Seattle School Board Meeting May 4, 2022

I'm now calling the May 4th 2022 Regular Board Meeting to order at 415 p.m.

This meeting is being recorded and we would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

Ms. Wilson-Jones the roll call please.

And just for a note Directors Rankin and Hampson are stuck in some pretty bad traffic and they will be joining us as quickly as they can.

Director Harris.

Present.

Director Rivera-Smith present.

Director Sarju present.

Director Song-Marit present.

And President Hersey.

Hello.

Hey we are holding today's meeting in a hybrid format with directors and staff and members of the public here in person with remote access also available through SPS-TV by broadcast and streaming on YouTube.

and by phone consistent with the governor's proclamation on open public meetings.

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

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

Thank you President Hersey and board members.

Good evening and thank you for being here.

We opened this month of May recognizing a few different events.

The month of May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

the time to celebrate and pay tribute to the histories and contributions of generations of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

It's also Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness and reduce the stigma experienced by those living with mental or behavioral health issues.

And finally, this is Teacher Appreciation Week.

While we are grateful all year round for the pivotal role teachers play in our educational system, This week we want to be especially intentional about expressing and demonstrating our gratitude for them.

In the wake of a season in which teachers have navigated unprecedented challenges we invite you in joining us to thanking teachers for their care, creativity, dedication, and resilience as they reach out to our students every day.

There are a couple of things I want to highlight for the board.

This evening we turn our attention to the K-5 math curriculum adoption and we're excited about this adoption and what it will mean for instruction.

The math curriculum will build a stronger foundation of support for students to achieve math proficiency and as we strive towards our goal of doubling math proficiency for Black boys in our district in the next three years.

This selection of math curriculum is a result of a deliberative process.

that involved a robust engagement process that you will get to hear about in the presentation today.

When we meet for next week's work session we'll discuss the interim metrics for our goals and guardrails and these have been developed to ensure that we're on track to meeting our goals and abiding by our guardrails.

This is a critical phase of student outcome focused governance implementation that will set the stage for all of the progress monitoring we'll do in the years to come.

I've had the privilege to being out amongst community in the last several weeks and I want to thank students and families who have taken time to meet with me and share their perspectives.

Insights have been wide ranging and powerful and insightful.

Now regarding the three-tier bell time matter.

Over the last several weeks we've been listening to the concerns from schools families and partners around a proposed move to three-tier bell schedule.

We hear you and we are slowing down the decision making process so that we can continue to identify ways to alleviate the concerns.

These concerns have been raised and as a result the school board will not consider any transportation related matters during tonight's session.

Seattle Public Schools is committed to providing reliable transportation that gets students to school on time and ready to learn.

Staff will continue to work with schools and families and partners over the next several weeks as we refine this plan.

We will work to communicate updates to families directly and through updates on the Bell Times web page.

Staff is continuing to read and record all feedback throughout Less Talk and all other feedback channels.

We value your continued feedback and partnerships.

Thank you and that concludes my remarks.

Thank you Superintendent Jones.

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

Seeing that President Hamp excuse me Vice President Hampson is not with us at the moment we're going to need to augment our motions and seconds or whatnot.

So may I have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda as presented.

Wonderful.

A second.

Thank you.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Sondra Ritz.

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

Okay.

Seeing none.

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

All right.

We have now come to the board committee report section of the agenda.

We have a couple committee chairs present.

So we will begin with the Operations Committee Chair Director Rivera-Smith.

Are you prepared at this time to give a committee report.

Just give me a minute here actually so you can come back to me.

That'd be great.

Okay.

There it is. back to the executive committee.

Are you waiting for me.

No.

Oh okay.

I'm just checking.

Just trying to.

Be gentle.

Okay so the last meeting of the Executive Committee was rather uneventful.

We addressed one board action report which was the approval of student outcomes focused progress monitoring calendar and assessment tool for math progress monitoring.

We also had two special attention items.

One focused on student outcomes focused governance and our board goals as well as a revision to the 2021-22 school board meeting calendar moving the June 15th 2022 regular board meeting to June 22nd.

The reason for that change was to accommodate some of the graduations that are taking place during that week to ensure that directors could be present to deliver remarks and participate in those festivities.

We also took a brief look at the board calendar and work plan as well as the executive committee work plan.

If you would like to join us at an additional or excuse me at our what I believe to be the last two executive committee meetings before we break for the summer.

They will be taking place on May 25th and June 8th 2022. As always those meetings begin at 8 a.m.

and we would love to see you there if you've got the time and the interest.

Director Rivera-Smith do you need more time to prepare.

No I'm good.

All right.

I think I'm good.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So our last operations committee meeting was on April 21st.

It was was we most we covered the usual committee work plan capital financial budget report public meetings report and change orders.

The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing the Transportation Service Standards item that is again not being introduced tonight after all.

But that was again we went I think a good hour and a half over our meeting time because that was such a deep discussion.

We had 6 board members there including so 3 committee members and 3 additional board members were present.

So obviously we had a lot of discussion and I really tried to make time for everybody to be heard and to share their opinions on that.

It's obviously an item of great concern to our communities and all to say we we came out of that meeting not feeling ready to move that for approval.

We did move it forward for consideration.

We all probably had different reasons for that but that was it seemed to be the best step we could take to take responsibility for the item that was before us while also leaving room for continued conversation which is happening and I'm really thankful for that.

And I again so that item will now come through for instruction.

I will wait to hear when that is.

Maybe it's in two weeks I'm not sure but either way that was the action our committee made.

I we didn't have we didn't have time for some of the other items of the meeting but that's okay because that needed the time and I appreciate everybody who was there.

to give input on that.

So our next meeting will be May 19th again at 430 p.m.

and I look forward to seeing whoever wants to join us.

Director Hersey.

Hi Director Rankin.

Can you hear me.

Hi it's Director Rankin sitting sitting in fully dead stopped traffic.

But I I am here and I'm happy to give a brief committee report by phone if you would like me to do that.

I'm not looking at my notes obviously but.

If it will not compromise your safety then by all means.

Okay.

The biggest thing that I can report without having to look look at look at the agenda for the next meeting is that we are moving forward with inclusionary practices which is super super exciting.

We will have some policy changes coming policy amendments to improve increased inclusive practices and center you know instruction and environment around belonging and full inclusion of students with and without disabilities.

Students of all racial economic backgrounds sexual orientation gender.

We're taking it really beyond disability to mean that our our school environments are places where every student can come and participate as their full selves.

And it's really exciting work and I'm really really really grateful for this going from being sort of an idea between Dr. Pedroza and myself of let's put it on the work plan and start talking about it to something that is becoming closer to being a reality for our students.

And I also want to give a thanks and a shout out to the work group the SPS SEA work group that has been looking at our current practices and service models and how those can change for special education.

And it's it's it's really exciting to have staff board priorities educators aligned on something that is so critical for improving student outcomes.

So that's probably the most major thing.

And for those of you who may not have tuned into a budget meeting which is probably everybody Rocky did Dr. Torres did.

you know make an announcement that was very emotional for me.

But at the at the very end of that budget meeting that was actually pretty big news and because it was part of a budget meeting I don't know how many people's radar it's on.

So but we're going to keep talking about it.

We're going to have stuff for the for the full board to look at and hopefully approve.

And I just couldn't be more grateful for all of the collaborative work that's gone into to doing that and I can't wait to.

to continue on to the next steps.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Okay so we have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda but it is not yet 5 p.m.

To keep the meeting going we will begin board comments now.

I would imagine that there is at least one of you that would be prepared to give your comments at this time.

I will use some wait time.

By all means.

Thank you Director Sommeritz.

Good afternoon everyone.

I just want to start by thanking our staff for actively engaging my fellow directors and I around the proposed bell time changes.

And I in particular really want to thank Executive Director Ashley Davies and Assistant Superintendent James Bush further work in actively engaging our Seattle Public Schools child care partners.

So I just wanted to share a little bit of work that I've been doing with the public and with the staff around my concerns around the child care needs for our families.

I really do believe that there is recognition that this change will complicate the child care needs of our families and complicate them further from after two years of pandemic related challenges.

I've been personally trying to understand the scale of the child care labor shortages and have been talking to some of our partners and the information that I have collected which covers 12 Seattle Public Schools locations and then 7 sites that are not in our school buildings but serve Seattle Public School students of nearly serving 2,000 students.

And we have these child care centers have a lot of unfilled staff positions currently and with the bell time change believe that there could be as many as 80 staff positions that will be needed because of these changes.

I'm bringing up this point because I think it's important to balance the needs of all of our students and I am concerned that we're trading labor shortage issues.

So I just wanted to highlight some of the research that I have been doing on that.

I think it's also important to note that the three bell time proposal doesn't simply address our labor shortage issue.

It's also a source of significant cost savings to this district.

And it is one of the primary responsibilities of my board directors and I to make sure that our school district is financially solvent.

Our transportation plainly just runs at a deficit.

And my suggested solution to this deficit is not an immediate solution but I really do firmly believe that we have to proactively engage our state legislators and fixing the bus transportation funding for not just our school district but all school districts across Washington State.

Washington State has a extremely complicated formula for reimbursing bus transportation called STARS.

There's a 7-page PDF that is extremely mathematical and hard to understand.

But the basic issue is that our transportation costs generally exceed the state reimbursement.

Part of this is because the reimbursement is just for previous year's expenditures.

And typically expenditures increase over time.

There's factors like rising gas prices increase enrollment and these all contribute to rising bus expenditures.

Why should the state update the STARS formula.

Special education riders receive door-to-door service which is expensive.

And the STARS formula has to be updated to reflect this reality.

The school district is legally required to provide special education transportation and the state doesn't reimburse it if it's not yellow bus service.

Yellow bus service is not practical for all special education routes.

And I know in the most recent legislation legislators agreed that this issue would be examined but I am urging our community that we should be proactive and advocate for our special education students for this important funding.

Washington State also in the most recent legislative session is going to be providing free transit for people under the age of 18. We are very lucky.

Our Seattle Public School high school and most middle school students have already been enjoying free ORCA cards funded by the City of Seattle and by our school district.

The open question is what will happen to our bus transportation funding with this new state law.

Director Rivera-Smith and I asked a member of the state a Seattle delegation a state representative and he said that while the state had passed this law the details haven't been sorted out.

Though again I am urging our community that we must engage our state legislators now in helping them understand the implications of this law on our bus transportation funding.

I of course support free transit for Washington's youth yet I want to make sure that this means that the state will not take away existing funding to public schools.

And another point I want to make about the transportation funding formula is that there's real no incentive to switch to electric buses.

Gas gets reimbursed.

So this is just yet another reason why I think we need to engage our state legislators in changing this funding formula.

And you know I was looking at some previous work session budget work session materials and a lot of the proposed solutions around addressing our transportation challenges.

One of the reasons why we haven't pursued those challenges is because we don't know what the financial impact of those solutions would be because the STARS formula is not straightforward.

And I think it's really important that we communicate to our state legislators that your formula is literally preventing us from pursuing creative solutions that would really enable us to help children get to school on time and learning.

It is Teacher Appreciation Week and I want to thank all of our staff members for their dedication to our 50,000 Seattle Public School students.

I want to give a special thanks to Kelly Roland a Spanish teacher at Rainier Beach High School.

I am part of a Washington State Leadership Board which is a nonprofit that is established in state law that runs youth leadership programs and I am so thrilled that two Seattle Public School students have received fellowships and they will be studying abroad in Spain.

And this is really thanks to Ms. Roland who encouraged her students to apply for this fellowship wrote really beautiful recommendation letters and submitted a tear-jerking congratulatory video to that the students families and our entire board watched together.

So your love Ms. Roland for your students is really obvious and I know you join my excitement and that these two students are really embarking on a life-changing experience.

Harani and Israel please do not forget to send Ms. Rolando a postcard when you're in Spain.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Samaritz and welcome Vice President Hampson.

I'm sure you have been battling traffic for the past few minutes so please take some time to get settled.

Are there any other directors that are prepared to offer comments at this time.

Okay seeing none we will now move into the introduction portion of today's agenda.

Okay so introduction item number one is approval of the Satterberg Foundation Elementary Theater School Grant.

This came through SSC&I on April 26 for approval.

Who will be presenting.

Dr. Scarlett and Ms.

Toner.

Dr. Keisha Scarlett Assistant Superintendent of Academics and then

Hi I'm Cashel Turner Executive Director of Curriculum Assessment and Instruction.

Thank you.

So I'm here today to introduce to the board our board action report for the Satterberg Elementary Feeder School Grant that if moved by the school board today will authorize the superintendent to accept $1,800,000 from the Satterberg Foundation to Seattle Public Schools for the 2022-2023 in 2023-2024 school year.

This item was discussed at the SSC&I committee meeting on April 26 and recommended to the board for approval.

I'd like to invite my colleague Michelle Toner to transition.

Sure.

Thank you Dr. Scarlett.

Before we get started I'd like to give a special thank you to Hongni Do who's the administrator who oversees this grant.

