Seattle School Board Meeting - December 2, 2020

Welcome.

Thank you so much for being here.

My name is Director DeWolf and I am now calling the December 2nd 2020 regular board meeting to order at 3 30 p.m.

on Wednesday December 2nd 2020. We live and go to school in a city that is the ancestral homeland to the Duwamish people the Muckleshoot Nation and the Suquamish Nation.

We acknowledge them as custodians of this land since time immemorial.

As guests and in many of our cases as settlers on this land we extend our deepest gratitude and respect to their elders and ancestors past present and future.

Ms. Wilson-Jones Ms. Wilson-Jones roll call please.

Director Hampson.

Here.

Director Harris present.

Director Hersey Director Hersey looks like not yet.

Director Mack here.

Director Rankin here.

Director Rivera-Smith present.

And Director DeWolf here.

Director Hersey is here.

Sorry my microphone was.

Okay.

Thank you and thank you and welcome directors.

All right.

Superintendent Juneau is also joining us for today's meeting and additional staff will be briefing the board as we move through today's agenda.

As we begin today's meeting I would also like to welcome Nisa Burke who is joining us as the student representative from Nathan Hale High School today.

We'll be hearing from Nisa later in the meeting as well as fellow Nathan Hale student Simone Gill who will be leading off our testimony list.

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.

To facilitate today's 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.

And now I will turn it over to Superintendent Juneau for her comments.

Thank you Director DeWolf and welcome directors and wish we could be in person but here we are.

As you know November was Native American Heritage Month and to me and several others on this call every month is Native Heritage Month.

Also as you all know I have extensive experience in in in Indian education and much of my career was actually spent implementing accurate and truthful information about Native people and tribes into all curricular areas as well as working to increase Native student academic achievement using culturally responsive practices.

I can say with authority that there are great things happening in Seattle Public Schools regarding Native education.

Implementation of Since Time Immemorial or STI continues to spread across Seattle Public Schools with professional development and by providing quality resources.

Our Native Education staff work directly with students and families to ensure they are provided access to a high quality education including working directly with families on technology supports in our remote learning environment.

We have a library dedicated to providing resources across the district.

They have created award-winning videos that highlight our Native students and staff.

They run a federal program that assists our Native students and involve parents in decision-making.

They were support Indigenous languages in our system.

They work with our tribal government partners to ensure they stay apprised of our work.

They work directly with students through Sikachib and other programs.

This small but mighty team does so much and I am just super proud of their work.

And so on the heels of Native American Heritage Month I just want to make sure that I take a moment to recognize the Native superheroes who are working directly in our system.

They're recognized across the state.

They're recognized across the nation as leaders in Indian education.

They do their work without a lot of accolades and they deserve to be seen.

So I just want to call out each of these staff members and thank them personally for their work.

Boo Balkin-Foster who is a teacher mentor in Sikachib class at Chief Sealth International High School.

Kumarak Palm an instructional assistant and mentor in Boo's classroom.

Stacia Hawkinson certified teacher in Sikachib class at Nathan Hale High School.

Brian Jortner an instructional assistant and mentor in Stacia's classroom.

Nancy Bob.

a consulting teacher and language expert.

Lauren Funoi-Muwana a re-entry intervention specialist supporting high school students to re-engage in our schools.

Jenny Miller an online learning specialist who has provided amazing support in this remote learning to students.

Renee Remlinger-Tee a resource librarian specialist.

Shawna Brown curriculum specialist.

This amazing woman is our STI expert.

Chrissy Duluk-Delouse Native American Family Support Worker to help get families what they need.

And of course Gail Morris the rock star who orchestrates all this work at a systemic level and supports families on the ground as well.

And I know that you all know that we at Seattle Public Schools are so fortunate to have these amazing people supporting our students and families.

Native education staff I see you.

I value you and I want to personally thank you for all that you do and happy month after Native American Heritage Month.

So thank you.

That's it.

Thank you Superintendent Juneau and and and hands up to Gail and all of the folks you mentioned.

Thank you for for raising them up today.

Again I would like to welcome Nathan Hale High School Senior Nisa Burke.

In addition to being the senior class treasurer Nisa serves as a leader of the school's Black Student Union and is an active part of the ASB leadership team.

She is a strong voice for equity for all students and is helping to create a school that works for all.

Nisa I'll turn it over to you.

Hi my name is Nisa Burke.

As you said I am the class treasurer and vice president of the Black Student Union of my school.

I have always been a very big advocate for equality within the school grounds especially since students the majority of where we are is school.

And I'm just I'm so excited to be here and really be able to have a point of view of the students and really just have student voice and hear a bunch of the opinions and just really excited to be here.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here Nisa.

And please throughout if you have on Teams just raise your hand up on the Teams and we can tag you in if you have a question on any of the items today.

We'd love to have your input.

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

So may I have a motion for the consent agenda please.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Okay.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Director Hampson and seconded by Director Harris.

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

Director DeWolf this is Director Hampson.

I'd like to remove the minutes from October 28th November 9th and November 12th work sessions.

Okay.

Any others.

Okay.

So since items were removed may I have a revised motion for the consent agenda as amended.

I move approval of the consent agenda as amended.

Second as amended.

Thank you Directors.

Approval of the consent agenda as amended has been moved by Director Hampson and seconded by Director Harris.

All those in favor of the consent agenda as amended signify please by saying aye.

All those opposed.

Okay.

The consent agenda has passed unanimously.

We still have about six minutes before public testimony so I would like to start on the items removed from the consent agenda.

So Director Hampson you mentioned three items so I wonder if you might give us some background.

Sure.

So the work session minutes are in each cases they're submitted by the staff who presented at the sessions which is in support of board office not having the capacity to always do those.

So I understand that.

These are sessions that are recorded and the extent of the minutes presented makes it very difficult for me as a board member without having to have going through and listening to the meeting again in its entirety to verify that the extensive descriptions you know in some instances a little bit of editorializing omission inclusion it makes it very difficult for me to approve them as minutes.

And so I would ask that we take another shot at them to get them to more of a a simple reporting of items discussed versus particularly given that they are on recording for the public to to revisit that we remove a lot of the detail to keep it more objective.

Okay.

So Miss Wilson-Jones how how do we move these minutes back to a future meeting.

What would you suggest for the process here.

Director DeWolf this is Greg Chief Legal Counsel Greg Narver.

I'd be happy to address that if you like.

Yes go ahead.

Yes Greg.

Thank you.

Thank you for sure.

Sure.

And so this would be a motion to postpone consideration of this presumably until the next board meeting.

That's a motion that's in order as long as the date that's chosen to take it up is a date of a regularly scheduled board meeting.

So that would be the that would be the motion.

The 16th.

Okay so Greg can we make a motion for all three of those to come back to December 16th.

Regular board meeting.

Yes that would be fine.

I will entertain a motion Director Hampson on that item.

I move that we postpone the October 28th 2020 Oversight Work Session November 9th 2020 work session and November 12th 2020 work session minutes to be taken up at the December 16th regular board meeting.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you Directors.

All right.

This item is moved by Director Hampson and seconded by Director Harris.

All those in favor of.

Actually Director DeWolf.

I can call the roll on that.

Yep.

Director Hampson.

Can we have discussion on this motion before it's don't we get discussion.

Sorry.

Yes Director Mack we can certainly.

Thank you.

Director Hampson I'm going to move past you because you've presented so Director Harris.

I understand Director Hampson's concern I understand the human element of reporting.

I myself like detailed minutes and I don't know that without uploading the tapes of those minutes we're being terribly transparent if we roll them back to more simplified minutes.

I will vote for this to be sent to the next legislative meeting but will probably vote against it.

Thank you.

All right.

Director Hersey.

I have no additional questions at this time.

Okay.

Director Mack.

Yeah I am not going to support moving it to later because I in just reviewing the minutes they are they could be a lot longer and yes there's always some interpretation that the person taking the minutes has to have.

But the having a written record as opposed to having to watch or listen to an hour and a half long meeting is different and that's why we have minutes.

So I'm in disagreement around whether or not the minutes should be have information that's in there removed from them to simplify them.

I actually feel as if they're I don't see any if there's a substantive change then I would I would support that.

But the kind of arbitrary decision of how to simplify has me concerned.

So I prefer not to defer this and I I I support them as they're written.

Thank you.

Yeah I have a question about something I think I asked an email and didn't get a response to which was I know there's discussion of making recordings of or we have started recording work sessions and other things that we didn't used to record in in-person.

But then I my question was who has access to those recordings.

Are they shared out or put on the website or something.

And I think the answer was no.

So my question is how in terms of transparency and in terms of the public being able to get sort of an accurate or a report of what was discussed if the record like on the one hand if the recordings are available then people can see them.

But also that takes a lot of time and reading a summary is a lot of times a lot of times more useful but then also if there's not access to the recordings at all then it's almost kind of like not making them.

So what's the status on how the recordings are available to the public or not.

Director Rankin.

These each of these meetings was recorded and was broadcast through SPS-TV.

And they have been posted on the pages for each of those those meetings the recording links.

I think what you're referring to is the expanded sort of recording that was recently requested for our committee meetings and meetings that are not covered by SPS-TV and I don't have an answer back for you yet on how we would manage or share those recordings.

Okay.

But that's sorry.

So that's not.

Since the slide change I already can't remember what 3 meetings we're talking about specifically right now.

So thank you.

Oh okay.

So work sessions.

So the work the work session recordings are available.

For those meetings that are covered on SPS-TV the recordings are available.

That won't cover all of our work sessions but it will cover those that are on SPS-TV.

Any that were broadcast or recorded.

Okay.

Yeah I guess I'm still concerned about the how do we ride that line between too much information and possible editorializing in the minutes versus if it's just a report of items discussed it would almost be a replay of what the agenda is which I don't know how informative that is.

Thanks Director Rankin.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

Yeah I'm kind of in a weird position here because I once pulled minutes because I thought they were not detailed enough.

So I I actually I too also like the extent of the details in here but I also completely understand not wanting to turn it into editorializing of the minutes.

Unfortunately like in our regular meetings it's the actions that we want to see reflected in minutes.

There's really no actions in work sessions so to speak as far as voting goes because we don't do that in them.

So it is a gray area.

I you know I hate to make ongoing work of the minutes.

I mean sending them back means we've got to take them up in committee and then come back to the board.

So again torn between that.

And I you know I don't think it's the end of the world to look at them again and to see if they're always Maybe it went too far in editorializing.

I'm still pondering this one but I appreciate it being brought forward.

Thank you.

Okay.

Miss Wilson-Jones roll call vote please.

Can can sorry this is Georgia Rankin.

Can somebody please restate exactly what the vote is right now.

It is to move this October 28th November 9th and November 12th work sessions to the December 16th meeting for consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones.

Director Mack.

No.

Director Rankin.

Aye.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Aye.

Director Hampson aye Director Harris aye Director Hersey aye Director DeWolf aye.

This motion has passed by a vote of 6 yes to 1 no.

Okay folks we have now come to the election of board officers portion of today's agenda.

So we will now move to the election of board officers.

With that I will turn over the meeting to Superintendent Juneau who will preside over the election process as the Secretary of the Board.

Thank you Director DeWolf and congratulations in advance to our new officers.

But before I open the floor for the nominations I just will review the election process.

For each officer position President Vice President and member at large I will take nominations from the board.

A second is not required for the nomination but a second can be made.

After all the nominations are made for a position there will be an opportunity for directors to provide comments before voting.

After comments have been concluded The board will vote for each position in the order the nominations were made.

By law and by board policy the voting will be conducted by a roll call vote.

The voting will conclude at the point when one nomination gets four or more votes.

After the President has been elected we will move on to the Vice President and then the member at large.

In summary for each position there will be nominations then discussion then voting.

At the conclusion of the election process for all three positions each new officer will have an opportunity to provide remarks.

And with that nominations are now in order for the Office of the President.

This is Director Hersey.

I would like to nominate Director Chandra Hampson.

Second.

Oh go ahead.

Who seconded.

This is Director DeWolf.

Okay thank you.

Are there other nominations for president.

Other nominations for president.

If there are no more nominations I close the nominations for president.

Would any directors like to make any comments at this time.

This is Director DeWolf.

Okay Director DeWolf please.

I as Superintendent Juneau and Director Hampson know we have had a fairly intense year and I was really grateful to serve as president over the course of last year.

And it was both an honor a privilege and something with which I can never repay.

Shondra for her service as Vice President during this time.

And so I can think of no better person to serve as President during our next year and and fully and and excitedly and enthusiastically support her nomination and believe she will be an incredible for Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you Director DeWolf.

Any other comments.

I'll make a comment in support.

Director Hampson's knowledge of of operations of a board.

Her experience and understanding of of fiscal and budgetary issues and her longstanding experience as an advocate and leader in Seattle Public Schools I think will make her a great leader of the board in this next year that is sure to be complex and challenging I will say as this past year has been and I look forward to voting yes.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Any other comments.

Hearing none.

Oh go ahead.

I was just gonna say this is Director Hampson.

I humbly and with great honor accept this this nomination and the the value of service is is deep within my my being and I'm looking forward to serving my fellow board members and my all of our constituents and the students of Seattle Public Schools if elected to this position.

Thank you Director Hampson.

With that Miss Wilson-Jones please call the roll for Director Hampson to serve as president.

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

Nomination of Director Hampson is approved by a vote of 6 yes to 1 abstention to 0 no to 1 abstention.

Congratulations Director Hampson on your Vote to be President of the Seattle Public Schools School Board.

I look forward to working with you.

Thank you so much.

And likewise Superintendent Juneau.

Okay.

Nominations are now in order for the Office of Vice President.

Nominations.

This is Director DeWolf.

I'd like to nominate Director Brandon Hersey.

