the masking mandate in our schools.

Thank you for your commitment to our students.

The next speaker is Jeremy Harvey.

Jeremy Harvey.

Hi, can everybody hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Hello, can you hear me okay?

We can hear you.

Thank you.

I would just like to echo the sentiment from many of the others who have been on this evening that the masks need to go.

There is overwhelming evidence from multiple studies the science has shown.

We've been told to follow the science for the past two years and I'm tired of our school districts, our state government, our local governments not actually following the science because there's plenty of science that shows us that masks are ineffective and here's some more science.

the mortality rate for children is only 0.26 percent and 0.01 percent of all cases that contracted COVID in children.

So if we look at can you know an abundance of caution for these numbers to me seems like we're doing a disservice to our children when we should be providing um you know we should be providing the an overabundance of protection for the most vulnerable on our populations and giving them the best possibility of an education and moving forward as productive adults in our society.

The CDC has said the basic masks do not work, full stop, period.

The WHO has even provided guidance that only certain workers need to be wearing masks, those who are sick, caregivers, and frontline workers.

So we can see with all this information there's no reason for children to be masked.

The long-term social, emotional, and physical effects on them is going to be something that we're going to deal with far into the future and I can already see things happening amongst not only my children, I have two children that are in school here, but amongst their friends and the effect it's having already within this short time period that we've been experiencing this situation.

I think forcing this on our children has been a despicable occurrence from what we've seen and I think it's time to take action immediately.

Calling now the names of those who were not able to join us earlier.

Kurt Benshef.

Kurt Benshef if you're on the line please unmute by pressing star six.

Moving to the next speaker, Alex Stein.

Alex Stein, please press star six to unmute if you're on the line.

President Hersey, that concludes today's testimony list.

Thank you, Miss Wilson-Jones.

We will now return to our introduction items.

I believe we left off on introduction.

Item number three approval of the family's education, preschool and promise FEPP levy funding for preschool services for the 2022 2023 school year.

Presenting will be executive director of curriculum, assessment and instruction.

Miss Cashel Toner.

Good evening, board directors.

Um Yep.

I'm Cashel Toner, executive director for So let's see.

I'm happy to introduce this item to you and to our community this evening.

As discussed at the February 15 SSCAI committee meeting, this board action report, if approved, would support expanding the successful partnership between Seattle Public Schools and the City of Seattle's Department of Education and Early Learning to continue funding and expand preschool classrooms in Seattle Public Schools.

Seven years ago, we began this innovative program by funding three preschool classrooms.

This year, we're poised to continue supporting our current 34 classrooms and expand to new classrooms for a total of 36 preschool classrooms funded by this partnership.

This means about $9.8 million and approximately 125 teaching positions funded by this partnership.

Under the leadership of CAI and the Early Learning Department, this program has expanded the opportunities for research-based and inclusive all-day preschool programming throughout the city and the district.

Currently, we're serving 644 students overall in the 21-22 school year, and if this proposal is approved, we will serve 680 students next year.

100 of those students could be students that have IEPs and participate in our designated SPP Plus and Head Start Plus programs.

Seattle Public Schools and DEEL, the Department of Education and Early Learning, share a commitment to high quality early learning and to expanding access to inclusive programming.

Each year, our preschool programs ensure that our youngest learners are more ready for kindergarten that we have been able to achieve.

By consistently meeting and exceeding standards for our whole child assessments and providing foundational opportunities that support their education and futures.

You will notice in the bar that when we talked in committee, we were thinking about funding expansion for three classrooms.

But as we finalized, um, coordination with deal, we have adjusted our proposal to fund Let's see.

Let's talk specifically about what this $9.8 million partnership could fund.

So like I said before, a continuation of our 34 currently funded classrooms and an addition of two new classrooms.

one new SPP expansion site at Leschi Elementary, which would be terrific because that's one of our early literacy partnership schools, and one new SPP plus classroom in Magnolia's newly remodeled building wing.

That's terrific because having inclusive programming located geographically spread out across the city makes for shorter transportation times for students who benefit from it those programs, which is great.

Let's see.

I guess I can pause there.

I saw a hand pop up.

So, um, yep, I can take questions.

Thank you, Miss Turner.

Director Harris.

I see your hand.

Feel free.

I would be, um.

Out of line if I didn't bring up my annual pushback about The Seattle Public Schools, being the city of Seattle's bank for 25% of these funds, which has never been in the FEPP levy until we meet certain metrics.

And it is my understanding in seven years, we have never failed to meet certain metrics.

And, you know, there is so much to love about this program.

I campaigned for it, et cetera, et cetera.

I am beyond impressed that the inclusionary FEPP Plus or Preschool Plus programs has expanded as much as it has, but it feels really disrespectful, if not insulting, that a governmental entity, which we are, is being treated this way by the City of Seattle.

And I will appreciate, because we've done this dance now for six years, that every CBO is required to address this 25% holdback, which the City of Seattle, of course, calls performance pay.

And Duane Chappelle and I dance with good humor and personal affection about this every year.

But it's a principled issue, and I'm again beyond uncomfortable about it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Director Harris.

Any other questions or concerns from directors?

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Yeah, this came through committee, but I asked that it just sort of come right to the full board since it is a recurring item.

So although we did discuss Director Harris's As she said, annual complaint about the 25% hold back.

We didn't get super into detail so that we could have that conversation as a full board.

So I hope if anybody has questions, especially new directors that you'll ask them now, and I know Director Song Moritz is our newly appointed or keep saying newly.

It's March now, I guess.

Currently appointed a representative for the FEPP levy to the city.

So Director Zongworitz if there's anything, I talked to Director Toner earlier today about if there was any other information that you wanted or if there was a facilitation that needed to happen to get you some time around the levy if that's something that you would like and she's happy to do that and not to say that you don't know what it is but just since there's a lot new going on and it comes through the committee that you're not a member of so just wanted to toss that out there if there's more that you want we're happy to do what we can to make sure everyone has the information that they need

Okay thank you Director Rankin.

Seeing no other hands we are going to move on to introduction.

I'm sorry I there's a hand Vivian has her hand up.

I see thank you.

And I was going to put mine up too so there it is.

Okay Director Songwuritz.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

The most recent oversight meeting was canceled, and so I haven't had an opportunity to dig in the details with the Oversight Committee.

So I do appreciate that offer from Director Toner for an overview.

I have one question.

Is there a particular reason why one of the originally proposed expansion programs was canceled?

Um, yep, that so we kind of go through a negotiation process every year, and the city has a set amount of expansion funds set aside through the course of the levy.

And there this is a mixed delivery model.

What that means is that in the conceptual design of Seattle Preschool program, it was it was actually designed to be delivered by both school districts, Seattle Public Schools and community based organizations.

And so every year the city of Seattle goes through a process with the community organizations where they work that through, and then also, you know, we do some direct contracting with them.

So when all of that is sort of balanced out, it's just kind of a, you know, kind of a puzzle to see, you know, which expansion sites they're going to use with city with community-based organizations and also with Seattle Public Schools.

So we are, you know, all the time in a respectful kind of dialogue to say, you know, here are our priorities.

You can see evidence of that with our SPP Plus, you know, programming and then also with our early literacy priority schools.

So, you know, adding programming to Leschi is good for us.

Great.

And just a follow up question.

The three program sites, those were requested by SPS and they came back and offered to.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Director Rivera-Smith.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I was actually going to ask the same question as Director Song-Moritz regarding why two instead of three, because three sounds better than two, but thank you for explaining that.

Also wondering, though, is this levy, or sorry, is this, I guess grant, whatever you call this, is this subject to an indirect fee?

And if so, what's the rate?

Yes, it is subject to an indirect fee, and I think the rate for next year, let me see.

I think I made a note about that earlier today, so I thought somebody might ask me.

I think next year it's looking about 9.06%.

How much does that turn out to?

I'm not sure exactly the total amount, but that helps with all the infrastructure to administer the grant.

And if there's someone from finance that wants to hop in here, that is that I know a little bit about that, but it's not my total area of expertise.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you for what you could offer.

Okay, thank you.

Seeing no further questions, we will prepare to move on to introduction item number four.

Okay.

Introduction item number four is amending policy 3115 Homeless Students Enrollment Rights and Services and remaining and renaming it Students Experiencing Homelessness Enrollment Rights and Services.

Presenting staff will be Executive Director of Coordinated School Health, Pat Sander.

Or Sander, I'm sorry.

It's Sander.

I'm bringing before you today, um, an introduction, um, with the amending and renaming of Policy 3-115, Homeless Students' Enrollment Rights and Services.

Upon approval, the policy will be renamed to Students Experiencing Homelessness Enrollment Rights and Services.

The required changes also allow policy with state and federal law requiring Seattle public schools to reduce barriers to facilitate on time grade level progression and graduation for highly mobile students.

And that's policy to provide informed consent for health care for unaccompanied McKinney Vento eligible students.

In addition, policy language ensures building level point of contact services for unaccompanied youth.

These are language adjustments and coincide with work that is currently underway.

As part of the review process, the equity analysis tool also serviced our awareness and the need for considering bias when applying the best interest determination decisions for McKinney-Vento student placement.

The amended policy language ensures students achieve on-time grade level progress by eliminating barriers through statewide instructions and will now include nurses, school counselors, and homeless liaisons as district staff who may provide informed consent for health care on behalf of McKinney-Vento students who are incapacitated because they are under age of majoring, no parent or guardian is available, or they cannot otherwise provide informed consent.

This may include health emergencies and routine health exams.

Under the laws, the employing school or district is not subject to civil damage resulting from consent or non-consent of care and payment for any care received.

Forms and training for district staff is available through the state.

The amended policy language aligns with the Washington State Directors Association guidance.

I'm in.