She's not only an outstanding colleague but she also is an SPS grad so.

Thank you for all your hard work.

Let's see.

So the Satterberg Foundation has provided this grant to Seattle Public Schools for the last five years.

It's typically renewed annually.

The approval of this BAR would provide funding for our administrator literacy coaches professional development and extra time for teachers and the resources and materials directly to the schools in years 6 and 7 of our partnership.

This grant started as Pathways Partnership between the Satterberg Foundation and the Nesholm Foundation for 10 elementary schools in Southeast and Southwest Seattle that feed into particular schools.

Aki Denny and Mercer Pathways.

The 10 elementary schools that benefit from this grant include Dunlap Emerson Hawthorne Graham Hill Martin Luther King Jr.

Concord International Highland Park Roxhill Sanislo and Rising Star.

The Satterberg Team of Literacy Coaches is a part of the Curriculum Assessment and Instruction Department.

However the majority of their time is spent directly in schools working alongside leaders and teachers to build instructional capacity and implement excellent literacy instruction in every classroom for every student.

The support and work of the Satterberg Literacy Coaches directly aligns with our priorities in Seattle Public Schools.

Let's see.

In our meeting with the Satterberg Foundation this spring we were able to reflect on the last five years of partnership and growth.

When the strategy was developed we did not predict the pandemic obviously.

And our conversation was open and honest about how we needed needed to pivot the work in order to support our schools over the last couple of years.

There was a request to kind of talk about some data so I'm going to do that real briefly and then I'll stand for questions okay.

So before the pandemic in spring 2019 data of the student student achievement data and growth at our Satterbrook schools showed an annual increase.

A couple of highlights include at Emerson Elementary fourth grade ELA proficiency on Smarter Balanced State Assessment increased 18 percentage points in one year.

At Martin Luther King Jr. in fifth grade ELA proficiency increased 22 percentage points in one year.

At Dunlap Elementary in 3rd grade ELA proficiency increased 22 percentage points in one year.

That's pretty remarkable.

This fall in 2021 we administered the Smarter Balanced assessment across our schools.

Similar to all Seattle Public Schools we saw a decrease across the board.

Compared to the spring of 2021 we saw a decrease in Seattle Public Schools of 5.4 percentage points.

At our Satterberg schools we had a 4.1 percent decrease.

That lets us know that we we are the good work that we did during the pandemic time is holding even but we did not see the gains of pre-pandemic time which is actually probably to be expected.

Outside of the SBA data points what else might we consider the evidence of impact of this work.

So we took a look at the fall 2021 student climate and culture surveys for third through fifth grade.

in the category of identifying and culturally responsive teaching practices.

So an average for Seattle Public Schools overall was 79 percent who answered favorably to that question.

And our 10 Satterberg schools it was a slightly higher at 81 percent.

So that lets us know that the work we're doing with our educators is actually having an impact.

So with that I'll pause there and stand for questions.

I would just say we're very very grateful to the Satterberg Foundation for their ongoing support of our work in our pathway schools in partnership with the National Foundation.

Indeed.

Thank you Ms. Toner and thank you Assistant Superintendent Scarlett.

Okay.

Do we have board directors have any questions on this item.

Going once going twice.

Director Rankin go first.

She's the community chair so.

Yeah.

Okay.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Thanks Director Rivera-Smith.

Yes.

And I have ample time to talk because apparently Director Hampson made much better traffic decisions than I did because I'm still weaving my way over there currently sitting again at a dead stop.

Anyway.

I just wanted to note my thanks and appreciation to staff for responding to the request for data.

It was important to me that we as a board are in accepting this grant potentially that we're able to understand how different grants that come into our district are impacting our students and if if they are or aren't helping us support students and support the district in meeting its goals.

And so you know as I I'm sure I said before we never want to say no to money that someone wants to give us in support of our students.

But something I particularly appreciate about the Satterberg grant is they really came to the district with how can we support the work that you're doing and improve outcomes.

You know a lot of grants come with expectations or direction given that are maybe in maybe not quite aligned with what the district wants to do but with with what the what the entity granting wants to see or thinks is the best best decision.

And so I really appreciate that with the Satterberg grant they're really coming alongside and saying how can how can we help you as an organization in meeting your goals in literacy.

And so that's really awesome.

I just wanted to highlight that.

And again thank you to staff for letting us see the impact of this grant specifically on our students and and in meeting our goals of Seattle Excellence.

So thanks.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Thank you.

And thank you Cashel for the information.

And we're all obviously very pleased and excited to hear improve student outcomes that the grant is providing our students in these schools.

I'm wondering then how do we replicate that at other schools considering other schools we don't have that grant to benefit from.

So.

Given so thank you for your question.

Given that this is the we're moving into our you know out years of this grant so six seven eight years into the partnership.

And given that this work really lived in the curriculum assessment and instruction team we were able to replicate some components of this work with our early literacy strategy and to support our third grade goal as a system.

And so that work has actually already been replicated.

You'll see some similarities there with teacher coaching demonstration lessons attention to culturally responsive practices.

culturally responsive texts are have been added to the Satterberg classrooms as then replicated inside of our early literacy partnership schools.

So that's that's there.

But the bottom line is those two strategies have actually had opportunity for enhanced funding.

And so in order to think about how do we replicate out we'd also need to consider additional funding.

Yeah.

No that's what I mean.

And I guess that's a bigger question than you could probably answer.

But yeah I'm wondering how do we how do we find that funding.

What does that mean.

And I guess obviously means it comes to our board to make those make those allocations and and or expect to see them at least.

But I think that's great to know that.

I mean that is something I guess I want us to have an eye on as we obviously are in this budget work and to see how when we have something that's working you know how do we make more of that happen for our students in our district.

So thank you.

Thank you Director Rivera-Smith.

We will now move on to Introduction Item Number 2. Amin Yellowwood Academy Contract for the 2021-22 school year.

This came through SSC&I on April 26 for approval.

President Hersey I believe that Dr. Pedroza might not yet be here to present this item.

If we could go to Number 3 that would be great.

Fantastic.

Thank you for the heads up.

All right we will now move to Introduction Item Number 3. Amendment of School Board Policy Number 2413 Equivalency Credit for Career and Technical Education Courses.

This came through SSC&I on April 26th for approval.

Please take it away.

Thank you Director Hersey.

Caleb Perkins Executive Director for College and Career Readiness here to present the Board Action Report amending Policy 2413 a small but important amendment around equivalency credit for career and technical education courses.

The amendment would add language to establish the district acceptance of any academic credit for any of the statewide equivalency courses offered.

This is a change required by law and ensures that we provide full access to CTE courses and the connection to other academic areas.

As high school students will now have the opportunity to meet standards in core subject areas such as math, English language arts, physical education, science through CTE courses.

This connects to prior board conversations around access to 24 credits and interest in providing additional flexibility.

As you'll see on the racial equity analysis it will be particularly helpful for our students of color furthest from educational justice as they pursue post-secondary readiness as well as on-time graduation.

Just as an example because there are many The equivalency framework includes, for example, a course that we currently teach, advanced manufacturing, that is aligned to science standards adequately.

So this requires us to give the student both a science credit and count towards the CTE credit as well.

This ultimately will strengthen our efforts to promote on-time graduation as well as help students explore and even prepare for in-demand careers.

If approved we'll work with staff to ensure that these courses are well communicated and that students have ultimate access to these opportunities going forward.

The SSC and I expressed support for this.

We're grateful for that support and with that we'll take your questions.

Thank you Dr. Perkins.

Do we have any directors that have questions on this item.

I am it's Director Rankin.

By all means take it away Liza.

Thank you.

Yeah this was this is such an exciting item and really important in both making CTE courses more more accessible for more students but also in improving the the opportunities that students have to earn required credits.

Director Hampson and I actually had the chance to see this in action yesterday.

We visited interagency the Columbia City location where one of our pilot outdoor courses was actually our first applicant during the pandemic which was welding.

And what's really exciting about this crediting change is so we got to see students weren't there at the time but They they were student projects were were including mathematics geometry physics into designing and then building or designing and then welding manufacturing a sphere that would displace you know a predicted amount of of water.

And that you know that's obviously very mathematical and and applied apply directly to those skills and so I just couldn't be more excited and just just by chance happened to get to see see it in action yesterday.

One thing I want to note that I asked about in committee that I'm glad to note is that this isn't another one of those things that students have to apply for or make sure that they qualify or check at their registrar that if if a class is eligible for these credits they'll be applied automatically.

So so that takes out.

one of those barriers that can sometimes come up and make this more challenging.

So thank you for the presentation and committee and just now and I'm really excited to get a chance to vote on this next week or next next week in two weeks.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Director Hampson.

Yes just briefly.

Mr. Perkins I just want to understand the the way that I read the policy now.

You do not have to come to the board for approval for each new course.

There is a team that evaluates that and as long as it's consistent with the state guidelines we're good to go for kids to get those that credit for that.

That's exactly right.

Okay fantastic.

Thank you.

And by the way there's a Sounders game in case anyone didn't.

Is that my problem.

Oh is that why the traffic is so bad.

All right.

Somebody tell the Sounders that they need to respect the school board.

All right.

We will now move on to Introduction Item Number 4. Adoption of the K-5 Math Instructional Materials.

This came through SSC&I on April 26 for approval.

Do we have a staff member who will be presenting this.

Ms. Tong.

It surprises me when you guys are a little bit ahead of schedule.

So congratulations.

Yeah go for it.

All right.

Good afternoon Dr. Keisha Scarlett again Assistant Superintendent of Academics.

I am so excited about our strategic plan goals for a number of reasons.

Our focus on early literacy middle school math and high school advanced coursework for college and career readiness are a great example of how with strategic guidance of our Office of African-American Middle Achievement we're focused on the education of all students across a developmental continuum.

The math goal that we have for middle school is a college and career readiness goal because college and career readiness really starts in pre-K.

for all of our students and all of our goals our college and career readiness goals.

Now you may recall that originally the strategic plan goal for math was a 5th and 7th grade goal.

We're grateful to you all as board directors and the previous directors who served who allowed us to have an aligned strategic plan goal for 7th grade and middle school for 7th grade middle school math as a starting place for our math goal.

We also thank you for your understanding and support of the allowance the allowance of this K-5 math adoption and the allowable use of ESSER funding to support this adoption.

The adoption of an aligned K-5 math curriculum is an important underpinning of our middle school math goal.

We're excited about how our focus on instructional practices in strategies, practitioner capacity, family engagement, and focus on skills fostered in our early literacy goal will drive successful outcomes for K-5 students in mathematics.

So I'd like to invite my colleague Michelle Toner to talk with her.

Thank you.

Thank you Dr. Scarlett.

Let's see.

So yep here we are back again.

I'm Cashel Toner Executive Director for Curriculum Assessment and Instruction.

And I'm joined tonight also by my colleague Alyssa Farmer.

She's our math lead.

Yeah someone cheered.

That's really nice.

She's our math lead for Seattle Public Schools.

And not only has she been working really hard to lift up the 7th grade math goal inside of our strategic plan.

She's also been leading a K-5 math adoption.

Now that's a lot at any time but to do that in the midst of a recovering from a pandemic is nothing short of remarkable.

So hats off to her and her team.

Huge thanks to you.

And huge thanks to the school board for about a year ago at this time giving us the green light to get going on this math adoption.

Okay now I'll get back to my notes.

All right so before we before I actually begin talking about the board action report I'd like to just think about how did we get here.

So about a year ago we came to the SSC&I committee and that was in May of 2021 to present about the current state of math in kindergarten through fifth grade in Seattle Public Schools.

The previously adopted materials were not aligned to standard and were out of print.

The numbers of math instructional waivers had increased to one third of our elementary classrooms.

Also we showed data demonstrating a steady decrease in math proficiency over third through fifth grade particularly for students of color furthest from educational justice.

It was clear that we needed a long-term solution.

So at that time we were given budget authorization to initiate the adoption process in June of 2021. School Board Policy 2015 outlines the SPS Instructional Materials adoption process which includes convening an adoption committee, developing selection criteria, developing a communications plan, and conducting a field test.

Our adoption committee was made up of a diverse group of SPS educators family and community members.

We made specific efforts to ensure that students with IEP's multilingual learners and students of color color furthest from educational justice were well represented.

The committee developed a selection criteria and categories and a multi-phase review process was carried out on the materials that were submitted to the in response to the request for proposals.

The committee selected three finalists, Reveal, I-Ready, and Envision to participate in the field test.

Educators, family, and community members had several avenues to provide input.

After a comprehensive evaluation of all of the data, Envision emerged as the top choice from the committee.

The Instructional Materials Committee provided oversight and gave required approval throughout the process.

And so now here we are today.

I'd like to highlight a few parts of the board action report.

First our recommendation is that the board authorize the superintendent to purchase Envision for kindergarten through fifth grade at about $4.8 million for the product and providing $3.4 million for implementation and required professional development.