I'll second that.

This is Director Rankin.

Okay.

Are there other nominations for Vice President.

Other nominations for Vice President.

There are no more nominations.

I close the nominations for Vice President.

Would any directors like to make any comments at this time.

Director Hampson.

Thank you.

Yes I would.

I am singularly impressed with Director Hersey's wisdom beyond his years and his ability to combine if anyone has seen him in his in his teaching environment his incredible dedication to his profession to his community and to his role as Scoutmaster.

And and on top of that.

bringing an incredible level of thoughtfulness and professionalism and truly just wisdom beyond his his youth to this position.

I think that we're we're fortunate to have him.

He's an incredible colleague and a gracious and positive individual that really Seattle as a city is lucky to have him as an educator.

in our midst and as just a stand-up citizen singularly dedicated to the well-being of children in Seattle and elsewhere.

Thank you Director Hampson.

Any other directors wishing to make comment.

This is Director DeWolf.

I just have a quick comment to say which is that you know a few of us on this board from the last board who were privileged to be part of the interview process to fill the director the District 7 position from last year got to know Director Hersey pretty pretty well through that process.

And so not only was I impressed throughout that process but he has continued to exceed with flying colors just his role here his analysis his perspective his enthusiasm his passion and his extreme commitment and care to centering his community his constituents his families and his students.

And it's certainly it's it's breathtaking and also very very humbling to witness such great leadership.

So I'm very excited to support his his nomination.

Thank you Director DeWolf.

Any other comments by board directors.

Okay.

Thank you.

Miss Wilson-Jones please call roll call.

Director DeWolf yes Director Harris aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Rankin yeah aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director Hampson aye Nomination of Director Hersey for Vice President is approved by a vote of 7 yes to 0 no.

Congratulations Director Hersey on your election as Vice President of Seattle Public Schools School Board.

I look forward to working with you.

And the same is true for me Superintendent Juneau.

Just very quickly I want to say just thank you to all of the board members who have served as mentors for me. over this past year.

I didn't think that I would get emotional over this but as I think about my mom who was as many of you know a fierce educator in Hattiesburg Mississippi who passed away prematurely when I was a young boy to a rare form of cancer.

And just knowing the impact that she had on so many students and so many people.

Oh no.

Director Hersey we lost you.

Yeah Director Hersey.

We'll give him an opportunity.

Oh no.

Can you hear me now.

You're back.

Sorry my network is actually messing up for some reason.

That's super weird.

But anyway as I think about all of those all of those students who reach out and just say how much they miss her.

And her her values that have been instilled in me this moment is particularly special.

And my words don't express how thankful I am for this opportunity.

And as I said on the night when I was appointed thank you District 7 for accepting me for giving me a chance.

And I promise just like over the past year I will not let you down.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Hersey Vice President Hersey.

Nominations are now in order for the Office of Member-at-Large who serves with the President and Vice President on the Executive Committee.

So nominations.

This is Director Mack.

I'd like to nominate Lisa Rivera-Smith.

Second.

Thank you.

Nominated and seconded.

Are there other nominations for Member-at-Large.

other nominations for member at large.

If there are no more nominations I close the nominations for member at large.

Would any directors like to make any comments at this time.

This Director Harris I would.

Director Harris thank you.

Lisa Rivera-Smith being on the board for one short year and unexpectedly so.

because of the retirement of Director Rick Burke has shown an extraordinary work ethic and capacity.

She has attended well over half of the executive committee meetings this year.

She is probably the best note-taker in the district.

Her attitude is collaborative and to repeat a phrase from the old days fly to the ball and she might be one of the best listeners I've ever met in my life.

And I wish her well on the executive committee.

And it's a terribly terribly important role to play because oftentimes the director-at-large is the tiebreaker.

And I wish her well and I am extraordinarily hopeful about this next year with our new leadership and congrats to you all.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

Any other comments by board directors at this point.

Superintendent Juneau this is Director DeWolf.

Okay Director DeWolf.

Thank you Superintendent Juneau.

I just wanted to elevate just a just a true story why I support this nomination and support Director Rivera-Smith in this role.

The moment Director Rivera-Smith was sworn in her and I met pretty quickly and began basically collaborating on what ideas we had what ideas we wanted to work together on.

And and honestly Lisa is an incredibly hard worker who who is really helpful with all of all of the tasks and to be part of the collaboration and the partnership and I give two examples of that is we started in January in earnest talking about a climate resolution that we wanted to work on together.

That is coming forward in January and I can say without doubt Director Rivera has been a great partner in building out that resolution.

In addition she has been really helpful when it comes to particularly some of the work of the executive committee She's a consummate volunteer and I really appreciate that about her stepping up and I look forward to supporting her nomination.

Thank you Director DeWolf.

Any other comments by board directors.

This is Director Mack and I appreciate Director DeWolf and Director Harris and all of their comments.

And just adding to those comments the other The other reason why I feel really confident in Director Rivera-Smith stepping into this role is she has such a broad view across all of our work.

And you know really from my perspective tries to work collaboratively and you know understand all the different perspectives.

And I think that that's a great asset to have on the executive committee and I'm looking forward to this team leading us this year.

Thank you Director Mack.

Any other comments.

Okay with that Miss Wilson-Jones please call roll.

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

The nomination of Director Rivera-Smith as member-at-large is approved unanimously.

So congratulations on your election as member-at-large Director Rivera-Smith.

I look forward to working with you.

Thank you.

I do too.

I wish I'd written a speech.

It's okay.

I mean one minute one minute.

All right.

I'm super honored.

No thank you.

Really I look forward to getting to work.

If anyone knows me knows I I like I like to do the work and I am really excited about being able to work with the committee and and yeah super honored.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And again congratulations.

Madam President.

I would like to report that the officers for the Board of Directors for 2021 are President Chandra Hampson Vice President Brandon Hersey and member-at-large Lisa Rivera-Smith.

I would like now like to invite our newly elected officers beginning with the President to offer any remarks that they would like to make.

President Hampson.

Pįnagigi hįni karigīn.

I am.

I will say that the first thing that I know that I have to do is make some calls back to my family back in Winnebago and and get their their input on how I need to the lessons and the teachings that I need to remember as I take on this this new role.

And I'm incredibly grateful to have that connection with my community with my culture and The and it is so directly tied to the value of education the value of education that has served my community whether it's back in Winnebago or whether it's in urban Indian communities both here in the Pacific Northwest and in California where I spent a significant amount of time.

It is truly provides the ultimate tool to combat our oppression and dispossession and yet at the same time is often weaponized against our community as and in particular Black Indigenous and other communities of color.

And I'm could not be more honored to as I said before to serve in this capacity and and will just state that when I do so it is always an honor of those that have come before me Those who were my teachers and who are teachers in my community and in other communities.

It is such a thankless role and and and so in particularly trying times.

And I I think that the most important thing for me to reflect on right now for anybody who is listening is that in my leadership role my my intent is always to have our students and their families central in the decisions that we make and the paths that we take to create a new and better system.

We need a new and better system to and definition for for what education is for ourselves and for our for our communities and for our children.

And we have that opportunity here.

It is being a friendly critic is kind of my my mantra in terms of always maintaining that willingness to stay in relationship with people and within community but also retain a sense of really intentional push for accountability and make sure that that services ultimately And service in this case of our children is is what drives us.

And again I am incredibly grateful to all those who came before me to everyone who has served on this board in past years and is often forgotten.

And I know that that that I will will be forgotten once I have served and that the the true reward is in seeing improvement in the systems and leaving something behind that is functioning better than than when we started.

And I'm really looking forward to serving with my fellow executive board members.

And it's been a quite quite a year with all of us as board members.

And I'm looking I'm definitely looking forward to forging a highly focused and effective path together moving into this next calendar year and finishing out this incredibly difficult academic year and coming out of this the other side you know together with our heads held high.

So thank you so much for your confidence and your support.

Thank you President Hampson.

How about Vice President Hersey.

Confirming that y'all can hear me okay.

Indeed.

Fantastic.

Again just a sincere thank you to all of my colleagues for entrusting me with this opportunity.

As I look back on the past year and think about all of the accomplishments that we've made bringing TAF to Washington Middle School beginning the conversation of potentially replacing isolation and restraints our resolution to the commitment reconfirming our commitment to our Black students and just countless others I am so excited and thrilled to not only continue to see that work grow and flourish but to continue to push our district in partnership with senior staff our wonderful education partners our teachers our families specifically our students as well toward a vision of equity that I think that we can all be proud of.

I'm especially excited to continue conversations around Adding a student representative to the board.

Opening up our legislative agenda process to community as well as participatory budgeting.

And continuing to work directly with organizers and community advocates around what do meeting the demands of the Black Education Now Rally and countless other spaces really look like for our district.

So thank you again for the opportunity.

I am so excited to get to work and am looking forward to every minute of it.

Thank you to our Vice President Hersey.

Member at Large Rivera-Smith.

Thanks.

I spoke already kind of I don't want to take up too much more time.

I am definitely honored.

Looking forward to all the work that lies ahead.

How we can be responsive to community.

How we can steer this district or any scope for our students.

And yeah we have a meeting ahead of us though so let's do that.

Thanks.

Great.

Thank you.

And again congratulations to everybody.

Thanks to our to President DeWolf and to Director Harris also for your service on the Executive Committee.

Appreciate it and appreciate working with you.

And now I turn the meeting over to our new board president Director Hampson.

Thank you so much Superintendent Juneau.

We have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda and it is past 345. So I would ask sorry I'm reading the I'm already making a mistake I'm reading the wrong one because it's after 345. We will now go to public testimony.

We'll 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 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 listed 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 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 cedes 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 time ceded to them may decline and retain their place on the testimony art waitlist.

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.

Thank you President Hampson.

A quick logistical note.

Speakers please remain muted until your name is called to provide testimony.

When your name is called please be sure you have unmuted on the device you are calling from and also press star-6 to unmute yourself on the conference call line.

Each speaker will have a two-minute speaking time and a chime will sound when your time is exhausted and the next speaker will then be called.

First on today's testimonies list.

And apologies I believe I had a typo or an error in the posted list but first on the testimony list should be Simone Gill.

Hi everyone.

I just want to say that I'm really excited to be here and thank you for the opportunity for me to be able to speak my voice.

Of the 55 percent of students and families surveyed about remote learning grades 9 through 12 showed the most negative response due to problems and circumstance challenges.

that have come up during this time.

This is due to a great dynamic shift within the system.

Before students had the opportunity to have an isolated learning environment where a portion of their work could be completed and still have the opportunity to go home and decompress in a home environment.

Staying focused in class is difficult when there is no learning happening.

Currently most classes are set up to introduce or go over assignments that are happening and there's no core understanding about these subjects.

Some students feel that if learning was shifted to a project-based structure that connected to current world events it would allow students to create to use their creative brains at home and relieve the pressures of completing many busy work assignments at one time.

The injustices of the educational system can no longer be ignored.

Students of color and students with learning disabilities do not deserve to be left behind.

The survey shows that students of color and students with learning disabilities are not being given the proper resources to help with online learning.

Within the survey it's statistically proven that students of color are significantly less likely to be better at online learning.

This proves that a shift needs to be made to prioritize these students and general student understanding.

The communication boundary between students and teachers has only become more difficult with online learning.

While certain teachers are trying to compromise with students without an overall change many students are are falling behind.

Teachers are pushing for communication standards that are held within school but this does not work with online learning as students have had added responsibilities that create time constraints in their day.

School has radically changed for everyone and in order to no longer fear loss or change we must embrace the opportunity to grow and make a difference in online learning.

This will help us to improve the future if we prioritize every student giving them a fair shot at education.

Old school is lost and new school needs to be established.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will you please call the next speaker.

Next is Leilani Norman.

Leilani Norman.

Leilani.

Oh.

Go ahead Leilani.

Are you on the line Leilani.

You may need to press star-6 to unmute.

Okay moving to the next speaker on today's list.

Jesus Lefranbois.

Jesus if you're on the line you may need to press star-6 to unmute.

Go ahead.

I'm a senior at West Salem High School and I want to talk about a lingering issue that I've noticed with this year's senior class graduation requirements.

So there are a lot of issues already with online learning but one really big one that we've noticed is the electives that are being required for this year's graduation.

A lot of in a lot of in-person classes like grad like woodshop guitar music cooking gym classes like those that are typically done in-person.

which are being forced to be done online this year.

They're really creating an injustice within the school district because not because this bases the bases off the idea that all kids have the same home life.

All kids have the same resources.

All kids can pay attention equally.

And that's just not true.

That's never going to be true under any circumstances.

And these classes that are deemed essential for graduation the ones I just named Holding a kid back who can excel at all other classes except for those who just have a difficult time learning online that is really unfair.

And the so the graduation rate last year was at a 90 percent across the nation.

This year it's projected to be an 86.4 percent to be a 6 percent increase and I can't help but think that a lot of those are going to be due to an inability to complete these electives that shouldn't be required online in the first place.

These classes should be optional.

I do think that implementing a study hall with tutors after core classes are done would be a much better idea than regulating these electives which like I said should be optional for kids who have the resources and the drive to to succeed in them.

So I I think these should be made not mandatory for this year at least.

And it's going to affect not just the seniors graduating this year it's going to affect the freshmen's ability to start off strong.

And we are we our grade has already had a harder route to graduation.

If you guys need if you guys want to follow up on that you guys have my phone number.

Thank you so much.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will you please call the next speaker.

Next on the list is Chris Jackins.

Chris Jackins.

This is number 4 and you're number 14.

Hello.

My name is Chris Jackins.

Box 84063 Seattle 98124. My congratulations to the new board officers on the Outdoor Education Task Force.

The proposal does not include early target dates.

