We're on action items number one approval of purchase of equipment from black box to replace existing voice network that supports desktop telephones and a five year software and hardware support for three million six hundred seventy one thousand five hundred seventy five dollars and 40 cents.
This came to Ops on April 5th for.
Consideration.
Approval of this item would approve a five year contract for the telephone system upgrade with black box and note an FAQ attachment was added to the BAR yesterday.
I move the board of directors authorize the superintendent to execute a five year contract with black box to provide a telephone system upgrade in the amount of three million six hundred and seventy one thousand five hundred and seventy five and 40 cents plus Washington state sales tax and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract.
I second the motion.
Mr. Krull could you give us a brief introduction to this action item please.
Yes.
Good evening.
John Krull chief information officer.
First I'd like to thank all the teachers for what they do out there.
An update from the introduction.
We provided more information on the longevity of the product.
We got a 10 year support letter from the vendor.
I put some information about the average length is about five to seven years and our current system actually lasted about 20 years.
So we're very confident that we have a good support plan and look forward to your consideration for this item.
Questions comments concerns from my colleagues.
Director Patu.
I guess my concern is it says five years but you you're saying that it will go to 10 years in comparison to our last one that lasted a lot longer.
So is it actually five to 10 years that this will last?
Chances are it's going to last you know 10 to 20 years given the history of this vendor.
uh...
in this current contract resigning a five-year contract forced support which includes next day repair uh...
after five years uh...
that's when we will come with uh...
additional uh...
support and that's when we we may have that the parts depot and and that type of thing as we move forward the vendor has agreed to support the product for for 10 years.
So oftentimes especially with consumer products the vendor might only support it for like a year.
With computers you're lucky to get three years of of support before it's hard to find those parts.
With this vendor they've agreed to provide support for those parts and for 10 years.
Harris.
Mr. General Counsel can you come to the box please.
point of clarification is the 10 years part of the contract and part of the bar or do we need to amend said bar.
I apologize I don't know I have not seen their letter on 10 years so I don't know whether it's incorporated into the contract not perhaps Mr. Cole could answer how that how they've conveyed that to us.
We have it as a as a letter and it will be part of the contract.
I would suggest that Mr. Kroll and Mr. Treat sit down figure out whether we need an amendment so that the 10 years is legally binding.
This is real money and this is a terribly important contract for the district especially with respect to emergency services.
Director Burke.
Just a point of clarification as I look at the document here it looks to me like the contract itself is five years but the vendor is stating through written communications that their expectation is the product will be supportable for 10. But we do not have additional money in the contract which would be required to support it between that five plus years.
So creating an amendment that's correct would require a financial commitment as well.
Do you all want to do a sidebar and we move on and we bring you in at number seven to the action agenda.
Sure.
Thank you sirs.
Appreciate very much.
Number two BEX IV award construction contract P 5 0 9 9 to CDK.
Point of personal privilege or point of process or point of whatever we have a motion and a second.
Do we have to table it or I mean what's the.
We can table.
May I have may I have a non-debatable motion to table this to after action agenda item number six.
So moved.
Seconded.
Those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Those opposed.
Thank you.
No sorry I was on aye.
I appreciate the heads up.
Thank you sir.
Number two BEX IV award construction contract P 5 0 9 9 to CDK Construction Services Inc. for the Eckstein Middle School seismic improvement project.
This came before Ops on April 5th for.
Approval.
Approval of this item would authorize the superintendent to enter into a construction contract in the amount of two million nine hundred seventeen thousand six hundred seventy two dollars for the Eckstein middle school seismic improvement project.
Motion please.
I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to execute construction contract P 5 0 9 9 to C.D.K. Construction Services Inc. for the Eckstein Middle School seismic improvements project in the amount of two million nine hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and seventy two dollars including alternate numbers 1 and 2 plus Washington State sales tax with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent to take any necessary action to implement the contract.
I second the motion.
Questions comments concerns from my colleagues.
We discussed this previously on introduction.
Questions comments concerns from my colleagues.
Seeing none roll call please.
Director Burke aye.
