Seatle School Board Meeting - Dec 17, 2020

I just wanted to let you know that you're fine.

Good afternoon.

We will be calling the board meet excuse me we will be calling the board meeting to order in a moment.

Could we please hold comments while SPS-TV takes us live.

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

This is Director Hampson.

I am now calling the board special meeting to order at 4 0 1 p.m.

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

For the record I'll call the roll.

Director DeWolf.

Director DeWolf I believe will be joining us late.

Director Harris.

Director Hersey.

Could barely hear you but I got the affirmation.

Director Mack.

Here.

Director Rankin.

Here.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

And this is Director Hampson.

The superintendent is also joining us for today's meeting.

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

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

Today's meeting is also being recorded.

To facilitate this meeting I will ask all participants to ensure you are muted when you are not speaking.

Staff may be muting participants to address feedback and ensure we can hear directors and staff.

We have one action item on today's agenda.

Approving Resolution Number 2020-21-4.1 Restating and Amending the Reopening Resolution Reopening Plan and Remote Learning Model Previously Adopted for the 2020-21 school year.

May I have a motion for this item.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Director Hersey.

I have a motion for this item.

Yes.

I move that the school board approve resolution number 2020-21-4.1 restarting and amending oh excuse me restating and amending the reopening plan and remote learning model previously adopted for the 2020-2021 school year.

Second.

This motion has been moved by Director Hersey and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith.

This item was discussed during yesterday's regular board meeting.

We postponed consideration of this item to today's meeting and staff and I have since worked to incorporate additional edits based on Director Feedback and such that the amendment that I had offered yesterday has been included incorporated into the original resolution that accompanies the Board Action Report.

The updates also address new state guidance released yesterday.

Chief of Staff Sherri Kokx I believe will be providing the staff briefing on those updates.

Good afternoon Directors and thank you President Hampson.

I'm Sherri Kokx Chief of Staff here to share some updates on Superintendent Juneau's latest version of the in-person reopening plan and BAR.

Before I start I just want to acknowledge the emails that have been received and to let families know that we hear you and that many of us want students back in our schools to receive the high quality instruction that our educators deliver best in person.

As a parent myself I personally want my high school student to be in school.

Today's plan is a first step in returning our youngest students and those needing services to school and we are hopeful that this is not a last step.

We will continue to evaluate the capacity to operationalize in-person instruction for additional grades as we also continue to monitor the COVID-19 activity in the community.

Again while I'm presenting this information this is truly a cross-divisional effort and other chiefs stand ready to answer questions from directors should they come up today.

As a quick reminder Superintendent Juneau's recommendation to the school board is that pre-K through first grade students and students receiving special education services in the moderate to intensive service pathways return Up to 5 days per week of in-person learning to begin on March 1st.

That up to language is a change from yesterday.

This again is approximately 9,000 students in grades pre-K through 1 and approximately 2,000 students in our special education services.

I want to just go through and call out the specific changes to yesterday's the BAR since yesterday's meeting.

So please note that the date was changed to reflect today's date.

The word conditionally is struck throughout the BAR because this recommendation is no longer contingent on COVID-19 activity.

On pages 2 3 and 6 of the BAR any reference to the decision tree has been changed to reflect the new Department of Health's documents the Washington State Department of Health Toolkit.

Tools to prepare for provisions of in-person learning among K-12 students at public and private schools during COVID-19 pandemic.

On page 3 the language reflects this new guidance from DOH and has a noteworthy content change.

So I want to just read this loud so we are clear on this recommendation.

The Washington State Department of Health DOH has prepared a new toolkit to assist school districts in deciding whether to resume expand or reduce in-person instruction.

This toolkit includes the DOH health and safety measures and labor and industry requirements as well as a matrix that summarizes the provisions for in-person learning based on community metrics.

In following the new guidance Superintendent Juneau's recommendation is to return pre-K through first grade students and students in the moderate and intensive service pathways to in-person instruction regardless of the COVID-19 activity on March 1st 2021. That is a substantive change and I just want to call that out.

There were two questions asked yesterday and Director President Hampson I'm happy to take those two questions now if you'd like or to wait until you go over the resolution.

How would you like me to move forward.

I'll just make a brief statement and then we can maybe Go back through an initial round of questions and people can either restate or and if that doesn't come back up again then then you can answer it at that time.

Okay.

I just want to also call out and thank you President Hampson for working together with me today to combine the two resolutions into one resolution.

And I will hand it over to you to explain the work that we did today.

Thank you very much.

Back at you.

It was all of this did come together very quickly over the past week and a half and so I'm glad that we were able to bring together the two versions that I believe reflect a broad array of input from labor partners from community Not not in as much as it represents any final end to this process but that is a next step.

It is a reasonable and appropriate next step for us to take.

And I think that we do have a common sense of understanding of needing to move forward.

And I'm very much looking forward to hearing the thoughtful questions that I know our directors are going have about again what hopefully is a blending of those two perspectives so that we're providing again as much clarity as possible and just re-emphasizing that this is just one step in a process.

I do believe that this will be one step in a very prolonged process of a not a new normal but at least for the foreseeable future.

the state of our schooling environment.

And I appreciate staff's willingness to work with us in creating what that first step looks like.

What's what's reasonable for us to accomplish and that with some hopefully some immediate success in that we can then see what things are going to look like going forward.

I also want to acknowledge that I know folks are nervous about taking this step as is understandable.

This is a time of great ambiguity and change.

We don't even see this disease as we did in June when we first started talking about the putting together our initial resolution.

And I can't imagine a more narrow or tiny eye of a needle that we are trying to thread here.

And so I'm hopeful that we can have a quick and productive meeting today to get to a place of common understanding.

And with that I'm going to turn it over to oh and I also want to say thanks to community members.

We are we are looking at your e-mails.

There's all kinds of interesting thoughts and questions coming in to fellow board members for bringing up your your points to senior staff for ask asking answering questions on the fly.

As we're as we're trying to get this this put together particularly within the new information that came down from the Governor and that this is about doing what's best for Seattle Public Schools.

Not feeling overly not feeling the need to collapse under under the pressure of of recent announcements but to make appropriate steps forward in light of them.

Okay so then I'm going to turn it over.

I'm going to start at the bottom of the order.

and go to Director Rivera-Smith for the first round of questions whether it's repetition from yesterday or and or additional questions that you have.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

Yes thank you so much.

And thank you both to you and to Chief Kokx.

Director Rivera-Smith can others hear her.

I don't hear her very well.

I can hear her.

Maybe it's me.

Okay.

Go ahead Director Rivera-Smith.

Okay.

I mean I'll try to talk louder.

Sorry.

Thank you for your work today on this to collaborate and get these documents out to us.

Definitely still curious about just the guidance that's come down.

I see it referenced here in the BAR regarding this model.

They're no longer a decision tree.

It's more on the Department of Health Toolkit.

And in looking at that I do understand that there's also More required health and safety protocols.

Does do is Chief Podesta available to speak to those.

Go ahead with your question Director Rivera-Smith and either I'll answer your question or I will hand it over to the person to answer your question.

Okay.

I just want to know if he feels confident in our ability to meet those guidelines.

We feel confident after reviewing the newest guidance from OS or from the Department of Health that we can meet or or are already meeting many of the requirements outlined.

I understand.

And I there I understand.

So part of this plan is to it's not really stated in here but the plan would be to survey our families and staff to gauge their interests or their ability to come back in.

I honestly you know I really wish we had that information going into these meetings and I understand that I can't go back in time and make that happen but I think that is definitely a key factor in our decisions for these matters.