I'm joined here this evening with Jenea Proctor Mills, our recently hired McKinney-Vento liaison, and we will be happy to take any questions that you may have.

Okay, directors, do we have any questions?

that.

All right, Director Rankin.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I was just going to say we saw this policy and the next one come through committee twice.

And, um, not because there are objections, but to refine a little bit.

What was policy?

What was procedure?

And so our committee has had the opportunity to ask.

And, you know, I don't have any questions.

I just wanted to kind of make that note.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

Any questions or concerns?

Okay.

Seeing none, we will move on to introduction item number five.

I'm in board policy 31 16 students in out of home foster care and rename it dependent students foster care.

Presenting staff will be executive director of coordinated school health Pat Sander.

Thank you.

As a second item this afternoon, we are bringing forth the policy 3116, which as President Hersey has mentioned will be renamed dependent students foster care and as amended also incorporates the new state law requirements of reducing barriers to facilitate on time grade level progression.

And graduation of students who are dependent students as well as designating for the first time building level points of contact for dependent students at our school sites.

These are language adjustments and again coincide with work that is underway.

At the committee meeting, it was requested by Director Harris that we return in the fall to report on the depth of training of building points of contact and the and the levels of service that they are providing in schools, so we will be prepared to do that.

I am joined today by Elisa Jesse, program manager for family support and involvement, who also currently serves as our district level point of contact for dependent students foster care, working with the appropriate state, local and or tribal child welfare agencies to entertain questions you may have.

Wonderful.

any questions or comments from directors.

Director Hampson, take it away.

Thanks.

So as I understand it, this is primarily a comes down from the state right to now move from having just this.

Well, we have had somebody at the district, so that's not new, but to have somebody at the building level.

Correct, and my guess would be that what will happen is we have had the building points of contact at McKinney-Vento that many of our representatives in the buildings will be that point of contact for our foster care students also.

Yeah, which makes sense given the connection between future homelessness and students in dependent care.

The One thing I'd love to see, and I didn't double check, I know we've historically looked at our numbers of students experiencing homelessness.

I didn't double check to see if that was in that bar.

I would love to see the number for Seattle Public Schools.

I know how many are in the state and in the county, I think, but I don't know how many students we have in Seattle Public Schools.

And then also what Um.

Metrics I'm assuming at some point in the procedural part.

It's a long policy.

Um and I know there's a lot of state requirement.

You can just see through the list.

There's a lot of state requirements.

I'm wondering if we can create some accountability at the build level building level by having some.

Some kind of Um.

Procedure would be a perfectly fine place to do that.

But that's kind of one of the questions that that comes up is how is that going to be?

How are we going to know?

Um if they're having an impact on students and those the one thing I didn't see mentioned in the law.

Really was around intervention.

Um, I think maybe there's.

Maybe there are critical points of intervention, particularly right as students are moving from one place to a next to the next and their homes that they would need intervention.

So, um, that that's that's my only comment.

Otherwise, it's definitely a welcome addition.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I can.

I can say that with our homeless students, um, uh, Program man or liaison, um, Janaya Proctor-Mills indicated that today our latest poll was 1,806 McKinney-Vento eligible students in the system.

And I didn't ask, but Alicia Jesse is on this evening.

She may have the number for our foster care that she's been serving as our district point of contact.

Thank you, Pat.

Yeah, we have approximately for foster care close to maybe 300 and some odd students.

We're still trying to identify working closely with D C Y F on that.

Sorry.

Can I add a follow up question?

One thing that I know.

There's pros and cons to this, but I, um.

When it comes to It's not visible to a teacher or the person in the building that they have that status.

My understanding is, and I'm not looking at the system so I don't know exactly what it looks like visibly, but I have asked about whether or not you can tell that a student is in foster care.

when you're in power school?

Can you tell that they're experiencing homelessness when you're in power school?

Is it really available to, and is it available to not just counselors, but is it available to teachers?

Or is that a privacy issue?

And I say this with great caution because it's not the kind of thing that students that are in those positions want to have be defining them.

But at the same time, if folks don't know that that's their situation, they don't know to contextualize some of what they're struggling with or how much additional support they might need at a given point in time.

Yeah, I'll add to that.

That's a great question.

When you're in power school, there is a flag that is added to our McKinney-Vento eligible students.

Currently, schools that are supporting McKinney-Vento eligible students have access, meaning that specific staff have access to see this status within the school.

which protects them, because that's also a concern of ours.

And ultimately, we want to make sure that students aren't treated any differently.

That's the goal of the McKinney-Vento program is to ensure that students are treated the same that they would be treated if they did not have this housing instability happening.

And so our staff have access to see the flag because we work closely with, you know, all the schools.

And then school staff, some school staff have access to see who in the school is homeless in order to, you know, assist them with support.

That being the social workers, building points of contact, family support workers.

And those are the ones that I know have access.

Other than that, typically, if someone is requesting access for that type of information within PowerSchool, then that notification will come to me.

I'm not sure what the protocol is for foster care, but I'm sure Lisa or Pat can chime in there.

Yeah and I'll just also say for foster care, the flagging capability for that and confirmation for foster care comes from DCYF.

We receive school notification forms which then gives us authorization to go in and flag and identify that student as being in a specialized program and it will show up foster care in the same manner that Jenea just spoke about.

Also the building points of contact that are there to help support McKinney-Vento students and foster care students also have access to that to actually see who, in fact, in their buildings have been identified.

We do have kids that come in and out of foster care in the same manner as we have kids that come in and out of McKinney-Vento status as well.

Thank you so very much and welcome to SPS.

not you, Alessia.

I know you've been here.

Thank you.

I've been here for about a year and a half already, so okay.

Thank you, Director Hampson.

Director Harris, you're up next.

Lower hand.

Turn on microphone.

Uh, Director Hampson picked up most of my concerns and comments with respect to data.

And we had a foster, a niece, Middle College High School, which is not there anymore, but that's a whole other topic that I'm more than happy to talk about.

But I am beyond convinced and beyond grateful for the teachers that I submit to you would not have seen her succeed.

She would be dead for them taking her out, caring, setting very high standards, and absolutely enveloping her with care and consideration.

And when we talk about social emotional learning, we're talking about these kids that we will lose.

And I appreciate the data questions and the responses.

Those were in my notes here.

I'd like to see us potentially put on the website what our data is.

I also would like to hear more about the professional development for the building points of contact.

I think our school leaders have been slammed this last two years.

And I'd really like to know exactly what training and support they're getting from the John Stanford Center, not just online, but that enveloping, if you will, assistance.

And again, I'd very much like to see us track these numbers Because this city and our Children are in trouble.

And if we're going to talk about student outcomes, we need to talk about numbers.

And I could not be more grateful for the assistance to Seattle Public Schools for my niece, my foster.

Um, it's one of the reasons I'm here now.

And multiply that by 345,000 young people.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Director Harris.

Any other questions or concerns?

Okay, fantastic.

We will now move on to item number six, Adoption of the School Board Policy Number 2194, Rigorous High School Course Enrollment.

Presenting staff will be Executive Director of College and Career Readiness, Dr. Caleb Perkins.

Thank you very much, Director Hersey, President Hersey.

I'm pleased to have the opportunity to share with you this BAR.

As was shared at the SSC&I committee, this is a new policy, 2194, and it is required by law.

State law requires the district to now automatically enroll students who meet or exceed the state standard on the eighth grade or high school statewide assessments into the next most rigorous level of course in the sequence as offered by that student's high school.

Many of you may remember that we engaged in conversations back in the fall on this potential policy, and then Director Sargio more recently gave some time to also hear about it.

So thank you to all of you for those time.

The goals of this policy broadly align with our strategic plan and that it seeks to participate participation in dual credit coursework, particularly for students of color.

But during our initial conversation about this policy in October with the SSC&I committee, there was a request for more language and more alignment to our values and our board's goals and guardrails, particularly with respect to making sure we're referencing multiple measures and an explicit grounding in racial equity.

And after a good deal of engagement, we've revised the policy presented to the committee and now to you as a full board, and we believe now it fully aligns to our values as well as to the board's goals and guardrails.

As a quick summary of that engagement, in addition to the two by twos I referenced, We also connected with the Black Student Unions through the great work of Michelle Page.

We've talked with DEEL, Stanford Children, Equal Opportunity Schools, and a number of other groups and districts, including Federal Way, all of which have been engaged in this work on how to ensure access, particularly for our students of color, furthest from educational justice to advanced courses.

The summary of changes that we made based on that engagement, we added sections on research to really ground our work in the conversations and the listening that we've done with African American male students and families.

Also, we've added a note on racial equity analysis that we will be using going forward.

In addition to the policy, we have modeled it in part off of the work that the advanced learning department did about the use of multiple criteria.

And in addition, we've outlined some initial pieces around what would be considered for a potential procedure as the policy directs the superintendent to develop.

And that includes, per the input from our SSC&I committee and lots of others, the idea of additional multiple criteria, including things like guidance from trusted adults, demonstrated performance in courses in a particular content area, intellectual strengths, and so forth, and many other things to ensure that this truly is promoting the racial equity that we believe in.

Finally, I'll just note that the BAR does highlight some powerful data in the racial equity analysis around the benefit of such a policy and the reason why a number of groups have been advocating for this.

Just in our analysis of 2019-2020 data for 10th grade, we see that 177 students of color who did well on the particular SBA exam were not enrolled in the highest level course they could have.

And so we do have work to do.

We're excited.

If the board does vote to approve this, we will be working with not only schools and students and families to inform them of this, but also with the many stakeholders that need to make sure it happens in the spring.

We're very grateful for the support that was expressed during this past SSE and I committee, and with that, I will take your questions.

All right, directors.

If you have questions, comments or concerns, please raise your hands at this time.

Director Hampson.

Uh, first, I didn't think I had any questions, and then I just thought of it.