These funds and materials would last and be sort of distributed over the nine year of the nine years of the adoption.

Next I'd like to describe our community engagement efforts which we developed in consultation with Stakeholder Engagement Department using the community engagement tool.

In addition to our typical process I want to share a few innovative efforts we made this time.

First we've been convening a cross-departmental steering team bi-weekly throughout the process.

This team represents many stakeholders across our system and central office including the Multilingual Department Advanced Learning Libertary Education Assessment Digital Learning and others.

This committee served to give feedback and input on the adoption process as it evolved.

Second we partnered with Seattle Public Libraries to have eight public viewing sites during the field test.

This provided more access by avoiding the strict protocols on visiting schools due to COVID.

Finally we ran in-person focus groups at three schools Madrona South Shore and Concord.

We partnered with schools to recruit families who were multilingual African-American and or receiving special education services.

We provided each family with an extended experience with each of the finalist materials and collected their feedback and their preferences.

All of our process was guided by policy 0030 racial equity and the results from our racial equity analysis tool.

We centered students of color furthest from educational justice when selecting our adoption committee members when selecting field test sites and when recruiting families for our focus groups.

Every family and community facing communication was available in our top five languages.

Our adoption committee included a category for culturally responsive instruction and culturally responsive social emotional learning.

to ensure that our materials that we recommend would help educate help educators foster positive identities for African-American boys and other students furthest from educational justice which is aligned with the goals of our strategic plan Seattle Excellence.

You may be wondering what exactly is Envision.

What are we proposing to purchase and what will students experience.

I'll briefly outline that for you now.

Envision is a fully digital and interactive instructional material and all resources are available online.

It is also designed to include physical materials for both educators and students.

The Envision instructional model emphasizes conceptual understanding procedural fluency and application through rigorous problem solving.

Students depend on develop conceptual understanding through problem-based learning and visual learning in each lesson.

Envision comes with a full suite of resources to help teachers document student learning and inform their instruction.

There are comprehensive differentiated resources to support students at a range of learning levels through personalized and adaptive learning.

Their language support handbook provides lesson level guidance to support students at different language levels of language acquisition.

And there are opportunities to engage in mathematical modeling with three act tasks to develop STEM literacy and career connections through each unit's STEM product STEM project called Pick a Project.

Let's see we've also come to SSC&I every month and given you a month-by-month update.

We'd like to give a special shout out to the SSC&I committee members for giving us their thoughtful feedback and engaging with staff to help actually improve the process of adoption.

Going out into community and going to resources was recommended recommendation from Director Harris so thank you for that.

And I would just end by saying this is a really exciting time for Seattle Public Schools especially at the elementary level because if this motion is successful next year in all Seattle Public Schools classrooms at the elementary level K-5 we will have recently adopted instructional materials for English language arts science STI and math.

That's a big deal.

And we thank you for that.

opportunity to update and refresh our instruction materials at the elementary level.

Okay that was kind of a bit of an overview.

If you have questions which you might we're ready to stand for those and give you additional information.

I think the BAR is 450 pages long so there's lots of information at your fingertips if you want to check that out.

The summary and the cover memo really do hit the highlights and the actual Board Action Report is about 16 pages.

Happy reading and we're happy to answer any of your questions.

Looking forward to the weekend reading on that.

So first we will go to Director Rankin.

Do you have anything that you would like to say in response to this report.

Thank you.

I'm I'm as I'm walking to the door I I just want to take a moment and celebrate and appreciate the work that has gone into this.

Because it is actually a really big deal to have this aligned curriculum to have buildings not have to purchase from their own budgets curriculum that meets their needs because the previously adopted one didn't.

To have curriculum available to veteran teachers brand new teachers ready to go.

And one thing that I wanted to note is you know there's a fear that when curriculum is is a standardized adoption happens that that means That that's the only thing that can be used and that everybody's expected to.

The fear is that there will become a time where everybody's on the same page and the same workbook on the same day.

And that's not what we need is this universal set of tools for our educators to be able to meet students where they are and to be able to bring their own knowledge and creativity in how they reach their students.

But having that foundational floor of common curriculum is so critical.

So that as students you know potentially switch schools you know come together at middle school from various schools there's sort of a commonality of of what what students have been provided and had access to.

So again thank you so so much for all the work that's been put into this especially during a pandemic.

The level of community engagement you were able to do in spite of not being able to host big gatherings was incredible.

And I will second the appreciation for Director Harris's suggestion about the libraries.

I thought that was really creative and and utilized it myself by visiting the library and getting to look at the materials.

So just a huge thank you and celebration for this coming to us.

Okay.

Thank you Director Rankin.

Any other questions.

I see Director Harris I'm just trying to see who else is in line.

All right we'll go to Director Harris and then Director Sommeritz and then we will move into public testimony.

Thank you and a special thanks to Assistant Superintendent Scarlett for thanking previous boards.

Some folks may not appreciate that curriculum adoption usually a five million dollar line item was the first to be chopped from the budget over several years.

Which results in any number of our curricula since we are an education institution being over 20 years overdue.

There are new countries.

There are new elements on the elemental chart.

It is embarrassing if not malpractice.

So huge thanks because quite frankly it wasn't an easy battle.

It was hard hard fought.

I'm also hugely appreciative and I don't want to repeat what Director Rankin said because I couldn't agree with her more.

Hello.

Good timing.

Indeed.

The patchwork of waivers has been a complete disaster as well for oh so many years and that has been corrected mostly and much appreciated for that.

And with respect to community engagement and using libraries you know a watch clock is right twice a day.

It only took six years.

But hugely hugely appreciative because frankly it was embarrassing to be sitting here with those issues outstanding.

And hallelujah I hope that the math wars are over.

Director Summers.

I would like to just echo what some of my colleagues have said and just really commend this team on an incredible process.

I really think this is an excellent model for all of us with the way that you have shared information and brought in somebody who is new to school board work and I feel really great about this curriculum.

This bar is very long and I have been slowly making my way through it.

And since we last talked I do have some additional questions.

So my first question is around addition.

So we know with math in focus it looks like after seven years it became they decided they were no longer going to keep it up to date.

I noticed that this contract is for nine years.

Do you have any concerns around the same thing happening to us again basically.

Oh, that's an excellent question.

So I'll start it off, and then Alyssa, if you have additional information around the purchasing and contract agreement language, we can try to do that tonight but we might we might also need to get back to.

But my first thought in in in response to that is now we are in a digitized age.

Right.

A while ago it would be like oh my there is a digital component of this instructional material.

We might have some concerns about that.

Developmentally we would spend a lot of time talking that through.

But now we all understand that we are in a digitized environment.

Now of course we pay attention to developmental stages and that's why I made sure to talk about you know the concrete manipulatives that are also involved in this purchase.

And we also have let's just talk about teacher instructional resources.

We will be purchasing in two forms.

One the actual hard copy of the teacher resource guide but then also the online versions so that teachers can have access to you know those resources in whichever mode they would prefer.

That also lends us to being able to participate in much more of a tighter continuous improvement cycle right.

So if you notice something inside of the instructional material we give that feedback to the publishers.

Because it's a digitized portal those updates are much easier to take care of rather than just you know like a reprint of something.

So that's my initial thinking about that.

Alyssa do you have something to add.

Sure.

Thank you directors.

I'm for having us here.

I'm Alyssa Farmer and we did ask about that in our request for proposal.

And the vendor says that prices will be held for nine years for the life of the adoption.

You can see this in attachment A page 58 of the extensively long BAR and that they will honor stated prices for future service and product needs.

And we're paying up front for the whole nine years.

So we if their prices increase we've already paid at this this year's price.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Around I see the BAR includes 3.4 million dollars for professional development but the vendor cost is just 175,000.

And I'm wondering if you could just shed some light on how that money will be spent.

Sure.

I'd be happy to talk about that.

So one of the advantages of having a school board adopted instructional material is that then the professional development is required for our educators.

And what we've learned over time is that it doesn't work so well with adult learning theory to do everything in the first year.

Right?

What you want to do is think about what are the things you need to know in order to utilize the material and then what does the learning pathway look like over maybe the next three, four years, right?

At the same time, we have a capacity building strategy for our math team.

Right now we need to partner with our vendor with Envision folks to help us lead that professional development but as our team gets a little bit stronger in understanding those instructional materials we then can take on leading the professional development in those out years.

Some of those costs are intended for teacher extra time right because it is a required training then we need to you know pay our educators which makes great sense.

And then also potentially maybe some classroom release time so that teachers can go and see other teachers you know demonstrating the instruction materials.

One of the huge advantages of this selection is that of the schools that had waivers for using a different instruction material most of them were using Envision.

So that means that inside of SPS we actually have a little teaching group that has been using this instruction material.

And our math team has been in touch with those teachers already to ask them what are lessons learned.

What would you what did you wish you knew.

What did you know how should we approach designing the learning for the rest of the system.

I hope that helps answer your question.

Already live.

Okay cool.

I actually have a couple of questions because I'm super excited about this.

As a former second grade teacher updated math curriculum could not be a better investment especially at this time with an online component.

One question that I have and forgive me if this was mentioned if I was in the restroom.

Could you talk a little bit about the parent learning component.

Is there an opportunity for parents to engage online.

Will there be opportunities for them to go beyond just being exposed to the curriculum but also be given some of the tools to support their children at home.

Sure, I'll talk at a system level and then I'll invite Alyssa to come up and talk about some of the actually really interesting features that are included in this material.

Sounds great.

So first of all, remember that cross departmental team we were talking to you all about that's been meeting every other week thinking about, you know, family engagement, thinking about you know students with special education needs and kind of making sure that our system considers all of our children when we were making this decision.

Well that team's come up with some pretty interesting recommendations about system expectations for family engagement with this shift.

So one of those would be you know partnering with our communications team to do some feature stories so that families aren't surprised by this change when this does happen in the fall.

Another one is thinking about what would be system-wide recommendations for at the school level family engagement practices.

Right.

So I'm not exactly sure what those recommendations will be so far but we are thinking and considering about how do we set some system-wide goals around family engagement.

Now with particular mechanisms inside the instructional material I'll turn it over to Alyssa so she can talk to you about some of those.

Let me mention a few different components of family engagement that are included with the materials.

First of all every unit comes with a family letter that comes in English and Spanish and that has explains the ideas that are being learned in the unit as well as providing suggested at-home activities.

Every lesson has a video that explains the content of the lesson that students can access at home through the digital platform.

They also have a family-facing platform but I'm not remembering the name of it right now but I can find out more information.

There are family resources available online as well.

And then finally the vendors will do some family events with us in the first year to help families learn more about the the features in the in the instructional materials.

And then I would just add another component is as we plan our professional development we are including members of the stakeholder engagement committee or not committee departments so that that we are thinking about our family engagement recommendations in our professional development.

Fantastic thank you.

I've got a couple of more follow-up questions.

So I heard you say that they're going to be available in English and Spanish.

We're going to go the extra mile and translate those into as many languages as possible.

I would imagine it's a one-time cost and then we'll have those on file forever but wanted to get some clarity on what y'all's plans are.

That's a great suggestion.

I will say that.

Okay.

We need to settle our final cost.

Sure.

And figure out what our professional development plan is.

And then of course if we can you know move forward in translations for that would that would be best practice.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I'm glad to see that that is on your radar.

Last question.

Given that it's a digital platform and we have had some serious access issues that have been highlighted by the pandemic.

Have there been any conversations around how we can mitigate those barriers and what we are prepared to do?

I know that we have moved one-to-one devices, but internet access, the ability to, you know, access it on a regular basis, I worry that it could potentially create an equity issue, and so just wanted to see if that's been a topic of discussion.

Yep, thank you for that feedback.

Again, on that cross departmental team, we've had the DOTS team, the digital, the experts in that space and have been making, made sure throughout our process that whatever we select actually works with all of our digital portals.

Great.

Right, so that's a big deal.

And then some of the family resources that Alyssa was talking about, you know, if you're a parent trying to help your child with math, there's like a QR code that you can use your cell phone to scan it and then see a demonstration lesson on your phone.

And what we learned from the pandemic is that most families do have do have access to some sort of digital portal.

Well it's not everybody so we'll have to think about how to solve for that.

But that that's a really nice feature.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Very excited.

Thank you for the hard work and thank you to all of the families and the various departments that engaged in this.

It looks like it's going to be really transformative for our students.

Director Sargent do you have.

Okay we're on the same wavelength.

All right.

Any other questions from directors before we move to public comment.

Yeah follow me.

One more question.

So I think in other curriculum adoptions this has come up but when I was looking at that spreadsheet of materials some of the items were zeroed out.

Do we have confidence that this purchase we are getting all the components that we need.

So we're approaching this purchase as a Tier 1 purchase.

And so that that means that the what we're purchasing is intended to meet the needs of about 80 percent of our students.

We understand that.

This purchase also inside of that Tier 1 material has a differentiation component.

Right.

So what steps might teachers and educators take before you know getting into the Tier 2 space.