Knowing where our families and our maybe more importantly our staff since we can't we can't bring kids in without staff there to meet them.

So do we have a timeline for that.

Yes we have a timeline for what we are calling our intent to return to in-person services.

And that first survey will we will be centering our Black families and our families furthest from educational justice to try to ensure that not try to ensure that we get data from them first and foremost as we will be collecting data from families in the pre-K through first grade band as well as the families of the special education services in the moderate to intensive pathways.

And so that first survey Director Rivera-Smith is is set to take place as early as Wednesday of when we return which I believe is January 6th.

Is there.

So I have two questions I guess.

Can it be done.

Can it.

I don't know can it be done sooner than that.

Like do we have this still time to do it before then.

And then second question is I feel that we would benefit from doing all families now.

I understand that's not the plan to bring them all in but as we move forward if we are going to keep discussing and considering how to get more families in again I would love to have that information before making those decisions.

So I think we could benefit from doing more families.

Is that is that a consideration.

So yes.

Thank you for both of those questions.

So because of the winter holiday break that is coming just less than 24 hours from right now.

We will not be able to roll out the surveys prior to that break and that is because this survey will be done in partnership with our educators as well as our school leaders and because the educators are not expected to work over the next two weeks we just cannot make that happen.

And so the soonest we can roll that out is in fact when we are rolling it out the week two days after we return from break.

That's your first question I think.

And your second question.

This is our first round of the intent to enroll and so yes we probably will be surveying other grade bands but at this time this is our top priority as this is what we've called out and are hoping for your approval on with today's BAR and resolution.

I understand and again I and I get that we don't want to we wanted to I'm not saying it should be all one I would say be separate surveys clearly.

I'm just wondering if there's a way we can do that sooner than later just so that we do have as a board that information to help us make decisions on other populations going forward.

But yeah that's my take.

Other board members might feel different.

But I have a question then regarding because I think we talked about this last night regarding who is going to because to get our classes down to 15 for the pre-K through 1 it I understand we will be using other other staff to fill to staff those classrooms.

It's not just teachers.

I'm not I don't want to say what groups it was so I don't know I'll get it right but can you tell me that there will be other staff filling in there.

Yes.

So the other staff that we may need to utilize to bring our class sizes down to the recommended cohort size of 15 to 1 is our English learner teachers and our intervention teachers.

That was one of the questions that I have intended to answer.

I believe Director Rankin asked that question yesterday as well.

And so the question Director Rankin asked was well what about services that those intervention teachers and the EL teachers provide to students in grades pre or sorry grades 2 through 5. And it is unfortunate but that but if we needed to utilize these teachers as homeroom teachers for our kindergarten or first grade students they would have very limited if any capacity to serve the EL students or for the intervention teachers to serve those students who may be needing additional supports.

So to mitigate those factors we would for the EL students be utilizing our paraeducators to the best of our ability to support those students who need the EL support.

As far as students who need the intervention teachers supports.

We would be utilizing those Wednesdays to provide some additional small group instruction to those teach to those students.

However it does come at a cost.

I'm not I'm not suggesting that it's all going to be perfect in this situation.

We would though prioritize those students in grades 2-5 for our summer programming and again for our Wednesday small groups.

And we would be utilizing our paraeducators to their full to support the students.

We do know that in our in our 13 priority schools for example they are staffed more richly in our kindergarten first and second grades.

And so we really won't know the impact and how much we will need to utilize those teachers until we get the data from the intent to enroll back from our families.

Definitely and that's another reason it would have been nice to have that already but I understand that's in the works.

Thank you for that.

I'll pass to our next director.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Rivera-Smith.

Great.

And Director Rankin.

Thanks.

I have I guess that's a comment about the BAR because my understanding is that we can't make amendments to the BAR.

We'll need two resolutions.

But so I just kind of wanted to say for the record that in the BAR it states that the paragraph that starts on December 5th 2020 Superintendent Juneau recommended to the board.

And then it says after feedback from board directors during the retreat on December 5th 2020 Superintendent Juneau has modified that that recommendation to be limited to pre-K through first grade students instead of second grade students.

I just kind of wanted to clarify that that makes it sound like the board was arguing for fewer students to come in person and I just want to make it clear that the discussion that was had during the retreat was that the staffing that we have available to spread out to reduce class sizes and spread out kids is is It's only possible we only have sufficient staffing to send back pre-K through through first and that's the limitation and then that was the discussion and kind of the agreement that that's what made sense to do.

So I just kind of wanted to just state that for the record that you know board feedback wasn't specifically don't include second graders.

Okay.

So moving on from that.

I want to reiterate and appreciate that President Hampson and Chief Kokx both mentioned what I really hope the public will understand that this is a step in what will likely be several phases.

This is not the end-all be-all for the semester or for the rest of the school year necessarily that but as President Hampson said with so many Things to consider and moving parts and uncertainty.

Having something really concrete that address some needs that have been pretty universally accepted as priorities seemed like the best course of action to think about today.

So to follow on the question that just was answered that I had asked yesterday.

I my I guess what I'm wondering is what kind of flexibility can we give to school buildings individually to mitigate some of the impact of those specialists being reassigned.

My assumption is that on paper it's one thing and in actuality depending on the number of students who opt to return in person the number of students who are being served by those support staff and and how and when and the way that staffing models are slightly different at you know based on our equity tiering that it sounds that that talking about it in a broad brush broad brushstrokes across all buildings sounds worse than maybe it really will end up being.

But I don't want to assume that and then have it you know have those supports lost for a whole bunch of students who are remaining remote.

So can can we talk about or can you tell me how we might be able to adjust or be responsive to information from that comes from the family intent to enroll on a per-building basis to make sure that we're not that if like you know if it is as we think it might be predominantly White families opting to return in person and predominantly families of color that ought to keep their students home.

And then we're diverting staffing resources from the students of color who remain remote in order to serve affluent white families in person that feels very very wrong.

But I also don't know that it will necessarily work out that way but there's no way for us to know unless we have the have the opportunity and flexibility to address it on a per building basis.

So it's not so much a question but like can somebody talk about how we can address that.

Director Rankin.

Thank you for that question.

So you're you're absolutely right in that we won't be able to know exactly how and how many of our EL and intervention teachers at our elementary and K-8 schools we will need to utilize to roll this plan out.

We also know that Our schools with on our equity tiering our schools with higher needs are staffed more richly.

So those class sizes are already many times meeting the 15 to 1 or lower requirements.

So in that in those cases we wouldn't need to utilize those additional staff.

The other thing we know is that our kindergarten is way under enrolled.

And so again our kindergarten classes are very small pretty much across the board to my knowledge.

We will be collecting the intent to enroll data.

on a class-by-class school-by-school.

So we're not going to collect I mean we'll have the aggregate data in central office but that's not the data that we'll be using to make decisions and actually by we I mean school leaders will need to carry out the planning of their master schedules to provide the in-person instruction that will be needed and to provide the remote instruction that will continue to be needed for some of our students for those who do not intend to return to our schoolhouses.

So I don't know that I I can't and I know you know I can't answer your question specifically but your the assumptions that you're making are the assumptions that we are also making and know that we won't know exactly the level of need until we collect those data that data.

Okay.

So I I guess what what it really comes down to is once the data is collected.

So assuming that we move forward with what's on the table right now the data is collected How how can we make sure that I guess what mitigation do we have to make sure that like buildings know that we want to support them not in completely blowing up something that they may have created now that works really well particularly for students for the educational justice.

And that you know I mean I just find that you know sometimes something comes down from central in a very kind of it's received in a very kind of black and white way or it can be.

And then then that's when unintended consequences sort of happen.