So my first question is this all seems like I mean so statement.

Great work.

question the policy itself felt dense and I may have already made that comment and so I apologize I'm making it again.

I just want a you know parent or student to be able to pick this up and go oh that makes sense um maybe it's maybe my brain's just not feeling it today or when I read it earlier, or because I'm also reading a whole bunch of policies, but it did feel less accessible than I would like it to for something that is so important.

My question is, and you don't have to answer it now, but is there any way to get it less dense?

Maybe it just needs more I don't know.

Um, but just between now and action if it's possible before it goes to permanent policy to get there, and then.

Um, I'm just.

I'm trying to reconcile.

Is there any

there's not in the sense that this is just requiring that any student get access to the most rigorous course available.

And I just want to, there's a response to the concerns that were raised today in public testimony that was shared with the full board during this meeting, so you may not have had a chance to look at it.

But there are, one of the aspects of this, there are many, many different advanced courses that students have access to at Roosevelt.

There are definitely trade-offs that were made in terms of the decision around this particular human geography class, but anyway, the long story short is this policy would not conflict because it would just ensure whatever the most rigorous course is, students would get automatic access to that.

Okay, you know, because I did just, I read that pretty quickly, but I just wasn't sure if sure, because we have to in order to have that next rigorous course, it has to be there, right?

The opportunity has to be there.

And so but if we're sort of.

And other scenarios, uh.

Removing an abundance of.

Advanced opportunities, which may be an overabundance.

And yet we're doing this, you know, and.

Rose, that's not necessarily the place where that is going to be in conflict.

I just want to make sure that those two things aren't are in conflict with one another, but if you're satisfied, I'm satisfied.

An astute observation because there are things that we do need to keep in mind of each of these, and just one example is the great work that our leaders of ethnic studies and black studies are doing to make sure there's advanced coursework offerings within those as well.

That's going to take some time, but we need to make sure that's fully aligned, and that's, to your point, that's a tension that we need to address.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay, Director Sargent.

Am I off mute?

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with you, Caleb.

I just want to publicly state that it was one of the more bright spots in my work here.

And I don't have so much as a question, but a comment and a consideration.

know I sometimes I feel like it's a it's a curse that I've been in the district so long and I have so many experiences because I have a lot to say right but what what is true is that students of color are often not supported in these advanced classes and so there has to be some really deep thinking and expectations setting for instructors of these classes, because we cannot deny the fact that people are socialized to believe certain things.

This district, if you have been around long enough, Garfield was an apartheid system where the APP students were on the third floor.

Yeah, I see you.

I see you, Superintendent Jones, smiling a little bit.

But it was an apartheid system, and so when Black students were, quote-unquote, caught on the third floor, they were questioned why they were there, even if they were there because that's where the AP program was and they were in the AP classes.

And so these things don't die.

We no longer have a segregated AP program at Garfield.

You cannot tell from door to door what kind of classroom it is, and yet the attitudes and beliefs around who should be and does well in these courses still exists and persists.

I just want us to be prepared.

We shouldn't be shocked when this happens.

It's not if.

it's going to be when it happens when there is a student of color who is marginalized in the context of this class that they actually earned the right to be in.

And so I just want to I want to state that and I know you care about this.

This is something that is important to you.

And so I just want to be proactive in thinking about how we deliberately and intentionally support these students who may very well be the only person of color in their class and what all of that means in that context.

And important points, just quickly, and that is part of the Equal Opportunity Schools work that I know you know well.

And it also speaks to the bold action the board has taken on grading.

It's one small important step to ensure that students have full and fair access to succeed in these courses.

So thanks for the board's help on that.

Okay, fantastic.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you, and I think in sort of in line with what Director Sargio was asking there, I'll look into It's not enough to put the students into these courses and hope that they succeed.

It says SPS must ensure that the schools and teachers make the classroom safe and welcoming.

It says that we'll do that through Tier 1 supports and Tier 1, 2, 3. What are those Tier 1, 2, 3 supports?

What is that?

Well, the basic piece of that is that tier one is what all students get.

And so that's where we're spending most of our time is how do we in each of these advanced courses, how are they truly, as it says, welcoming, but also supporting students.

look no further than some powerful examples about the way Rainier Beach right now and Chief Sealth are implementing International Baccalaureate and really trying to be more explicit in how they're working with students with IEPs to ensure that the IB diploma is accessible for all.

That's what we're really thinking about in terms of Tier 1 most specifically.

Obviously Tier 2 and Tier 3 are when those don't work and we have work to do and that's where the work of Dr. Pedrosa pushing inclusionary practices.

I think will marry well with this effort to improve success in advanced coursework.

And we look forward to sharing more when we get to talk about college and peer readiness through the progress monitoring process.

So, more to come.

Thank you.

And is there a superintendent procedure with this change or is it going to be updated?

No, this is a new policy altogether, right?

So yeah, it's a brand new policy, and the policy does direct the superintendent to develop a procedure per guidance from the board office.

We don't share what is formally a draft procedure, but instead we gave ideas or language, potential language to be considered for the procedure, and obviously we will keep the board informed of that.

Okay, so that's TBD.

It hasn't been.

You don't have one.

It's just, yeah, the initial ideas are captured in a memo that's at the addendum for this bar.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

No further questions.

Okay, fantastic.

We will now move on to item number seven.

Adoption of the board policy number 32 25 school based threat assessment, amendment and renaming of board policy number 31 43. Notification and dissemination of information about student offenses and notification of threats of violence or harm and repeal of board policy 43 14 notification of threats of violence and harm.

I believe presenting staff will be

Hi, good evening, everybody.

So I'm actually going to have Aaron Romanek.

And give some background information, but we are asking for the approval of this introducing this board action report to adopt the board policy 3 to 5. The school based threat assessment and then revise the board policy number 3143 also district notification of juvenile offenders with this would be renamed notification and dissemination of information about student offenses and notification of threats.

of violence or harm, and it would replace existing policy 4314, notification of threats of violence and harm.

These policy updates are necessary to comply with recent changes in state law and implement the district school-based threat assessment program.

And I'm going to pass for background information to Aaron Romanek.

Hello.

Good evening again.

Erin Romanek, Student Support Services Supervisor with Coordinated School Health.

I do want to share a little bit of history and background.

For some of you, this is going to look and sound very familiar because this is the second time that we've brought this through for introduction in the past year and a half.

And so I do want to take a little bit of time just providing some of those pieces because many of you have worked on this already.

And so I definitely want to call attention to that.

So as Dr. Pedroza had mentioned, the policy 3225, which is our school-based threat assessment policy, is something that we've been implementing within Seattle Public Schools.

We've had a school-based threat assessment process for a number of years.

And this actually just helps get us in line and gets the policy and procedure.

to where the state law is requiring us to be.

So even though we are a little bit delayed in approving this at this point, this is something that we have been doing with this work.

I do wanna share that the foundation of this policy truly is about believing that all behavior is a form of communication and really looking at even threats of violence in that similar way as well.

And it definitely is alignment with that.

So as I mentioned in front of you, it's complicated and complex because there's a couple other policies that are with it at the same time that we are repealing, and they kind of go together as one package.

And so House Bill 1216, which was passed in 2019, required each school district to adopt a policy and procedure for threat assessment program.

SPS, again, has a this program for a long time.

We originally brought this up to you in the spring of 2000. It went through at that time the operations committee and it was brought forward for introduction in early June and early July of that of the 2020 school year as well.

Attached to the board action report that you have is the draft policy, which was modeled off of Wazza's policy, but we did make some language changes and just alignment within Seattle Public Schools with the work that we're currently doing.

As I mentioned, this has come up before and what happened right before we approached action, which was in the middle of July of 2020. is that school board directors had asked us for a pause on this.

At that point in time, many of you were working on the resolution of a commitment to Black students and wanted to really take a look at a suite of policies at that point in time to make sure that we were all aligned and cohesive.

that our language made sense and kind of worked together.

And so we worked then from that time forward with many of you and being able to revise and update different policies and procedures, one of them being our school-based threat assessment as well.

Some of our conversations were definitely focused on really how are we having students access mental health and behavior support.

how do we partner with if we do with law enforcement, and really protecting students from inappropriate conduct by adults was a large part of our conversations as well at that time.

Again, we did make further edits and we incorporated feedback from the committee meetings that we had.

We also cross-referenced to many other policies and procedures that support and are integral to this work.

So the package in front of you consolidates also 3143, which is notification and dissemination of information about student offenses.

and notification of threats of violence or harm.

And what that policy really does is just get us in alignment.

It's very much a compliance policy of what we need to do when we receive specific notifications.

But we did feel that this all kind of neatly fit together in this one package we wanted to present to you.

Part of the community engagement we did at the time when this went through before COVID in the winter of 2020, January, February, March, we had met with many students, K-12 across our district as part of our discipline policy work, but really focusing on hearing from students what their beliefs were about safe and welcoming environments and what they needed from us as staff to have those environments created for them, which again is foundational to our student Our school-based threat assessment work is truly those safe and welcoming environments that create the conditions where students can come and be themselves and bring their brilliance every day to school.

There is a piece regarding the equity analysis I just want to flag.

Again, the reason for having a very thorough school-based threat assessment policy work is to mitigate for bias.

Again, we're not looking at whether a student poses a threat.

It's the threat that the student made.

And so, we're actually looking at the behavior and not the student.

But we want to be very careful that we're not assigning specific characteristics to our students and using those as we go through our threat assessment process.

And so, what this does and the process that we go through has those pieces built in.

And I believe there was some language from school board directors if I looked back through my notes when we met for introduction that we added in regarding mitigating for bias because it shouldn't be based on demographics or race or gender.

It truly should be about what the threat is that's presented in front of us and really looking holistically at maybe some things that we've missed or things we want to support on with that student.