Director DeWolf aye Director Geary aye Director Mack aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Harris aye.
This motion has passed unanimously.
Number three approval of guiding principles for the building excellence BEX V capital levy.
This came before Ops April 5th for.
Consideration.
Approval of this item would approve the board's guiding principles for the BEX V capital levy.
And I'll note that the action report was edited since introduction.
May I have the motion please.
I move that the board approve the guiding principles for the BEX V capital levy as attached to this board action report.
I second the motion.
Questions comments concerns from my colleagues and may I state a personal thank you to the chair of operations for a heavy lift on this and for working in a collaborative fashion with the rest of your colleagues and with senior staff.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
And thank you everyone for working on this.
Just as a recap.
What this does is it sets our guiding principles for the BEX V levy the things that are important to us and for further clarification which wasn't clear when upon introduction that we've added to the BAR now to make it more clear.
These guiding principles will be used to assist us in our decision making around BEX because they get turned into scores that are for each individual guiding principle as well as in the policy there's also some priorities that we have listed.
Each of these get a score which will help us inform our decision making on BEX and our our prioritization.
And staff will be bringing the specifics of those scoring the actual calculations what's going into those things.
So for example equity will have various factors that go into determining what the scoring rubric is.
And for each of these guiding principles as well as the priorities that are stated in the policy 6901 they will come to us in a work session on May 30th.
Dr. Herndon.
If you could elaborate a little bit more I'm not feeling very eloquent at the moment.
That's correct Flip Herndon associate superintendent for operations and facilities.
Director Mack is correct.
We do have a work session scheduled for the end of May and at that time taking these guiding principles into account we would have that ability to look at and receive feedback from the board about this is what the scoring looks like for each of these guiding principles and then have any feedback and modify if necessary.
Director Burke.
One one question one comment.
So regarding the rubrics and metrics obviously that's a really important body of work.
Is there clarity around what that process looks like to get from the guiding principles to an actual rubric document that we can use.
Is that going to be done at the work session or prior to the work session or using how does that work.
So staff have actually already started working on this.
So this is the priorities that were stated in the policy have been scored and adopted by previous boards for previous BEX or BTA.
Those have been included in the building conditions report.
So there is overlap between those priorities and our priorities and in working with staff.
I think we've called it down to seven distinct Names and some of those will use some of the existing rubrics that are in the conditions report.
Equity is one that needs to be created and staff is already working on that have already created a draft chart and so that will be coming together and all that information will be available for us.
OK so to mirror back the at the work session we will have a near final work product that we'll be able to look at comment on or will that be final.
What comes to the work session and we'll be applying it.
No it will it will not be final at that point it'll be that this is this is what we're proposing this is how the.
These are the specific calculations for each of the priorities and how it's how the rubrics are set up and staff will take feedback on that.
Additionally another bar that is coming forward next is the task force.
If that is approved as well.
The task force will also review those and their matrices and provide additional recommendations and thoughts to us to give us an additional oversight.
Thank you.
So then the comment relates to the second guiding principle about right size capacity.
And I've mentioned before you know some of my concerns around how we calculate that.
I want to be really cognizant that.
If the state is asking us to reduce our K 3 staffing ratios but is not providing full funding for the capital infrastructure I'm reluctant to go out to our voters and ask them to do that.
And so if all of our computations of right size use the the adjusted ratios then that has the effect of creating essentially voter funded Class size reduction.
And so I'm just cognizant that that's a component of our BEX dollars that we have to either decide yes we're we're open to that.
We're looking to our voters to fund that as compared to the state.
My personal feeling as a as a director is that that's not.
The highest priority.
So I just want to understand how that fits in to the dialogue and it doesn't have to be now because I know that's probably not a good DEIS concept but as part of our work session if we could understand.
Clarification question if I might.
When you say voter funded are you talking about local levy voter funded.
Yes I would be talking about funded through our BEX V if we have a right size capacity that is based on adjusted state adjusted ratios but that doesn't consider state allocated extra capital dollars.
Unfunded mandate.
Yes.
Thank you.