So I guess my my ask is can we have a commitment to you know continuing to have communication between principals and central office and keeping the board in the loop about the intent to enroll and make sure that we do not end up in a scenario where we are taking resources from the students that we are trying to center.

Director Rankin I I will commit to you yes and I will also commit to and my colleagues might not like me after this but we will bring you the board directors in a Friday memo or in some format our intent to enroll information on a class-by-class level or perhaps school-by-school.

And then we can start to do the staffing analysis around how many of our based on that data how many of our interventionists and how many of our ELL teachers would need to be utilized to provide a homeroom space for our K-1 students.

And we'll start to do that analysis in central office and then we will we believe it or not we try to always work with our school leaders in that decision-making and we are committed to our strategic plan which calls on us to serve first and foremost our Black boys and teens and our and then students furthest from educational justice.

So I'm committed I just committed our team to bring you the data from the intent to enroll and then our staffing analysis based on that data.

And again our plan is to do not just the survey in June or sorry January but also as we get closer to the March 1st date we will do another survey and bring that data to you as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then second question I'll promise I'll make it quicker.

It says it says March 1st.

I am I guess rather than ask the question I'll just state should there be school buildings and or programs you know school buildings for the pre-K-1 and or the programs for the intensive service pathways that are prepared before March 1. I would like us to allow them to start.

Okay.

I hear you.

And I don't know if it if that is reflected in the resolution the way it's written or if it needs to be in order to make that happen.

And then I'm I'm guessing that my colleagues.

I'm happy to make an amendment if I need to say like by March 1st.

I don't want if people are ready to go I don't want the amendment to stop them.

I yes.

And so I guess I also don't want to hear from.

The resolution.

I want to hear from a couple of my colleagues to to see if that would cause us problems in our negotiations with SEA.

So Dr. Codd are you on the line.

I am here.

Do you see a problem with some schools starting before others as you negotiate start negotiations.

Well I think we need to think about maybe special education pathways first and a phase in.

We've I think it would be hard to all of a sudden on March 1st do everybody.

So I think we.

love to think about a phase in.

Yeah.

And those those conversations are already happening for our special education.

But I think what Director Rankin's specific question is is let's say five buildings in the central area are all ready for K and first grade students on February 20th 22nd.

Can they start.

I'd want to talk about that with.

colleagues to.

And I want to hear from Fred and from Wyeth as well on that question because yeah.

Fred do you want to Chief Podesta do you want to address any concerns you might see with that.

I think just standing up building operations early in the likelihood it would be a small delta if any but Having inconsistent practices kind of across the system is a challenge and then I think we would have trouble ramping up transportation for just some schools and not others.

So it there would be challenges there and I.

Can I. Possible but it it it creates.

I guess I don't I don't want the.

I don't want on March 1st to mean in no situation could it start sooner.

So like as Dr. Codd was saying I would assume and imagine also especially that some of our service model pathway programs would be you know they're a little more self-contained in terms of numbers of people and logistics and that they might be ready and eager to be together in person and I I just don't want anything in here to prevent them from doing that if they are able.

Yeah the the medium and intensive service pathways them being slightly staggered is is different than opening a school and having the other support custodial and other support services and then transportation in particular.

Can I propose an amendment to say by March 1st instead of on March 1st.

I think Director Rankin you can you you have the authority to do what you wish to do.

The other thing I just want to call out on the on the early the pre-K K-1 is it makes it difficult for families to plan if we don't pick a date.

And I hear you with the intensive services.

And I think I know that Dr. Pedroza is on the line and that we are actually committed to moving as quickly as possible to operationalize the return person services for those students.

Okay.

So I'm going to go ahead and pass the next director and and I'm going to look at the language more closely right now.

And if if Greg if you have a suggestion I don't want yeah I think everybody knows what I'm getting at.

Director Rankin my plan was to after we'd had the chance to ask some some in-depth questions that I would come back around and that at that time we could discuss any prospective amendments which we'd need to consider before considering the underlying.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Okay.

Director Mack.

Okay I have a couple of different questions I think first I will tack on to the question around timing and whether or not we are stating in the resolution that March 1st is the day everyone comes back or whether or not there's flexibility that perhaps the intensives can come back earlier if that date is different.

And I. I hear Director Rankin's intent behind that and I understand the limitations that we have to give dates and appreciate that that's true.

And I want to be careful that we are not putting in a resolution something that would preclude putting those students in if we were able as you know getting getting our special ed students into the buildings right after the break would be awesome.

if that's possible.

I know that's probably unrealistic but that by-date might provide or that by-language might provide some flexibility not to remove the actual date when the expectation is for the majority of the grades.

But yeah so that's I I I just wanted to comment on that that I I hear where she's coming from and I feel similarly that it needs to be maybe a little bit clarified in the resolution so that we don't miscommunicate that.

And okay so.

Director Mack do you want me to talk to that or do you want to just go to your next question.

No you know you you already kind of did and we can talk about it further.

The only thing I guess I would add is is that I don't want us to over-promise and under-deliver.

And I know that Dr. Pedroza and her team is working I believe with SEA and others to get those students that are in that moderate to intensive pathway back in school as soon as possible.

Yeah I hear that.

And I'm not sure that it's if we're saying by that date we are not if we do it on that date we are still delivering.

So I hear you.

More conversations from other directors as well I'm happy to hear from that.

The the question the first question that comes to mind is reading through the language of the resolution it make some statements around support for other groups of students.

But it doesn't and in Director Hampson's and Director Rankin's intros and you've also said that this is the first step.

However we're going to run out of time because as you've already very clearly stated it takes a good couple of months to get all of the ducks in a row in order to make this happen at all.

So if we are making a decision now that all we are going to do is K-1 and then this the the moderate to intensive special ed pathways then that's all we are committing to do.

I heard that there is a commitment to try to bring more students back by March 1. But I don't understand where that commitment actually is stated in the resolution.

Director if I may Director Mack and I think if you refer back to the the original content of the state guidelines and the state requirement that leads us to our original resolution of which this is an update and we could have prospectively had updates prior to this time.

So it is incumbent upon us to if we feel that we have the information that pushes us to that next step if we see enough progress that we can get to the next to that next step that we could come out pretty quickly with additional resolution updates.

So these can be these.

We can do updates as frequently as we feel is warranted and necessary.

There's nothing that precludes us from doing that as a board.

And it's a matter of you know making sure that we are able to get the information that we need to demonstrate to us that we can we can move those things forward.

And this is not in any way meant to be there's no finality to this.

Just like there was no finality to the the original resolution.

And it clearly states that this is intended to be updated in the original guidance.

I think the only thing I would add to what Director Hampson just shared is that Director Hampson and I had a very brief conversation today about the need for staff and and the board to continue conversations immediately when we return in January about the recommendations that were put out by the Department of Health.

Because should we fall into the low range which I know is extremely unlikely but it does call on us to bring back all students to in-person instruction and so we do need to remain in close conversations and in collaboration with each other on how to lift the requirements outlined in the Department of Health's matrix.

I appreciate that.

The commitment that you've made verbally there to have those meetings and have those conversations isn't it isn't stated in the resolution so it's a mis — I mean we can say we might do it but A we haven't committed to it in the resolution and B can you still hear me.

I I have.

I'm not hearing anything.

Okay good.

So.

Here's my suggestion is that if you're

I'm not.

That's.

Chandra.

Chandra.

Let me just finish my my statement.

Okay.

You look you consider putting forth an amendment.

Yes that's what I that's what I'm wanting to know is whether or not that we should make or I should offer an amendment to clarify the commitment that there will be additional meetings surveying of other groups etc. to assess the next steps along the chain and that this is just the first one because I don't see that anywhere in here.