So, as I mentioned, the policy—this work has never stopped.

We've been ongoing.

I promised many of you who were in that day when we were there for introduction that we would not stop this work.

We would continue, and we have been doing that.

But we are very proud to bring this forward today.

When this was reviewed at committee on February 15th, it was moved forward.

that we're bringing forward.

And we're also working with the recommendation for approval by the full board, and so I would be happy to take any questions.

You'll see there's numerous attachments.

There's policy.

There is draft procedure.

Attached to it as well for both policies that we're bringing forward, and I do believe there's the was the models as well.

Just for reference.

You can see the slight tweaks that we changed.

With that any

Thanks.

I just wanted to publicly thank Aaron and team for the thoroughness and thoughtfulness that this process has been Embarked on.

I think it's a really good example of how you know, it didn't the model policy didn't just fly.

It went, you know, when things things got awry, we were taken seriously and dove into it, and there was engagement with various groups.

And, um.

We'll think back to the fall when, unfortunately, this work had to be, um, engaged with multiple times as threats were made across our district.

And, um So I mean, that just shows us how critical it is, even though it hopefully happens very rarely, but I just wanted to, um, give public appreciation to the team and the incredible amount of work that's gone into this policy.

Thank you.

Director Hampson.

I know I apologize if this question is about something that's in one of the attachments that I have, and I missed it.

But Where's the specific piece about law enforcement?

Is that in the procedure?

No, actually, the WASDA model policy had an inclusion of either student or excuse me, of school resource officers or law enforcement.

And that was a piece that we had removed from our policy.

And so it's not there.

So you'll see it in WASDA.

But in our policy, it would typically show up, it talks about different people we would engage at the different levels of threats, potentially.

And that's where they had included, the WASDA model policy had specifically included law enforcement potentially being at the table for those conversations, which we had removed for ours.

Okay.

And then, well, no, because one of the things that I know we were concerned about in all of this was training to support staff and not making those erroneous decisions to contact law enforcement based on an inappropriate threat assessment that doesn't comport to where there's bias and there's, you know, they're, yeah, I'm a little, but they're looking at the behavior a contextually, so it's part of when you talked about that that actually gave me concern.

If they're not trained appropriately to make the assessment, they're not going to take sort of background data into account, right?

And might overreact.

Yeah, if I could share a little bit, just we had this conversation and committee as well, and so I think this is a great question and so to be able to answer and we the school based threat assessment process.

relies also on central office staff to be able to partner with schools.

We recognize this is a heavy lift in a large, in a lot of times it's very critical crisis situations where timing is very important, right?

So when we, as we've been developing this program and shifting more to a school-based threat assessment, What we do is recommend anytime there's a threat that schools are able to call us, school leaders call us, and we partner with them.

So we've had the training in the Salem-Kaiser model, which, again, accounts for many of the things that you're concerned about.

We help walk through and partner side by side with school teams to do the threat assessment.

And so that is where we felt, again, we felt it was only fair because there is so much that are on our schools.

And again, these situations are highly emotionally charged situations as well.

So we wanted to be able to partner with schools to walk them through everything and, again, be able to bring up some of those components of And again, not looking at past incidences.

We are looking a lot of times truly at what is that immediate threat in front of us, and that is what we're assessing.

We're going to look at all the other pieces.

But sometimes it's helped to have an objective kind of third party, right, be able to walk through, because people have a lot of emotions around threats that occur.

Um, as well.

And I think one thing, though, I think just to differentiate is when there's an immediate, uh, threat that's made, potentially that following our emergency response, you know, protocol through safety and security, there are times that 911 is called.

If we have a, a threat, it, similar to, we had many in, um, in the month of December where police were, were called if we got things after hours.

But we they aren't typically wouldn't be part of our threat assessment process as we're kind of picking apart all the pieces and developing a comprehensive support plan for that young person.

They aren't at the table with us.

Okay, so.

I'm just trying to figure out where those two things should meet.

Um, I was following along with you, and then I kind of got lost at the end.

I'm trying to confirm that.

Okay, so the question I have is, should this, either in policy or procedure, procedure is not our purview, but is it reasonable to sort of counteract the knee-jerk reaction that a biased mind is going to make to call the police before there's even the opportunity to do an appropriate threat assessment, and that goes to what you're talking about, which is a safety and security, where somebody's looking at the situation very simplistically in the moment, a staff person, and by the way, their CBA says they're allowed to call 911, which is completely unnecessary.

Do we need to say something to counteract that here to caution that, and or is that in that other policy.

And if this is not answerable now, that's completely fine.

I realize it might be a more complex question, but this is really important.

Yeah, no, I think it's a great question and one to consider.

I'd have to look back through policy procedure.

I mean, I do think there's some initial information that we gather.

And I can just, again, this is getting into more of our procedural work, but when there is a threat of something, we have a process of our 411 process that we pull a team together and are making determinations at that point.

We're not assessing the threat, but just assessing with multiple departments.

how we need to proceed and if we do need to call police, because sometimes there are concerns if we can't get enough information to talk to a young person at that point, and there's a concern about a threat the next morning.

coming into school, there are some things we need to do to be responsive to that.

But again, we work with our safety and security department.

But I would love to see if there is a piece, and I don't know if there's any other thoughts around that, but to see if there is something we want to add to just call that out, as you just mentioned.

Because we do have data from security about when 911 is called.

And it's not always 911. Sometimes it's from a person's cell phone.

But we know that we have many incidents of police being called where it's highly questionable that you needed to create an interaction with law enforcement for that child, which once that happens, you can't undo it.

Right.

And it has a serious impact on the outcomes for that particular student.

We know that unequivocally.

So I'm just wondering how we can really nail down the accountability of it so we're actually tracking the impact of what has helped way better policy.

That's kind of where I'm going with it.

Right, right.

And I do—because I wonder, and I feel like this was a little bit of a conversation that we kind of got—like, last time, right, that we had this conversation, where this is when we're saying—because, again, things are happening and law enforcement is being called, and this specifically is for, like, our school-based—like, threats of violence and harm.

I mean, threats to shoot up our school, threats to blow up our schools, threats to kill and murder people.

I mean, this is really what this policy is, and I don't mean to be as transparent as that, but that is really what we're doing.

Well, no, I think we have to be.

I mean, I think we want to be clear so we know what problem we're trying to solve with which policy.

You know, I think we want to be really direct and clear about what it is we're trying to do so there isn't, yeah, and that's why I asked that question.

We've got to make sure that there's a clear we're not going to be able to do that.

We're not going to be able to do that decision tree process, which I think you probably have internally, but we as in terms of how we're setting policy, and this is, I think part of the problem of having such extensive policies as we get pulled so far down into this detail.

Well, I'll just I'm just going to just one little piece of information is that some of the work we're actually working with with we're working with our also, and that's going to be led by Dr. Williams, thinking about that level of work that you're talking about and what does that really look like.

So we are working on some more clarification.

A lot of our school leaders have lots of strong thoughts, our teachers, so we want to make sure we have a really clear guidance that we're going to be working on.

Moving forward, so that's something we're working on.

I don't want to make any promises about that right now, but it is something that Dr Williams is going to take on as one of her her projects to dig in with a team.

Including community members and such to make some really clear roles and responsibilities in procedural work, so I just wanted to share that that that's happening.

But yes, the two

Well, and I think thank you for all of that, because I think we all know and have had no of countless incidents where these two things intersect in the same kid.

right they're having issues and then as a threat it's not they're not actually making that threat but they're it's a mech something that they're doing to try to get a reaction and it's completely unrelated to these other threats right but they end up intersecting and you have a staff person who's maybe not that well trained trying to address it so thank you I'm sorry make sure that we're de-escalating not escalating for sure yeah okay director Rivera-Smith

Hi, thank you.

This definitely has been in the works for quite some time now.

I look at it, I'm like, wow, this is finally coming to this final step.

So thank you for your tireless work on this.

It has really, it's been a long road.

And I know that it's had a lot of almost incarnations, but especially, I know, as you say, this hasn't been, this isn't, these updates haven't been officially made yet, but this has been in use.

The steps called out for in this policy have been used, especially in the fall when we did have what seemed like a little string of threats going on.

I'm wondering, coming out of that and having this already been in use, kind of trial runs through this, through all the procedure here, all the steps in this policy and procedure, was anything taken away from last fall when this was in use?

Were there any updates or changes made through learning, you know, any lessons learned through its use then?

Yeah, I definitely think lessons learned for sure.

Every time we go through this process, every time we get a call, absolutely.

I don't think the framework of what's kind of laid out has changed.

But really, it just highlighted to us that how much schools do need support in this work and going through it, because it's a lot that they're working with and they're handling.

And there's a lot of fear and anxiety when we hear threats.

And so, again, it's It confirmed our thinking that we did need to have a district.

There's a district team of five staff that support this that are able to be present and be there.

And then we provide follow-up case management services as well if it's needed, if it's welcome.

So we continue to provide ongoing support.

And so it's the work really becomes and what we're learning is the ongoing support after the young person, right?

Like after this happens, what support we're providing, again, how does it get back to that safe and welcoming, welcoming back, what restorative pieces need to come into play as well.

And so, again, the framework, it still feels good to us, but we're always learning and just how we can improve.

on just the interactions we have to make sure our schools, our school staff, our families, our students feel supported in this process.

So.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, I was also going to ask about next steps, and I see how in the, you know, timeline for implementation.

It does explain how this is going to go out to the building leaders, uh, new revised policies, and it will be training.

Um, and education.

But then I see this has a there's no there's there's a zero fiscal note.

It's like this is going to be what is the word it uses basically.

zero.

How is that?

Because we're already doing the work and it's part of the work of Coordinated School Health.

It's been embedded and this came up in conversation.

I apologize if this is going a little bit off, but the positions and the roles used to live within the Safety and Security Department.