Please vote no.

On the Lincoln contracts for architect and general contractor.

Same architect was involved with a project at Cleveland which was millions of dollars over its original budget.

On the resolution on racial imbalance at Rainier Beach High School.

Two points.

Number one the resolution states that it has been determined that racial imbalance does not currently exist in the catchment area of Rainier Beach.

Number two this seems to be creative language like that used in trying to explain away racial imbalance at Magnolia.

Please vote no.

On the Seattle Teacher Residency Program or STR.

Two points.

Number one I did not see statistics about control group comparisons of success with students.

Number two the district should not outsource programs like STR to private funders such as the Alliance for Education.

The alliance harmed public education by supporting school closures.

Please vote no.

On the school funding model a catchphrase of money following the student is a private business model.

It does not produce good schools.

Please drop this approach and instead figure out what each individual school needs to be successful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones please call the next speaker.

Next is Dr. Carol Simmons.

Dr. Carol Simmons.

My name is Carol Simmons and I am a proud member to be part of the crew.

Often the board has requested speakers provide solutions to problems rather than criticisms.

Therefore we offer some.

One the strategic plan goal of quote continuing to design and develop research and evaluation practices that ensure research findings are used in a proactive and meaningful way unquote.

can be supported by measuring the number of students that have access to educational tools such as computers.

These students should be identified by demographics ethnicity grade level program placement economics and district delivery and success rate.

2. Resume the publication of the Seattle Public School data profile document.

3. Weigh the influence of decision making between corporate organizations such as the Alliance for Education and community-based organizations such as UNEA.

4. Resume the partnership with UNEA.

5. Restore Indian Heritage High School.

6. Monitor the implementation of the Since Time Immemorial curriculum.

7. Examine the over-enrollment in the number of Native children identified as special education students.

8. Create a Native community liaison on the school board.

9. Honor Native parents and elders requests for holding open forums.

And 10. Support Native-focused education schools and programs residing on the sacred site of Native land.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones please call the next speaker.

Next is Sabrina Burr.

Sabrina Burr.

Congratulations to the newly elected board members.

Our strategic plan puts African-American boys in the center of our targeted universalism.

How does this truly actualize at the building level.

especially in buildings where there's just a few Black boys like Lafayette.

Almost every one of my sister's grandchildren who live in West Seattle are currently being failed by Seattle Public Schools and this in no way is acceptable.

And something must immediately be done to change this.

Every one of my sister's 7 children are alumni of Lafayette Elementary.

And as my niece said with tears in her eyes all the pictures of the office staff on the wall who are now deceased are the adults who raised us.

As she asked for help and support all she gets is phone calls as to why her children are not logged on.

No support no resources.

Her cries for help and support are being overlooked.

The health and the whole child needs of her children are not being met, and this is not acceptable.

She said, auntie, four minutes after my tears filled, I was being shooed out of the principal's office and out of the school.

My oldest son is getting in trouble by his teacher for his youngest sister in the view of his screen.

She needs headphones and screen background, not harassment.

Just because we have put cameras in homes doesn't allow us to run people's homes.

Her children are smart and excited about learning.

She does not know technology beyond her cell phone.

This is a fact for many families.

The immigrants in her buildings are getting paper packets and her requests are going ignored.

Up until yesterday their laptops did not work.

She is extremely concerned about the screen time which is more than the screen time that my daughter who's in high school has to have.

She is so if we're going to make district policies and strategic priorities and commitments we it must trickle down to the building level all of them.

So instead of celebratory narrative let us do the real work and put the children and the families that we serve first.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones could you please.

Next.

Oh sorry.

Next is Emily Cherkin.

Emily Cherkin.

Emily if you're on the line you may need to press star-6 to unmute.

Good afternoon.

My name is Emily Cherkin.

I'm a parent teacher and screen time expert.

The materials for the work session on in-person learning references the Remote Learning Pulse Survey I took this survey and was frustrated by the questions.

For example one question asked about our experience with the quality of communication from the district and our school.

As a parent these have been two vastly different experiences.

When these two experiences are lumped into one question but I'm forced to provide only one answer how does this offer the district helpful feedback.

The preliminary survey findings are useless if the questions asked are written to garner responses that make the remote learning experience appear in a more positive light.

This does not reflect reality and it is deeply concerning that the district will rely on biased questions to inform their decision making.

Additionally to continually express in board testimony I continue to be shocked at the lack of physical materials for learning beyond laptops and iPads.

My son's 7th grade English teacher has yet to assign a single book.

How is it possible we can have thousands of devices that is distributed to students but no physical book.

In the board materials for the special meeting page 11 notes strengths and challenges of remote learning in action.

Why is there not a single mention of mental health and well-being for teachers or students many of whom are struggling.

The essential questions asked on page 24 do not include the question how do we meet the needs of children.

Is this not considered essential.

Why not.

I've previously asked the district to provide clarification about what data is being collected about individual students and what information is being shared with third-party ed tech companies specifically in regards to potential violations of FERPA.

I was told that an explanation of these would appear in a School Beat newsletter or Friday memo and as of today have not seen these resources.

Would you please direct me to this information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones would you please bring forward our next speaker.

Next is Sarah Sense-Wilson.

Sarah Sense-Wilson.

UNEA declined to volunteer on your participatory budget committee based on a lengthy list of unresolved and unfinished business related to SPS failures to uphold commitments promises and basic student services.

UNEA students harmed by SPS through your eviction termination and other tactics to alienate silence and marginalize are the same students you want as volunteers on your committees.

This absurd request reflects SPS's absolute lack of insight self-reflection or ability to listen and learn.

Our recommendations are as follows.

Number one apologize for the eviction and termination of the contract with UNEA.

Number two compensate community members for participation on your committees.

Three.

Indian education needs to focus their work towards advocacy intervention and student support in response to the compounding impact of COVID coupled with high rates of poverty trauma homelessness special education and other challenges commonly experienced by our students.

Eliminate the board executive kingdom positions and create a governing body that decentralizes decision-making power.

No one individual should yield absolute power.

Decision-making processes need to change if Seattle Public Schools wants change.

Community-wide Native American forums with key staff and elected representatives.

And decolonize your data to accurately count and identify Native students.

And quarterly comprehensive Indian ed reports.

While It's wonderful that we have such a favorable light you know towards the staff.

It is really important that we are honest about what students are getting.

Reimagining education can only be achieved when you seek the guidance of those who have not been indoctrinated by the very system you want reformed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones can you please bring forward our next speaker.

Next is Kayla Harstad.

Kayla Harstad.

My name is Kayla Harstad.

I'm Turtle Mountain Chippewa on the Sinabung Sioux.

I'm a junior at Ingrid.

I'm here to share solutions for SPS failures with Indian education.

As a student I experience ongoing alienation with my peers.

I frequently hear discussions going on about cultures and identities that are always included in academic and classroom discussion.

While my tribal culture and identities excluded and dismissed in academia and peer-to-peer discussions.

Sadly when I do hear about Indigenous people discussions are in the context of history trauma and oppression that Indigenous people have endured and survived.

Indigenous cultures only talked about in history class and beyond that is nowhere to be found.

I don't want about Indigenous heroes or she-os just the traumas of events and victimization and oppression.

This narrow perspective perpetuates a victim narrative and stereotypes us as powerless helpless ghosts of the past.

I wonder when will we be celebrated.

I wonder when will the truth appear in textbooks.

I wonder how much alienation I have to endure as I keep learning from the colonizer narrative.

I wonder when will my culture culture be taught and expressed within different classes.

I wonder when will I feel that connection to my culture identity in a space I'm supposed to be feel represented and safe.

As for the future I hope to see Indigenous experience stories narratives of inspiration history and culture celebrated within all textbooks lessons and discussions.

I hope to learn about Indigenous heroes and sharers of both now and the past whose work and wisdom can act as inspiration for Indigenous students and all students.

I want to see images musics culture traditions brought up within other subjects like in art or literature.

I want to be taught about Indigenous resilience and contribution success and triumph.

I want everyone to learn about how tribes across our continent are revitalizing our languages culture practices while bringing prosperity through decolonization and indigenizing ourselves through healing from 500 years of brutality and imposed hardships.

Ingram and Seattle Public Schools can make this possible if we had a designated space for engineering students.

Space we can make ours.

Safe welcoming inclusive space we can go to and share a process exchange ideas support one another and talk about our culture.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones can you please call our next speaker.

Next is Gia Tran.

Gia Tran.

My name is Gia.

Go ahead Gia.

Hi.

Hi this is Jia.

This is a story from a 506 tribal student in Lodi Ingram in which I will be reading.

This tribal student experienced innumerable incidences of sexual harassment and assault over the course of her enrollment at Whitman and Robert Eagle Staff Middle School.

She was trigger warning.

She was repeatedly groped by 2 boys throughout her 6th grade year.

In 7th grade she was sexually exploited and objectified by 5 boys who continuously handed her inappropriate notes about her body and appearance who would not stop staring.

She was harassed with regular sexually derogatory words about what a boy wanted to do with her.

And still during freshman year Ingram she avoids the boy's presence by changing her route to classes in order to not be by him which results in being late.

When she spoke about these incidences she was told yeah that's what happens when you're a girl.

When she reported to school counselors she was shut off not heard and not cared for.

She now realizes that assault and sexual harassment is not normal and not acceptable.

How is the sexualization disrespect and the justification of an Indigenous girl acceptable and normalized by both staff and students alike.

Staff at Robert Eagle Staff in Whitman should have protected her and staff should not have condoned the culture of toxic White male masculinity.

Why is this behavior attitude and silencing of Indigenous girls permitted.

She had no support or recourse.

No Native teachers or staff who bothered to sit down to listen offer protection for seeking advocacy for restorative justice.

The victimization of Indigenous girls is not a new narrative.

It is seen in Seattle and within our public schools.

We bring this to light in hopes that SPS will stop erasing our stories ignoring our voices and implicit acceptance of pushing us out of your institution.

One out of three Native women will be sexually abused in her lifetime.

Seattle has the highest cases of MMIW Let us keep these statistics in mind to make sure all student voices are taken with absolute care and action to ensure their safety.

What is your plan for hearing healing arms against our students families and community.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will you call our next speaker.

Next is Amy Markisham.

Amy Markisham.

This is Amy.

My last sentence was.

Can you hear me.

Hello.

Yes we can hear you Amy.

Oh thank you.

I'm sorry.

That's good.

Sorry Amy can you.

We lost you for a second.

Can you press star-6 to unmute.

I did.

Hi this is Amy.

I'd like to proceed my time to Shanna Brown.

Shanna Brown could you.

Okay go ahead.

Okay.

My name is Shanna Brown and I'm speaking on behalf of the Indian Parent Advisory Committee.

They are writing a letter to show support of renewing the contract of Superintendent Denise Juneau.

We are aware of the many public letters of support that outline her commitment and movement toward racial equity in SPS specifically with male Black and African-American students.

We as the Indian Parent Advisory Committee want to make you aware of how her actions and leadership have directly impacted our Native students and families.

Superintendent Juneau came from Montana with fresh eyes so that she could objectively assess what SPS has in place.

She brought with her unique and invaluable experience to SPS.

As a former teacher administrator state legislator and state education superintendent she's uniquely qualified to raise awareness about our institutionalized racism and its impact on communities of color particularly on our Native students and families.

She's always working towards undoing the harm of generations of racist education.

She's confident in her cultural identity and traditions and worked directly with her Native community in Montana That experience and tradition has allowed her to listen and truly understand issues before acting.

In her first few months of service she respectfully listened to the Native community where everyone in the room had a place in the circle and an opportunity to speak their truth.

She is present.

At last year's Native American Education Holiday Dinner at Daybreak Star she sat next to a child not an adult not a leader not looking for a photo op.

She listened to the 9-year-old student and valued what he had to say which is how we strive to nurture our Indian children.

At the end of the evening he turned to his parents and exclaimed mama she really sees me and she sees all of us.

This is just one example of how she raises up our Native students.

Under her leadership Denise Juneau has highlighted our talented and diverse Native student population through initiatives like the internationally recognized film I Am Native.

She made students the central focus of SPS video celebrating Native American Heritage Month.

She has begun to pull back the curtain of invisibility for Native communities locally regionally and nationally.

She continues to support the implementation implementation of Since Time Immemorial Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State as well as Title 6 Native Education programs such as Shikaa Chief.

Not every leader is perfect.

We don't expect perfection but we do pray for forward movement.

We have gotten that with Superintendent Juneau.

If her contract is not removed and someone else takes her takes her place that puts our progress at risk.

Please extend her contract.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones can you call the next speaker.

Next is Brooke Stromme.

Brooke Stromme.

Go ahead Brooke.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to negatively impact our Native community.

UNEA continues to secure funding and COVID relief and support to SPS Native families.

We conducted another survey with the goal of finding out what families are most in need of.

I will report our findings with the hope that you will join us in the efforts to meet these needs.

When asked what has been the most helpful services UNE has provided these were the most common responses.

Consistent and assist consistent assistance for groceries and supplies.

Tutoring.

School supplies.

Tech equipment such as printers laptops and headphones.

Offering gift cards for students to earn through activities and trainings.

When asked what services they received from SPS and the Huchoosedah half reported not receiving any where for the other half these were the most common responses.

Some support with groceries textbook deliveries tutoring and some family supports.

When asked how SPS can better support their youth these were the most common responses.

Letting families know about UNEA and other organizations that provide essential supports that SPS cannot.

One parent included this question.

Why didn't my family know about UNEA before.

Acknowledging the acknowledging and acting on the unique needs of multicultural families and advocating for special education services and connecting students with IEPs and 504 plans with greater academic supports.

When asked what their top priorities or most pressing needs are at this moment this is what we found.