Or partially funded unfunded mandate because there have been some K-3 class size reduction dollars that have come down from the state not sufficient by any means to the need.
I your point is duly noted and in having conversations with staff around the development of the facilities master plan and the capacity analysis.
We've had that conversation around do we show the capacity analysis what right size capacity is including K 3 size class size reduction and not including and having those two separated out so that we can actually weigh those.
Thank you.
I do understand that this is a complicated issue and that we're part way through it and that it's partly funded and so it may not be possible to extract it but I just want to be conscious that.
At some point we lose our opportunity to have this discussion.
I have a point of clarification if I might.
So previous boards have put together guiding principles.
How is it that we missed Rainier Beach High School and some of our other Title 1 high needs schools for so long.
It's a good question I can't necessarily answer since I wasn't around during those conversations but I think as with most levies just as you as a board are going through this you do have your guiding principles that you adopt and in some cases didn't prioritize what those are.
So you have let's say five guiding principles of equal weight.
And then as a board debating which items given all of the feedback from community and the size of the particular levy you feel you can deliver on.
Noting some of the major issues that we've talked about safety and security building condition and capacity and that's You know I've had conversations I think with all of you about that kind of balance that you have between capacity and condition and it's a challenge.
Can't really go all one way can't really go all the other.
So it's how you figure out what that is.
But as far as I know I can't I can't explain previous decisions about.
including or not including projects on previous.
And it's my understanding we didn't have a race and equity component on the previous guiding principles.
Correct.
So if we are going to be consistent on policy 0 0 3 0 would it then necessarily follow that dollars follow Dollars and commitment follow to our high needs schools.
Well I think there are a couple of ways that you can look at that but I believe the intent of 0 0 3 0 is to take a look at what the equitable distribution of resources are throughout the district and that includes capital dollars.
And again previously for BEX IV policy 0 0 3 0 didn't exist at least in the implementation phase of that.
So I think this is an excellent opportunity to see how that particular policy looks in action for a very public and sizable investment of capital dollars throughout our city.
Director Mack please.
I think that's particularly that's that's particularly why I'm really excited about adopting these guiding principles.
Presumably that we do adopt them because we have identified that equity is a priority and we will have a scoring matrix so to have you know we'll we are going to have that as part of our decision making and it will be more clear as.
to potentially which projects might you know rate higher on an equity score versus other projects and that will help inform my decision making.
And I I feel really proud of doing that.
I've been working to ensure that we state that priority very clearly.
Other questions comments concerns Dr. Larry Nyland.
I would predict principles on one end that are kind of vague and squishy.
I agree with the principles they're great principles but they don't vote.
So ultimately you have to balance them out.
And then we're talking about a rubric and a scoring mechanism.
My prediction is that in the end it's going to be a discussion about that and that Depending on how rigorous the rubric is then it's going to be well how does this one turn out?
How does that one turn out?
And if we wait equity a little bit more what happens over here?
If we wait age of buildings a little bit more how does that happen?
I think Flip gave a great answer in terms of Rainier Beach.
Far as I know none of us know the real answer to that.
But even if you just constrain it to the Meng report and the condition of the building that we've paid somebody thousands of dollars who know how to do this to go through every single building you still get to this point where.
Rainier Beach would beg to differ but I think there's a lot of schools on that list that have greater need according to the engineers than Rainier Beach does.
So you're going to figure out well how much money goes to capacity how much money goes to condition how much money goes to these other issues like safety seismic etc.
And then we're going to look at the equity part and say who benefits and is that fair and equitable and should we reposition some of the money and probably quite frankly take it away from some of the buildings that maybe have a condition issue and use more of it for equity or take it away from some of the places where we have capacity needs and give it to equity.
I think it's a great opportunity and it's a great exercise and we know that there's not going to be enough money in the end to do it all.
So it's still going to come down to tough decisions.
Thank you.
Other questions comments concerns.
Director Pinkham.
So flashing back to the time when Loyal Heights was being constructed and we had some community concerned about play space and is also brought up in public testimony in the guiding principles we do mention sufficient core spaces and safe playgrounds and the right size capacity we mentioned to match student enrollment demand and appropriate lot coverage.