So I'd have to come up with that on the fly and I can work on that as we move forward.

The other group that actually has me concerned that we are not including in this first round is the English language learners.

And I I see that we have the resolution calls for support for.

pilot programs and outdoor ed I if it wouldn't be appropriate and possible given our building capacity and our staffing capacity to also target just like we are with the moderate to intensive students target bringing back our English language learners.

And I'm I spoke briefly with about this with Sherri couple days ago or yesterday I guess in the afternoon and I'd like to just get clarity on what the barriers to that are perceived to be at this point or the barriers that we believe exist are to including English language learners at all grade bands or at a minimum the bilingual center you know some of those specialized groups that really would benefit from being in-person.

Thank you Director Mack.

We did have a conversation about this yesterday or maybe the day before.

So as far as English learners The best mode of instruction for them is to be engaged with their grade-level peers in the general education classrooms.

And so to try to think through how to operationalize providing them full-day in-person instruction for example a second grader that would go against best practices and it would put that student in a very restricted environment.

And so that is why we are not recommending bringing back English learners in grades 2-12.

As far as operationalizing the students in the bilingual orientation centers I do believe we could try to lift those students up to return to in-person instruction.

I don't know I know Concie that English learners are not in your division and Dr. DeBacker you might also be able to weigh in here but I know Concie you're also an expert in this.

Can we operationalize bringing the BOC students into in-person services without other impacts on their educational day.

If you're talking about strictly bilingual orientation centers because we have about four sites for those specifically.

If you're talking about expanding that to other newcomers that would have to be worked through through the operations and the internal operations team because that's different between we think about three sites because as you know ELL students get served in all of our schools and many of them are also newcomers in that system as well.

So it would have to be really clear on the students we serve and that would have to be done in consideration if we're talking about more students.

than the operations team and school operations team would have to be involved in making that decision.

So what I think I hear Dr. Pedroza saying is Director Mack is that we could bring back we could probably operationalize the students in our bilingual orientation centers but we cannot for the reasons I stated before operationalizing bringing back newcomers in for example Wedgwood Because we would be removing them from their homeroom classes and putting them in a restrictive environment that they have their family has not chosen for them to be part of the BOC programming.

Okay.

So then in order to clarify that it sounds like it's possible it's a relatively small number of students in the bilingual orientation center.

We don't I don't know if anybody has numbers to provide now but would an appropriate amendment be in the second paragraph to include bilingual orientation center students if that's a possibility.

It feels to me to be an important focus of our students for this away from educational justice.

Are you asking if we can operationalize that because you can of course make an amendment as you see fit.

So I guess they'll Chiefs is there any one of our Chiefs has a concern about our ability to operationalize if we were to add the bilingual orientation centers.

And I guess my my left.

We yeah we could we could pause that as maybe staff need to look at enrollment numbers and the building capacities and pull that information up and see whether or not it is operationalized to you know at the first blush and maybe that'll take a few minutes to do.

I can come back to it but I would like to propose that if it is operationalized and possible that I'd like to ensure that we're we're including those students students in this first in this first step.

So.

I do want to call.

Director Mack can I call on I do want to call on Dr. DeBacker to make sure that our students in the BOCs are are already pulled are not in general education classrooms.

So Dr. DeBacker are the students at the BOCs only with other newcomers.

For the most part yes but not 100 percent.

So answering Dr. or Director Mack's question or concern or thoughts is that operationally it might be possible but instructionally I'm not sure it is the most appropriate.

And then of course the the idea that if they have an IEP it's it's a more restrictive environment.

It's there's there's a lot of things to consider there if it's just on the operational side.

Fred could answer that.

But it's it wouldn't be something that I would recommend as Chief Academic Officer at this point.

So Director Mack I think it's.

Go ahead.

Chief Cox Chief Codd had her hand up.

Did you have something to add or did Chief DeBacker cover it.

Yeah.

I'll just this is Clover Codd Chief Human Resource Officer.

I'll just add we can always think about these as goals kind of leading up into and phasing in but we do need to take into consideration the staff survey and the data that comes back from our staff survey about who might be requesting remote accommodations that will factor into this as well.

And then my understanding is that if we were to think about those four bilingual orientation centers at those elementary schools we would in order to realize and implement what we're talking about here we would possibly need to bring back second grade in those four schools so that we could make this happen.

Okay.

Well I will ponder whether or not to put forward an amendment of some sort to state that intention of attempting but maybe not commit to it if it's not operationalized.

It's not possible to be operationalized.

I recognize that what's in here now you feel relatively confident that it can be operationalized and the concern around these additional students is I hear you.

So let me ponder that.

And my last two more questions.

Director Mack.

Yeah.

No I know.

I just want to say before you ask your other questions if if you want to have that stay as a highlighted pin we can certainly and as Chief Kok stated likely should consider additional resolution amendments as soon as we come back in January.

And this could be one of those that would by then have a greater bit of data so that we could we could put that into action.

The critical thing here is to actually start the clock on a number of things including notice notices to child care bargaining that kind of getting buildings set up whereas some of those other things we can certainly that aren't super impactful in terms of sheer numbers we can resolve when we come back.

And so what I just to clarify just to clarify what I hear you saying which I think is totally appropriate.

Either I could offer up an amendment to try to put it here now or it could be included for the record that here are the specific things we want to come back and discuss in January to move those other students forward.

So I hear you.

I will debate on which direction kind of make sense after other directors have the opportunity to speak and ask their questions.

I the other two questions I have is about kindergarten in specific.

I know that we're down in enrollment because students you know they may have enrolled and then didn't come because it was remote.

We have to accept students if they come back.

So are we going to be reaching out.

to those kindergarten families that enrolled but didn't show up or having some sort of feedback loop to check in with them because they may go oh look now we can have in-person and I'm bringing my student back and that'll you know change the number significantly.

So I'm wondering how we're going to do the survey of all of those students that were in kindergarten in particular that were perhaps enrolled at the beginning of the year but then did not show up.

Director Mack I I believe we are only currently planning to survey the students who are enrolled in Seattle Public Schools.

I don't want to lose something though that Dr. DeBacker said around and I'm going backwards about our students in the BOC's.

Our teaching and learning team is not recommending that we provide in-person services by pulling these students out of their current settings.

So I don't want to lose the I know we can operationalize it from a facilities and perhaps staffing but the teaching and learning experts are not recommending that model.

So I think Dr. Pedroza is that correct that we are only planning to survey the currently enrolled SPS students.

Yes that's my understanding.

Thank you.

And thank you Ms. Cox for that clarification around the instructional importance.

I think one way also to look at operationalizing it would be potentially a look at those classrooms that have higher populations of English learners and bring those full classrooms back or at least offer it to those classrooms as a whole so you wouldn't take them out of their environment.

You would you know have the general ed setting So it's a question to ask about whether or not prioritizing that group of students it may yield that say in a third grade class there's you know X number of students and that that class it would be offered to come back in person or some combination of that.

So I understand it's tricky and I hear what you're saying.

I just I just feel it's very important that we provide the best service that we can and I just want to think about these things.

So I hear that there's not really it's probably not a good idea for me to make an amendment on that point at this point because of the trickiness of all of it.

But I think I will likely put it as something that needs to be discussed further in January.

And the kindergarten question I do remain concerned about just whether or not we'll kind of end up with more students than we expected because they'll come out of the woodwork when in-person is happening.

So.

Director.

Before you answer that Chief Chief Cox we are almost an hour in and we've only haven't even gotten through three people yet.

So I need to move us along.