We potentially would like to explore what might the resources look like inside of that Tier 2 space that would be aligned to the Tier 1 instructional material.

That those resources are not included in this purchase but that is something we're aligning that we're exploring particularly for the alignment advantage that that gives us and we've learned that really from our ELA instructional material where we have a core material and then an aligned Tier 2

material as well.

Just out of curiosity why wouldn't we purchase that now or wouldn't we have that as part of this overall purchase to do Tier 2 and then I assume there's a Tier 3 as well.

I think well that would be a best case scenario.

Working through our process we've learned a couple of things along the way that we might want to From the outset of the purchasing process you have to be really clear about what it is you're intending to purchase.

Right.

You have to kind of name that and there are all kinds of purchasing roles that are not my expertise.

But you have to be really clear about what you want to purchase.

And given the resource allocation that we were thinking about from the beginning of this project it really did make sense to focus on the Tier 1. In future out years if that's something we want to consider which would be a more you know progressive practice when exploring a new instructional material then we would have to have an interplay there with budget as well to think about what we want to review and purchase from the beginning of the purchasing process.

So if you follow me.

Yes and no.

I think it was we didn't start off with that in mind with that intent is what you're saying.

Yeah our budget allocation was our general practice for our Tier 1 purchase and so we were working within that those parameters from the beginning.

Yeah I'm wondering is that is it do you believe that it would be substantive addition in terms of the percent extra cost associated with Tier 2 or that it would actually take a whole separate engagement process just to look at that tier 2 or tier 3 support pieces of that.

I'd be happy to do a little bit of research about that between and and share that information with you.

I need to consult with the purchasing folks because once you go down a down a path with them then you have to be really careful about what those negotiations look like and pricing and all that kind of thing.

I could do some do a little bit more work on that and report back.

Yeah I think just I mean the reason I'm I think it's a great question that Director Slungret's had and that when we think about it in terms of centering students furthest from educational justice kind of replaying the tape could we have started off with Tier 3 and Tier 2 needs and then move to the the other needs.

And I'm sure that's not how the companies present.

I mean these are.

These are large companies that provide these materials and that's one set of analysis that we haven't really talked about.

I don't know that it's it's worth a lot of airtime because they come and you know Yeah, a set of five flavors, basically, in terms of corporate curriculum providers.

But I think it's still, given a question that I had asked in our two by twos that you tried hard to answer around making sure that we have open dialogue with the curriculum providers so that we can have conversations with them about racially biased culturally unresponsive curriculum or even damaging curriculum that we have the opportunity to provide that feedback.

It this kind of falls into that that same category of wanting to make sure that there's a solid enough relationship there as a part of this contract.

Nine years is a long time.

And so we're getting hitched and are we going to be able to provide that feedback to the I sound like Director Harris now.

So yeah I'm just curious if we can you know push on them a little bit with that and and then also with the the Tier 2 and the Tier 3. You talked about differentiation and I assume it's kind of baked into that to the extent but what is their assumption about that and then what is our assumption going into this and what are our expectations.

So thank you very much and I could not be more excited.

I feel I'm yay math.

As I told you my hope is that Five years from now you know we have 70 percent fewer people saying you know I hate math or I'm not good at math or you know in our buildings because we have a lot more cohesiveness and support for math instruction started in K-5.

Thank you very much.

Wonderful conversation.

Okay.

We have now reached the public testimony portion.

I'm sorry Director Rivera-Smith.

It's okay.

Cashel's gone.

I can ask her later.

I don't see her at least.

Oh.

I'm here.

I'm here.

Yeah.

I'm happy to answer a question if I can.

Well that's okay.

I was just curious how this it's like you know I appreciate that this let me turn my camera on jeez.

There we go.

Hi.

I appreciate that this you know the selection was really great criteria.

And you know rigorous anti-bias screening process you used and culturally responsive pedagogy.

How is this then for our dual-language schools you know how how is this a good pick for them.

I know we talked a little bit about translation already.

I know that's been an issue in the past with curriculums that we weren't allowed to translate them.

And then there's always a question is where does that money come from to pay our teachers who then do the translation.

What can you tell us about that.

Thank you for your question.

So I believe you're asking.

So I hear that this instructional material comes in English and Spanish from the beginning.

What's the plan to support our dual-language schools and how are you thinking about that.

So in the past we did have a little snafu about that because some some publishers did actually didn't allow us to translate their instructional materials.

We did add that into our request for proposal at the outset.

So in that purchasing process we set that expectation from the beginning.

And then Alyssa has been working with our lead of our dual language programs to think about what would work best to set up educators who are you know teaching in different languages in Seattle schools.

Our initial thinking is to pull groups of teachers together as soon as we get board approval for the purchase to begin translating and then sort of crowdsource that across the district to make sure make those resources available to other schools where there's a language match.

We've built in funding to you know pay educators inside of this overall budget request.

That sounds really great.

Thank you so much.

No further questions.

Thank you Director Rivera-Smith.

Okay any other questions.

All right.

We have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda but it isn't actually that is not the right part.

We will next go to public testimony.

We will be taking public testimony in person and by teleconference today as stated on the agenda.

For any speakers watching through SPS-TV please call in now to ensure that you are on the phone line when your name is called.

Board Procedure 1430BP provides the rules for public testimony and I ask that speakers are respectful to 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 or step forward to the podium.

and only one person should speak at a time.

Speakers from the list may cede their time to another person when the list of speakers name is called.

The total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for the combined number of speakers and the time will not be restarted after a 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 their time to a later speaker on the testimony list or waiting list, The person to whom time was ceded will not be called to provide testimony again later in the meeting as there is only one speaking slot per person.

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

Do I really sound like that?

That's crazy.

Finally the majority of speakers time should be spent on the topic.

Come on now.

should be speak on the topic that they have indicated that they wish to speak about.

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

Thank you President Hersey.

For those who are on the phone today when you hear a name called please press star-6 to unmute.

If you're here in person when you hear your name simply walk up to the podium.

You will hear a beep today when your time has been exhausted.

The first speaker on today's list is Chi Tansoni.

It's time for a change.

Hi my name is Chayton and I'm a sophomore at Lincoln High School and a member of the Superintendent Student Advisory Board.

To start off I'd like to thank Dr. Brent Jones and the rest of the school board for hosting this important testimony.

I'm testifying in support of School Board Report 3208. Students have been told to go to someone if they've been sexually harassed or assaulted.

How are they supposed to do that when over 50 percent of students don't know where to find support.

In school, we were taught that it was innocent until proven guilty, but we as a society have created a culture where sexual assault victims are guilty until proven innocent, where sexual assault victims receive nothing near the benefit of the doubt that their abusers do, and where sexual assault victims are shamed and threatened with punishment for sharing their stories.

This policy is one step towards a greater goal of creating an SPS where victims feel safe and supported.

Some amazing elements of this policy are that it includes an annual review with students and other stakeholders and that it added an investigation response and review section to ensure more accountability.

This amendment however is not flawless.

For one thing it lacks clarity.

Adding examples of specific quote appropriate steps for discipline around sexual assault or harassment would not only give district designees more guidance on dealing with these issues but it would also give students the peace of mind that abusers receive punishment.

Nevertheless this has been years in the making by students staff community members and district officials.

One senior when asked about how SPS responds to sexual assault said quote, literally to this point I didn't know that was a thing.

I didn't know we had rights.

Listen to that again.

I didn't know we had rights.

This is where the district has failed students.

Myself and a group of student organizers known as Lincoln Students Against Sexual Harassment and Assault hosted a walkout last Friday in support of victims at Lincoln High School and in support of these measures in the amended 3208 board policy.

Over 300 students came.

At the walkout I promised to protect victims like me who are ignored by the system.

That system begins and today.

It's time for action.

It's time for a change.

And it's time to pass the renaming and amendment of board policy number 3208. Thank you.

The next speaker is Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins.

Box 84063 Seattle 98124. Mount Rainier Beach High School.

Please do not demolish and replace the school.

The original plan was to renovate and modernize.

On the minutes of the April 20th board meeting, five points.

Number one, on April 20th I spoke about the board's April 6th vote to approve the closure of three instructional program sites for interagency academy school.

Number two, the closure process had not followed board policy and state law.

Number three, the vote and the failure to fix it makes all board members liable for malfeasance and or misfeasance.

Number four the improper closure action deprived families of their rights under state law including required formal hearings.

Number five the impacted students are 73.9 percent students of color furthest from educational justice and 24.7 percent African-American males.

Unless shy the action would transfer $500,000 to the project because of unanticipated ADA ramps.

Why was this unanticipated.

On the K-5 math adoption two points.

Number one drop the expensive online costs that increase screen time and reduce human teacher time.

Number two concentrate on physical books the students can take home.

Please vote no.

On Hazel Wolf K-8 a school named for a famous environmentalist replaced an existing natural grass field with synthetic turf.

Please vote no.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Janice White.

Janice White.

Good afternoon.

With respect to Policy 3208 the Seattle Special Education PTSA continues to be concerned that it does not refer to students with disabilities.

We want to emphasize the data we presented at the last school board meeting.

showing that people with disabilities especially intellectual disabilities are at significantly higher risk of being sexually assaulted or harassed.

To ensure accountability when procedures are written we believe it is important that the policy specifically refer to disabled students particularly their need for support if they are sexually harassed and their need for sexual health education.

Regarding the transportation service standards we ask you to consider the following when they are reintroduced.

For students who use school bus transportation their school day starts when they step on the bus in the morning.

Most students with disabilities do not need to be in separate buses apart from their non-disabled peers.

Even if that statement is aspirational right now adding it to the transportation service standards would demonstrate the school board's commitment to developing a more inclusive school system.

And we believe it's likely that when you study the financial impact You will find that moving towards an inclusive transportation system will save money.

We're also concerned that we have not heard anyone address the fact that students with disabilities will be disproportionately impacted if there are bell time changes.

Many disabled students are bused to a school other than their neighborhood school because the neighborhood school does not have the special education program they have been assigned to.

The bell time changes will have a disproportionate impact on these students.

It will also impact the ability of students with disabilities to participate in learning.

For example the learning benefits for a student who takes medication for ADHD or anxiety and is assigned to a 930 a.m.

start time may be drastically reduced during the school day.

A neurodiverse student who has a two hour morning routine to manage their transition into the school day and is assigned to a 730 a.m.

start time may have great difficulty with a 630 a.m.

bus pickup.

These are just a few examples that illustrate the larger point.

With any significant change such as bell times we expect the district to address how it is explicitly considering the impacts on students with disabilities.

Thank you very much.

Next speaker is Manuela Slay.

Manuela Slay.

Buenas tardes good afternoon.

My name is Manuela Sly.

I'm a proud parent of a senior student at West Seattle High School and also a board member of Seattle Council PTSA.

There's nothing I can say about bell times that has not been said by community already.

So today I will only say this.

School district and board must uphold the principles of our strategic plan and conduct community engagement in an authentic inclusive deep timely and intentional way.

Now regarding policy 3208 renaming and updating the policy is the first step.

So thank you very much for the work that you're doing on this.

However implementation will be the critical part to ensure students are safe in our schools.

Please center the voices of our students whether they are brought to you by student rallies like they did recently at Lincoln High School letters or school board testimony.

We expect you to make student-centered decisions because at the end of the day that's what you were elected to do.

On behalf of the Rainier Valley Elementary no Rainier View Elementary community I want to thank School Board President Director Hersey for showing up and listening to and engaging with the District 7 community and for elevating the voices of the Rainier View families as they navigate the allegations of sexual misconduct of a recent employee and the impact it's having in their ELL and special special education families and community.

Also thank you Associate Superintendent Dr. Pedroza for coming through and making a commitment to the school community to provide a space to come together access support and ensure that discussions are related that are related to sexual assault are not silenced but treated with care.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

I love you all guys.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I want to speak about something that I see for 35 years that I live in Seattle.

The situation is very strange to me because sexual harassment, what I see right now in Seattle, is so unique.

From my understanding, I have experience with this problem for many years.

It's not an analogy, not in America.

Not in all planet.

You know what this means.

Seattle is a best of the best with harassment.

Can I give you a couple example?

Example number one is a six woman here.

Yeah, why is it woman domination?

Sorry, no problem.

Why six woman in?

Seattle Council Chamber.

Another domination.

This asexual harassment, but this OK with me.

You know what does mean?

Like gentlemen, I respect blonde for all my life.

Problem right now, so when you woman who sit in here and sit in console, you know what this mean?

Very aggressive.

When you have different opinion, they cut you.

This exactly happened for last ever couple of weeks.

I have dozen trespassers, maybe a hundred, but it's not a point.

Right now, Seattle newspaper talking about this.

When you have different opinions, it does not mean you have a harassment woman.

No.

Women's brains work totally different than men's brains.

Everybody knows this.

For the last 10,000 years, nothing changed.

It's not my opinion.

It's a professional psychology doctor's opinion.

So how can we change the situation when they bring us to total collapse?