They came within the fold of Coordinated School Health in 2019. There was some FTE assigned, but we've been able to repurpose and really focus in on this.

So our program manager for mental health, who all of you have been very supportive in making sure that we have the mental health supports and services in the district, but that is the person who really heads up this work, and we strongly believe it belongs within the mental health work.

And so we're already doing it.

It's existing.

It's ongoing.

We already meet with school leaders.

We have training sessions.

We have a whole website built out for them.

And so we'll just continue doing what we've done.

All right.

Thank you for your questions.

Director Rankin.

Thanks.

Well, Dr. Pedroza already kind of addressed it.

But when Director Hampson was talking, something I wanted to note is the specific level of threat that this policy addresses and part of why it bounced around and went away and then came back is because it started to expand too far into any kind of anything that was threatening.

As opposed to school based threats, threats of violence, specific threats of violence against a school.

Um, so I wanted to say that, but the what I wanted to Add was that the ways in which This policy has developed over time is what I am really hoping to see with the policy or the DAC, the advisory council that we're talking about and the policy related to that that needs work about taking some of the guesswork away from individual people at the buildings and having really, really clear Values process and a team from central office to go support buildings.

And so then turn to what Director Hampson was talking about in terms of like I don't want to call it smaller, but more interpersonal.

threatening behavior or outbursts or whatever kind of things that people react to in the moment.

I know those things happen quickly, but how can we think about the way that we are supporting school leaders and folks in addressing the assessment of a threat made about their school?

How can we kind of engage that same type of thinking and support into our other policies around discipline and response in the moment and take some of the guesswork away and take some of the identify and take some of the bias away to sort of say, you know, when this happens, do this first, then this, then this, and then find a way for our, and I know I've talked to the special education department about this too, about finding a way to then bring support from central office to a building if there's um, you know, future mitigation of behavior or something that's going on with a student that doesn't involve.

Calling police on a kid as a first step, and that that involves, um, support and acknowledgement of Crisis that the child is experiencing that this policy does.

Um, I hope that made sense.

That was a little bit of roundabout way, but.

I think it's important that this is very specific and that we think about how thoughtful and built out this is in terms of who does what when.

And I really want us to think about bringing this to the other work in hopefully that discipline work session, because I think it's this is a really good example of how we are putting our values into practice, and I would really like to see us align align those other things to this level.

If I could add, I was able to find something to go back to Director Hampson's comment and question.

So in procedure, we do identify, we call out specifically what an imminent threat is, and it's the serious violence, you know, towards self or others with identifiable targets.

And then we also specifically have a piece of when the team makes a determination to call law enforcement or safety and security.

So, that is embedded into our procedure.

And, again, that follows, again, we've gone through a training with Salem-Kaiser, which is out of Oregon, that follows and falls in line with that, which is also what Puget Sound ESD uses and as well as OSPI.

So, that is in procedure.

Specifically, like I said, I know we wanted to define that eminent, and again, it's that high risk, right?

It's not the smaller behaviors.

It's really truly that high risk behavior, but it's the team decision as well as when to involve law enforcement, which is also kind of the tie-in when you think about the other policy of the notification of threats of harm.

Like, there is duty to warrant components we have that we also have to follow up on, which is why the two policies kind of go That doesn't necessarily involve law enforcement.

That does inform, though, notifying potential victims if they've been identified as targets as well.

And so, again, that's why they kind of go together.

But it is in procedure where we call that out specifically.

Thank you, Erin.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Okay, fantastic.

Really appreciate the robust discussion.

I see no other hands up.

Am I correct?

Okay, Director Harris.

Oh, whoa, whoa.

I just put my hand down.

I had it up.

I was trying to be.

What's the word?

Proactive.

Proactive.

Thank you.

Very, very quick.

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for putting the superintendent procedure with the proposed policy.

I'm having difficulty, given our history, not talking to folks that are here, right here, right now, not personal, having policies without superintendent procedures, devil's in the details, blah, blah, blah.

Second, a comment I want to make, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, But it was four years in to my term that I ever heard the word 411 team.

And I wonder how many of my colleagues know what the heck 411 team is, let alone what the procedures are and who the heck is on it.

This is like behind the curtain kind of smoke filled stuff.

And I'm wondering whether or not You could do a learning piece, one page.

This is what we do.

This is how we do it.

And to follow up with both Directors Hampson and Lankin, if we, in fact, have decision trees that our work groups have worked on, if this happens and this happens, if A equals B, then C.

If A plus C equals D, to give folks a sense of security, because I think we're all living in that three o'clock in the morning, terrified land, when the deputy superintendent, the superintendent calls you in the middle of night and tells you that we've lost a student.

It's what keeps me awake at night.

And when parents call me with a suggested threat, et cetera, It stuns me.

It paralyzes me.

It frightens me.

And we all have examples we can point to.

So frankly, one of the things that would help me sleep at night is we got this for you all.

And this is who we're relying on.

And these are the steps that we're taking.

And we haven't shucked it off.

yet again to principals and assistant principals who already have their plates well full.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just to piece to that, so we do have a number of internal documents with our processes that, again, are public on our internal site that we could share.

That's not a problem.

I do think there's a lot of fear and anxiety and worry around this.

And so we have well-built out processes surrounding the work that we do.

And so that would be something that we could definitely share.

Yeah, I was going to say the 411 process is something that we keep improving.

It keeps getting better and better and better, and it incorporates many components.

We're really proud of it.

Director Harris, I will make sure to have a follow up, like a little maybe a memo or something with some information.

Me and Aaron can work with Tyler Hamilton.

and get something produced for actually both probably represent to both operations and SSC and I committee so that way we can cover both because it actually goes into both areas.

Appreciate that very much.

Thank you.

Okay, director.

Here's your hand is still up.

Busted putting it down.

Thank you, friend.

Okay, we have now arrived at item number eight, City of Seattle Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy funding for middle school out of school programs, transportation, and middle school athletics for the 2021-22 through 2025-26 school years.

Presenting staff will be Assistant Superintendent of Operations Fred Podesta.

Thank you, President Hersey.

This action accepts continued funding from the Family Education Preschool and Promise Levy to support middle school, after school activities, middle school athletics, after-school programs at Northgate Elementary and summer learning programs at Northgate Elementary, Mercer, Aki Kurose, and Washington Middle Schools.

And specifically what this funds and has funded in previous iterations of the levy is stipends for middle school coaches and then out-of-school time transportation.

So the extra transportation that supports students that participate in these after-school programs gets billed to individual schools, and this funding allows them to pay for that extra cost of that transportation.

Again, this is something we've done in prior iterations of the levy.

It was when some previous work, the board had approved other grants associated with FEPP.

The exact billing amounts weren't ready yet, so this is being introduced separately as kind of a one-off item.

The action will support this funding for the whole period of levy through the 25-26 school year.

And I'm happy to take any questions that you may have.

Any questions from directors?

Okay, Director Rivera-Smith.

Okay, thank you.

This sounds pretty awesome.

It did not go through committee, so this is new for me to be reading here, or I mean, not right this second, but anyways, I'm wondering, it says on the bar that this is for through 25, 26 school years, but then on page, I don't know what this is, page five of the PDF, terms of this agreement shall begin September 1st, 2021 and end October 31st, 2022. So it looks like it ends in October.

How is and what am I missing?

I think that's the annual agreement we will have with administered through the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department to get the operating agreement and the building agreement between the district and the city.

But what this action does is authorize us to do that on an annual basis through the end of the grant period.

Okay, so there will be another annually, we'll have another one of these contracts.

This is just showing us this year's.

Yes, there'll be an annual contract The board won't have to approve those every year.

You're approving those ahead of time for the next, through the period of the grant.

Will they be changing every year or will they stay, what we approve now is what the next?

We expect them to stay the same amounts to hold steady through each year.

I understand.

Okay.

I'm hearing an echo of myself.

That's so weird.

The school, so I'm trying to understand too.

So this is for the middle school sports.

This is for the studies of the coaches.

there's funding for stipends for coaches, there's funding for transportation for middle school sports, and then there's funding for transportation from out-of-school time programs at middle school, so students can get extra transportation if they're going to be at school longer.

And then there's funding for Similar funding also for Northgate Elementary, and then there's funding for summer learning programs at Northgate Elementary and the three middle schools I mentioned.

So there's several.

Is that additional for Northgate because of their being off-site, or no, they're not off-site because of what?

No, this is something that was done previously.

It's just I have to confess that I know mostly about the transportation end of this, how the programs themselves were picked and developed, but no, it doesn't have anything to do with the construction at Northgate.

Okay.

It's just because it's a holdover, I guess?

It's because they have the program, you know, that they've developed the program and had the need.

Okay.

Well, and I see that it's the priority is given to the schools that have a higher free and reduced lunch student population.

So on the page, I guess this is 14 of the PDF again.

At the bottom of it says parks.

I was out of school time unallocated.

What is that used for?

I'm sorry.

I'm not sure.

Again, the A.

At the bottom in gray highlight is 11. I can't tell if it's just for transportation.

It's just transportation.

It just says parks and school time unallocated.

Yeah, there I believe that will cover things and events that might occur at parks that aren't yet known yet that school may want to provide transportation to.

Okay, and then the summer learning that is Can you explain what that is?

Is that for community center programming?

It varies, I believe, from one school to the next.

But we have some summer learning occurring in our buildings and some in other places.

Just trying to understand what we're looking at.

I don't think I have any other questions right now, but I'll think about it.

Thank you.

OK, thank you, Director Rankin.

Thanks.

Is this administered similarly to other programs where schools have to apply?

Or is this specifically for municipal athletics, it comes to SPS and SPS decides how to apply it?