The most common priority named was consistent grocery support.

The other most commonly named were tutoring help with transportation cheaper Wi-Fi technology traditional medicine and programs like Clear Sky.

This is just a snapshot of the basic needs that are not being met.

We suggest Indian ed seek creative ways to meet these needs.

In addition improve and increase lines of communication between families.

and connect them with UNEA and other organizations providing COVID relief.

We also challenge the district to delve into what Indian Ed is and is not doing.

What funding are they dedicating to providing support and COVID-19 relief to our most high-risk Native students and their families.

Why have they not held any cultural activities or programming.

And where is their progress report.

Ultimately we are working and living in the same community and share common goals.

To uplift our youth.

To ensure their academic needs are met.

and do everything possible to promote their success.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will you please call the next speaker.

Next is Manuela Slye.

Manuela Slye.

Good afternoon.

First of all can you hear me.

Yes we can hear you.

Okay my name is Manuela Sly President of Seattle Council PTSA.

First of all congratulations to the newly elected members of the Executive Board.

I look forward to meaningful meaningful collaboration.

We can all agree that remote learning is hard especially those students referred to as furthest from educational justice.

I hear from families that are struggling to get reliable Internet connections still nowadays.

Families with special education students and those that continue to fall through the cracks when language and living conditions are barriers for learning.

Safety is also a concern from hate speech in chat boxes to CPAs being called on families.

Seattle Council PTSA approved the formation of our first Student Safety Committee during the August General Meeting.

The goal is to ensure students are safe at school and that incidents of racism bullying retaliation are not tolerated and properly addressed.

whether remotely or in-person when we get back into the building.

So the question is how are we going to do that.

Number one by helping families navigate the report system so they know where to find the proper paperwork and where to file.

Number two by advocating for reporting to be more easily accessible.

And number three by demanding Seattle Public Schools to act swiftly in all reports.

I want our district to do right by our students and be proactive not reactive.

When stories come through the media our communities are affected in very different ways.

First of all obviously the victims and families of these terrible incidents relieve their trauma.

Second the community as a whole come to the realization that abuse can happen in our schools and that a teacher or staff member that can be nice to some kids can be harmful to others.

It also sheds light on the fact that as a community members we need to do better at reaching out and engaging those in our communities missing at the table specifically BIPOC communities.

We need you Superintendent Juneau school board members our labor unions and all community members to come together and protect our students against abuse.

The time is now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will you call the next speaker.

Next is Kaye Fidler.

Kaye Fidler.

This is Kaye Fidler and I'm ceding my time to student Annabella Framboise.

Can you hear me.

Can they hear you.

Can you hear me.

Yes go ahead.

Yes we can.

My name is Annabella Framboise and I'm here to talk about the school district.

I would like to state that through all my years of attending Seattle Public Schools I have experienced I've experienced so much injustice and I'm here to tell you to fix yourselves.

Quit fighting and being political all the time and focus on the kids.

The kids' education matters more than the irrelevant arguments you get into.

The staff needs more help as well and not bullying because then they can help the students so that they won't struggle in school as much as they do.

I find it incredibly rude for you to think that you're better than us just just because you're quote unquote higher up.

All you're doing is minimizing.

Because you won't you simply won't stop bashing your own staff.

Because at this point you just don't care and like you've given up on all of us and just like to fight for the fun of it.

But you don't real realize the effects it has on a student.

Keep in mind I'm only 13 years old and I have to come on here and tell you all to grow up.

I shouldn't have to worry about whether or not my school is going to get shut down just because the district and board was mad.

You all need to figure out.

how to fix the way you do things.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones.

Thank you.

Will you please call the next speaker.

Next is Charlotte Schubert.

Charlotte Schubert.

Can you hear me.

Yes.

My name is Charlotte Schubert and I appreciate the efforts and flexibility of the board during this unprecedented time.

I'm a Washington Middle School parent and our PTSA advocacy co-chair though I'm speaking in a personal capacity.

I am also a biologist and science writer.

I believe the assessment of public health officials about virus risk.

And like you I'm also concerned about the impact of school closing on the social emotional health of kids and on their education.

There's increasing evidence the risks are low for opening schools especially at the lowest grades.

As a result Washington State health officials will likely soon change recommendations for infection thresholds for safe school opening.

My first comment is this.

Be prepared.

At your work session on Monday I learned that the district has a minimum of 2.5 months to even prepare to open schools.

That is out of sync with other districts nationally.

The district should have a plan in place that can be implemented within weeks after board approval not months.

I urge you to scrutinize this plan as put forward by Fred Podesta and I urge you to shorten the timeline.

It is also necessary to reconsider the district's conclusion that vaccines will not be available in time to affect the school year which is in the paperwork for your upcoming weekend retreat.

A vaccine is expected to come online within about a week.

I urge the district to work closely with Washington State as part of its legislative push to prioritize teachers as essential workers so they can be at the front of the line for vaccines after healthcare workers and the elderly.

If teachers are prioritized there is a good chance we may have enough shots to vaccinate them and get back to school in January February or March.

My last and final comment is this and it's key.

Consider postponing the start of the second semester until March after teachers are vaccinated.

If you do this you can run the semester through the summer.

In the summer virus levels will be lower and vaccine vaccine available availability will be higher.

I thank you for your time.

Excuse me Ms. Wilson-Jones what you called.

Next.

Next is Fiona Clayton.

Fiona Clayton.

Fiona if you're on the line you need to press star-6 to unmute.

Moving to the next speaker.

Janna Parker.

Janna Parker.

Janna if you're on the line you need to press star-6.

Fiona and Janna were the last speakers on our testimony list.

Oh.

This is Janna Parker.

Go ahead Janna.

Good afternoon school board directors and staff.

I am before you today to testify about the need for in-person instruction and in-person special education evaluation for students with disabilities.

We requested special education evaluation for our 10-year-old son 302 days ago.

Thanks to my role in my district-wide PTSA I have spoken to parents from across the district in a similar situation struggling to support their children's learning during the stay-at-home order.

Until yesterday I thought that we had waited the longest of all SPS students for our son's evaluation and finally that finally began in October.

Last night a parent forwarded me an email thread that showed that their child's evaluation was requested in December 2019 yet it has not started.

My son's evaluation is nearly finished and we are supposed to receive a draft evaluation report by tomorrow.

The school occupational therapist sent an email this morning stating that quote at this time we are not to be in building due to superintendent notification unquote.

She has been successfully avoiding in-person evaluation for weeks.

If an occupational therapist is willing to evaluate a child's spine and growth motor skills for example without ever meeting the child what kind of standards do we have in Seattle.

I have no trust in her evaluation at this point but I am also interested to hear more about the mentioned Superintendent's guidance.

Our son has a 504 plan which provides accommodation to be in close proximity to the teacher to be able to learn.

This is not met online.

He is unable to turn on camera.

He rarely speaks during classes.

Never in large classes.

He uses chat for communication.

My question to you is what is the plan to serve students with disabilities who don't currently qualify for specifically designed instruction.

Thank you.

That was the final speaker on today's testimony list.

Okay.

Did any of our speakers who weren't at the beginning who weren't present at the beginning show up.

I can call those names one more time.

Beginning with Leilani Norman.

Leilani Norman are you on the line.

And then the other speaker we didn't hear from was Fiona Clayton.

Fiona.

And those were the only two speakers.

Okay.

That concludes our public testimony for the meeting.

If possible I'd like for us to take a 10-minute recess and reconvene.

Ms. Wilson-Jones is that will that work.

Yes.

Yes President Hampson.

Okay.

So we will reconvene at let me do some quick math here at 4 after 5 o'clock 5 p.m.

All of our directors here.

Director DeWolf Director Hersey.

Hey Director Hersey is here.

Do we have so first day on the job do we I'm not seeing anything on the talking points for committee reports.

No you're good.

Don't worry.

Okay.

Do we have Director Mack or Director Harris.

Present.

Director Mack.

Present.

Director Rankin.

I'm here.

And Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

Okay.

And we've now come to board committee reports.

Let me go ahead and start with curriculum and instruction.

Did we a time just smushes together.

We did committee reports at the last board meeting correct.

Yes.

Okay.

So I haven't had a I haven't had another meeting between then and now.

Okay.

Thank you.

I was just making sure.

Anything you'd like to share out in a quick quick two minutes.

Yeah.

Just the the this month's meeting is next week and there's nothing earth-shattering on there but some Just some good general updates that if folks have had questions they've been asking might look for for minutes just about some mostly procedural stuff but heading into next semester we're starting to talk about the student rights and responsibilities for next year earlier this year and that was at the request of our board earlier so appreciate that.

And not not a whole lot else right now.

Okay.

Thank you Director Mack for operations.

Yes.

Hello.

Can you hear me okay.

Yes.

Okay good.

Yeah we haven't had a meeting since the last meeting as well but we do have our full agenda and the full packet which is some 300 plus pages.

that has just been sent out to the board.

The meeting is this Thursday at 430 and it is remote so you can join in if you're interested in listening.

A couple items of note.

We every month have the capital financial budget report but there's a specific question that we've put out to tie back to the budget work session that referenced some community schools dollars and get clarity on where the which which fund those has have been sitting in and and what they're actually available to do.

Additionally there is a BAR coming forward for enhanced cleaning for the in-person learning at elementary and K-8 schools.

And the approval of the capacity management actions.

This is where we look forward to next year as to what might need to be done to add classrooms or shift around classrooms in order to match capacity appropriately.

And a number of capital contract project bars that include one for Lafayette Elementary School seismic fire sprinkler and HVAC upgrades.

And a couple of final acceptances which are always my favorite.

And on special attention we have the Traffic Safety Committee which is actually a committee that is run by the City of Seattle and we the district has staff that sits on it.

It was formed by them.

So it's a committee that focuses on traffic safety for schools all across the city and they are coming to give us a report about their school site planning guidance.

Looks like a very nice comprehensive document that they've put together.

There is going to be an update on the Mercer boundary issue where we're at with that.

What proposals are on the table kind of talk of what community engagement's been done et cetera.

As well as we look forward to on special attention having another update and conversation around the clean energy resolution that Director DeWolf and Rivera-Smith are bringing forward.

And additionally you'll note that on our agenda we always note so the public knows when these other meetings that are going on are happening the BEX BTA Oversight Committee meetings the Capacity Enrollment Facilities Master Planning meetings as well as the ITAC meetings and anything else that will be noticed there.

Oh and I actually I forgot about the one of the biggest things that's coming up is the board work session on Thursday December 9th for the BTA V guiding principles.

The board needs to adopt guiding principles for this levy the BTA levy which we're hoping to put forward to the voters in the next year.

And there's a packet coming out to you board directors just to have some hard copy in front of you to take a look at your perspective of the draft of the guiding principles as has been drafted kind of based off the last conversation we had and then in that work session we'll we'll take a deeper dive.

But look for a packet in the mail with some information that will hopefully help our conversation in that work session go well.

And with that I think that's all.

Thank you.

And Director Rankin you had an item you wanted to add to your committee report.

Thank you.

Yeah I I forgot.

I just wanted to note that folks may or may not have noticed that in the consent agenda that was approved this evening included the the establishment of the Outdoor and Community Education Task Force.

So that is really exciting.

And so folks who are interested in participating should be on the lookout for our call for applicants.

So very exciting.

Just wanted to bring it to people's attention.

Thank you.

And as the Chair of Audit and Finance I will briefly report on what is new which consists of we had our quarterly audit committee portion of the of the meeting yesterday.

And on the agenda for that were the internal audit update in particular the Moss Adams Report Implementation Plan.

And so I would encourage folks to take a look at that that that is getting underway which I think will please the board.

And encourage the board to point members of the public toward the internal audit page on the website as it does have the original report.

I'll have to check with Director Medina if it has the the implementation plan specifically up there.

But it in general he's pretty good about getting most of that stuff up there as it as it comes.

into play when meaning the work is actually getting done.

So we're I know we're all looking forward to that work moving forward.

And and then the procurement segregation of duties follow-up audit report was presented in part.

And then we had an update on the ethics office and the work that is is coming through there and we had a robust discussion about that.

And then we had we went through audit response which is the past audits that have been completed and then management is demonstrating the extent to which those items have been remedied or not.

We had a good discussion around when recommendations are made by internal audit that can only be fixed through the bargaining process which I think there's fodder there for a more detailed discussion.

in terms of how we proceed in those cases and how we keep things moving when and if we're not successful at getting them worked out through bargaining.

And then we had the updates in the different areas that reported through audit response were in capital as part of the audit response process with the management representatives were from Richard Best from Capital Projects and Chief Codd and I don't know if it's Director Reddick from Human Resources and that information can be made available and brings us up to speed on some important some very detailed and important work that has to do with primarily with stipends which sounds unimportant but I but I anyone who's worked in buildings knows that stipends is intended to provide benefit to staff that are doing work above and beyond their their classroom and other duties.

And I think that the work that they've done to get that all cleaned up and again that includes some some bargaining pieces as well I hope will bring greater value back to that that stipend option that buildings use to support their staff when they're doing work beyond their their standard work.

We the full Audit and Finance Committee monthly meeting is meets again on December 7th.

So next week.

And those are always at 730 a.m.

on Mondays.

And so I will leave that at that and we will.

Oh Executive Committee Director DeWolf.

We have had a meeting since our last one and you will be leading our next one next week.

Okay.

Nothing else to report I take it.

So let's see.

We'll return to general board comments at the end of the agenda.

So we're going to now move to the action items on today's agenda.

As we move through these items I will first call on committee chairs then I'll call on the remaining directors for questions and comments.

We will now move to Action Item Number 1. Approval of the 2020-21 District Educational Research and Evaluation Plan.

S.S. C&I October 13th for consideration.