Why?

because they brain work differently.

Many women, it's not my opinion too, don't know what is mean logic and common sense.

In business, it's very important.

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Emily Carmichael.

Emily Carmichael.

Hi everyone.

Yep.

How's that.

Good.

Okay.

All right.

Ready to go.

Thank you for hearing my testimony today.

I'm Emily Carmichael I'm a parent of three Seattle Public Schools students 6th grade 3rd grade and kindergarten.

This is about bell times.

The proposed bell times would cause hardship for my family in terms of child care loss of sleep for my younger children and more.

But what I really want to say is that the current proposed systems for busing present many opportunities for improvement.

First SPS should ask eligible riders whether or not they plan to take advantage of busing allowing the district to consolidate and perhaps even eliminate some routes.

In fiscal year 2019 the average daily ridership was 8,817 students but SPS budgeted for 16,228 riders.

Have students opt in via the source an already existing mechanism.

Two, SPS could adopt staggered start times for schools geographically close to each other in order to maximize efficiency of routes and drivers.

Three, driver shortages are driving, pun intended, this change.

Are we sure that come fall 2022 there will still be this much of a shortage?

Wages have increased for drivers and there is also the option to relax the vaccine mandate as has been done for unionized SPS staff.

Four, The district recently hired an active transport coordinator who could enroll SPS in King County School Pool Program allowing for coordination among families where busing is not desired or not working well.

Five the district could provide all secondary students with order cards and eliminate certain routes when possible for eligible students.

Overall streamlining streamlining bus service seems that it could go a long way towards improving efficiency and perhaps eliminating the need for three tiers.

The manner in which this This proposal has been presented as is unacceptable.

It's too late in the school year to reasonably make this change for next year.

I suggest that the district keep the current start times for next school year and conduct a robust feasibility study with full opportunities for community feedback to determine whether or not changes are warranted for 2023-24.

And I also just want to say thank you so much for your service.

I know it's not easy to be school board directors and I know many of you personally and I'm just so thankful that you're there.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Arielle Meiling.

Hi Ariel Mealing.

I am a kindergartener a parent of a kindergartener receiving a stellar education at Dearborn Park Elementary School.

A school proposed to get a 930 start time.

I'm also thankful for the aftercare provided provided by Dragon's Den there as it allows me to work and for my partner to work.

I've spoken to other families who are also receiving child care there and to our director in preparation for this and I'm hoping to just give you a vision of the specific challenge for child care providers and for families receiving child care.

Census data shows that at our school 70 percent of parents leave for school a half hour or before the new proposed start time.

Many families in addition to the ones already receiving aftercare are likely to need before care.

I'm sad to hear that the district did not reach out before April 21st to our childcare provider, Sound Child, who runs Dragon's Den.

They may have learned that this may cause Dragon's Den to have to close.

They have a hard time finding childcare providers as is, and a split time with an hour and a half in the morning, an hour and a half in the afternoon might just be too much for them to be able to provide adequate staff.

This would be killer for families who are receiving care because there is not another child care provider anywhere in the area who will provide transportation to or from and there is not a child care provider that can be accessed by the bus system as is.

I know while I was on the waitlist I looked.

I also to to reiterate what was heard by our director.

I think we may be trading a bus driver shortage for a child care provider shortage and our child care providers were integral in providing what we needed to get through the pandemic and I hope that their efforts there will be acknowledged.

People rely on what the board does what the school district does for certainty in their lives and certainty provides opportunity.

I hope you will take that into consideration as you review this as you review this manner.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Sharon Peasley.

Sharon Peasley.

We can hear you.

Okay thank you.

Yes this is Sharon Peasley former school board director and current teacher at Ingram High School.

I'm about to read a letter to you from myself and Kay Smith-Blum who was also on the school board.

As former Seattle School Board directors we were involved with the initiative to change school start times in 2014. We urge you to vote against the staff proposal of busing in three tiers and stay with the current two-tier start times which are far more optimum for students and families.

There's a much better way to address the needs of transportation companies to recruit and retain enough drivers to meet the needs of Seattle Public Schools.

And I'm going to propose this below.

So the two tiers of 2014 were arrived at after extensive community engagement and in consideration of the undisputed research around sleep needs for children and teens.

We considered three tiers and ruled it out because Tier 1 is too early and Tier 3 is too late.

You are probably receiving input to that effect and it's correct.

A 730 start time for elementary schools means young children are walking to school in the dark.

A 930 start time for K-8 means elementary students are missing out on early hours of school when their brains are more alert and are in school during late afternoon hours when their brains are less alert.

It also places the burden on working parents to find and pay for child care until 930 a.m.

This is particularly burdensome for lower income families and becomes a serious equity issue.

A more equitable and creative solution is to offer bus drivers employment at schools during the middle of the school day.

This would make it possible to recruit and retain enough full-time drivers to meet the transportation needs of Seattle Public Schools.

These middle-of-the-day jobs could include playground supervisors cafeteria support maintenance landscaping or custodial services.

This would be a win for transportation workers and SPS in staffing what are surely hard to fill positions district-wide.

Any necessary negotiations around this as well as parking a provider's bus on school grounds should be far easier than disrupting the schedules of 175,000 and more community members including parents students teachers staff etc.

Please do not roll back ground very groundbreaking student-centered legislation because this action will disrupt families students and schools unnecessarily.

There are better remedies that should be considered and implemented.

Thank you.

I understand that Rebecca could not be here tonight so the next speaker is Mary Ellen Russell.

Mary Ellen Russell.

Hi can.

Hi can you hear me.

Hi.

We can hear you.

Okay great.

Thank you.

I want to start by saying that I deeply appreciate the difficult volunteer work that you on the board all do.

As a parent and a member of the School Traffic Safety Committee I'm very concerned to see that SPS is on the verge of signing another multi-year busing contract with First Student.

Recently the Seattle Times reported that Washington state regulators found more than 600 safety and procedural violations by First Student in the past two years.

Dozens of which persisted for years after company officials were warned of the infractions.

First student repeatedly failed to screen drivers for drugs and alcohol provided false information on driver records and allowed some vehicles to continue running even when seats were not securely attached.

This year as SPS initiates a new bus contract they have the opportunity to do better by students.

Zoom a minority and woman owned company has also bid on the bus contract.

Zoom uses GPS locators to provide an app with real time bus information to SPS and families.

Zoom is also aligned with SPS's sustainability goals starting out carbon neutral and transitioning to 100 percent electric vehicles in five years.

This year Zoom partnered with SPS to provide transportation for students with special needs.

Multiple families have told me that their experience with Zoom this year has been outstanding.

The choice between a provider with a record of safety violations and a provider with a record of excellent service seems clear.

And yet this winter when the state downgraded 1st student safety rating SPS chose to cancel its bus RFP and reissue a new RFP later in the spring giving first student time to settle the safety violations with the state.

I am asking you the board members to insist that SPS staff provide transparency on why first student was given a second chance at the transportation contract and to demand to demand that bus RFP scoring is done in a fair and transparent manner that centers student safety.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Robert.

Robert Crookshank.

Robert Crookshank.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Robert Crookshank a parent of one second grader in Seattle Public Schools and I wish I could be there in person tonight.

The current bell times are the product of at least three years of work that centered students their needs and how they learn.

By contrast we the public have had just two weeks to consider the sweeping change to bell times.

The current proposal as it stands centers administrators and the needs of the bus company.

While the board's decision to take this off of tonight's agenda was wise and I appreciate the superintendent's comment earlier in the meeting that they're going to slow down it would be unwise to move ahead at all with such a massive disruption without proper community engagement and better research.

And it's not going to be possible to do that work effectively before the budget must be approved in July.

The district needs to hear from families in every part of the city especially Central and South Seattle.

They need to take direction from pediatricians and experts in child health need to hear from child care providers other transportation agencies and bring a range of options to the public for us to consider rather than just put forward one one option alone in advance.

You can't do that in just a few short weeks.

In community meetings several of you have had in recent days you've heard directly from families about the problems the 3-3 proposal will cause.

Just one example you heard only a few minutes ago that the proposal could cause child care programs to close.

And you've seen the results of a public survey showing a strong desire for the board to reject this change to bell times even among the families whose bus routes have been suspended.

Now we know that survey and those meetings are far from a complete picture of what the public thinks and needs.

But they do provide more data and insight than any public engagement the district staff has conducted to date.

And they're full of red flags that should convince you to hit the brakes.

I don't have the right answers so the permanent solution is here.

Right now nobody does.

That work has not been done.

The public has not been properly engaged.

Given those circumstances it would be inappropriate to feed to proceed with changes to bell times for the upcoming school year.

Leave things as they are for now.

Direct the staff to do a better complete thorough analysis over the next 8 to 12 months that centers family engagement rather than neglecting it.

Finally this decision is the board's to make as it has been in the past.

You should reject any proposal to take away your responsibility to decide Beltime.

A school board is a crucial part of our democracy.

School board must never become a rubber stamp.

State law gives you the power and you the authority over Beltime.

Please don't give that away.

The voters did not elect you to do that.

Make the final call.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Christine Highlander.

Christine Highlander.

Christine if you're on the phone please press star-6 to unmute.

Christine Highlander.

Moving to the next speaker Laura Marie.

Laura Marie Rivera.

Hi.

Can you hear me.

We can hear you.

Hi.

Are you there.

Yes we can hear you.

Thank you.

My name is Laura Murphy Rivera and I am the very proud mom of four Seattle Public School students.

I know there are a lot of parents in this meeting and I'm sure you're all aware that it can be hectic parenting multiple children and planning logistics for a large family.

Obviously it takes a lot more thought and effort to scale that up to 50,000 students.

And sometimes what one student needs is not the same as what the other students need.

But all of these students need to be taken into consideration.

When the district looks to save $5 million on buses they are costing families even more than that in child care.

When they look to resume the 50 remaining bus routes and get kids to school on time they are costing other families hours of sleep after-school activities and commute time.

So how do they reach the equitable solution and get kids to school on time and at a reasonable hour.

Our district and our school board are tasked with questions like this all the time and this time I'm so grateful to our community for showing up and speaking out and getting involved.

I hope that our broader community can continue to be engaged and work in collaboration with our school board and Seattle Public Schools.

We all know how waking up an hour early or waiting an extra hour or two to start our day affects our individual lives.

And I think it's safe to say that we're all thinking about how those changes affect the long-term health and education of our students.

Thank you to the board for taking a beat to consider how these changes affect all of our students and the surrounding community.

And thank you to the board for all of the other thought and care that is going into the rest of the business of the district.

Just a friendly reminder for those of us in the meeting and those of us following along online.

Our Seattle School Board directors are volunteers volunteers.

They have dedicated hours this week this month and this year I don't agree with all of their decisions but I applaud them for showing up and hope that they'll continue to listen to more voices throughout the district.

And I hope that our communities will remain engaged and consider supporting legislation that will offer compensation for the work of the school board in the future.

And perhaps just perhaps we need to listen to more woman brains in the future.

Thanks.

The next speaker is Rylee Larson.

Rylee Larson.

Rylee Larson if you're on the phone please press star-6 to unmute.

Moving to the next speaker Dana Barnett.

Dana Barnett.

Press star-6 if you're on the line.

Moving to the next speaker Janelle Lartizabal.

Janelle Lartizabal.

Janelle Lartizabal.

Moving to the next speaker.

Sabrina Burr.

Sabrina Burr please press star-6 to unmute.

Hello.

We can hear you.

Can you hear me.

We can hear you Sebrena.

Great.

Thank you.

Good evening everyone.

Superintendent Jones and our school board directors.

First of all I do want to take a pause and just give some gratitude and thank you for what you do.

It's not easy and no matter what decision you make somebody is not going to be happy.

Tonight I really want us to take some time to really think about how we engage as a district.

I know we're building our communication and our engagement and I appreciate some of the work that's happened and I understand some of the areas where we could have improved is because of the lack of knowledge and memory that's in our communications area and that that's being built.

But we once had in communication where we let people know how we were communicating and I don't know if I can remember them correctly but I think one was inform one was to engage and one was more collaboration.

And I think when decisions are being made we need to be clear.

I think we also need to be clear when we talk about engagement that people know who's responsible for what and who's responsible for the decision.

And that when things come up especially like two of the strong topics that we need to face right now busing and the sexual harassment we need to be able to have at a granular level what our families need to hear and know.

One thing I have learned from the John Muir experience back when I was Seattle Council President some of our second languages how we talk about sexual harassment some of those words don't transfer over.

So what are we doing as a district when we talk about engagement to even give families tools to talk to children about subjects of what's going on.

Because we have the expertise and we have the knowledge but are we reaching out to those families and the way that they communicate.

We can't do this one one all and we need to use our levels of communication.

We need to reach out to our different communities of how we communicate.

And we really need to sit down and really define what authentic engagement looks like at every single level so that everyone's on the same page and that we have a playbook.

Because a lot of what we go through it's predictable of who needs to be informed and all of that.