Can we hold on that question and see because I don't know that it's.

absolutely critical to getting to a yes or no on this particular resolution today and we're already on our second consideration under a huge time crunch.

So if I can move to the next director and then if we have time we can come back around.

Yeah my last question was something I can put a pin in and that's fine.

Okay I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

And I think your your questions about Yale students they're you know they're in the other part of the resolution for a reason and so we do want to keep coming back to that.

So thank you for bringing that up.

Director Harris I mean Hersey.

Hey so my questions are mostly around our timeline with our labor partner.

So you know given if we pass this resolution forward tonight what when are we thinking about beginning bargaining.

Have we have we mapped that out yet.

Director Hersey I'm going to let Chief Codd answer that question for you.

So this is this is Clover Codd.

So Director Hersey we would we have not mapped that out but what we would do is we would begin talking with SEA.

I mean we would not start during winter break.

I think I've said this before.

We would start when we come back in January.

And so if we're talking about a March 1 or sooner start you know that gives us a good you know for 6 weeks to be able to get some bargaining done.

Okay great.

That was my biggest concern because I'm just trying to avoid desperately avoid the situation we were in last year.

And so however we can expedite this process just to make sure that we are you know not only staying in compliance but also making sure that our educators get a fair contract.

I would imagine and anticipate that there's going to be a fair amount of advocacy around this issue.

And so I'm just making sure that as we come to the table that we are prepared to do as much in our power to make sure that we are also thinking not only you know in the interest of our students who should be our primary objective but also in the very real situation to where we're now going to be asking educators to come back into a situation where you know previously two or three weeks ago we were not having a robust conversation about returning under these current measures but now that that bar has kind of moved.

So I do want to just acknowledge that there are a lot of teachers in our system that are feeling very scared and very nervous right now.

At the same time feeling very excited about you know the possibility of coming back with their students.

I'm just making sure that as we orient ourselves to these conversations as a district that we are prepared to do what we need to do to mitigate as much risk as possible and make sure our educators feel safe and supported as we ask them to return.

Did you have any response Chief Kokx or.

No.

Thank you Director Hersey.

Okay.

Director Harris.

Several questions and comments.

What is winter break.

The date surrounding that please.

It starts Monday and runs through SEA members return to work on January 4th.

Okay.

I wonder whether or not we can get I appreciate that folks have earned their time but I'm wondering frankly if we can get started earlier with our negotiation with our labor partners.

This if we're going to do this we need all the time that we can get.

First comment and question.

Second have we heard from the governor or Superintendent Reykdal about moving teachers and educators to as high up on the first responder tier list for vaccines.

I believe yesterday the governor or Reykdal stated that teach our educators are in the second priority of the vaccines.

Well it would seem to me that we need to push back given what they did to us yesterday.

And and I I want our educators protected as soon as humanly possible.

I also wonder whether we can't get our surveys out and certainly we could put a reference in there that says we appreciate you're on break.

However if you choose to voluntarily answer this And and it seems to me as though we should be surveying our families yesterday or last week.

And and I'm curious as to what the turnaround time is given the fact that the Pulse surveys that the turnaround time on that was in my opinion and we heard testimony yesterday unacceptable.

Childcare centers we we've got to give them notice.

And and working with good faith ethically with with our community partners and or make a determination up front at least for now with K-1 that we're not going to evict them.

And and I also wonder whether or not that will be an impediment to a bargain having non- SDA folks on the premises in terms of issues of trust etc.

I absolutely want our kids back in school as soon as possible.

The health and safety issues to me are so paramount.

And we're coming up on a Christmas holiday where people are going to ignore the recommendations not to have family dinners etc.

And we've already seen a blow up from Thanksgiving.

So I I feel a little cynical about these numbers that are being paraded about and extremely cynical and I'll say it again.

Yesterday's surprise announcement from the governor and the superintendent not well taken.

And that is not collaboration amongst folks that are voted on by the populace.

If we're not given a heads up and have an opportunity to collaborate I'm I'm frankly outraged by it.

I go ahead.

Well Director Harris I will lose track of your questions if you so could could I just address a couple of the things you just mentioned and then I see Dr. Codd also has her hand up.

Oh please do.

Thank you.

Sure.

So Dr. Codd you had your hand up before and I'm not sure if it's still up.

Do you want to go first.

Yes please.

So I just wanted to respond Director Harris is as soon as this passes tonight assuming it will I will reach out to SEA to get bargains scheduled in partnership with them.

I just wanted to let you know that.

Thank you Director Codd.

So Director Harris regards to your questions about childcare providers.

So That was a question that Director Hampson brought up yesterday and what I have learned today after that question is that we will on Monday be putting out letter to our child care providers letting them know that they may need to move into different spaces.

However we believe that we will be able to accommodate nearly all if not all of the child care needs even when we bring back our pre-K through first grade students.

And so our intent is to do everything in our power.

As I mentioned yesterday we are more than thankful for the services that these folks have provided for our families and our students during this time.

And so we are going to do everything that we can to ensure that if they can't stay in the current space they're using that we will help them with the licensing and finding additional spaces.

With regards to your question around the survey we know from looking at data and it's why we're choosing to do some of the web work over the holiday break is because our families do check out of SPS services including utilizing web utilizing surveys etc.

And because our educators are a key part of the surveying those folks are not working in the next two weeks.

And so we need them because they are making direct calls.

For example I know some on Concie's team are calling every single student's family on their caseload.

And so we cannot ask them to do that work over the two weeks of the holiday break.

And the turnaround on getting the data back we hope it's quick.

If I have a class of 15 students I should be able to reach every all 15 of them in a day or two and get that data back.

I don't know Dr. Pedroza is there anything you want to add to that.

I want to add that the enrollment planning team has has already drafted a survey to go out.

We are going to follow very much and we're going to track information to make sure that we're targeting our bilingual families and then following up with schools.

We have a two-pronged approach.

And then we are willing to phase that up quickly so that we can start getting the information back as quickly as possible.

Our goal is to know especially around our special education families to know as we have to know those numbers because that will help the operations side of the house to ensure that we can actually then phase up things quickly.

Okay and then my last question is for our kindergartners and first graders and and our other children we're proposing to bring back in.

Have we done a comprehensive check on their vaccination so we don't end up adding layers to potential infections etc.

And remember the huge lift it was a year two years ago from our staff.

to reach out and make sure that's happening.

Is that happening.

Thank you Director Harris.

Actually that was just last year.

Chief Jessee can you address that our current K's I'm guessing that our health services team is has monitored to ensure they have their vaccines but can you confirm that.

That is correct.

Anytime they come in for the enrollment center we check for that verification.

We actually updated our process last year as part of the new requirements by the state.

And so we're ready to go.

We would any any new students coming in.

Of course we open our arms to new families coming in even mid-year as Director Mack is referring to.

And so we would have make sure that they have that documentation as is again required by the state.

So can you tell me it's 100 percent up to date or do we have a backlog we need to address yesterday.

There is there is no current backlog but again just based on any additional new enrollment we would be ready to handle that.

Now again we're just following the requirements and so they have 30 days to make sure that they demonstrate that they have that the paperwork so that we're assured that we're ready to go.

Can you go back to that.

You're talking about a 30-day window.

What percentage do we have that are up to date right now.

I don't have the number right on but I can put that in the Friday memo.

For sure.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

Okay.

That takes us to Director DeWolf I'm sorry who joined us at 457. Director DeWolf.

I got a word.

Are you there.

Can you hear me.

Yep now we can.

Okay.

Sorry I think somebody muted me.

My first question is actually for Professor Hersey.

I know that he is he holds regular meetings and so I'm just curious what folks from those regular meetings are saying about reopening.