It came through the just for for listeners C&I or curriculum instruction is now being referred to as student supports curriculum and instruction otherwise known as SSC&I.

And I hope that we'll do our best to to spell to state that out for our for our listeners.

May I have a motion for this item.

I am working on it at this moment.

This is item number one correct.

Yep.

Because on my notes that concerns the minutes.

Give me one minute to get my bearings.

You're in the consent agenda so just scroll down.

Scroll all the way down to let's see here.

Okay.

I see where we are now.

Perfect.

I move that the school board approve the 2021 District Educational Research Program Evaluation Plan as attached to the Board Action Report.

Second.

President Hanson can I be recognized.

This is Director Mack.

Yeah hold on let me just state I was on mute so I meant to state that this had been moved by Director Hersey and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith.

So just one second.

This item has been updated and I'll be asking Chief Academic Officer Dr. Diane DeBacker to bring us Briefings on the updates.

Director Mack you want it to be recognized.

Yeah I would like to make a motion either to defer to a later meeting or potentially to refer this item back to committee.

I'm not sure which is the most appropriate motion to make and I'd like to be able to consult with staff and the committee chair of SSC&I as a as well as the fellow board members to help figure out which might be the correct process.

But the reason that I'd like to make this motion is that the the research and analysis

Can I just have Chief Academic Officer Diane DeBacker give her presentation and then I can come back to you.

You'd like the you'd like the motion to defer after the presentation from staff.

That's fine with me.

Because then other board members will be able to consider with more information.

Does that work.

Great.

Yep.

Sure.

Okay.

Thank you.

Chief DeBacker.

Thank you President Hampson.

This BAR was introduced at the last board meeting and you may recall that there were several questions about how we do research and evaluation and how we determine which projects that we're going to take on.

So I'd just like to take a few minutes to talk about our current service model.

So in research and eVAL we provide internal support to our district staff who are leading our strat plan initiatives or any major programs such as curriculum adoptions.

So in this in this model we are very collaborative with the other departments within the agency to help them meet their specific needs.

So I'll give you a couple examples that will be very familiar to all of you.

With curriculum research for example whenever we adopt a new curriculum we then study how the implementation of the curriculum is going.

We study the implementation as much as we study whether or not this selected curriculum is an effective or good investment.

So you've seen that in in the SSC&I committee meeting every month we give an update on how the implementation of the compliance option is going.

So that's an example.

Another example that will be very familiar to you is that we work with our College and Career Readiness Department to keep track of how many students are on track for graduation.

When we.

I'm sorry Director DeWolf can you mute yourself.

Thank you.

Sorry Chief DeBacker.

Go ahead.

When the board made the decision to change our grading policy last spring.

It was our research and eval department that helped us crunch all of those numbers as to how many students were were you know receiving passing grades as we looked at our senior senior class students as well.

So those are two examples.

Curriculum adoptions how we follow those and then how we need just-in-time research based upon board decisions and based upon the direction that we're going as as a district.

So we really we like this model.

Admittedly this model is not the same as you see in some other districts.

In some other districts you may see it's something that's more of a public accountability role where we could conduct formal evaluation studies requested by the superintendent or the school board.

But in the past few years our research and eval team has been focused on how we help our internal staff.

So and how we really keep track of our STRAP plan.

As I visited with Dr. Eric Anderson who oversees this department we would very much enjoy visiting with the school board about about this role and if possibly we should look at it in a different way.

We would suggest two-by-twos in January or February as time allows.

We would look forward to getting input from the board on this.

I'd like to talk about two other things that were addressed when this was introduced a couple of weeks ago.

One is around data governance and also that was mentioned today during one of the public comment sections on how we protect the privacy of our students.

The data governance for the district is is kind of a shared responsibility.

Research and evaluation doesn't oversee data governance.

That is overseen or it's shared responsibility between the Department of Technology Services.

We also lean on our business intelligence team to help us with that.

And we we follow all of the FERPA guidelines.

We follow careful protocols for handling the data for sharing it internally or reporting results.

We work closely with the legal department to make sure that any documents we're preparing protect the privacy of of our our students data especially.

And then finally I'd like to talk about our Native American data because that did come up also in introduction.

We have.

We in our in our data warehouse that we call ATLAS we have all of the information for all Native American students whether or not they are categorized as Native American Hispanic multiracial.

It's all based upon the federal 7 reporting rules and we can pull data as requested.

We pull data often for Gayle's department in order to respond to the reports that she has to do for both our state and national reports.

The question that Director Mack visited with me about this afternoon was whether or not the correct metrics were being used to measure the STRAP plan goal of safe and welcoming schools.

And so I explained that the Safe and Welcoming Schools Workgroup had decided over a year ago as to which metrics to use and what we're measuring.

So so so that's as you look at the report those are the type of things that we're working on.

The two changes that we made in the report since introduction they were minor changes and they had to do with the titles or and the dates on page 3 and page 4 of the report.

And we had 2019-20 rather than 2020-2021.

And with that I conclude my remarks.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then Director Mack I'm going to let you start and then and we'll go through all the directors and then you can present your your motion.

I think it might be helpful to present the motion and have that be deliberated.

And and and if that's all right instead of.

Sure.

Going through the.

Okay thank you.

The deliberation that I that I would like to actually know before the motion is actually put forward is that I am putting this forward because the document and the plan overall I think is pretty good.

I don't think that we need to upend the entire thing but I have very strong concerns around the safe and welcoming schools on page 11 and what's what's being studied what's actually being looked at what we're measuring and whether or not that is actually A reflecting our goals in this in the strategic plan and B being responsive to the issues that we currently know about and have been talking about.

in so many different meetings and in the media and we had testimony today about what exactly is safe and well-being in schools and why do people not feel safe.

We're in these measures and the analysis that's being done here while these are meaningful the the information about how many actual safety incidences are going on in our schools or how many incidents of harm or how many discrimination complaints isn't being considered.

And we can't help support changes in that area without doing that analysis and without measuring what matters.

So my concern is that this analysis around the Safe and Welcome Schools section in the strategic plan is is missing the mark and I would like to propose that we send it back to to get closer to what would be more in line with our strategic plan and identifying where we have issues with safe and welcoming environments and how to address those.

And to do that I understand that this is a large body of work and I don't know whether or not that work would be able to successfully be done between now and another board meeting or if it would be best for this to go back to the the committee to have conversation on it so that it would be processed completely there.

So if I that's my question to board directors now because I want to make the motion I just don't know whether or not it's deferring it to another meeting or sending it back to committee.

So I'll rest there and thank you for hearing me out.

Thank you.

I'll let other directors weigh in on a perspective motion and what that might be as they also ask any of their own questions and then we can come back to what that perspective motion would be.

Let me go to the bottom of the order and start with Director Rivera-Smith.

Do you want to start with.

the committee chair.

I'm sorry yes I will start with the committee chair.

My apologies Director Rankin.

Thank you.

I yeah to kind of echo what Dr. DeBacker said.

She and I have had discussion about not not the the plan for this year specifically but in in general what the what direction is given and how the direction is given to to utilize research and evaluation.

I know that we collect a lot of data and I'm really interested in us thinking about in addition and in relation to what Director Mack is bringing up you know are we looking at the right measures to show us for student safety what we want to see.

My my sense in a broader criticism I guess is that we we state certain goals and then we collect data that tells us that we met those goals that we stated and it feels like and I'm sure there's a lot of nuance and other things that I you know don't don't don't see or don't have exposure to whatever but.

that the data we collect serves to sort of prove to ourselves that we did the thing that we said we were going to do.

And I would really like us to take a much more critical and analytical approach with the data collection and have it be instead of have it really inform not just what we did but what we will do.

Have it push us more towards helping helping us as a district identify where things might need to change instead of just kind of confirmation that something we were pretty sure was going to work did work.

If that makes sense.

And so in terms of the 2 by 2's I'm definitely interested and I'm glad that there is a support from staff to have two-by-twos or a broader conversation around that.

And then to Director Mack's point I am wondering from staff again acknowledging that you know we are more than a quarter into the year and that this is work that has been has been taking place.

What what capacity-wise and what can we realistically expect for deferring the IP the item or making potential changes to specifically what data we're going to look at for student safety.

Can you Dr. DeBacker can you tell us kind of what impact that will have on staff and what might be the right way to move forward on that.

Yeah.

Thank you Director Rankin.

You know our work plan really is a guide for our work but it's not rigorously binding and We saw that play out many times since March where we've had to shift and come up with with other things and do research and give you data kind of on the fly.

So we we can and we always do adapt our work as needed.

So I think what Director Eden is or Director Mack is asking for is a can can be accomplished and we can always revisit with the goal owner.

So in the STRAP plan there are goal owners.

Like I'm the goal owner of 3rd grade reading 9th grade on track college and career readiness.

Chief Jesse is the goal owner for safe and welcoming schools.

So we can always look back at those and see if we have the right metrics.

So I guess in answer to your question Director Rankin we we can adapt.

as needed and is and asked to do.

Okay let's move to Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

I really appreciate hearing from Director Rankin first on that and then Chief DeBacker's response.

I was hoping to hear that that you know I have faith that our staff is is flexible and and can do the work that we need from them because I really want to center students in all our decisions.

Not to say that staff capacity isn't a great great concern but you know I appreciate that Director Mack is looking at at the you know the direct data that would tell us are our schools safe and welcoming.

And and if we're not doing that in this which you know it's not clear that we are then I would I would welcome those adjustments if that sounds like you know that is something that we can do.

We have time.

Yeah that's my comments there.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Rivera-Smith.

And then to let's go back to the top of the order to Director DeWolf.

Thank you Director Hampson.

I I'm supportive of Director Mack's intentions.

I do think that it would be good to table it back.

So I'm supportive.

Director Hersey.

I feel similarly to Director DeWolf.

Okay I guess and and I I think I shared my concerns similar concerns at the last meeting and I really struggle as I believe we all are to sink my teeth into this.

And I'm not finding the kind of rich data interplay nor from an evaluation standpoint the kind of language that I think makes it as accessible as it needs to be in terms of the output for a district educational research and evaluation plan.

So what that leaves then is options on the table for the best way to move forward it sounds from you Chief DeBacker like there is the possibility of You believe that we can get to where we need to be that to a place that's satisfactory.

And so I need to.

I'm sorry Director Harris.

I thought we went through everything.

Please go ahead.

I admire the difficulty of running meetings.

Oh Lord do I ever.

I just want to say I agree with all of y'all.

I think that we need to do this right.

And I don't think that the short timeline in order to do this right and to make it really terrific is an impediment.

And I hope that we do forward this to committee and to another date certain so we can have the kinds of conversations we need to have.

And when we talk about restorative justice and transparency and accountability we do that really really well.

Thank you.

Okay and thank you and apologies again.

I can continue to mess up the alphabetical order.

Pay attention kids.

Harris comes before Hersey.

So would it.

Go ahead.

So would it be helpful then for me to go ahead and I do I think I need Director and Mr. Narver's assistance in putting this motion forward.

Yeah Chief Williams and Councilmember Narver what can we offer up in support to Well and then I was also looking for input from from Chief DeBacker about whether we can push this to the next meeting and or if we need and have it come back revised or as Director Mack stated that we need to go back to committee and do two-by-twos recognizing that we are already well within the 2020-21 school year.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

I'd like that.

Yeah.

I'd like Director I'd like her input directly on that.

Can this be done in the next couple of weeks or should it go back to committee and done that way.

This is Chief Legal Counsel Greg Narver.

Would you like me to go first on the procedural options or would you like to hear from Chief DeBacker.

Sure that's a helpful background I believe.

Okay.

So there.

I.

So I would like to hear from Chief DeBacker first because then we know what motion to put forward I think.

But that's okay.

I'm sorry Chandra.

Well I just want to hear from Greg what the options are in terms of.

Okay.

I'll go ahead.

Sorry.

There are two things that two motions that could be offered.

One would be to postpone consideration of this to a date.

Sorry.

One would be to postpone consideration of this to a date certain the board would need to pick another.

date on which a regular board meeting is scheduled.

So that could be two weeks from now.

And whether or not that's appropriate may depend on what Chief DeBacker has to say about the timeline.

The other would be to refer it back to committee.

That motion would need to specifically name the committee that it goes back to and say what it is you want the committee to do.

Re-examine this.

Hear new information from staff.

Whatever it is.

But the the guidance needs to be to the committee what is it you'd like the committee to do with it.

Those are both motions that would be in order and they mostly are about the timing and how in-depth the consideration you want this next the discussion to be at the next level.

Okay.

Thank you.

And Chief DeBacker between those two options which sounds the most appropriate from what you've heard and believe is doable and best needs meets the needs of both staff and staff the board's inquiry.

Thank you President Hampson.

As I guess I would I'm going to ask a question back.

I mean either either could work.

We we could do to a date certain or refer back to the committee.

The my question though to the board directors would be I'm am I assuming correctly that the rest of the plan is acceptable to the board.

It's just this one section.

It's the metrics within the safe and welcoming schools.

If that's the case I would ask if it's possible to get the plan approved as is with the exception of that that would then go back to committee or to a date certain.

Because to do this correctly this this really should go back to the workgroup that established these metrics in alignment with the strategic plan.

So Director Mack what was your intent originally.

Was it narrowly focused or more all-encompassing.

My intent is somewhat merrily focused on the safe and welcoming schools.

And but if it goes back to committee then it potentially would address some of the issues that you were raising President Hampson.

And so it could be a bit broader if it actually went through committee and had a more robust discussion.

As Mr. Narver was pointing out that the motion needs to be pretty clear as to whether or not it's being deferred to a date certain.

or going back to committee and then what's the direction to the committee.