Are those two combined?
are we're assuming that that means that we'll have safe playgrounds that are also going to be appropriate size.
Or do we need to call it specifically that we want to make sure that our we have safe playgrounds that are appropriate sized.
Do we need a specific call that out.
Director Mack and then Dr. Herndon please.
So my sense and in how we have.
laid it out here in the guiding principles is that it is.
It's stated as a priority.
Safe playgrounds and enough space.
And it's stated in both ways.
It is a challenge when we look at.
Specific projects whether or not they are actually.
Potentially reducing lot coverage.
So those are the kind of things that we will be looking at when we score these things.
For right size capacity.
Is it.
You know is it meeting this.
So I think.
I do believe that it is included in the priorities and that it's it more clearly states that that is our our goal.
I would agree with that.
I think each particular location and building has challenges that are unique to that site.
Not all of our sites are the same.
They vary in their acreage size they vary in the age of the buildings they vary in the core spaces that they already have available.
So to compare a place like Magnolia which is tiny tiny.
doesn't have 40000 square feet to begin with a play space.
There is no way to even incorporate that much play space for that particular spot.
So I think to your point.
to try and look at each of the projects and say OK if we're looking at the design of these schools outdoor play space is important for the development development of our children as well as well as the interior space.
What's the best balance that we have given the lot and uniqueness for each one of those projects.
Director Pinkham.
Yeah so like with the Webster now and like building that gymnasium and how much the outdoor play space that's taken up.
How do we measure those and come to terms and so those kind of jobs.
I know it's going to be tough.
You know we need the space you know class size room reduction it means we need more room so we can have smaller teacher to student ratios.
But again if we're not being funded for it and we were limited on the land space that we have it's going to be difficult.
So.
I hope that we will make sure that we keep both of those in mind and not treat them separately.
I think what you might be able to see even is in the possible projects we can take a look at what that balance is.
You know we strive for an acre of exterior play space for us for each of the elementary schools and for the most part most of our schools do have that.
There are some clearly that don't though just because of the size of the lot.
Two acres is tough to get half of that as exterior play space.
Director Mack.
I also want to since you use Magnolia as an example Magnolia used to have a beautiful play area at the back of it which is now a city park.
So our joint use agreements can come into play in some of our facilities when we reopen buildings and think about as well.
So I just want to remind us of those opportunities of working with the city to.
to you know potentially find ways to utilize these parks that were school playgrounds previously.
And I would suggest to you that the MOU in November has a couple of hooks that we can hang our hat on.
Other comments questions concerns Director Burke.
Other comments questions concerns seeing none.
Roll call please.
Director DeWolf aye Director Geary aye Director Mack aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Burke aye Director Harris aye.
This motion is passed unanimously.
Number four task force for facilities master plan.
Approval of this item would create a task force intended to support the school board's oversight of capital planning by reviewing elements of the district's draft long range facilities master plan.
Please note that on May 8th the action report and attachment were edited.
Motion please.
I move that the school board authorize and approve the formation and charge of the task force for facilities master plan as attached to this board action report.
I might add this did go through executive committee it's not listed on here but it came through executive committee and our ops chair picked up the baton with the assistance of staff and support of staff.
I second the motion.
Thank you.
Director Mack.
So this task force at the moment we don't have a task force or advisory committee focused on capacity facility planning activities.
We have in the past.
We just had the high school boundaries task force which ended their work last year there was capacity management task force.
We do have the BEX BTA oversight committee and they do a little forward looking but it's not their main.
Worked I mean work is kind of looking as the projects are coming through to review those projects as they're coming through.
So the facilities master plan is the basis of our planning for our all of our buildings across the district.
And that plan is what informs our selection of BEX projects.
That that plan is being worked on by staff right now.
It has a pretty long table of contents and it's you know it's it's comprehensive in terms of.
Capacity analysis enrollment projections the conditions assessment.
All the buildings that are not opened etc.
There's lots of pieces of facilities master plan because of the short time frame that we have for adopting the priorities of projects for BEX V. And the need to have some support from the community and additional community engagement some oversight support.