If you have any insights for for us.

Yeah sorry I was trying to get toward the mute button.

I would say that based on again my regular meetings have been mostly focused around our communities and schools in District 7. I would say that a lot of people are not excited about returning.

I think that the general consensus among the families that I've spoken with have been for us to really focus in and hunker down on offering as much of a robust remote learning plan as possible.

Additionally and that goes for families not only Black families but families of color and many others just again across my district.

I think that there is a growing concern and agitation that we are very close to a vaccine and yet we have a mandate in many respects placed on us when we really just need support in delivering the safest model possible.

But again I would say that folks are you know interested in the idea of returning K-1.

I think that there's a lot of concerns about how we can do this operationally and how we can provide a lot.

There are a lot of concerns about how we can provide a fair contract with our teachers supplying the appropriate amount of PPE and upgrades to our various buildings that would be necessary for us to do this and have folks feel you know 100 percent safe in the models that we're offering.

Generally I don't think anybody's terribly excited about this but I do think folks are cautiously optimistic.

So that's why I'm really just trying to make sure in response to your your question Director DeWolf a big part of this is making sure that we are not only making this you know safe on paper but making sure that it's actually rolled out out in our buildings in the same way that we're having conversations here.

Because one of the key things that we've heard across meetings is that you know Policies aren't necessarily being followed when we get down to the building level.

You know adequate PPE is not being provided.

There are there are you know amendments and changes made to policy given specific situations in terms of our students who we've already been you know offering special education services to.

And while I can neither confirm nor deny you know how much of that is actually being followed or done from building to building the sheer fact that we have folks coming on to community meetings saying very clearly that like they don't feel safe and it's not aligned with the policy that they're reading from the district.

I have serious concerns about our ability to operationalize this in a way that that we think that we can versus what we know is going to be a shortcoming in a lot of our buildings.

Thank you Director Hersey that's really helpful because I had my community meeting on December 3rd and I will say the biggest topics were well one was around the outdoor education and so it wasn't I didn't get a lot of conversations like that were fiercely demanding reopening.

It was it was more about making the best of what we have now.

So I appreciate kind of your context because I I just want to make sure that there is a groundswell and I know it's just so hard to read at least from my perspective where the community is landing because we really are representing 37,000 families and 37,000 different communities in Nebraska.

So the other thing I wanted to.

Do you have a sense about what Bellevue is doing and how ours is different and anything we can learn.

I know that they just came out with their plan but do you have any sense about from theirs.

I don't have any more sense Director DeWolf than what was mentioned in the Seattle Times article.

I'm certainly willing to reach out to super the superintendent and his staff to learn what their anything that we could learn from them for their January opening.

Sure I appreciate that.

And hopefully and then I listened to the governor's budget today conversation and his and his highlight piece he says that projected education funding needs for the current budget in the first year of the next budget have fallen by an estimated $831 million largely due to lower school enrollment.

and people transportation costs amid the pandemic.

The governor proposes reinvesting some of that savings to meet critical needs while using the rest to help balance the budget.

My concern is that we are heading into a time the state is not going to step up and either hold harmless or provide us more resources or put more money into what it's going to take to make sure that we can do this safely.

Just because of the language here which is saying they're saying that our lower enrollment is actually a cost saving.

So that's one thing I just highlight that was really troubling when I was looking for that.

The last thing I just wanted to confirm was that this does include McKinney-Bento and Title 6 Native Education students correct in the prioritization.

It does not include them in the prioritization although it is in the resolution that Director Hampson and I worked on today as a group of students that we would be looking at perhaps in the next round.

And like I had explained to Director Mack regarding you know best instructional practices.

There is not a good instructional practice to pull out McKinney-Vento students for in-person services and remove them from their homerooms or the rest of their schedule.

And then I'll just end with the fact that I'm going to try to lead here with a little bit of abundance and trust.

And I think starting with pre-K-1 would be really helpful for us particularly because trying to reopen and try to bring everybody back really it would be really difficult.

But what I see this as is a starting point to complete K-1 and hopefully phase in with others.

So I see this as a great starting point and thank you for the work on this for your time sir.

So.

I don't know.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I will just make a couple of clarifying comments and then come back around to to follow up on any perspective amendments to to the resolution as it stands.

So I want to be really clear about the commitment that we need to maintain as board that the district needs to maintain as staff that we will continue to come back to this and to respond to the conditions and the needs of our students in the context of this evolving pandemic so that we can set ourselves up well.

I think we've heard a lot with from our constituents about concerns for fall.

And I understand that.

I understand the kind of the fear that comes up if you're feeling not a good sense of confidence about our ability to put something in place now that will we be able to do it for fall.

This is a really critical first step to making sure that we are going to be able to have something not just for fall but for summer as well and be able to adapt to what things look like with a vaccine.

I want to be really clear though that the vaccine it is not my understanding and I don't believe it's the understanding of health professionals in this current time frame that this is a This is a vaccine that makes you not experience the it doesn't mean you don't get COVID but you don't get sick from COVID.

And so it doesn't reduce the risk.

It's more like the flu shot and so our adaptation is going to be not complete.

We're not returning to anything that is like it was before.

And so we've got to be shooting for something that's that's reasonable.

I do want to clarify that we are very intentional.

These aren't throwaway resolutions in the body of this when we talk about using outdoor and community opportunities to increase our supports for those doing pilots in their schools which is what we're calling them now but we'd like to see additional focus in the coming months on particularly lifting up students for some educational justice students receiving services as McKinney-Vento who are in foster care Title 6 students that that those students become focal points for for providing additional services.

And there already are some schools that are doing that work as they're building up their outdoor pilots and there are other ways that we can do that.

We can look at hubs.

That particular portion of the resolution is intended to be some release valves for increasing in-person opportunities for students outside of the scope of a return to a full return to in-person that has to be fully bargained.

So so I just want to be really clear about that intent that isn't those aren't throwaway items.

And then also to be really clear that one of the things that we know to be true is that we don't have the transportation or other funding for what was proposed by the governor yesterday.

And I need for our constituents to hear that loud and clear.

I appreciate you bringing that up Director DeWolf and providing that additional information because it is not something that we will know if we have funding for.

in terms of transportation.

We don't have those transportation dollars.

There was no there was a increase in the number of cases that we within which we can return to school but there wasn't any decrease in the what's acceptable in terms of social distancing and therefore the costs by definition go up and that is going to impact us for next year as well.

So there's significant significant budgetary concerns and gaps that none of our school districts are going to be able to fill.

Particularly if we have a governor that is looking at lower enrollment and cost savings while we have been staying at home as an opportunity to divert those funds elsewhere rather than reinvesting them back in our in our schools.

And then we still have those intense counseling needs that got vetoed and didn't come back.

So so we really do I really appreciate so many families that that wrote and called and said that they were advocating at the state level for better support for how we're operating our schools right now.

And I think we need to see more of that advocacy particularly around funding if we are going to try to do more because we cannot do this without.

You cannot spread kids out and have more stuff much smaller classrooms much many more buses and not have it be really expensive really quickly.

And that doesn't even cover the cleaning for which he only proposed $3 million for the whole state.

Which is which is a joke.

So the other thing that I just want to say that is in this resolution that I am I heard loud and clear from Director Hersey and that I feel incredibly strongly about is we absolutely need to hear and see very specific data and dashboards that clarify for us that in fact our buildings.

This is one thing I do appreciate that came out of the governor.

is that we are really going to be held accountable for and need the funding for providing consistent safe PPE and health and safety guidelines in every building extremely consistently and being able to validate that consistency.