Ms. DeBacker just put a third option on the table which I don't I need I need Mr. Narver to clarify because I don't think that exists that we can approve this missing this piece unless that is that is that an option on the table Mr. Narver.

That we can approve this BAR except for you know this section.

I was quickly looking at the policy 20-90 to see which does of course speak about board approval.

I'm going to quickly give Chief DeBacker who may know the policy in more detail than I a chance to address while I while I look at this.

So Director Rankin had a question and then we're going to have to make a call here for expediency.

on what motion is going to be made.

Director Rankin what's your question.

I had I guess sort of a suggestion or reflection as the committee chair.

I don't feel this needs to come back through SSC&I committee.

I think that the broader concerns that we have are addressed by that to some extent we have to always move forward and the broader concerns really kind of start from the ground up on on next year's plan.

And that if there's a way for us to say okay this is the plan for this year.

We approve it.

And then within that just get an update maybe on what the specific data points are for the Safe and Welcoming Schools section.

I don't know if that's something that's possible.

So my recommendation then Director Mack is that you make a narrow recommendation on the safe and welcoming environments to a date certain either in December or in January and and that we we take it from there.

President Hampson.

Yes.

I'm just wondering so are we talking about sending it to committee or back to the community.

No I said to a date certain so future board meetings.

But would we send it back to the community group.

I think that actually based on what I just heard from committee chair and President Hampson it sounds to me like it would be most appropriate to defer the BAR to a date certain with the expectation that the adjustments be made on the Safe and Welcoming Schools section before it comes back for approval.

Correct.

That's what I'm hearing.

Yeah that's what I'm hearing.

So I think I'd like to make that motion.

Mr. Narver can you help me make that motion.

Yes it would be you would move to defer consideration of this to a date certain.

You just need to pick a date on which there is a regular board meeting scheduled.

So I don't know if two weeks is doable.

December 16th is the next.

I don't have right in front of me what the January calendar of board meetings is but the motion needs to identify the date on which This is going to be taken up again.

The 13th.

I think I might prefer that December the January 13th meeting from a you know workload standpoint potentially.

But I don't I don't know Ellie.

Let's just go with the 13th given the holidays.

January 13th date.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So Mr. Narver let's let me repeat that.

I move to defer this BAR to the January 13th board meeting.

That's that's fine.

The word in Robert's Rules is postpone to a certain.

Postpone.

So.

I move to postpone to a date certain that date is January 13th.

And is there a second.

Somebody want to second.

Thank you.

Okay.

That was moved by Director Mack and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will you call to the roll call for that.

Yes.

And just to clarify I believe the second was from Director Harris.

Is that correct.

Of the Director Rivera-Smith.

Yeah I believe it was.

Sorry.

I said that but yeah.

Calling the roll then on this motion to table to or to postpone to January 13th.

Director Rankin.

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

This motion has passed unanimously.

Okay.

So that brings us.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

To Action Item Number 2 Amending Board Policy School Funding Model.

May I have a motion for this item.

Director Hersey.

I move the school board.

Working on it.

I move the school board amend Board Policy Number 6010 School Funding Model as attached to the Board Action Report.

Second.

Okay this item has been moved by Director Hersey and seconded by was that Director Harris or Director Rivera-Smith.

Okay that was Director Harris.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

We will now move into discussion and action on amendments.

Does one of the sponsors of Amendment 1 wish to make a motion for that amendment.

I so move the Amendment Number 1 as referenced both in the BAR and the attachment.

Sorry this is Chief Legal Counsel Greg Narver.

I think we actually need to read the motion language that is in the BAR for Amendment 1.

Of course you do when I just lost my place on.

I'll get there.

Hang on.

Unless someone else wants to do it.

I don't have it up either.

I'm actually trying to.

Okay I'm looking at one.

School Board Policy Number 6010 comma School Funding Model.

Director Harris and Rivera-Smith put forth.

Approval of this item would approve Amendment 1 to the board action report titled Amending School Board Policy Number 6010 School Funding Model and Substitute Board Policy Number 6010 as attached to the amendment.

To the extent the attached substitute policy conflicts with the information presented in the underlying board action report titled Amending Board Policy Number 6010 School Funding Models is a policy without control.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Is that correct Chief Narver.

Well well that was close.

I think you were reading.

The entire.

On the agenda.

Yeah you're reading from the agenda which is very very close to the motion language.

I didn't hear the.

I move that the school board approve at the beginning but I think.

Number 3. I move that the school board approve Amendment 1 to the School Board Action Report titled Amending School Board Policy Number 6010 School Funding Model and Substitute Board Policy Number 6010 as attached to the amendment.

To the extent the attached substitute policy conflicts with the information presented in the underlying board action report titled Amending Board Policy Number 6010 School Funding Model comma the substitute policy shall control.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Am I good now sir.

Absolutely.

May I have a second please.

Second.

Okay so Amendment 1 has been moved by Director Harris and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith.

Directors Harris and Rivera-Smith I will turn it to you to brief us on Amendment 1.

I'll go first and I'll start with my apologies to staff and to my colleagues and to the community for getting this amendment in late given my technology hell I've been suffering from.

I did bring these issues up in the Audit and Finance Committee in November.

and referenced it as did other directors in the legislative meeting on November 18th.

I don't mean to sound defensive but with all due respect I'm very embarrassed by this fact.

The Weighted Staffing Standards Committee or the School Funding Committee has not been addressed since 2014. It is at the very heart of meeting our our needs And I want to see a board member appointed to that community committee so that we can enhance our collaboration and communication.

I also would like to see more diversity on the representation of staff and to include our labor partners in that committee.

There have been suggestions that my putting this forth means that I do not trust staff.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

But we talk an awful lot about trust and accountability and transparency and this cannot hurt us.

Do I think that this whole policy needs to be redone.

I do in fact.

But this is an incremental change and I do not want the perfect to get in the way of the good.

Additionally I've heard second and third hand as is the modality for the Seattle Public Schools rumors second third hand she said he said they said that members of the past executive board are hugely conflicted about this.

And I would suggest to them that A having a school board member appointed as an ex-officio builds bridges and understanding and collaboration.

And B is there nothing more important than how we distribute the few dollars we have equity tiering and and courageous conversations as we do this important work.

There is no question in my mind that senior staff and teams work very very hard on this.

And I see no downside to it and I ask for your vote.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Thank you Director Harris and Director Harris and I have had had the opportunity to speak about this on numerous occasions.

As the Chair of Audit and Finance and the the one who requested that this particular and with with support of my committee members that this policy needed to come forward and have work done.

My vision for for how this work needs to happen is one that is collaborative with staff.

I've appreciated staff and their willingness to bring the procedure forward because it did not have one before.

And so that was the one-word change to the policy was what allowed it to require a procedure and not just you know provide the the option of a procedure.

However I do believe that while I'm not necessarily philosophically opposed to the amendment and its concept that we're not quite ready to make that specific decision yet because I'm not really sure that that that is necessarily the decision we want to make.

I am open to the idea from those that are involved in WSS what it is to them and how it needs to work.

But I'm also I'm not sure that it shouldn't necessarily be a community member versus a board member assigned to that.

And I want for our board to have a much more extended opportunity to discuss what those policy changes are and do that in collaboration with staff.

And so that's my philosophy on it.

And with that.

I do believe that this is incredibly important work and it is work that we need to continue.

I don't think there's any disagreement about that amongst us and I look forward to doing all that work together regardless of how we vote on this amendment.

I would my preference is is very strongly to take this up at a later time when we can look at it more holistically and also consider other options besides board members.

as being the ones to to participate.

So with that I'm going to take it to Director DeWolf.

Again we're discussing the amendment to the to the one word change to the policy which is accompanied by the new procedure.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you Director Hampson.

I don't have any questions.

I'm not going to support the amendment so you can go to the next director.

Thank you.

Okay.

And then Director Hersey.

Director Harris and I have had a conversation about this.

I am currently in the abstention camp.

Director Mack.

I am in support of this amendment.

When we pop open policies and change them one word changes you know they move some things forward but in order to actually address the underlying issues having been on the board for three years and watched the district for much longer than that making policy changes.

We still haven't gone back and dealt with some of the lettered policies.

So I I would actually encourage support for this amendment because I I do believe that calling out the committee in specific is important because it is a committee and it should be transparent in the deliberations around school funding.

It's such an important decision-making body that calling out as a committee and having it function more transparently I think is incredibly important.

I also support having a board liaison role to support that so that there is a better tie-in to understanding the conversations that are happening as the as the process is going on.

So I would encourage my colleagues to also support this.

I understand that the work could happen later but we are making this decision today and the other the other changes can happen later and they and I and I think we'll dive into that and I hope we can do good work there.

But today is the day that we have this policy open and these changes that Director Rivera-Smith and Harris are suggesting I think are important and helpful to moving that ball forward.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

I yeah I'm have concerns about precedent which I actually hate it when people say that because every situation can be different and just because Something happens one time doesn't mean it automatically applies to other things.

But I am sort of concerned in general about blurring the lines between staff internal work groups that you know staff is doing as part of their daily job not an advisory group it's their that's it's them doing their work and and board roles and even community member roles actually because I know But like with dyslexia for example there's there's a bunch of different groups and one of those is an internal staff working group which is important.

And some community members have asked you know how they can be part of that.

And it's honestly not it's not appropriate in that situation.

There there's time for for public engagement and and we should obviously have access to know what's happening you know in that work group.

There's time when people just need to be able to give be able to have the space to do their jobs without somebody else kind of hovering over.

Yeah yeah hovering over and kind of checking checking out you know every every facet of of staff's daily daily duties.

So I I. I agree that with the weighting staffing standards we have run into and as Director Mack said you know I've seen this in my one year on the board but but also more substantially with weighted staffing standards as a community member the impact that it can have and the issues that there are that that do need to be addressed.

I feel like we should be addressing that.

could address that better with policy and some you know other considerations rather than relying on a board member to ameliorate the issues that are coming up as one board member capacity.

Two I would rather not rely on individual ability to do a roll if we can have it be somewhere in policy because depending on the board director that could be really effective or it could be you know a wash.

So if we can put it in policy work I would prefer that as a solution to this issue.

Thank you.

We're going to go to Director Rivera-Smith and Director Harris if you could mute.

I know it's annoying to mute and unmute when you're on the phone.

But we're getting feedback when we're both unmuted.

Thank you.

Director Rivera-Smith.

I am unmuted.

I am muted.

I am unmuted.

Thank you.

I yeah I really I really appreciate the complexity of this one.

I I'm still in support of the amendment.

I think that it doesn't have to be an either-or because I think that Director Rankin has some good points there about the improvements and changes we can make in policy and I but and I will note that the current policy does call for this to be it's a committee and I hear that it's a more of a work group that doesn't really function as a traditional committee but it looks like it's supposed to at least because it's in policy to be a committee so that you know I think we can we can use it as or consider it as such.

And I again like I'm trying to and I'm going to sound like a broken record here but I'm trying to center the students and the schools and and the funding model is something that we all kind of came into this work knowing that we really want to do a deep dive into to.

to best serve our students and schools.

And you know this is a step in that direction.

Again I don't think it has to be an either or.

I think we can make this change and still do other changes do other work find other avenues just just like again like even Director Hampson noted to be a community member.

Granted I will say that you know I feel bad putting more on community in these individual roles when this are our roles already.

I hate that you know the staff might feel like we're you know Trying to sit in too much babysitting in a way but you know there's a trust issue perhaps they feel against them.

But you know I hope they trust us.

I hope that the staff can trust that you know we are looking to collaborate and to just represent back to our constituents what's happening in these inner workings that nobody knows about like WSS is is to me such a mystery even as a board member and this committee especially so I I You know I really appreciate everyone's concerns on both sides.

I want to see you know movement and I believe this is one way that we can start that.

Thank you.

President Hampson may I wrap up please.

I'm sorry what.

May I wrap up please.

Director Harris here.

Sure.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

As folks know from their service on the board and last year The weighted staffing standard formula comes to us pre-baked and we vote it up or down.

And and it's like so many things the work has been done and there is not an opportunity for board members to weigh in on one of our most important fiduciary duties.

And I am of the belief the more collaboration and communication we have The better off we all are.

And again let's not get the good mixed up with the perfect.

This is not an either-or.

We can still work on this policy next year.

This is incremental change.

Thank you.

Okay so I'm going to go ahead and ask for Ellie Ms. Wilson-Jones to please call do roll call for this amendment.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Director DeWolf no Director Hampson no Director Harris aye and apologies I called this out of order Director Hampson.

Director Hersey abstain.

Director Mack aye.

Director Rankin.

No.

This motion has not passed with a vote of 3 to 3 to 1 with 1 abstention.

Okay.

So that brings us back to the amendment the original board action for which we have already had a motion and a second.

And the as as one of the people who brought this forward the chair of the committee I'll just I've mostly stated that which is relevant.

I'm grateful that we're all committed to this work.

I hope that our disagreement on this particular amendment doesn't preclude us from working together to get to a place that that we know we need to be as a board and having a much more directive and clear policy.

And I am grateful to having a procedure now against which we can have that interplay and determine what that's going to look like and then therefore direct changes any changes to that might come up in procedure.

And and ultimately to have a true equity focus in the policy which it does not currently.

So for me this is teeing up that work by having now both a the requirement that there's a procedure the statement of the procedure and then determining what we need to do over the course of numerous months and collaborating with our labor partners with our principals association.

and with staff to get to a place that is relatively comfortable relatively comfortable for all of us.

So with that I'm going to turn it over to Director DeWolf to ask any further questions about this one-word amendment to this procedure which I mean to this policy which is accompanied by the procedure.

No questions here.

Ready to vote.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

I certainly said my piece.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Hersey.

None for me.

Thank you.