No, I think at the front end there was a process where which schools would benefit from the funding was determined And then schools, you know, depending on how their programs go and their students' needs, you access this funding to pay for the billing that they're going to get from the transportation department.

But allocations were established on the front end.

Okay, so if this is for, if this is through the 25-26 school year, the schools who benefit, that's like locked in, essentially?

different schools wouldn't have the opportunity to access it.

Okay and I also noticed that some of the athletic or there's some feet so it seems interesting that there is a system where we're getting money from the city to pay parks Um, so I guess I'm that's a question for another time, probably to do with the joint use agreement between the school district and the parks department.

Um and how we could maybe Yeah, there does something that's weird about that.

I mean, not that we're not grateful for the additional support, but it seems a little.

like, let's look at that joint use agreement some more.

Sure.

And again, the bulk of the funding is for our own transportation services.

Okay.

So for middle school athletics, is that for?

That's for transportation and stipends for the coaches.

Okay.

So the middle school out of school programs, though, that take place?

In our buildings.

Oh, okay.

So then what?

Okay.

So many of them are in our buildings, but students to participate in the program need transportation after the program, so they take the out of school time bus, but that's an extra fee to the school.

because it's not the regular to from transportation, and this allows the school to use their own budgets.

So that students can get home after something that's not at the regular release time of the rest of the buses.

Exactly.

And again, the story differs a little bit from one building to the next and where it's located, but that's the idea in general.

Okay, thanks.

I will read it more closely before before action.

Director Harris.

Hand down my gap.

Missed it.

Okay, uh.

Assistant Superintendent Pedroza couple of questions for you.

So The funds that go to each individual school.

Is that part of the weighted staffing standard formula and school budgets?

I've got a whole bunch of questions for you because I'm confused as heck.

Second question.

Do we have a 25% banking slash also known as performance pay for the city funds like we do for FEPP preschool.

Third question is to follow up and I had this on my notes with Director Rankin.

What is the status of the joint use agreement with Seattle Parks?

I recall very specifically that we didn't have a joint use agreement for several years.

And the board was never advised of those negotiations or what we ended up with.

Now, I will appreciate that it's not over a million dollars that requires board approval, but it certainly is an issue of interest to at least this board member.

I don't speak for my colleagues.

Thank you.

And then Director Harris, you said, you said Pedrosa, but I assume those questions are directed to me.

I absolutely misspoke.

Assistant Superintendent Pedrosa, Pedesta.

There you go.

Thank you, sir.

Although that could have worked in my favor.

So I do not, I am not aware of any relationship between this funding and the weighted staffing standards, but so that's something I will have to work with my friends in finance unless JoLynn or somebody can answer.

There isn't a performance pay component to the billing for this.

This is really just direct for, you know, this is just reimbursing the district for these operational costs associated again with mostly with transportation for these programs.

The joint use agreement has been staff negotiated as best they could in parks and in our athletics and facilities departments through the pandemic because they had challenges with their own capacity and we were using feels a lot different and have developed a staff-recommended draft for the next iteration of the Joint Use Agreement, which we just need to bring to the board.

And our intent is to bring that to the board.

And we just haven't gotten to it yet.

And I will own that as much as anyone.

I'm not looking for folks to own it or throwing rocks here.

I'm just looking for an ETA that we learned from the past.

Do we have an ETA when we might see a recommended joint use agreement, sir?

We're hoping to get it to the board this year.

There's an interim parks superintendent who is our counterparty in this agreement, so we're working with the new administration about what is the best timing.

They don't do a legislative process, but we want to make sure we execute an agreement with the new leadership in the parks department.

Can you keep us learned and fed on a quarterly basis at least, please?

We can do that.

Thank you so very, very much.

Okay, Director Song-Moritz.

Yes, I have a question about why some of the schools are listed as having zero dollars for transportation funding?

Is it that the schools don't need them or that we had a limited pool of money and we needed to budget accordingly?

My understanding is, you know, what was reflective on that list is related to the requests that we got from schools I don't know if there were schools that, you know, requested to be represented in this funding and were denied.

I can find that out.

But it does definitely relate to the overall scale of their out-of-school time programs and the transportation needs associated with those.

Okay, thank you, uh, Assistant Superintendent Podesta.

Okay, we will, uh, y'all, Assistant Superintendent Podesta is going to be with us basically the rest of the evening.

So, um, as we are moving through these items, I'm just going to ask for, uh, us to remain concise.

So, uh, we are now moving on to intro item number nine, BTA BEX IV, BEX V, project.

And we will be hearing from the assistant superintendent

Thank you, President Hersey.

This project, as noted, is funded by multiple capital levies and then also state funding.

The project will be a multi-story addition of approximately 65,000 square feet to the existing landmark school building at Montlake Elementary.

The resulting building will provide, per our educational specs, space for up to 500 students.

The schedule calls for construction during our next levy period and to have the school completed, the renovation of the school completed for the 25-26 school year.

One of the first steps, of course, is to hire architects and engineers to help us design the renovated space.

We conducted a competitive process and got a good competitive field with for firms submitting their qualifications, and our selection team has made their selection, and this action will authorize us to go ahead and hire the DLR group to design the space so we can get started on the work.

Happy to take any questions you have.

Thank you, Assistant Superintendent Podesta.

Directors, any questions on this item?

I don't have a question, but I would just add for the, just for the information of my fellow board members, the work here at Montlake, because this is the Operations Committee this last month, and we found out that this work is primarily to relieve capacity at neighboring schools, Lowell and Bailey-Gatzert, who are and will be seeing increased enrollment.

of moving students shifting from different schools whereas Montlake will absorb some from closer schools so that those other schools can get relief.

Anyways just letting people know this is part of a larger capacity relief effort because there was questions in committee about like why Montlake why is it why you know they're not exactly getting to see any density anytime soon probably but why are we expanding this school and those were the reasons given.

I think Director Samaras might want to add to that Clyke and Director Stardew also.

Go ahead.

Thank you for sharing that, Director Rivera-Smith.

Yeah, in committee, I brought up a concern around, you know, just from recent enrollment trends.

Enrollment at this particular school has been declining.

And so I was curious why we were adding capacity, especially in a neighborhood that we know is mostly zoned for single-family housing.

And so I just wasn't sure where we were going to anticipate increased enrollment.

And so it was explained to me that it would be part of a domino effect of relieving capacity at neighborhood schools.

I think it's also important to note that part of the complication around the architectural design around this, this is a historically protected building.

And so that will be a challenging project.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Sarju.

Um.

Yeah, I do.

Uh, like.

Director Vivian just said.

Appreciate the context.

One of the things that comes to mind to me is when we say to provide relief.

Is that insinuating that students will be moved from let's just hypothetically say Lowell to Mott Lake?

And if that's the case, we have some real equity concerns that we are going to need to deeply discuss because you're talking about moving children who are already marginalized to a very wealthy school.

And that doesn't always go over well with families who are in positions of wealth and power and influence.

And so it's not an easy...

I don't know what to say.

What's that?

Oh, I thought I heard somebody say something.

It's not that simple.

So if that is the case, there are lots of things we're going to have to talk about and consider how those children get integrated into a school that historically has not had to be in community with that demographic of people?

Yeah, understood.

I would say from, you know, most of the school modernizations, there's two aspects that need to be considered.

There's capacity you know, system-wide and also conditions of the building that when, you know, when we modernize a building for both building conditions and capacity, we need to take a long view.

Most of this construction, we're thinking of this lasting a minimum of 50 years, maybe 80 years.

And so, when we make an investment in a building, we want it, we have a educational specs that we typically plan for a certain size, I would not completely mix the subjects of our short-term capacity issues with our long-term capital investments because the student assignment process and handling capacity issues you know, get handled a little bit separately from our long-term stewardship of these assets that are going to be around for decades.

So it isn't typically that we're doing this kind of thing just to solve, you know, what may be a short-term capacity issue may be a longer-term capacity issue because it's hard to know exactly what the growth patterns are going to be for the lifetime of these assets.

Yeah, and I'm not speaking to the actual improvements of the building.

To me, we have to improve our buildings, right?

It's kind of like you ignore repairs that you need in your house, and you eventually are really in a very dire situation.

What I'm talking about is the capacity issue component.

And we again.

This is about student outcomes, right?

You move a group of students to a community that, um.

I'm just gonna leave it at that.

I think I have.

Pretty much stated my equity concerns and I'm and I guess what I'm asking is that we need to continue to have that conversation around how, if that is the plan to integrate students, because if it was in the reverse, I can guarantee you we would be having a conversation based on parent feedback and response and resistance to switching that dynamic.

And just to be clear too, so let me explain.

If you look at a map, no students from Gatzert or Lowell will probably end up at Montlake.

It's the closer school to Montlake is actually Stevens and possibly McGilvra, although I don't know if we'd be pulling from that direction, but those students might absorb into Montlake and then Lowell might go into Stevens.

I don't know for sure, but looking at a map though, I can pretty much tell you that no Gatzert kids are going to be at Montlake because they're pretty far apart.

There's four schools between them.

And there's still equity considerations.

Directors, let's try to have some organization to the conversation.

So before we just hop in, I want to make sure that we're going in the appropriate order so that, you know, folks don't get spoken over.

So at this time, we're going to go over to Director Harris.

I'm still trying to get my darn hand down.

But I got to tell you, I'm losing my mind over here because I heard capacity and condition.

What I did not hear is culture.

And what I heard was, well, student assignment plan is different than buildings.

And I wonder if that's not really the big problem and that they should be part and parcel together.

And then talking about Stevens or Bailey-Gatz or whatever else, isn't it our job to look to the future for 10 years and talk about things like culture embedded and combined with these huge capital investments.

I'm sorry, I'm having huge difficulties with the concept of silos here, and it reminds me of busing, and it reminds me of redlining, and I'm trying really hard here to be respectful, but I got big problems with this conversation.