And and that's something that I don't think that we've gotten there as a district yet to have that level of trust.

I know we need that in order for our Labor partners to to to feel that we have their backs and I want them to feel safe and I want them to have trust.

And so whatever we need to do to build that is is is absolutely paramount.

And with that I'm going to go back to Director Rankin.

You have a proposed amendment that I believe you're ready to put forth and is that.

I do.

Okay.

Should I do that now.

Yep.

Okay.

I would like to propose an amendment to the resolution to add in the be it further resolved paragraph where it says be it further resolved the board has reviewed hereby adopts a phased reopening of in-person services in schools for pre-K through first grade up to five days per week starting on March 1st 2021. As well as for the following special education service pathways.

And here is where I'd like to insert beginning at the start of second semester as possible.

I just lost my wording.

Beginning at the start of second semester as possible comma and no later than March 1st 2021. And then the semicolon in the list of the services.

Okay can you just restate the specific is anything being deleted or just simply added.

That thing's being deleted just added.

Okay can you just restate that.

Yeah so where it says a phased reopening of in-person services in schools for pre-K through first grade up to 5 days per week starting on March 1st 2021. as well as for the following special education service pathways insert beginning at the start of second semester as possible.

I just lost it again.

Sorry.

And no later than March 1st 2021. Yep.

Okay.

I don't know if Ellie's able to put that up.

Ellie are you capturing this.

I believe Greg just sent it to her.

I just want to be sure where the board office has got this.

Yes I do have the text.

Okay.

So while she puts that up let me just see if any just raise your hand directors if you have any questions about that.

So I'm just going to read one more time that it would then say be it further resolved that the board has reviewed and hereby adopts a phased reopening of in-person services in schools for pre-K through first grade up to five days per week starting on March 1st 2021 as well for the following special education service pathways beginning at the start of second semester as possible and no later than March 1st 2021 colon.

Yes that is my amendment.

Directors do you need for me to wait to see it on the screen.

If so please raise your hand or speak up otherwise I will do a roll call on this amendment.

Sorry we need a second.

Okay so this amendment was moved by Director Rankin and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith I mean Director Hersey.

Okay so can we go ahead and do a roll call.

Yes I can call the roll on Director Rankin's amendment here.

Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith Director Rivera-Smith aye aye Director DeWolf Director DeWolf Director Harris aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Hampson aye.

The amendment has passed unanimously.

Okay thank you.

So now are there any further amendments.

This is Director Mack.

Yes.

I was typing it out and about ready to send it to Ellie.

The third paragraph where it says be it further resolved that the board directs the superintendent to continue strengthening remote services for K-12 for 2020-21 school year with exception of students receiving special education services in alignment.

The way that this whole paragraph reads makes it sound like it just it's awkwardly worded.

It's it basically states that we're not providing services.

It's confusing because it's a very long sentence.

So my suggested amendment to it is essentially just to reorder the language to be more clear so it would read be it further resolved that the school board directs the superintendent to continue strengthening remote services for K-12 for 2021-22 2020-2021 school year and has recommended that SPS continue this model until the risk of significant transmission of COVID-19 cases has decreased and thus to resume in-person instructions.

period students receiving special education services in alignment with individualized education programs and 504 plans if it is determined on an individual basis that services can be provided safely in-persons and cannot be accessed successfully through remote learning will be provided in-person.

It just it's the same intent of that but the way that it's stated actually makes a it it it it could be confusing and say that we're accepting.

So I just that's the amendment.

Did you already send it to Ellie.

No I just needed to finish typing it out because I didn't copy properly etc.

So I will send it in just one second.

Is this it sounds like it's not substantive.

Greg are we.

It is pretty substantive in terms of how it's stated now because it says with the exception of students receiving.

So I do actually feel that the way it's worded is substantive and that it's changing.

The intent here is to clarify that we are strengthening remote learning and that students receiving special education services that have been determined to need in-person services will get them.

That's the intent that's here.

But it states that there's an exception and it makes it it just it it doesn't read clearly.

So let me finish typing it out and I will send it over.

Okay or Ellie you can pop up a proposed amendment if you heard it.

Just clarify.

Yes Director Harris.

Thank you.

A point of inquiry.

I don't see anything in here that talks about summer school and when we usually talk about the school year 2021. I'm not sure we always speak about summer school and as you referenced in our conversation the other day that is looming upon us and it will be even more necessary this year probably than any other years past.

Are you looking at putting together another resolution come January potentially.

I hope so.

Yeah.

Just asking.

Okay.

I I brought up both summer and fall and my the instruction I received was that we couldn't but now I see that you're talking about it as the summer.

I was saying summer and fall which which was not wouldn't wouldn't be an amendment to this particular resolution but if we're talking about just summer.

But I do think that it would be better to do that in January.

Thanks for the feedback.

Appreciate.

Thanks.

Okay.

I did just email that to LA and school board directors.

You can all see that language in your inbox.

Hopefully it comes quickly.

I believe very I believe it very much maintains the intent there but corrects this potential confusion around how it's worded that it would be accepting special education students and anyway.

Okay.

Does anybody have any questions or concerns for Director Mack's amendment.

No that happened.

Ellie did it.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

I have a clarifying question.

It hasn't come it hasn't come through my inbox yet but basically am I understanding right that Eden the way it's worded right now sounds like we're strengthening remote learning for everyone except for these special education students that are getting some services.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I can see why it would be that way so I appreciate the clarification.

And I I tried to address that.

And we're strengthening remote services for all students and ensuring that those that are.

Yeah.

I tried to address that in an edit a couple of days ago and I think I probably just.

Director Rankin can you please not talk over each other and go one at a time.

There are other people listening.

Okay are we there yet Ellie.

I have not received it.

Okay well I'm going to assume that it was understood by everyone.

Am I okay moving forward.

Chief Narver.

Sorry struggling for the mute button there.

I don't think we've had an official motion yet.

I certainly didn't hear a second.

Oh there was a second.

Yeah I'm sorry.

Okay.

Can you read it.

Your final language that you sent.

Sorry that's right because she didn't have the language yet.

So please state the motion restate the motion and we'll ask for a second Director Mack.

Okay I'll go ahead and read it through.

And I just I think it's probably easiest just to strike through that section and accept this language.

So I move that for the third clause down this language replace that language be it further resolved that the board directs the superintendent to continue strengthening remote services for K-12 for 2020-2021 school year and has recommended that SPS continue this model until the risk of significant transmission of COVID-19 cases has decreased enough to resume in-person instruction.

Period.

Students receiving special education services in alignment with individualized education programs and 504 plans If it is determined on an individual basis that services can be provided safely in-person and service cannot be accessed successfully through remote learning will be provided in-person services.

And Ellie when you see that I accidentally left off the last word services in the thing I sent.

Okay has it come through because it shows a sent here.

But I don't at least.

Sorry it takes a while Director Mack.

Yeah.

Is there a second.

Second.

Okay.

This motion has been made by Director Mack and seconded by Director Harris.

And I believe it just came through.

So I'm going to wait 30 more seconds.

So that folks can read it.

And just for clarification the last word services is not there so I apologize for that.

There's one additional word at the end.

I'm not sure if it's large enough to be read but I did try to pop it up on the screen.

Ellie can you add the word services to the end of Director Mack's amendment.

Yes I'm actually just showing the email right now but I will include that.

I don't actually think it's necessary.

I don't think it's necessary.

It said service before that.

It would be redundant.

Okay that's fine.

Thank you.

So as it is in the text is fine.

And there is one just minor typo so I will I'm sure Greg will confirm that I can make any spelling and grammatical small fixes.