This task force will specifically look at two key aspects of the facilities master plan.
Not the entire thing because we don't have as much time to do the entire thing but the two key aspects will be the capacity analysis.
To review that and provide any recommendations in general of yes that area of the city seems to need more seats for X reasons that sort of thing as well as the scoring of our priorities to review those and give an extra eye on.
Yes the scoring kind of makes sense or you didn't consider this aspect and that sort of thing so that can help inform the facilities master plan as well as us with BEX V project selection.
The other thing that was added to this BAR and was a part of it before but also is more clearly stated is that not only is equity one of the priorities that will be part of the scoring matrix that the task force will be reviewing and that we've stated that.
But we will be using the racial equity toolkit with this task force.
Step one I've already drafted.
Step two is actually specifically reviewing data by community.
So that is exactly what the task force is doing.
And we will have with the task force we'll have some training.
We'll start the conversation off around racial equity.
That's how we're going to launch the task force.
And so I'm super excited about the support from staff.
It's a it's a short time frame but I think we can we can do some really good work and get some community engagement on this.
Director Herndon it's my impression that staff is very much in favor of this.
Correct.
Yes.
Comments questions concerns from my colleagues director DeWolf please.
Thank you President Harris.
I just wanted to reiterate to one of the spent a long good conversation with Eden earlier this week and trying to really be thorough in our commitment to racial equity.
And I don't I don't want to necessarily get lost but one of the things we are going to we're trying on this task force and I hope will be a model for how all of our future task forces committees subcommittees sub work groups etc etc commissions councils advisory groups all of those folks.
What we're excited to do for this what I think is different than anything else is that each of the folks will participate in racial equity training that will ground the work.
And so this is kind of a new new concept and so I'm really excited about the addition of that.
So thank you Eden for working together on that.
And I. We'll be eagerly awaiting to hear how that goes with that that team and that group and then looking to maybe find a way to include that in our future task forces and and commission committee subcommittee work.
So thank you for finding the common ground there.
OK.
I have a question for general counsel.
Our other task forces that we're launching presently the information technology advisory council and the advanced learning.
There's nothing in those bars or charges that would prevent racial equity training is there?
No absolutely not.
Wouldn't mandate it but it wouldn't prevent it.
No there's absolutely nothing in either either of those charges that would prevent that.
then I would respectfully suggest that the senior staff whose portfolios those reside in would take the hint.
I think that's a that's a good modeling.
Thank you.
Questions comments concerns from my colleagues.
Director Mack Director Burke.
I just wanted to add really quick that I believe that we are ready if this passes tonight to advertise this out.
You know potentially by the end of the week and the advertisement will will be directly sent to folks that have participated on enrollment planning slash capacity facilities management task forces in the past.
The experts that we know of so folks like.
from the capacity management task force VEX BTA etc. will get direct e-mails on notifying them of this task force and asking for their potential participation as well as broadly advertised.
And who on the comms team is leading community engagement for this.
And where is the community engagement plan for it.
That one director Mack and I were speaking about that as we were talking about how to broadcast this out best.
We were going to speak after tonight's meeting to figure out what our best plan for it is.
So I can't answer that right now but we want to identify that and make sure we can get this out as quickly as possible.
But as well as possible.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
OK.
Thank you.
That was a concern of the last couple of task force bars.
And if we're going to do it let's do it right.
Other comments questions concerns director Burke.
Thank you for your comments which almost covered it.
I just wanted to understand the timing and you know how we were doing the outreach when we were doing the outreach.
It sounds like that is a little bit of an evolving plan but because it's potentially a little bit narrow recruiting more narrow recruitment we have already have a target the timeline on this shows basically May through August.
Do we actually anticipate that work will start in May or is that something that like you know that's that's three weeks.
I think that instead of sometimes task force go out and say OK we're going to be meeting every Monday you know every third Monday at this time and that's already set before the task forces.
members have been selected.
In this case because of the short term nature of the work we essentially have June July August and there's not a lot going on in the district in July.