Thank you.

My point, Director Harry, and you're absolutely correct, and Sometimes these projects are driven mostly by capacity and sometimes are being driven by building conditions and the needs of students obviously has to get factored in.

The point I was trying to make was we typically have a long-range plan for capacity, assuming growth in the district and growth in the city over the long haul, that if we need to do something about a building because of its condition, even if there isn't a near-term capacity issue, we typically design for a bigger building because we're assuming over the long time, the long range, there'll be a capacity.

need.

Again, I'm sorry to push back here, but I'm losing my mind here.

One of the proudest moments of my service on the school board was stopping BEX V and reconfiguring based on equity tiers.

This is the same issue, and this is student outcomes, and we talk a really good game about equity.

And this is part and parcel to me about how we plan for the future.

And if we're going to talk about capacity and conditions, we have got to add culture to that.

And we have to be brave enough to look forward to the next 10 years and talk about culture.

Thank you.

Point taken.

And again, this project includes BEX V funding.

and was looked at through that lens as well.

Okay, Director Rankin.

I was curious if this replaces existing portables.

Yes, that would be part of the goal.

that.

Cool And I also just want to, I guess, remind or refresh that that Montlake was on the schedule for a rebuild at some point and because of equity issues and because of the historical landmarking of the building and because of the restrictions of the lot size.

Is this this is the alternative to and keep it usable for the long term.

Yeah, again, it's to modernize the building and in so doing, since the investment we make is we're hoping to get at least five decades out of it, to build it to also enhance capacity, it's planning on some amount of growth over that very long period of time.

And that's typically our approach to major investments in elementary schools that we build to our educational spec at either a capacity of 500 or 650 students.

that's what we're trying to do.

Great and I just want to also add that the if just in case anybody caught some of the earlier part of this conversation is now panicked about students switching schools that does not happen quickly or in in siloed decisions between all.

Let's just move this chunk of students over here.

There's no boundary change discussion happening.

That's a whole other process that involves heavily in heavy engagement with the that they're going to have a different school next year or something, because that's not what this conversation is about.

This is about modernizing an existing building, and that's it.

Okay.

Thank you for the robust discussion.

We will now be moving on to item number 10 affects for approval of budget transfers to Eckstein Middle School Science Classrooms Improvement Project.

Uh.

This action does a budget transfer to support an increased scope for improvements at Eckstein Middle School.

The original project really envisioned cosmetic and minor repairs to eight classrooms and common areas.

And that strikes us as not really an ideal investment, given the age of the building, that more thorough modernization of the classrooms and the common learning areas would be a more cost-effective solution in the long run.

So this transfers two and a half million dollars, increases the scope to a more comprehensive upgrade to those classrooms and the new science curriculum that is mostly supported in these classrooms, the other investments of equipment and space will support our current curriculum and educational specifications for science rather than just focusing on paint and carpet and superficial repairs.

Any questions or comments on this item before we move on?

Okay, thank you.

Seeing none, we will be moving on to item number 11, BEX V Approval of Budget Transfer to West Seattle Elementary School Renovation and Addition Project.

Mr. Podesta, take it away.

Thank you.

Currently as part of BEX V, we're constructing a 20,000 square foot two-story addition to West Seattle Elementary.

It'll provide 12 new classrooms and a redesigned school entry and relocate the library and expand the library to allow more space and better lighting.

When the original budget was put together, it did not fund new furnitures and fixtures in the existing parts of the building, which is a practice we are trying to get away from, particularly if the furniture in when we're making additions or modernizations, if there will be untouched parts of the building, have old furniture like they do at West Seattle Elementary.

I just don't think it's the best way to introduce students when they come back to the building that The new parts of the building have all new furnitures and fixtures, and the old parts of the building have really old furniture.

So this budget transfer will support us making these replacements building-wide.

Okay, Director Rivera-Smith.

Yeah, I just want to add, yeah, we're talking 1988 old, I guess, the existing furniture.

So, um, the principal is concerned with, um, the equity of the students coming in the new portion versus the old portion.

And, and, yeah, this has been done, as Director, uh, Songbird's mentioned.

This is what we've done at another school she visited recently, and there is a difference in the atmosphere of the students getting to have, you know, something that feels on par with both sides of the building and all parts of it.

So,

Awesome.

Thank you.

Moving on to item number 12, BEX V, Approval of Budget Transfer Authorization for the Superintendent to Execute Guaranteed Maximum Price Amendment for the Van Asselt School Addition Project.

Superintendent Podesta, Assistant Superintendent Podesta.

Thank you.

We are doing major additions to the Van Asselt School and adding classroom capacity and gymnasium capacity and it's a complex project which we are using the general contractor construction manager form of project delivery which the board approved the contract to bring in our general contractor.

And with this project methodology, as opposed to our design-bid-build type projects where it's just a low bid, we bring the contractors on early in the process while design is still occurring.

And so we have this second step where We asked the board to approve a guaranteed maximum price at which the contractor will be accountable to deliver the project at that price.

And so we're now at this stage where we've negotiated that price and we're ready to ask for authorization of the board to go ahead and execute the amendment at the guaranteed maximum price.

Thank you.

Directors.

Any questions or comments?

Okay, thank you.

See now we will move on to item number 13.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

I didn't get hit the button quick enough.

It's very, very fast.

Uh.

We I keep I know I keep asking this and I keep forgetting Van Asselt.

Are we is that are we now consistently calling what was original Van Asselt Van Asselt and Rising Star is Rising Star.

Yeah, we only have one Van Asselt now.

Yes, okay.

And this would be it.

And this is, again, in addition and touching the oldest part of the building.

Great, thanks.

Okay, now we will move on to item number I believe 13. Yes.

BTA III final acceptance of contract K5118 with Good News Group Incorporated for the Adams Elementary School Fire Sprinkler Upgrade Project.

Mr. Podesta.

And President Hersey, items 13 through 15 are our final acceptance and In the past, we've had a practice of just introducing them all at once.

All at once, if folks are willing to do that, I'd be happy to do so.

Let's do it.

All right.

And so intro item 13 is, again, the final acceptance of a project to upgrade the fire suppression system at Adams Elementary.

The work was successfully completed by the contractor.

Our consulting architect recommends approval of the work and acceptance of the work, and the project had reasonable numbers of change orders given the scope of the work.

Item 14. is, again, final acceptance of a contract with Reynolds General Contracting.

This was for seismic improvements at Beacon Hill, Maple, and Whitworth Orca schools.

The project was completed in August of 2020. The work was reviewed by our consulting architect who recommends a project built as design and acceptance of the work, and the change orders again were reasonable at 1.6% of the overall project contract.

And last but not least, this final acceptance of a contract with Lincoln Construction for, again, much more comprehensive seismic improvements at Broadview Thompson K-8.

This work occurred over the summers of 2019 and 2020, was approved by a consulting architect.

The overall project came in below the budgeted amount.

Change orders were more significant at 14%, but they were reasonable given the scale of the overall project.

And that additional scope was added into the project for replacement of electrical conductors and conduit.

And we replaced much of the fire suppression infrastructure with the work as well.

And so those were change orders requested by the district.

Happy to take any questions on any of those items.

Questions, comments, concerns?

get to those buttons because as soon as I count down from three, there's your chance.

So three, two, one.

Thank you, Mr. Podesta.

Thank you.

Always exciting to have final acceptances.

All right, we have now come Okay we haven't sorry I'm under the flight path as well so it's hard to hear.

We are now at the board comment section of the agenda.

Given that it is 7 50 again you know I do not like putting time limits on y'all but please try to keep it concise.

I want to make sure that staff and others can get back to their families so folks can have dinner, tuck kids in, all that kind of stuff.

So we will begin with Director Hampson.

I have no I would just like to give a huge shout out and thank you to the staff at Eckstein for their extensive, uh, implementation of flash, which is back in force this year.

If those of you that don't know, it's our sex ed curriculum.

And thanks to that in the background as we had our board meeting, I got to listen to my kids have a discussion about the clitoris at the dinner table.

So I think that's really solid, excellent education, and I'm proud.

So Thank you Eckstein staff for providing that wonderful moment and bless you all for all this hard work that you've done this evening and that's it for me.

Thanks and on the 9th please do a little reading about Billy Frank Jr.

Thank you so much Director Hampson.

Director Harris you're up next.

I would like to pass.

I cannot find my notes in front of me that I've been making.

Could you circle back round please, sir?

Yep.

Director Rivera-Smith.

There we go.

Hi, thanks.

I know I'll try to keep this a little brief, but I want to circle back to the great big discussion we just had right now about the Montlake modernization and addition project because we know our system now is to put most action items onto the consent agenda.

about this item.

So introductions could have just gone through a simple, hey, we're doing this work on Montlake, next item.

But I wanted to just talk about the bigger picture there, because I think it's important for us all to be aware of what's going on with these projects and what's the story behind them.

This was approved in 2010, so I don't know how in 2010, you know, we come 10 years plus later and we're still getting to work on this and maybe what sounded like a good idea in 2010 isn't necessarily a good idea anymore, at least to this board.

So I appreciate the discussion on this and look at it because and I appreciate the work that Director Harris told us about that to make sure that our projects our selection of projects has that equity lens that maybe it didn't have in 2010, because now we're here with this Montlake project on our hands, asking ourselves, why are we doing this?

It might not make sense to be trying to move students to a school in a different neighborhood, a different environment, when we really want to grow and improve the schools they're at.

I absolutely agree with that.

Again, I wanted to just bring that discussion forward to have that discussion, and I'm glad we did.

do anything about, you know, I want us to be able to still look at everything critically and make the changes we feel are necessary.

So I welcome the opportunity to maybe speak again with some of you offline and touch base with Chief, oh, sorry, Assistant Superintendent Podesta to find out, you know, what are, what is still a possibility if we wanted to, you know, change some of this and not go the way it was set out 10 years ago.