Director Mack.

Yeah I I appreciate and I'm glad that we finally have some procedures attached to this.

But I I have the ongoing concern around kind of you know only partially touching on policies that actually needed some other substantial changes to them and we we don't get there.

And so I'm I'm going to end up abstaining from this vote because I I can't I think we need to do a better job of comprehensively adjusting the policies instead of one-word changes.

I think it takes more time to do it this way and it's not as efficient.

And I'm not sure that we are actually meeting all the goals.

So I appreciate that there will be continued work but there is my perspective.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

No further comments or questions from me right now.

Director Rivera-Smith.

No questions or comments.

Thank you.

Okay.

Ms.

Wilson-Jones roll call please.

Director Rankin.

Sorry.

Wow.

I was very surprised by that for some reason.

I have got the wrong page up on my screen.

Yay or nay.

On 6 on we're still on we're on the we're back to the unamended.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yay.

Yes.

Hi.

Whatever.

Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf yes Director Harris aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack abstain Director Hampson aye has passed by a vote of 6 yes to 0 no to 1 abstention.

Thank you Ms. Wilson-Jones.

We will now move to Action Item 3. Approval of Management and Operations Agreement for Memorial Stadium parking lot.

This came to Ops on November 5th for approval or was sent up from Operations Committee on November 5th for approval.

May I have a motion for this item.

Of course.

School Board authorized the superintendent to execute a contract with Republic Parking for management and operation of the Memorial Stadium parking lot for a projected amount of $400,000 over a 5-year term in the form of the draft agreement attached to the School Board Action Report with any minor additions deletions modifications or actions deemed necessary by the superintendent to implement the contract.

Is there a second.

Thank you.

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

Now to directors for any comments or questions before we move to the vote.

Director Mack as Chair of Operations would you like to start.

Yeah we had robust conversation.

We moved it forward for approval with no consideration.

I just want to check in really quick with Mr. Podesta and ensure that.

There are no there are no changes since introduction and all is well.

Correct Mr. Podesta.

That is correct.

Thank you.

Excellent.

So yep.

No further comment then.

Thank you.

Okay.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you.

No this is pretty straightforward.

Thank you.

No questions.

Director Harris.

Yeah at the intro I asked Chief Podesta whether or not should we get lucky enough to change the Memorial Stadium either via the MOU with the City of Seattle or we find a benefactor whether or not this lease would get in the way of it.

And he advised that it would not and that it has ability to terminate when that happens.

So I am in favor of this.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

I have no questions or comments.

Director Rivera-Smith.

No questions or comments.

Thank you.

And as I have no further comments or questions we can move to the roll call vote.

Director DeWolf yes Director Harris aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director Hampson aye This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

We will now move to Action Item Number 4 BEX 4 and BTA 4 Final Acceptance of Contract K5108 with Western Ventures Construction for the J.S.

John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence Freezer Upgrade Project.

This came through Ops on November 5th for approval.

May I have a motion.

I move that the school board accept the work performed under contract K5-108 with Western Ventures Construction for the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence freezer upgrade project as final.

This item has been motioned by Director Hersey and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith.

Now to directors for any comments or questions before I move to the vote.

Let's start with Director Rivera-Smith.

I think typically you start with chairs.

Sorry.

Oh I'm sorry I keep forgetting the chair part.

Yes.

Sorry.

Yep.

Please go.

It's all good.

It's final acceptance.

These are all always celebratory and in this case that we absolutely needed this which I know has been working very hard for all of the I think we heard three thirty thousand meals.

I don't know the number but.

And Mr. Podesta do you have any additional comments or thoughts on this final acceptance.

No the work was completed last summer and yes we are producing a lot of food in the central kitchen with our circumstances here and the work was completed and the freezer is serving our needs at this time.

I like success stories so thank you.

I have no further comments.

Okay.

Apologies again.

We'll get this committee part down.

Director Rivera-Smith.

No questions or comments from me.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

Just yay final acceptance.

Nothing else from me.

Director Hersey.

None from me.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

Way to go.

Thanks.

Director DeWolf.

None here.

Congratulations.

And I have the yay freezer upgrade.

That's all I have to say about that.

Go ahead and do the roll call.

Ms. Wilson-Jones.

Director Harris aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack Director Mack Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf yes Director DeWolf was that a yes.

It was a yes.

Correct.

Thank you.

And Director Hampson aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you Ms. Wilson-Jones.

We will now move to Action Item Number 5. Memorandum of Understanding with Principals Association of Seattle Schools.

Pass to amend the evaluation process for the 2020-21 for 2020-21.

This came through Executive Committee on November 12th for approval.

May I have a motion for this item.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent a memorandum of understanding with PASS to amend the evaluation process in accordance with the OSPI evaluation guidelines for the 2020-2021 Bulletin Number 063-20 attached.

I guess that would be guidelines for the 2020-2021 school year or yeah that's what the text says but thank you.

Is there a second.

Sorry was there a second.

Yeah I got it in there.

Second.

Okay.

This item has been motioned by Director Hersey and seconded by Director Rivera-Smith.

I just want to double-check Chief Narver because I know this has occurred in the past if we don't state the motion correctly.

Are we good with that statement.

I think the motion was was read correctly.

Yes.

Okay.

So with that we'll go to Directors for comments or questions starting with the former President of an Executive Committee Chair Director DeWolf.

Thank you Director Hampson.

I I know we had talked about this last time and I got moved here so I maintain support for this.

And do we need to hear Anything additional from the from staff.

Are we good to move forward to directors.

Director Hampson this is Clover Codd from Human Resources.

I just wanted to let everybody know that I'm here today joined by Rainy Swan the Executive Director of Principals Association of Seattle Schools here to show her support of this item.

I'm happy to answer any questions the directors have.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you for letting us know that.

And in my mind you're standing there together which I know is not the case.

But so let's go with Director first with Director Harris for questions.

Thank you so much.

And thank you Ms. Swan for being available.

It was disconcerting to hear from principals that this was on the agenda.

And I understand again second and third hand which is not how I like doing business that you as the Executive Director of PATH and Chief Clover Codd Director of Human Resources are going to continue to discuss converse and negotiate the evaluation.

Is that correct.

Hi.

Thank you for having me.

This is Rainey.

Just to clarify when you say to discuss evaluations further can you let me know can you expand on that.

My understanding back in November when I moved this to a time certain and when the executive committee passed this and and unfortunately we didn't have the opportunity to converse in that meeting for whatever reason when PASS was invited that there is a split in past leadership regarding the evaluation protocols and potential MOUs in the future.

Thank you.

So I can apologize to you directly for not being in that meeting.

I was actually out at that time so I didn't make the meeting.

I apologize.

As of right now the MIU as it stands we would appreciate it.

We're pleased with it as it stands and Dr. Codd has been very helpful and open doors as far as discussing other things that we need to work on to address and as you can imagine there's always a long list and PASS is working on its protocols and communication much like all of us to make sure that we can somehow come to the same page on things.

But as of this current OU up for review I think it's pretty straightforward.

It follows the OSP memo OSPI memo and guidelines and we are ready to move that forward.

Thank you.

And thank you and no apology necessary.

Much appreciate.

Thank you.

Okay.

Director Hersey.

No additional questions from me.

Thank you.

Director Mack.

Director Mack.

Yes thank you.

Yeah I just thank you for being here today.

Your first name Rainey I'm seeing I'm sorry I'm not seeing the last name.

to represent and and and and demonstrate your support for this MOU and look forward to supporting it.

So thank you.

Appreciate that.

Okay.

Director Rankin.

Just hello Director Swan and thanks for being here.

I don't have any any questions.

It's nice to have words straight from the past representative that that yes we're good to go.

So.

Director Rivera-Smith.

No questions or comments.

Thank you.

Did I get everybody.

Director DeWolf did you have a chance to go.

Yes I was first.

Thank you.

Okay thank you.

Just lost track of it there for a moment.

Okay and I don't have any further questions so we can move to the roll call.

Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf yes Director Harris aye Director Hampson This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

Apologies.

Okay.

We will now move to Introduction Item Number 1 2020-21 Legislative Agenda.

This item is sponsored by the Board of Legislative Liaisons Directors Hersey and Rankin.

Chief Financial Officer JoLynn Berge.

I believe you will be beginning the briefing.

I will.

Thank you.

So this is the annual legislative agenda which is a formal statement of our district's legislative priorities.

It does not mean you know the legis agenda generally focuses on a limited number of priorities but it doesn't matter it doesn't mean that we are limited to our input on other topics as those arise.

The legislative agenda with the help from Directors Rankin and Hersey They proposed areas that included the following.

Stable funding.

Counseling and social-emotional supports.

Restorative justice.

And access to learning.

That would conclude my remarks and I would be happy to answer questions.

Okay I'm going to go to Vice President Hersey to start off as the as one of the the leads from the board on the legislative work.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I don't have much to add.

The draft as it stands right now is in community.

It has been shared out and am currently waiting for any responses or feedback that folks have on it.

I think that where we're at currently though is a good basis and moving forward just really interested in continuing to work directly with communities specifically our students furthest away from educational justice to give them some serious voice in developing this agenda.

And I think that we have arrived at a place that we can all be proud of for this round and just looking forward to seeing how we can include their voices more holistically going forward.

Thank you.

And Director Rankin as the other co-sponsor did you want to go ahead and speak as well.

I'll just quickly express appreciation for Chief Berge and Vice President Hersey in in for for one to Director Hersey for insisting and communicating with community insisting that this come from community and be with community and to Chief Berge for being a partner in in doing things a little bit differently.

So that's all that's all from me.

Okay we'll go back to the top of the order.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you Director Hampson.

I I just wanted to just offer gratitude and appreciate the hard work of Directors Rankin and Vice President Hersey as well as grateful to Chief Berge for just honing in on this process.

So I know that it's gone through rigorous oversight from them and I do I do really like where this landed.

So very supportive.

Thank you.

And then to Director Mack Director Harris I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I would like to add my gratitude for Erin Bennett who previously was our Director of Strategic Planning and had a lot to do with this.

And my welcome to Julia Worth as her successor.

Not replacement.

People can't be replaced.

They can be succeeded.

With respect to next year's legislative agenda I have two concerns that I want to put on the record and I would very much like to have included in the minutes of this meeting.

One the recent disclosure of OSPI Superintendent Chris Reykdal it says we don't need a lot more money.

I am hugely disturbed with that and have already reached out to him.

Two The fact that the legislature will be working remotely and with limitations on resolutions and policies and legislation coming forward.

And I suspect we will get the short end of the stick.

And three I very much would like to see the school board have a hand in determining next year who our lobbyist is.

I think there is a wide range of folks that are more embedded in community and folks of color that might be well-placed to carry our message forward.

And the fact that this contract continues to roll over without school board input is highly disturbing to me.

Thank you.

Director Mack.

Yeah I I also extend gratitude for the work that went into compiling this having worked on it in years past and been on the WSSDA's legislative committee.

The list of policy priorities is ridiculously long and narrowing it down clearly into a document that is understandable is challenging and so I really appreciate this document.

It actually I feel as if it is reflective of collectively our legislative priorities and it's also aligned with other organizations so that that helps us bolster our movement forward.

The one question that I want to reflect back to Director Hersey and Rankin and community is I wonder whether or not the section around restorative justice is as broad as community and we feel it should be.

I wonder whether or not we want to kind of broaden that to student safety and not as nearly focused on restorative justice there.

I don't have an answer there.

I'm just curious to know whether or not that is something that you all think might be beneficial to broaden that perspective.

There is a new position statement out of WSSDA around student safety that could dovetail with that.

And I don't think it's necessarily a necessity but I'm just wondering whether or not that would be of interest for my colleagues to augment.

Yeah I would just say send me the language and I will run it past community or let's find the time to connect and develop the language so I can share it out as soon as possible.

Great.

I will do that now.

Thank you.

Can you speak to me please.

Just I'm just curious to see it too.

I my initial response would be broadening it might detract from the intended focus on restorative justice very specifically to just like safety and I don't know.

So yes please CC me.

And then Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

Yeah I I want to show our gratitude to Vice President Hersey and Director Rankin for the work in this.

It's it's a beautiful presentation here.

I really appreciate the thought that went into it.

The depth it goes into.

Well you know having like the nice sissing kind of buckets what we're looking to advocate for this year.

I don't have any other questions or comments I think.

I just want to say thanks and I appreciate your work.

Okay.

And I actually have had opportunity to discuss this at length in our former discussions but also with each of you staff and and and board leads and appreciate where we've appreciated the work session appreciate where we've ended up with this.

And I and I do want to say I know those work sessions are a lot of work but they do from what I can see they've they've paid dividends in terms of the community being able to see a lot more of the work that that does go on.

And that that's that's worth the price of admission.

So thank you for for that portion of this and looking forward to seeing how this this plays in session this year.

And that leaves us with nothing left but board comments section of the agenda.

So I'm going to start with and show my gratitude for his leadership over the past year as President to the now former President Zachary DeWolf.

Are you there Zachary.

Oh no I'm sorry.

He's he left.

I forgot.

He had to pop off and attend to some personal matters so that takes us to Director Harris.

Okay.

First congratulations to our new executive committee.

I look forward to the next year.

I look forward to Saturday's retreat.

It's a packed agenda and we left a great many items on that agenda from Monday's reopening work session that the community is watching with great interest and I truly hope that the community will sign in and listen up.

Oftentimes the board retreats only have one or two maybe max five folks and and that's a great learning opportunity.

I appreciate that we don't get to share food and hugs but well worth your time for future issues.

We left quite the laundry list on Monday night for staff to address on a number of issues.

I guess I come back to my same issues that I have for previous to my service on the board of five years and continuing and that is communication and collaboration.