So we have less than three months and we're envisioning maybe four to six meetings.
So essentially the idea is to.
see who might be available and is interested in engaging and work together to find timing that will work best for most people as well as the facilitator.
And we also need to narrow in on exactly how those agendas would flow.
But I believe that we can we can very effectively tee up the the session so that they have information ahead of time.
We have the questions clear that we're asking them to answer and that sort of thing.
So.
OK.
The other aspect of that is recognizing that this work is to provide recommendations for this facilities master plan.
Is there a date certain at which the facilities master plan will be.
Anchored.
This is a very good question.
The first draft of it is supposed to be coming to Ops June and then it's supposed to be adopted in August.
If I if I know.
That's correct.
So that's the plan at this point.
Our BEX V project list etc. has to be adopted by end of November at the very latest.
So there's a little bit of squishy room in there for the facilities master plan to get completed.
But the goal right now is to have it come and be finalized in August.
And so the task force is working in parallel with staff on that.
And would we be having a work session for the entire board with the task force's participation prior to it coming to the full board?
Do you anticipate that?
I would suspect so.
Currently I do believe we have a May work session a June work session and an August work session with the board around BEX V. So I I would guess probably not the May 1 maybe the June 1 or definitely the August 1. So we have tried to schedule out.
I don't know if we have a date yet for August but I do believe we have May and June set already.
Harris.
Terrific.
Dr. Nyland please.
I'm I'm concerned.
We've got a lot of players.
So we've got we've tried to get public engagement.
We haven't gotten a lot.
We're now trying to set up a task force.
I think we need to be very careful to clarify in the beginning.
what the level of decision making is in my mind maybe not in the mind of the board but that should be clarified.
They are not recommending they are not deciding body.
And we're in the process of having political conversations with the city of Seattle.
So we're trying to balance public engagement that we've said that we want to do more of.
We haven't done that in my mind very successfully yet.
We've done what we usually do and we've done that well.
But when we go out to the voters and ask for a billion dollars and we point backwards and say that we have engaged how many hundred and twenty five people so far in person in person.
Correct.
And then we go through a rubric which again what I said earlier I don't think it will be conclusive.
I don't think we'll be able to point to the rubric and say we scored everything perfectly and we put the cut off right here and there'll be no questions about that.
I think that just as we heard tonight people will see different parts of the rubric the way that they would like to see it and we'll hear back from them in those in those ways.
And as we've had the conversation with the city recognizing that Rainier Beach is a big project recognizing that high school number 12 is a big project and safety is important.
There's not a lot of money left over.
So or we need to go out for a really really really big ask.
And I won't say what I was going to say.
We need to yeah we're just setting in play a lot of moving pieces and I'm worried about how all of them are going to land in a way that kind of no good deed goes unpunished.
It's kind of like we're going to try really really hard.
And yeah.
I'll stop.
Thank you.
Director Mack.
I agree that you know the entire process of developing BEX V is all of those moving parts are already in play.
It's all there.
What setting the guiding principles does what doing the rubrics does what having a task force that engages in the conversations around what the capacity analysis is not telling us yes do this project they're just telling us Capacity analysis.
Yes in this area of the city there may need to be additional seats for such and such.
And then also looking specifically at the priorities and the way that those are scored.
They're not tasked with giving us specific recommendations on specific projects.
They're helping us to support the analysis that staff is doing that we are going to be relying on to do our decision making.
And I think that deliberation will add value to our process and help us clarify.
It still makes the decisions difficult and we'll still have those.
But I feel a lot more comfortable having some additional analysis and support to do this work and be able to make this decision soundly.
Director Burke.
From the conversation that I'm hearing here would it be a valid assessment to say that this task force is like a public way of helping us identify our potential blind spots.
Yes.
Director Burke.
Yes.
And I would add in that perhaps by being better listeners had we not closed nine schools some years ago.
And had we had a collaborative conversation would be much farther ahead in both the monetary and the trust departments.
Roll call please.
Director Geary.
Director Mack aye Director Pinkham aye Director Patu aye Director Burke aye Director DeWolf aye Director Harris aye this motion