And if we don't have that it's going to look different all over from building to building and it shouldn't be that way.

And it shouldn't be hard on our building leaders and our teachers.

and the people who really support what we do as a district.

And we have a disconnect.

And I think we have an opportunity to really take a look and really define it.

Superintendent Beverly Red associate Superintendent Beverly Redmond is not from Seattle.

And if we want stronger communication around her Seattle's different.

We have to be true about.

how we are and we're not like anybody else in the country how we communicate what we need and how we advocate.

And we need to work with her to give her the tools that she needs so that we can make sure that we're communicating with our families our schools and our teachers the way that we need to.

And we need to start reaching out to our teachers in these decisions that we're making.

I know we work with SEA.

I know we have a strong and great relationship.

with our SEA leadership but how often do we sit down and talk to teachers.

We had a superintendent listening session but we didn't have a space for teachers.

And one thing I know about doing the engagement to update the standards for national PTA our teachers have a lot to say.

I sat in on that session with our Seattle teachers for national PTA and when we do not listen to what teachers need have to know what we share what they know especially about engagement we're missing it and it should be coming from the pipeline to the classroom up to the superintendent and bagged down with no clogs.

But so often our building leaders are attached detached from what's going on in central office and I'm going to wrap here.

But what I want to say is this is an opportunity.

We're doing some great things.

I appreciate the listening session.

I believe it was last night.

Great job to all the staff that were there.

But we really need to we'll stop having what what's going on if we really are clear on what engagement what those levels are.

Who's responsible for what.

And we'll get a lot farther and we'll we'll stop spending so much time answering e-mails and that type of thing and having negative energy.

We need to come together as adults figure out how we need to engage who needs to know what.

When we talk about those furthest from educational justice We need to make sure that we're truly communicating with them in a way they need to be communicated.

And remember for some of our parents the only people they communicate with is our school teachers.

We're not leveraging all of our advantages.

So thanks for what you do but we can do better and let's get together and collaborate and figure out what that looks like so we can communicate with all of our families.

The next speaker is Nicholas R. Barrett.

Nicholas R. Barrett.

Hi this is.

We can.

Hi this is Nick Barrett.

This is a.

I'm a provider of bus routes for Seattle Public Schools.

I encourage everyone listening to do their own research and learn more about the problems First Student has had over the last 5 6 7 years.

In closing I just want to make it real brief and make sure Seattle Public Schools and everyone else is aware that First Student is here to provide and serve the needs of Seattle's families and families of Seattle Public School students.

It's not the reverse.

We're not here.

to serve the needs of her students and their drivers.

Okay.

The next speaker is Andrew Cooper.

Andrew Cooper.

Andrew.

Hello.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm a parent of a kindergartner and a second grader in SPS.

I have a PhD in data analysis applied to decision-making and I've spent over a decade in academia teaching this to graduate students.

I've spent the past 6 years doing exactly this in non-profit hospital operations and healthcare.

I'm testifying tonight to advocate for data-driven decision-making and for transparency.

As public institutions attempt to reckon with past inequalities and formally incorporate equity and anti-racism into their policy and decision-making processes they must use all available data but they must present this data in defense of their decision.

The burden of proof is on the institution to demonstrate that their decisions are equitable.

We can no longer just take such statements at face value.

In the announcement of the proposed changes to the bell times SPS stated that equity drove considerations and that they considered family needs.

However they have not presented any information about what data were used or how those considerations were made.

The public deserves to know what the tradeoffs are between say more student jobs for some versus the added burden of before school or after school child care for others.

We need to know how other options that have not been presented measure up with those same tradeoffs.

I have taken publicly available data from OSPI and the U.S.

Census Bureau and created a quick tool that allows users to examine the impact of the proposed bell changes may have on students and families at both individual schools and allows them to compare across schools.

I want to see for myself what some of these impacts were and I wanted others to be able to see them for themselves.

I've posted a link to this tool on various social media sites and I'll happily share with anyone who's interested.

It is this type of presentation that SPS needs to do.

But then go the additional step of presenting how other options may compare along the same metrics so that the public can see how SPS evaluated these tradeoffs.

And these are not easy tradeoffs.

We can no longer accept statements regarding equity without also seeing the data and how the tradeoffs were evaluated.

Thank you for your time.

The next speaker is Tracy Buckingham.

Tracy Buckingham.

Hello I am Tracy Buckingham and I am an SPS parent.

How will kids that currently ride the bus and need before-school child care get to school when their bus is the only option to get them there.

What exactly are you doing to address the limitations cost and availability of before-school child care if a school already has existing child care but it is full.

The limitations of on-site child care and the availability make it nearly impossible for us to get any child care before school.

And out of those that need it or may need it it is a huge financial burden.

It feels like you're passing the transportation problem off onto families instead of listening to what families need most and starting from there.

It feels like you're centering busing and for a student and at the same time not holding for a student accountable for its massive infractions.

We need the school board to retain authority and oversight over start times and routes so we can have accountability to students and families.

The current system with two start times and some routes not restored has been working for most families.

An apparent survey by Albert Wong clearly shows that families who have not had bus service restored prefer what they have to a three-tier change.

Thank you so much for this opportunity and for your time.

The next speaker is Lauren and I'm having trouble reading the last name.

Lauren Lavoie.

Members of the school board thank you for all that you do.

My name is Lauren Lavoie.

I'm a working parent of 3 students in SPS in 1st 3rd and 5th grades.

I've reviewed the proposal for the 3-tier bell schedule and I'm concerned about the impact on my family and frankly about the impacts on families who enjoy less privilege than mine.

I already walked my elementary students to the bus in the dark just after 7 a.m.

Shifting that 30 minutes earlier will present challenges for families with the youngest children especially those who don't have a parent free from work responsibilities at that time.

Students will have less time for adequate sleep and a good breakfast.

Two important factors that aid positive educational outcomes for our youngest learners.

Next year I'll have two start times to juggle for my family and in a few years I'll have three.

A logistical puzzle that will be massively disruptive.

Rather than changing bell times let's address inefficiencies with current busing and use creative solutions.

Consolidate routes.

In the mornings my three kids are the only ones at our bus stop.

We'd happily merge with another one.

Use the time that we have between now and fall to hire more bus drivers and develop a plan that centers students rather than the bus company.

Members of the school board please weigh in on this decision with staff and develop a solution that works for families.

Thank you.

I'm going to go back through the names we didn't hear earlier one time real quick in case they happen to be the one additional person I see on the phone.

Please press star-6 if your name was on the list and you have not spoken yet.

So starting Christine Highlander.

Christine Highlander.

Riley Larson.

Riley Larson.

Dana Barnett.

Dana Barnett.

Janelle Lardisabal.

Janelle Lardisabal.

President Hersey that concludes today's testimony list.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it and thank you to everybody who took time out of their very busy Wednesdays to come and talk to us.

All right.

Before we get too far down deep in the rest of the most riveting agenda Director Hampson did you have any updates from the Audit and Finance Committee that you'd like to share.

I can also come way back later.

You also don't have to.

I just wanted to check in.

Yeah if you can come back I need to pull up our.

You got it.

Oh we had a actually yeah just come back to me so I can get the right data for the next meeting.

Say less.

I got you.

All right.

I believe we left off on Item Number 5 but is Dr. Pedroza here.

All right let's circle back to Introduction Item Number 2. which is amend Yellowwood Academy contract for the 2021-22 school year.

This came by SSC&I in April 26 for approval.

And Dr. Pedroza I believe you'll be briefing us.

Yeah thank you.

Thank you for adjusting.

We we had a wonderful event with the Special Olympics Unified Partnership so thank you for that.

So I'm here to present the BAR for to amend the Yellowwood Academy contract.

When we brought this BAR previously to you we had submitted it for 13 students and it fell under the one million mark and we are now in the process of.

Okay.

All right.

And we are now in the process I wasn't sure if you were talking to me or not.

So we are in the process of adding 5 more students to a total of 18. Just to remind the board that this is individual this is a program that serves students with an individualized education program that requires more intensive services and provides a lower education-to-teacher-student ratio in a change environment which that allows appropriate fate for the student to be met at Yellowwood.

So I'm just here to present this amendment to and if there's any questions I also have Dr. Torres on the line.

Do we have any directors with questions on this.

I'm going to go to the chair of the committee first and then we will go to Director Harris.

I don't have specific questions.

I just wanted to clarify because we were a little bit not not confused in committee but we noted in committee that this is an amendment for an increase in service and this is somebody that we already contract with and have an approved contract.

Just to clarify.

And the reason why is it falls above a threshold that has to be brought before the board.

So that's why we're bringing it here to you now because the additional five students put that number up above that amount.

Thank you for that clarification.

Director Harris.

Is that threshold one million dollars.

Yes.

Thank you.

Second question is when did we last visit the facility in person.

I don't have that answer so I'm happy to have Dr. Torres.

Dr. Torres are you online.

Yes I'm here.

I don't have that answer but I'll find out for you Director Harris and we'll get you a response via email.

To the whole board please.

Thanks so very much.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Any other questions.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Okay.

Fantastic.

All right.

If I'm not mistaken we are now on Introduction Item Number 5. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay Distressed School Grant Approval of Budget Transfer for the Leschi Elementary School for Classroom Addition Project.

This came through Ops on April the 21st for approval and I believe Mr. Podesta will be briefing us.

Thank you President Hersey.

This action authorizes a transfer of $500,000 from the BEX V Program Contingency.

for added scope to the Leschi classroom addition.

The added scope will include right-of-way improvements additional building envelope testing air quality air quality monitoring of the space in the addition and increased costs for furnishings.

The right-of-way improvements include the design and construction of 18 additional curb curb ramps sidewalk curb ramps in the neighborhood of the in the vicinity of the school in the neighborhood.

More curb ramps than we usually build when we develop new properties.

This is negotiated with the Seattle Department of Transportation.

And so that's part of the cost was increasing the accessibility in the neighborhood around the school which is a common practice when developers develop new property they negotiate with the city on right away improvements and this was just a bit larger scope than we had anticipated when the project budget was first put together.

Happy to take any questions you have.

Mr. Podesta Director do we have any questions.

Okay.

I want to make sure that the Chair of the Ops Committee doesn't have anything they'd like to report first.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah no I I would just say this this has the I think somebody mentioned earlier about the extra ADA ramps that were asked for Seattle Public Schools to pay for and We talked about that in committee and I'm trying to recall the answer.

I think it was Richard Best gave it to us and it just sounds like and I don't recall a really clear idea of like is this it sounds like this wasn't a new requirement necessarily.

I just I guess my only question for staff at this point then is how do we is this something we will have to expect going forward.

Is this do you think this is a one-time anomaly or you know how to what's our

I think it's the city is taking a more aggressive stance with all developers on sidewalk improvements to increase accessibility across the city.

So yes I think we'll have to plan more carefully.

It's just I think the practice had been that had been really sidewalk curb ramps that were adjacent to our property and now it's branching out a bit more and I have knowledge from my previous experience with the city about the city's strategy as do some of your other former city employees who are now work for the district understand the city's strategy and we should just plan for it.

And in the long run you know having a more accessible city is not the worst thing in the world.

It's not.

I mean we also you know again we have a very tight limited budget and is there an avenue for recourse or appealing those or discussions or is it nothing to do with that.

You know in this case I don't think we've made a strong case.

We you know we work with the permitting department and ESCOT well and yes their appeal process is inside those permitting negotiations.

I think we will pick our battles and be careful with this as it goes forward.

Got you.

All right.

Thank you.

No further questions.

We do want walkable neighborhoods in the vicinity of our schools and we want those areas to be accessible.

So again it's someone will spend the money it's money well spent and hopefully we can control it on in our our work as a developer in the neighborhood.

Awesome.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

You just said pick your battles so maybe this is not one to pick but I am of course clearly in favor of of increased accessibility but I know that there are times where it's you know the right-of-way is the city's property not not ours and sometimes it is actually quite challenging to see improvements in those accessibility features materialize when we are not the ones paying for them.

And so my question I guess is again maybe maybe this is a battle not to pick but in terms of developers it does make sense to me that a developer that is actually making money by building a building should also share in some of the costs of the impact that they have in the area around them and an accessibility to their customers that will be increasing their profitability.

We're the public school district and we're providing a service that does not bring in revenue by nature of building a building.

And so in partnership with the city I I would think that maybe we have a slightly different standing as partners in serving the families of Seattle than a developer.

So I guess I'm just saying that because a half a million dollars is a surprise as you said.

And it's a significant one.

There's more in that funding than just the programs.

But but point well taken.

And I think our goal in here will be cognizant of other development partners in any neighborhood to see if they can share more of those costs.

And I appreciate also your point of view that the money has to be spent by someone and it's to improve the neighborhood.

But I just yeah.

Yeah I I think and again our neighborhood schools we're we're as interested in anyone as as in walkable neighborhoods perhaps more than some commercial developers.

Fantastic.

Thank you Mr. Podesta.