Confirmed.

Okay.

So with that.

There's a hand there's a hand raised somewhere.

I don't know where but there's a hand raised.

It's me.

Oh okay.

Director Rivera-Smith.

I'm wondering should this say pre-K 12.

No because we're not doing pre-K remote are we.

Yeah.

Yep.

Pre-K is remote right now.

I accept that friendly amendment to say pre-K.

Thank you.

Does your second still stand Director Harris.

Seconded.

Friendly amendment.

Thank you.

Okay.

So as amended the amendment please call for the roll Ellie.

Ms.

Wilson-Jones sorry.

Ms.

Wilson-Jones.

getting up on the screen and it is the amendment as moved by Director Mack with one minor typo correction and the language just provided regarding pre-K just for clarity.

Yes it's not quite what's on the screen.

Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf aye Director Harris aye

Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Rankin aye but I had a question about the addition of pre-K that that didn't get seen and I don't know if it's too late.

On this amendment.

Well the addition of pre-K it's a technical question.

We we provide serve well we maybe it doesn't matter but we're a service provider for pre-K but the that's not necessarily our our content and well okay I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if pre-K is appropriate or not in there but I would need someone from staff to to chime in.

But yeah.

Okay well let's move forward and amend it in January as necessary.

Assuming the vote passes.

So please continue Ms. Wilson-Jones.

Returning to the roll.

Director Hampson.

Aye.

The amendment passes unanimously.

Okay.

So now can we move for a roll call for the underlying resolution.

Director Rivera-Smith.

I had another amendment I emailed out.

I think it just came in.

Hey everybody.

It is regarding it's in the BAR.

I just I basically took language from the BAR and made it a be it resolved.

The paragraph on page 2 starting at SPS will continue to monitor COVID-19 transmission rates with reference to the Washington State Department of Health Toolkit.

Tools to prepare for provisions of in-person learning among K-12 students at public and private schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The availability and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and evolving health and safety guidelines from the federal.

Sorry Director Rivera-Smith I need some context for this.

What do you.

What are you doing.

I'm taking that section that I was reading right now to put it into.

Before you read it.

Before you read it.

There it is.

Are you adding an additional section to the resolution.

Yes.

It would be its own section because I tried to find where it could fit into a current section but it didn't seem it seemed very clunky.

So it would just be a separate section.

Again it's just the exact language from the BAR.

I did not change it at all.

to certify that we are going to keep those conversations going because I know we said it it's in the BAR we talk about it.

But you know what I feel like they're just because we're trying to build that trust and we don't always we don't quite have it with community.

I want to make sure that we are being very explicit and directive in our intent to continue.

Before we consider this I need to check in with Chief Legal Counsel Narver.

The everything else that we've done so far has been an update to our prior resolution so.

I want to make sure that we can add a section that wasn't there before.

Yeah.

This needs to be handled a little bit differently.

I also wanted to point out a couple of things.

The words DOH decision tree that are in Director Rivera-Smith's amendment are actually struck out in the BAR but when you cut and paste them they reappear.

And the numeral 1 after the parenthetical is a footnote that that ought to come out as well.

The what we were what we've done so far in the what the board is doing in the resolution is replacing some provisions of the August resolution to update what model we're under and what some of the other provisions are about remote learning and other services.

This is more an obligation that the district is undertaking in the BAR There's no reason it couldn't simply be added as a resolved clause.

It it is it is a new addition and so it is in effect replacing things even though this topic wasn't dealt with earlier because it reflects new new developments.

I don't think it's a problem just simply adding this as a new be it resolved clause at the end of the resolution with the changes that I just mentioned to formatting.

Thank you.

I just re-sent it correcting those errors.

I'm really sorry.

I copy and paste.

Grabbed them.

And again I want to just as reassurance I mean as Director Hampson sorry President Hampson already noted you know we could have been updating this all along.

We could have been having these conversations and doing updates but things fall and you don't and I want to make sure that this is at least in there as another safety for for us for staff and for our community that we will continue that commitment to make.

is actually taken into account in the resolution.

Thank you.

Okay.

If there's any I don't know how much conversation we're going to have about this and I do want to get to the underlying resolution.

I believe we will have an opportunity to come back around in January to a resolution that is a little bit broader in scope where we do consider things that we haven't been looking at that aren't updates.

So are you willing to hold this until January since it's an addition.

I feel like this is making that commitment that we will come back in January.

I mean that was sort of my understanding of this paragraph being in the BAR even.

So I feel like — Well it's also elsewhere.

It's we're required to do this and it's elsewhere in the documents.

Right.

That's the it's.

Duplicative is what I'm saying.

What's in.

What we're required to do by the state because it's I believe it's in the checklist.

I don't know.

I mean the part about I mean this goes into what we're going to do.

Consult with the board and community.

I don't think that's in a checklist but how about I.

We're we're the board.

Yeah.

So that's what I'm saying.

You pulled something.

This is SPS but this is the board.

resolution it's of a slightly different character.

So do other board members have questions about this.

I would second it and support just confirming what's written in the BAR that we will be this is this is kind of getting what I was getting to.

around the commitment that we're making and that it isn't explicitly stated.

So I appreciate having that.

I just want to be clear about who is making.

When we resolve to be the district.

But we aren't the district we're the board.

Director Hampson.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I I I I believe that it's appropriate to have this in the resolution as what we are as a board are resolving as part of this resolution.

You may disagree with that and that's fine but I'll second it.

No I disagree with the statement that we because we are not the district we're the board and that's part of why this resolution exists is because we have to make that clarifying directive.

That's fine as long as we're considering it in those terms.

Do other directors have comments questions.

I have this Director Rankin I have my hand up I don't know I don't know who sees that.

I yeah I would I think this is like we as the board since we write the resolutions and call the Meetings I like I feel like this is already I don't know.

The the resolution that we I feel like this muddies this resolution that this is a a specific directive to begin in-person instruction by starting with pre-K-1 and intensive service pathways.

And that that is what this resolution is today.

So this seems to then sort of broaden it into other.

I think it should wait.

Okay I'm going to have in the interest of time I'm going to go ahead and just call the for the roll on this as it's written.

Director Hampson I'm not sure that I got the specific motion or whether I got the motion in the second or statement that people were intending to make a motion and intending to make a second.

So this is moved by Director Rivera-Smith as presented on the screen unless she states differently and seconded by Director Mack.

Thank you.

Okay.

And moving to the roll call then on the amendment on the screen.

Director DeWolf.

Director Harris aye Director Hersey abstain Director Mack aye Director Rankin no Director Rivera-Smith aye Director Hampson no.

Amendment has passed with a motion of 3 yes to 2 no with 2 abstentions.

Okay let's now move to votes on the underlying amendment.

I mean the underlying resolution which has been moved and seconded.

Which has been moved and seconded.

I think we want a motion to approve.

Approve as amended.

Approve the.

Oh I'm sorry.

Director.

Yeah.

Director.

Yeah.

As amended.

Please mute if you're not speaking.

I move to approve as amended.

Do I need to read the entire amendment again or excuse me the entire motion again.

No I don't think so.

The motion's been introduced and seconded and we have a record of the amendments that have passed.

Fantastic.

Second.

Sorry we need a second.

There we go.

Okay.

The amended motion has been moved by Director Hersey and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith.

Can you please call for the roll.

Director Harris Director Harris aye Director Hersey aye aye Director Mack aye Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf Director DeWolf aye Director Hampson aye.

The motion is passed unanimously.

All right.

Thank you very much.

As there is no further business on the agenda this meeting is adjourned at 551 p.m.

Thanks all.

Thanks.

Happy Holidays.