We, you know, we are dedicated to our goals of equity in our district, and it can't be like Director Sarchu, you know, stated.

We can't just say it to say it and, you know, act like it's going to happen magically without dedication and bravery on our part to make sure that we don't cut things short and we don't just give things a free pass because we want to say, oh, throw our hands up.

I want to make sure that we are doing our darndest to make sure we are following through with what we know is best for our students and what we feel is best and what we hear is best.

So thank you for that.

I barely remember about testament at this point.

It was so, I feel like it was hours and hours ago.

But thank you for everybody who came out and spoke to us today.

Again, I hope that we have more opportunities to hear from everybody.

No more comments for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Rivera-Smith.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

I'm going to add to Director Hampson's shout out to Eckstein.

for the flash curriculum and shout out to our central curriculum team that worked on that as well.

Um, my son had an instance where he was hearing hearing things at school that were that he was uncomfortable.

People saying he didn't know what it was some jokes that were being made.

He didn't know what it was that made him uncomfortable and flash gave him the words.

To identify it as being homophobic jokes.

And that was really, um Critical.

He couldn't explain to me.

He was like, I just don't like those jokes.

And he didn't really want to tell me anymore.

He didn't know what he didn't know what it was.

And I thought, okay, whatever.

But he got the language in talking about identity through flash at school to be able to identify what it was that he he thought was uncomfortable and it led to, he would be so embarrassed if he knew I was saying this, it led to a discussion between peers about the harm that that kind of joke can cause.

So that would not have happened without without Flash, so thank you.

And I will add on another shout out to Eckstein for We, which is Wednesdays at Eckstein, they have started doing this amazing thing that I think all of our kids are really craving, where built into the school day are clubs.

Some of them are student-led, some of them are instructor-led, I am able to take part in the knitting and crochet class as a support instructor support and the kids just getting the chance to dive into something that's that they're interested in with their friends is is I think always welcome um but is especially coming out of COVID is super special that that's able to happen.

I think giving a lot of kids especially middle schoolers when they're kind of figuring out who they are as young people um uh it's a really special thing and I can feel the energy in the building and how much it means to students so just a huge shout out and thank you to Eckstein staff and volunteers for making that happen.

And that's it.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

Director Sargi.

Let's see.

I just I do have a couple comments that shouldn't take very long.

First of all, I'm just mentally and emotionally exhausted, so I don't want people to think that my my posture is one of not being engaged because I am.

It's been a It's been a month of equity battles, and I feel like sometimes that isn't really making a difference.

Because it's exhausting.

And I know that if I don't speak up, outcomes for kids are going to get worse.

That's because I have the data to prove it.

It continues to happen over and over again.

I want to thank the staff for the work that they do.

I don't want anyone to feel like my comments were personal because they aren't, because I don't even know these people, so they can't be personal.

But you all, this is how I'm going to be for four years.

I'm going to challenge the system and the status quo that has been on this journey of what I call phone it in equity, you know, talk about it, say it, but not actually do anything about it.

And together we're going to get through this and we're going to come out stronger and we're actually going to come out as practitioners.

Well, you all are going to come out as practitioners of equity because I'm already doing the work.

I don't have a choice.

I don't have a choice.

I think one of the important I think.

One of the things to point out is with the Montlake conversation.

It's really important to keep separate, um.

Remodels and improvements to buildings.

And student moving around or student assignments, right?

Because we have to take care of our buildings.

There is no option in my opinion, right?

We have to the other issues around capacity are separate, right?

Like sure, some of the improvements we do may increase our capacity ability, but the actual structural improvements or changes or remodels in a building are separate from that.

And so I think moving forward, I want to keep those conversations separate.

And then I want to give a shout out to the Garfield boys and girls basketball teams.

and particularly the young women.

Many of you probably don't know this, but there were teams who forfeited, so they did not have to play this undefeated, mostly BIPOC team, of which most of the players on this team are being recruited by Division I schools.

So we are in March Madness.

And I got to meet the California coach at one of the Garfield basketball games before Superintendent Jones said, no more spectators.

Even my badge can't get me in.

Anyway, that's another story.

So the UW coach and the Cal coach were there recruiting a sophomore.

A sophomore.

And so when we talk about equity, can you imagine the resiliency of these young women when teams are forfeiting because they don't want to play them because they're so good?

Nevertheless, they persist.

And so once again, our historic Garfield basketball teams are both going to the state tournament.

And that's something to celebrate in this time of extreme racial marginalization.

They work hard to be as good as they are.

It isn't just like they wake up and boom, they're good.

They're working hard, and they deserve to be recognized for their accomplishments, as do other sports, right?

But it's not often that you have teams literally forfeiting so they don't have to play these young women, mostly young women, because they're so good.

And nevertheless, they persist.

So I'm excited about the work.

I'm excited that we are going to operationalize what it means to be student outcomes focused and what that looks like for us as adults to change our behaviors, because that's what it's about.

It's not about the parents and whether or not they're showing up at the PTSA meetings.

It's not about whether the kids are toeing the line in the classroom.

It's about the adults.

who are put in charge and responsible.

It is our responsibility to change our behavior so that all our kids can have access to a high quality public school education.

Thank you, Director Sarduy.

Director Samaritz.

I am really exhausted today from this meeting because there are a lot of things that we talked about.

I have so many half-baked thoughts on so many things that are coming across my email inbox and just conversations I've had with staff members, building leaders, teachers, parents, and my colleagues.

So I'm really not prepared to make any comments tonight, but I just want to thank Director Sarju for just closing the evening with thinking about the joy and hard work of our students.

That is just going to give me a little bit more strength to finish out this night.

So thank you.

Looping back to Director Harris.

Okay, found my notes.

Thank you.

I want to call out Boo Balkan Foster.

Before Sakachi.

She was one of those extraordinary once in a lifetime teachers at Middle College High School.

At High Point.

And again.

This is in the past, but it's a great metaphor.

She was one of four teachers.

doing extraordinary work.

And folks from the warehouse division came in with measuring tapes.

She said, why are you interrupting my class?

And they said, well, we're closing your school.

We want to know how big a truck we need.

Our history is full of these kind of crazy things.

And I'm not supposed to use the word crazy.

Let me just say outrageous things instead.

And if you want to see real courage, do a YouTube.

When maybe 30 or 40 folks showed up about closing Middle College High School and they said, we are not throw away kids.

And Boo Balkan Foster's testimony, a teacher with a lot to lose faced the school board, the then school board.

And I can't remember a time that I've heard such impactful testimony.

And for her to take that sadness and put together an incredible program is a testament to her values.

And we are so very lucky to have her.

We're also lucky to have assistant superintendent and associate superintendents who were part of the top three candidates for the Highline School District.

Folks, that's important.

So when people are, you know, pasting us because we're incompetent, and or stupid and or need to go to prison or be recalled.

We have some extraordinary talent here and I want to shout that out and acknowledge it and that other people are recognizing that fact.

I want to shout out to you NEA for helping with Billy Frank Jr.

Day and anybody that is interested in history and truly bizarreness, read the Bolt number one and number two decisions on fishing rights.

There's history in those decisions and I hope at some point we teach civics in our schools and ethnic studies in our schools to where we recognize that history in addition to calling out one day and I hugely appreciate being able to watch that video.

Thank you for that.

And with respect to Gail Morris, again, she is not a director.

She is a manager and the Native American Education Program deserves a director.

And I'll just keep doing that till I'm a dead woman because six years hasn't worked.

Um, Kayla Perkins, you know, I love you.

But when you tell me that the superintendent procedures will come along.

air quotes, dot, dot, dot.

I'm having trouble with that.

I said a year ago I was not going to be able to vote for policies and bars that didn't come with superintendent procedures, and it's not a question that I don't trust you, and it's not a question that I don't think that your bandwidth is completely full, but I think they need to come together.

Last piece, and I'm pinging off of what Director Sarju had to say about sports.

young women in general, and equity.

There's a real issue there.

And I think all of us have been heads up to what's going on in the Metro League with respect to WAIA.

and some pretty skanky behavior on WAIA and I'll say it and I'll be quoted and I'll be pasted for it but I'm okay with that because it's not okay what's going on with respect to how Rainier Beach was moved down in the seating because of behind the curtain considerations and our children Our students who have worked so very hard deserve better than that.

Again, my colleagues, I appreciate you immensely and it's an honor and a privilege to serve.

Last piece, Friday morning, 8 a.m., we're having a meeting to talk about superintendent appointment process and we need folks to be there.

It's an important, important meeting.

and I respect the process.

Thank you so very much.

Okay, thank you Director Harris.

The last thing that I will say other than just thank directors for all of the work that they put in tonight, just a happy first day of Women's History Month.

or excuse me, second day of Women's History Month.

I would be remiss if I didn't shout out the three women that are closest to me in my life, my partner Elizabeth, my sisters Brandi and Brittany, who all in their own special, unique ways not only give me all this gray hair that you see, but the drive and the inspiration to do what I get to do every single day, which is serve community, as well as the ability and the humble honor that I have to preside over a board of such fantastic, intelligent women.

I think that your communities are very lucky to have you all representing them in your own specific and unique ways, and I just want to say that it is an absolute privilege for me to continue to work with y'all for however long I am blessed enough to do so.

So, with that being said, we will be having a meeting regarding our superintendent search this Friday at 8 a.m.

I would hope that you all join us.

There will not be, if I'm not mistaken, a public comment opportunity at this meeting, but we do hope that folks will stay engaged in the process.

With that being said, there being no further business on the agenda, This meeting stands adjourned at 8.11 PM.

Thank you all very much and we will see you when we see you.

Take care.

Let's go pack 12.

Let's get it.

Good night.

Good night, y'all.