Looks like you're going to be here for a second.

So we are now going to move on to item number 6 which is the BTA III final acceptance.

of contract K5-111 with Wayne Roofing Incorporated for the Olympic View Elementary School Select Roof Repair and Replacement Project.

Man that was a mouthful.

Ops April 21st for approval.

And President Hersey the next 6 items are all acceptances of and I can just keep rolling through and people can stop me if they have any questions.

Are there any objections to that.

That's why we pay you the big bucks for it.

There you go.

So Intro Item 6 approves work performed by Wayne's Roofing at Olympic View Elementary School.

The work included replacement and repair of select portions of the roof.

It was completed in September 2019. The work was approved by the architect.

The change orders were reasonable at about 2 percent of the entire contract and those covered Unforeseen conditions in the roof the way the roof was connected to the wall minor cracks and finish repairs.

Moving on to intro item 7 is the final acceptance of a contract with CDK Construction for seismic improvements at Whitman Middle School.

Scope included the installation of reinforced walls and structural components.

That work was completed in August of 2020. It was approved by the consulting architect.

The change orders were about 5.6 percent of the overall contract and those covered additional structural material needed because of unforeseen conditions inside the structural components of the building and security covers on exterior columns that prevent people from climbing onto the building after we put the seismic reinforcements and then some repairs to the gym floor.

Introduction Item 8 is a BEX IV project a final acceptance of a contract with MJ Takasaki for Roxville building seismic improvements.

The work included the reduction of the chimney height improving shear wall capacity.

Shear walls would give the building envelope strength and improving the connection between the roof and the wall.

That work was completed in February of this year.

It was accepted.

We have a recommendation to accept the work by the consulting architect and the change orders were reasonable at 4% covering interior furnishings in the buildings such as whiteboards and tack boards on the interior walls.

Introduction item 9 is final acceptance of a contract with Premier Field Development for athletic field improvements at Hazel Wolf K-8.

We did replace an existing grass field that just could not be maintained with the wear and tear of the use of the field and was a perpetual safety hazard and mud bog.

The field was replaced with turf field with natural cork infill Director Harris.

And in addition there were some landscaping improvements made as well.

Change orders were reasonable at 4.4 percent of the contract and mostly covered the scope to add an impermeable liner underneath the new turf field.

Intro item 10 is final acceptance of a contract with Buell Recreation for playground improvements at Gatewood.

and John Hay Elementary Schools.

This work included replacement of the playgrounds at both schools.

The work was completed in December of 2021 was improved by the consulting architect.

Change orders a little higher on this work than normal at 7.52 percent.

Mostly covering unforeseen conditions at the sites.

Some demolition activity and excavation work needed to install the new equipment.

And last but not least is Intro Action 11 which is also a playground replacement at View Ridge Elementary School.

This work action approves the work performed by Northwest Playground Equipment.

It was a replacement of the playground at at the school.

This work was also completed in December of 2021 and our consulting architect recommends that we approve the work.

The work was completed within budget with no change order.

Happy to go back to any of those if there are questions.

I'm not seeing a single one.

All right.

Thank you for your support.

These are all good news when we close out these contracts once and for all.

Thank you.

Thank you so much to all the staff that have played a pivotal role in getting those done.

Okay.

We have now reached the board comments section of today's.

Oh yes.

Thank you for the reminder by all means.

If you can keep it under two minutes.

Obviously kidding.

So Audit and Finance Committee pretty short agenda this last go-around.

We did have one special attention item on the committed minimum fund balance percent presentation by staff and I subsequent to that actually did some additional research and to look at best practices in governmental entities and committed minimum fund balance percents.

This is otherwise known as our rainy day fund.

And we have gotten up to 5 percent.

That is actually very much on the low side relative to other best practices and and types of institutions that I found.

So if anyone is interested in learning a little bit more about that we can forward the materials that we had or actually you have the materials from the Audit and Finance Committee but if you're not on the board I'm happy to forward it to folks if they want to learn about what that Rainy Day Fund is and how it works and why it's important.

And then otherwise regular budget updates and work plan updates.

And then we are in the process of finalizing 2 meetings 2 initial meetings on policies 6114 which is grantmaking acceptance of grants and 6 which is the school funding model.

We're hoping to have those in May.

We've got to find some dates.

Dates are hard to come by these days but we do want to start that process of stakeholder engagement on those two and we'll ask community members to help us push those out as they become known.

And the next meeting is May 23rd 2022. Thank you.

No other comments from me.

Thanks.

Hey so we are now in the board comment section.

So Director Hampson are you saying you do not have comments this evening.

Okay fantastic.

Thank you.

I'm not.

Who wants to go.

I'll call on you.

Go ahead Director Harris.

Will.

Happy to report that the library meeting rooms have opened.

So we're back to third Saturday of the month 3 to 5 p.m.

A West Seattle Library and you have a one in three chance of getting lasagna.

And we always have coffee and treats and we're always very rowdy.

Respectfully rowdy.

But we have a number of different viewpoints and it's it's engaging and two of my fellow colleagues are more than welcome to join us.

And most of the folks that have come have had a good time I might add.

I it might sound real critical and real negative and I apologize in advance for that.

But I would like to take the opportunity to go through some public testimony from Mr. Jackins and suggest That if everything is important then nothing is important.

And I do appreciate his watchful eye at the Seattle Public Schools but everything is not weighted the same.

And and it and it is presented in that fashion.

Rainier Beach High School that's a done deal.

That community has suffered for decades and has requested the rebuild.

With respect to item number two on your punch list the closure process that's a superior court decision.

It was not upheld in the appellate court.

It does not have precedential value and and it's misleading quite frankly.

And with respect to closing two of the interagency sites three Interagency is a program that saves lives.

We have to keep it alive.

We cannot afford all of the different sites.

There was extraordinarily good community engagement done with the staff and with the community and students and those folks that are being displaced are being helped to get to a new site.

So I'm all about saving lives.

I'm all about saving small schools.

I'm all about alternative education.

But I'm a realist and I am not picking a fight over this one.

I'm actually pretty impressed and proud of how we did that.

With respect to Leschi there was a lengthy conversation in Ops Committee and we just heard from Assistant Superintendent Podesta about how the city is squeezing us for additional curb ramps.

And if you had attended the Ops Committee you would know that.

And we're held to knowing the information that comes out in committee.

And if we're going to throw rocks I hope you do your homework.

With respect to K-5 math adoption hardcover books are not best practices.

And with respect to how we put this one together again I'm proud of it.

And Chris you've been here a long time and you know how much we've come in terms of curriculum adoption over the last six years.

So I'm not accepting that criticism either.

With respect to Hazel Wolf that was a mud pit.

The students could not have athletics on it.

That's the reality.

I'm a pragmatist.

And it doesn't have crud rubber in its synthetic field.

I am frustrated to have to go down that list but but we hear every school board meeting your list and they're all apparently weighted the same.

And emphasis is I think very very important.

I had lots of comments about the K-5 math adoption but I think I've already given those and could not be more thrilled.

At the last budget work session we had conversation about why students are leaving the district and whether or not it is up to us to find out the why so that we can plan Oh from a philosophical pedagogical and most importantly a budget perspective.

And and yeah I do want to get some of those students back and I want to mark it because for the most part we do a fairly decent job.

And if we can do a better job in communication I think we'll bring some of those folks back.

With respect to the busing and the well over 200 emails A whole lot of social media.

A whole lot of angst.

And I again being a pragmatist well appreciate we will not we will not satisfy everyone.

There will be people that will be very upset and highly impact whichever way we go.

However transportation has been a five million dollar budget item since last fall and At this late date with the looming RFP contract awards we've been pinch-pointed no question about it.

We can and have done a much better job in community engagement in the past.

I I'm very distressed that this has happened in this fashion and I think the slowdown is a great thing and I look forward to Comprehensive engagement.

And I look forward to creative solutions.

You know we heard from former Director Peasley and we received co-signed letters from former Director Kay Smith-Blum.

And I've been saying for six years I I want these bus drivers embedded in our schools and people pat me on the head and say yeah yeah sure sure Director Harris whatever.

I challenge people to do the work with our labor partners to make that happen because our students see the bus drivers first and last thing of the day.

Does that mean that we have to have two different employers.

Sure it does.

Can we do better.

Absolutely we can but we have to have a will to do so.

And I believe in in the capabilities of our staff to do so.

We need playground supervisors.

We need folks that are hard jobs to fill and if we can give them a living wage and if we can give them even more contact with our incredible students we win hands down.

Last special thanks to Lisa Love and Ronald Boy who presented on consent sexual harassment at SSC&I.

It was an extraordinary conversation and this is the boots on the ground conversation.

This is how we do professional development for every one and not just a one and done.

However the professional development is not funded.

So we can pass all the policies we want.

We can pass all the procedures we want.

But until we put money where our mouth is we got nothing.

And that again probably sounds very very negative and I don't mean it to because I do believe in our capacity to be better.

It's an honor.

It's a privilege.

And thank you.

Okay so Director Rivera-Smith Director Sargent.

Okay.

I think it goes without saying that this has been a pretty difficult week.

And I also want to I want to thank the parents and community members for sending emails.

literally impossible to respond to every one of those emails, but we do read them.

And I have done a lot of thinking about what has transpired in the last couple of weeks.

I work for King County Public Health.

And in my role, I am serving the same parents, some of the same parents whose kids are in Seattle Public Schools.

So it is not like a silo for me.

We are a district of over 50,000 kids and our job is to serve those 50,000 kids and particularly serve those kids who have historically not been served well or not been served at all.

as well as those who are currently not being served well.

What the particularly the bell time situation has the way it's landed for me is that I don't see how we centered children in that decision.

What I see is that we adults And this is not, I'm not saying they didn't have good ideas or good plans, but we didn't center children.

And that's what we're to do.

That's our job.

It's to center children.

We cannot put money first.

We cannot put our special interests first.

We have to put the interests of our students first.

Some of the emails I got were heartbreaking stories from people in our community who do not have the economic resources that some of us sitting on this dais have.

And one in particular, a family said, we can't afford another car, but we may be forced to buy one in order to make this work.

That's one family.

How many other families were in that same position?

How many families are single parent families, single parent households, single caregiver households who don't have transportation at all and are taking care of multiple children?

We serve a very diverse community and we have to center children in every single one of these decisions.

And I know that that's easy to have the words come out of my mouth and say that, but that's our job.

That's our job.

And I have responded to a couple of people who had some pretty dire concerns they expressed.

And because I could feel the pain in their words, right?

They want their kids to be in public school.

We have to make it easy for them to stay in public school.

And so what I would like going forward is for all of us to remember staff, board, community members, that we're a district of 50,000 people.

We have to put the interests of our children first.

And that may mean creative solutions that actually may end up costing a little bit more money.

But if it's for the safety and the health and well-being of our children, then that's the decision we make.

We have to figure this out.

This has been probably the most distressing time on the board for me.

I'm a mom.

For those of you who are listening, I have three children.

They're grown.

But I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt with all of my resources, my two-car family at the time, a 7.30 start time would have been disastrous.

And I'm speaking from an honest place.

And I have resources.

I have lots of resources, which includes dollar signs, but also family.

And that's a privileged position to be in.

And so as we move forward, whether it's bell times or anything else, we have to, we have to, where is that chart?

I'm gonna hold it up because I keep it in my drawer.

I don't know if you can see this, but in the center here is our young people and our children.

If we cannot answer affirmatively that the decision being made is solely in the best interest of the people in the middle we need to start over.

We need to start over.

We can't keep doing this to parents.

It destroys trust and competence in our ability to do the job.

And so I really hope moving forward there can be more collaboration and more conversations.

We've got to get this right.

We've got to get this right.

And if it means more time Then it means more time.

I'd rather take more time and land on the right decision than rush to a decision that in the end is going to put children at a deficit.

That's my hope and my wish for this school district and our community.

Thank you Director Sarduy.

Director Rivera-Smith do you have comments tonight.

I do.

Thank you.

There we go.

There we go.

You guys scrolled a second there sorry.

Yeah go ahead.

Okay.

Yeah it is Teacher Appreciation Week and I can't think of any public servants who deserve our thanks more.

So thank you for all your work in all our schools and all our buildings.

But tonight I also want to extend gratitudes from the bottom of my heart to the families.

All of our families who have entrusted us with the care and the education of their children.

Because that is that is an honor and a burden right.

Because as we do our work we are not we're not the masters of the inputs that we depend on to do that work.

You know we don't control.

We can't control the labor markets.

We can't control the allocations we get from the state.

Or we can't control the legal requirements that we need to comply with to operate in compliance.

So these all those struggles have been laid out on full display this week and last week as our board and our district are working towards a solution for the basically the three-pronged struggle that we're facing right now a budget deficit.

a brush over shortage and you know the need that the dedication to fully fund our recently adopted goals and guardrails.

Those are all things we need to do but how we do that is what we're working on right now.