We have a number of issues out there.

that are exploding on social media and a vacuum unless the school district sends out proactive factual updates to the board and the community get lost in rumor innuendo and then it takes us 10 times longer to fix what those facts are and to potentially re-earn broken trust.

I'm thinking right now a number of issues.

The interim SBAC test staff and colleagues know that that folks do not understand what is being proposed and apparently our labor partners do not either.

And the fact that we missed the Friday memo because of the holiday didn't help.

But but I I have to believe we can and must do better.

I also think that that this board intra-communication can and must do better and my hope is that Saturday we we can delve into some of those issues but I truly wonder with respect to how packed the agenda is and I believe in transparency and OPMA but but I hope the community understands how fractured our communication is and that we cannot communicate with more than three board members at a time which leads to miscommunication and frankly mistrust.

And I hope we take some of those restorative justice principles and realign ourselves with those.

I've got a number of goals this year that that I hope to see effectuated.

Certainly the weighted staffing standards and school funding model.

And please appreciate and understand I mean absolutely no disrespect to staff.

It's about transparency that I'm after.

I would like to see us do something with respect to Memorial Stadium and the MOU.

and go after private partners if the city won't help us.

I'd like to see a resolution.

I'm happy to write it.

It talks about how we choose principals.

Some schools get community input and some schools are foisted with whomever staff and the superintendent decides is the best fit.

I again go back to that phrase that I've heard the superintendent use.

And are we a system of schools or a school system.

And I am so hopeful of the day that folks have input much like participatory budgeting etc.

I think that we all absolutely are well-served when we collaborate and communicate more.

I would like to see more communication to board members whether it be under confidentiality or attorney-client privilege e.g.

HR quarterly reports that were referenced and directed to the superintendent two years ago.

Being blindsided by media social media or phone calls about what has happened last in the school district When we're the fiduciary keepers of the flame is is hugely disconcerting.

And I hope we can put our personal hurts aside and and address the fact that these are fiduciary concerts that people elected us to.

We cannot afford to feel hurt by things.

And put those aside and be as transparent and brave with each other as we possibly can.

The other issues that are hugely concerning to me are making up for lost time on ethnic studies.

That is long overdue.

And and our students and our communities deserve different curriculum and collaboration.

Additionally I welcome Ms. Worth already Erin Bennett's successor.

I have expressed to her concerns that I've heard on social media straight up face-to-face about her associations with LEV or Green Dot Charter Schools.

I don't know what the truth is but but I sure would like to as an elected fiduciary school board member as opposed to being blindsided.

Again it's an honor it's a privilege I look forward to serving with each of you who I care about deeply.

Senior staff colleagues and others.

And I wish to hell we were in person so we could see the three-dimensional communication.

People's physical gestures et cetera et cetera.

I believe that each and every one of us are here for the right reason.

And I look forward to where we go from here.

Last I will go on record yet again.

I have my issues with Superintendent Juneau.

She knows what they are.

We've been most candid with each other and I do not believe that changing superintendents in the middle of a pandemic is a good idea.

And I thank you all.

Okay.

Director Hersey.

I have taken quite a bit of airspace this evening so I'm going to just keep it brief.

Again a huge thank you to Director Campbell for stopping by our weekly D7 meetings and for all of the participants including the organizers from Seattle Council PTSA.

Sabrina Burr O'Hara Jimenez and so many others.

Sarah Gawa you know the list just goes on who show up week after week and really do some real-time problem solving for our communities down here.

I just want to express my undying gratitude to all of the folks who have shown up for those calls at one point or another and I'm excited to continue those.

So I will end it at that.

Thank you all and looking forward to our next meeting.

And then on to Director Mack.

Yes we get to the end of the meeting and we've talked about so much it's actually difficult to figure out what is worthwhile to take the time to say.

The public testimony folks are probably already gone and not hearing this but again I always always appreciate raising issues and coming to speak to us and telling us about things.

I do appreciate and have ongoing concerns around all of the things that were brought up and I think we have many of those kind of tucked into various work going forward.

So thank you for bringing your voice forward.

Thank you for the students for talking about their experience as we continue moving forward in this pandemic with the challenges that we're in the recognition that our students are struggling and our families are struggling that this isolation is really difficult on everyone.

And I you know I I'm concerned we're not doing enough to focus on the students aren't that aren't engaging I'm concerned about I'm concerned about mental health and I just continue to hope that our principals and the district in terms of how we're spreading resources that we're focusing them to ensure that we're supporting our students the best of our abilities.

And I think my AirPods just.

So I may.

Can you hear me okay.

Yes we can.

I'm switching back to a different microphone.

I apologize.

I gave overview of Ops what's coming up.

There's a lot there.

And on all the other issues they're going to be on our agendas in upcoming meetings.

Congratulations to.

All the new executive committee members I look forward to working with you and continuing to work with you but even more so with you all guiding the ship and working together in service of our students.

I do have a community meeting coming up.

I know that Seattle Council PTSA has been organizing this for all of us and thank you for putting it together.

I believe mine's on Monday maybe Tuesday.

Apologies.

It should be on the website now.

And I know that there's other ones that are coming up as well.

So look forward to seeing folks in that meeting and Zooming and connecting.

Hopefully we can answer some questions and at least be present with each other with the questions and concerns that we have going on.

And with that I will conclude my remarks.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

It's kind of astounding to me that it's already December.

It was one year ago today that direct that myself Director Hampson Director Rivera-Smith were sworn in for the first time and Director Harris with her for her second term.

And in that year I oh my gosh I think we've done the Maybe the work of a full term.

I'm not.

Who knows.

I don't know.

It's been a very very interesting year.

And so just big thanks to well kind of it's your fault to people who supported me that got me here.

But but thanks thanks to people who supported and who continue to support and email me and call me and let me know what's going on in your community.

Let me know when I've asked questions or made comments that you that you support.

It's always nice to hear kind of confirmation that that work is going in the direction that the community supports.

So thank you.

Big thanks to Seattle Council PTSA.

As Director Mack mentioned they are have been really really great in helping us well not in helping us in organizing forums for us for our our our director districts.

Mine is a week from tomorrow I think at 630 and you can find the link I think it's on it's on the SPS website.

You can pre-register and join.

And I look forward to answering questions about outdoor and community pilots and and what's happening there about you know how your student and family are doing.

The last community meeting that I had I'm trying to remember I think it was just with one or two schools but I got the sense that what a lot of people needed was just to not feel alone.

and to feel like somebody was listening to them.

So I'm ready I'm ready to hear it.

A big thanks to the speakers and particularly in particular the student speakers this evening.

Simone from Nathan Hale your I live I can practically throw a rock and hit Nathan Hale from where I live.

So you're you're one of my you're one of my constituents my students.

Something that you said really struck me and I would love to talk with you more about that if you're listening at all which is that old school is lost and new school needs to be established.

And I could not agree with you more.

There are a lot of things that will never and should never be the same as they were before the pandemic.

That we have to make some big shifts in how we approach education right now in this emergency situation.

But that also we should never go back to exactly what we had before.

It's a huge opportunity to to do the things that that Simone and the student from Lincoln were talking about.

Hands-on project-based collaborative learning you know acknowledging our identity and place and and really making education instead of a series of hoops that you have to jump through and then when you get when you turn 18 you can be free of it to to public education as empowering our youth for the lives that they want to lead and the citizens that we need in the world.

So that I would love to keep talking about that.

The idea that the student from Lincoln had about study hall is something that I'm really interested in talking about and I will probably bring up on Saturday about you know once presuming presuming that at some point more in-person learning will be possible in kind of accordance with the priority groups that were discussed in the work session on on Monday that I would really like to be able to offer space for students particularly students who students of color furthest from educational justice who are overrepresented right now in our groups of students who are in at risk of receiving an incomplete.

I would really really really like us to to think about what it could look like to open up some in-person space for like a study hall for students who are having a hard time engaging.

Provide a space where they can they can come and and connect with with educators.

And so anyway we'll talk about that.

I said a lot yesterday and said a lot just now and I'm sure I'll talk a lot on Saturday.

So to just finish off I want to read a testimony from someone who she submitted testimony and then somehow was not didn't make it onto the list.

So I'm just going to quickly read Kate Harris's testimony here.

And she says my testimony topic is the need for in-person options for students in pre-K K grades 1 and 2. I'm a parent to a preschooler with an IEP and volunteer with Seattle Special Education PTSA.

In the spring the school board announced that they are prioritizing pre-K through 2 students as well as those with disabilities and English language learners.

And yet not even SPS preschools that focus on students with disabilities are offering in-person instruction 8 months into this pandemic.

preschoolers were the last to even receive devices.

It does not sound like they are prioritized to me.

I have personal experience to share to demonstrate the school closures impact on my preschooler with disability disabilities.

Pre-COVID my child was thriving in an SPS developmental preschool.

He received weekly if not daily specially designed instruction for speech therapy physical therapy and occupational therapy.

Remote learning was difficult and sometimes impossible for him to access.

Despite our best efforts in weekly remote and private therapy sessions over spring and summer my child struggled to learn even with intensive parent involvement.

But is that result surprising.

How does a 4-year-old learn to share or join play with their peers over the screen.

What about IEP goals to learn how to hold a crayon put on a coat and catch a ball.

They cannot through remote learning alone.

My child is lucky.

He won a lottery spot in the UW's EEU preschool and started in-person learning two days a week in October alongside peers with and without disabilities.

Remote learning complements those in-person days.

He's thriving again in that hybrid inclusive model with strict COVID safety protocols in place to keep him his peers and his teachers safe.

But what if he didn't win that preschool lottery.

What about his peers who didn't win and whose families are far too busy with preschoolers right now to join you today.

I urge the school board to give families choices for their youngest learners.

In-person is not best for every child in a family during a pandemic.

Risk is personal.

Each family's cost-benefit equation is personal.

For many families in-person options are what is best for their child and for a family like mine.

How is the district planning for this priority for pre-K students pre-K through 2 and students with disabilities.

What is the plan for opening pre-K's in-person as an option to families.

What are the reopening Criteria.

I urge the district to have a detailed plan in place so that we are ready to respond to forthcoming public health guidance in weeks and not months.

The future is uncertain but let's plan.

Thank you for your service to public education.

And again that was a letter from a constituent Kate Harris.

That was not that was not from me.

And and I'll conclude with that.

Director Rivera-Smith.

You still with us Director Rivera-Smith or you're muted.

I I'm trying.

Can you hear me now.

Yep.

Gotcha.

Okay great.

My my I'm my device is flipping pages on me for no reason.

So I'm really sorry about that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's been a long night.

I hate to keep us here longer but I do want to take a chance to respond as much as I can to a community who came out tonight earlier this afternoon I guess really to a share their truths with us.

And thank you as well again to our student speakers to Nisa and Simone representing Nathan Hale and all students with their voices.

Hearing directly from students really is what we need right now to hear about you know from them on remote learning and how that's affecting them how it's going because they're they're where it's at.

And as Director Rankin pointed out I mean I can't get it out of my head either.

Old school is lost and new school needs to be established is. is really where our thinking needs to be and I believe that our board I believe we feel that way.

I believe that's where we are on in tune with that and we'll do what we can.

Likewise to our other student Jesus thank you for sharing your input on the median graduation requirements.

Absolutely our district is very acutely aware that student home situations are not equal and we have made decisions specifically to mitigate the disadvantages that some students might face because of that.

For example in regards to attendance and grading testing and specifically to your point on the graduation requirement credits.

I believe and I'm going to fudge this probably get it wrong a little bit but we have we have approved the 2-credit waiver of elective credits for this year's seniors.

Specifically sounds like exactly to your point here and I'm sure I'm getting the details wrong a little bit and hopefully Maybe somebody on staff could follow up with you as you as you asked and or with me and I can pass it on to you because I like I said I think we touched on what you're looking for and I would love to share that more with you.

So thanks in advance to any staff who is listening and wants to do that or can follow up with that.

Thank you.

To our Native students.

You know thank you for testifying again with us.

I know you've been here before and I appreciate your advocacy for your and your fellow Native students needs.

Your suggestions for designated safe spaces.

You know that that sounds like a really would be helpful and great to produce for you.

I know that even as we're in virtual we do have our Our Equity Partnership Engagement Department has created affinity spaces online.

I'm not sure how far that's reaching.

I don't honestly don't know enough about our Native Ed program as I should but I feel like I did understood they were doing something to that effect as well.

So hopefully we can find that for you.

Annabelle I genuinely appreciate your simple but very on-point message.

And I can't speak for anyone else but for myself.

I I'm a few decades old but I definitely find ways to grow up every day.

So that's something that we all I think we're all doing.

Thank you for the reminder.

So Sabrina Burr and Gia Tran I know you had two separate stories but they were both heartbreaking honestly and and I appreciate that neither of you are just looking for individual solutions and remedies to your situations but you're looking for district-wide change.

And and that you know that will lead to the elimination of these dramatic experiences that too many students and families are facing.

And as you said Sabrina you know our our strategic plan priorities must trickle down to buildings.

And I believe that we are continuously working towards that goal and the most significant move of which may be as you know is our consideration of our forthcoming anti-racist policy in the next few months.

So definitely we hear you.

Don't want any families to be experiencing that kind of negative situations and traumas you are.

Please stick with us.

We're we're hearing you and we're looking for that.

To Chris Jackins.

Fortunately unfortunately your your facts didn't make it to us and I'm all most of your points passed on the consent agenda so we didn't really get to consider them before that but I am intrigued with your contention to money following the students.

I want to talk maybe more about that because That stood out to me.

To Dr. Carol Simmons thank you as always for your testimony.

And despite myself being a renowned apparent note-taker I missed a couple of recommendations so I'll have to go back and listen again to the recording.