So even as I know that our directors and our district leaders are doing the engagement that the Bell Claims decision deserves you know it's it's it's starting it's happening.

I'm still worried.

I think as Director Sharkey mentioned that we need to make sure you know what we're looking for in that right.

We I'm sincerely worried that we're not yet hearing from the families and community members you know who have the last ability and agency to contact us and show up to put a testimony.

And so I encourage our district to do that work.

I believe that that is I that's what we're working towards.

I just personally as a as a director I am reaching out to those families in our districts.

I want to so I want to thank Casey Jobnick who is our Head Start Family Services Supervisor for helping me to do that.

She's helped me.

She's written families on my behalf to solicit their input from their Head Start families who really are by definition you know our definition of families focused on educational justice.

And so I want to thank her for reaching out to them and including a translated letter in Spanish so that we can get that feedback.

That is the feedback that we want and that we need as we walk the talk in centering our Black and Brown students and our most vulnerable.

And I feel the need to respond to a lot of the comments and claims that are being made right now regarding our goal our board's role in this decision.

And really all I can say on that tonight is that we all have our our our opinions and I've shared mine and other directors have shared theirs.

And so I think I think we all including myself really need to give our legal team the opportunity to clarify what the implications of certain actions would and wouldn't be because none of us want to want to you know get ahead of that I think.

So that's all I'm going to say.

Thank you for your time and attention today.

Oh and one thing.

So regarding teacher appreciation right I help out at my son's school for lunch.

And I'm not a teacher but I think they think I might be so I got a little a little thank you note.

I don't know if you can see it.

And it's awesome because I thought oh it's a little card and it says who's from and I didn't realize until later that it opens up and you read it and it has a quote in it which I'm going to think I'm going to put on my computer to always have in front of me.

It says, act as if what you do makes a difference.

It does.

So I appreciate all the people who are doing that right now who are who are understanding that what they do makes a difference in our work here and directors staff families everybody.

So thank you.

Thanks you all.

Good night.

Thank you Director Rivera-Smith.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

And I'm last and there's crickets in here with us so I'll try to be brief.

But I do want to do three things.

One is which to clarify some policy stuff too is identify how we get forward right now in terms of transportation.

And the third thing is to just thinking about student outcomes focused governance thinking about our role and our duty to the students of Seattle.

Think about how we can live that value and center students in all the decisions that we make.

So thank you Superintendent Jones.

for pulling the item.

I think everybody needed to take just a pause break.

There's clearly a lot of work to do to go in there.

And just wanted to quickly clarify as there has been a lot of confusion about the amendment that I put forward that it was not my intention to cede all decision making on the bell times but rather to decouple two very critical work streams.

One of which is the services the standards sorry the transportation service standards and one of which is bell times.

And in current practice the superintendent has the authority the superintendent has the authority to determine the bell times and then the board kind of rubber stamps approves them as an appendix attached to the standards.

There isn't anything in our policy about how approval of the bell times happens and I think that's a big hole in our policy.

So my intention with that amendment was to offer a first step to my colleagues to be discussed publicly between us about decoupling those.

How do we move forward.

Would it require a separate bar for the bell times.

Do we change the policy to direct bell time approval when there's significant changes.

And so I just wanted to clarify that understanding that some I think language the use of the word set was was confusing to my mind that meant determine come to us with a plan.

It didn't necessarily mean or it didn't at all mean that there's no approval or input by the board so.

Apologies for any confusion that caused.

And had that been an introduction item tonight we would have been able to all discuss that discuss amendments you know et cetera et cetera.

So I want to really thank D1 members and Seattle Council PTSA for helping me co-host and facilitate.

You know it's actually really tough to host a meeting online and have a chat and everything when you're not by yourself.

So people might be wondering like why don't board directors just do that on their own.

It's actually really hard to get to everybody.

So thank you so so much for to Seattle Council PTSA for helping support us and having those meetings.

being our tech support and helping register people and you know as volunteers that's an administrative task that takes a lot of time so and they're volunteers as well but just huge thanks.

So yeah thanks.

Thank you to folks who came to talk at that.

I also had the opportunity to talk to some parents and someone from the transportation safety team at the city today about some additional concerns and so Two a couple of things I want to acknowledge is our role in governance needs to start before there is a crisis.

Before there is a oh my gosh we have to make a decision right now.

This is an emergency.

There are enough real crises and emergencies around us and our families all the time especially right now that the school district does not need to be a contributing factor to something that's an emergency.

And so through our failure as a board and staff to proactively and collectively address this challenge of transportation we created another we created an emergency and raised tension and confusion and frustration in a way that doesn't allow any of us to do our best work.

And the biggest miss was that.

We didn't center our students and look at the standards to see if our standards which is the approved the required annually approved document.

Did our standards actually describe the values and priorities that we have as a board in reflection of what the community needs.

And so I believe and I don't know I don't know what's happening next but I'm trying to identify that.

I believe whether it whether it can be done in the short term or this is just a longer term thing that we as a board with staff need to work on centering those standards around our most vulnerable students and around the the kids who most need transportation and around our expectations about that service.

We've talked about you know sort of logistics challenges but we we haven't talked about and didn't talk about one of our public Testimony speakers brought it up but you know the impact when there's unreliable transportation and little kids are potentially standing at a bus stop alone and their bus doesn't come.

You know what's what's the standard what's this what's the approach supposed to be who's responsible.

I had Director Hersey and I had somebody who emailed us not too long ago about helping a child get home safely because they were I think a kindergartner and had been dropped off at their bus stop and their Their usual grown up wasn't there.

And what is our what is our service standard in that matter.

This child was left alone having gotten off their bus at the end of the day.

And the person who wrote to us happens to have been a former substitute teacher in SPS.

And so he happened to be walking and collect that student and delivered them safely home.

I mean for me we need to have something in our expectations of how transportation is provided that recognizes the impact on kids like that.

And safety has to be absolutely at the center.

Additionally with accommodations for students with disabilities right now the choices is to check a box on their IEP.

Door-to-door transportation yes or no.

As speakers have stated.

There's a ton of different accommodations that a child with a disability might need.

Maybe it does mean a door to door bus.

Maybe it means an adult to support them on a on a regular general education yellow bus.

Maybe it means a certain type of seatbelt or buckle.

And if if a bus has that that's what they need.

It doesn't need to be a whole separate bus.

There's a whole bunch of different things that could be done.

Also in terms of the cost savings to transport a student on our one of our regular yellow bus routes is about eleven hundred dollars a year a student.

On the door-to-door route it's about thirteen thousand dollars a year per student.

So not only are we putting students in segregated buses that they may not actually may not be the best accommodation for them.

It comes at a significant expense.

And of course the needs of the children should be at the center but I think we've got a dual benefit here to really examining what it is our students actually need and how we provide that within the services.

And so anyway the bell times are critically important.

They impact each and every family student staff person after school.

It has a huge impact and absolutely needs to be considered when there's a big change like this with the board and the public.

And also the standards by themselves are really the foundational document and our transportation policy are the foundational documents that we control as the board that need to guide whatever happens after that.

So I don't know what the next steps are but I hope that they will provide us opportunities to look at those in the short term because we have If we don't have standards for next year we then nobody rides the bus.

So we need the short term solution and that longer term discussion and I know that the challenges with transportation predate all of us but nobody wants to keep doing this every year.

So that's let's and I know we have a lot of people who really want to help figure it out.

So thank you.

Thank you Director Rankin.

I am going to keep my comments pretty brief hopefully.

Shout out to every single teacher and staff person and individual that works in our buildings.

Teacher Appreciation Week cannot be just something that we glance over.

I just actually got a text message this morning from one of my former students parents a little boy who spent two years with me for a number of reasons.

who is now in the fourth grade, when he came to me in second grade, he was reading on the kindergarten level.

He's now in the fourth grade.

He's reading on a fifth grade level.

And they just text me because Federal Way gave him an award.

And it just reminded me of like, how even when teachers may not necessarily be your child's primary educator the long-lasting impact that you have not only on that child but specifically their family and providing opportunities for parents to feel pride in their children especially around their education is something that might not necessarily be realized in the moment but creates an astounding impact long term.

So for all of the teachers out there who have not gotten a thank you or who are working day in day out in one of the most difficult times to be a classroom educator when burnout has never been higher there is no consolation for what you have experienced but just know that your kids Love you.

Your kids appreciate you and the impact that you have had on them will last for for years and years and years.

One thing that I want to challenge the board around these bus times is I think Director Rankin took the words right out of my mouth.

Like even more so than being like educational experts or being the folks who help run this district.

We are stewards and we are stewards primarily of peace and clarity.

And when we do not offer that to community and chaos is the outcome of that it challenges our effectiveness as a board to do what we have been elected to do.

Right.

And these decisions are tough.

There's no clear answer to almost anything that we do.

Right.

We do research we do community engagement and we try our best to find solutions that don't put us into a 17 million hundred million dollar deficit because we also have to be as Director Samuels pointed out financially solvent.

However when we participate because we are the genesis of change and we can only control our actions When we fail in that regard and we add to the catastrophizing of what is happening out in community that is an issue.

Right.

And we've been talking about it for a long time but we really need to come together about what are our processes.

How do we as a board engage in community engagement because we don't control the district.

We don't manage the district.

We need to figure out how do we participate in community engagement.

from a customer and an owner perspective.

Because what I have found incredibly difficult, especially representing one of the most diverse parts of the city in D7, is that when I spend time deep in community, as I love to do, I get pulled in every different direction because everybody has an opinion, which is fair, but the ability for one human being to coalesce all that information and then bring it back to a board of seven people and try to articulate that information in a substantive way, I don't know about y'all, but that's hard.

And I don't know if I've ever been able to do it effectively.

So what I really want to challenge us to do is come together and figure out Where do we as a board fit into these conversations.

How do we adequately represent the values of community.

But then on top of that how do we also accept the fact that we are not content experts on half of the stuff that we are asked to be content experts on by community.

And to pretend as though we are does this system and more importantly our students a vast disservice.

That said, there is a lot of room for growth on our part.

And the only reason that I'm focusing on the board is because I can only control from where I sit what I do, right?

And I think what we've learned over the past few days, especially, Michelle has said it so poignantly that it has been a tough week, is that there is chaos all around us.

I don't need to go into the atrocity that has just happened at the Supreme Court.

Fear and confusion lead to poor action.

And where we have to get away from is people associating Seattle Public Schools with fear and confusion.

And if we are not doing a good job of mitigating that then why are we here.

Serious question.

Why are we here.

Why did we run.

Right.

And we're all guilty of it.

Me especially.

Stepping into conversations that we might not necessarily be prepared for or acting in a way that doesn't necessarily lend itself to the credence that this board has is incredibly dangerous precedent that we are setting especially in terms of the expectations that community have on us very mediocre human beings.

Like let's be real about this.

As we move forward we really need to play the tape back on this one.

and see where we as individuals could have done things differently because we all have a role to play.

Right.

Same thing is true for staff but more importantly us because we set the agenda.

Staff brings us things but we set the agenda and we determine the pace at which things move because we literally vote on it in committee.

So as we think about our processes and how we want to engage with community I believe that again we are the genesis of change.

If we want to see things done differently we have to behave differently.

And that's not a call out to any individual.

That's a call out to us as a board.

Because we are the most diverse board and I am I cannot tell y'all how humbling it is to serve with each and every one of you fantastic women who are much smarter than me.

Yes indeed.

That should never have been brought into question.

I cannot express the level of what is the word that I'm looking for.

We have a lot riding on this board specifically.

Full respect to past boards but we very well could be the most diverse board.

The most transformational board potentially.

And I think that our students deserve better from all of us because if we are looking at Michelle's graph and really honing in on student outcomes focused governance every decision we make should have students at the center.

And if we are operating without full clarity how do we bring it back so that we can get full clarity before we communicate with communities.

If we are not operating with full clarity for ourselves where does that leave our students.

Because our behavior in the way that we manage trickles down to every part of the system.

So it's a tall order.

But we have to be on 100 percent of the time.

Because if we are not that means that we are not positioning staff to be on 100 percent of the time.

Which means that our educators and people in buildings every day are not on 100 percent of the time and the only people that lose out in that situation or the most important people rather are our children.

So moving forward I challenge us to all ask ourselves if we are truly the genesis of change what are we prepared to do differently to reduce the amount of chaos and confusion that our communities associate with Seattle Public Schools.

The commitment that I can make to you is figuring out how do we bring ourselves together whether it be in a retreat setting or some properly noticed meeting.

To figure out what does community engagement look like from our perspective not as individuals not as policy bat men or women but rather a team of folks who can do an adequate job of communicating the values from community back to the superintendent so that senior staff and the rest of our system can do their jobs in a place that is not as chaotic.

That's all I got.

Thank you to all our educators.

Any further business.

Any other comments.

Saying none enjoy the rest of your evening.

The meeting stands adjourned at 7 0 6 p.m.

Yep.

Oh and go Sounders.

Hit us up next time before y'all have a game.