Seattle Schools Board Meeting April 23, 2025

All right, the April 23rd, 2025 regular board meeting is called to order at 4 16 p.m.

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

Miss Wilson Jones, the roll call, please.

Vice President Briggs.

Sure.

Director Clark.

President.

Director Hersey.

Here.

Director Mizrahi.

Here.

Director Rankin.

Here.

Director Sargeau.

Present.

President Topp.

Here.

Student member Bragg.

Here.

Student member Ilyas?

Present.

Student member Yoon?

Present.

All right.

Thank you.

We have a full house of board directors tonight, which is awesome to see.

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

Good afternoon, director, top directors, staff, and members of the community, both those who are in person and those who are joining us remotely.

Before we get into tonight's agenda, I want to take a moment to highlight some exciting developments across our school district and recognize the incredible work happening throughout our district.

As you may have seen on the screen before the meeting began, we shared a montage of footage from the first day of school at the new Rainier Beach High School building, which officially opened to students on Monday.

The building, if you haven't seen it, it is truly spectacular, both in design and in spirit.

It embodies the motto proudly displayed outside, for us, by us.

I had the privilege of visiting Rainier Beach on opening day, speaking with students in the hallway, and they were excited.

You could see it on their faces, and in dialogue with them, they felt some ownership and some belonging, and felt like it was a welcoming place for them already, day one.

And so that place is not just about learning in a beautiful new space, but it's about their futures beyond Rainier Beach.

It's a reminder of why we do this work to create environments where students can dream big and thrive.

You may also notice that some familiar faces who typically join us at these meetings aren't here this evening, and that's because they're representing Seattle Public Schools at the Women Leading Ed Conference, a national network dedicated to elevating female-identifying leaders in education.

We're proud to have a strong SPS cohort participating in this professional development opportunity, which is made possible through generous philanthropic support from our community.

We look forward to the leadership insights that they will bring back to our district.

Around an overview of tonight's topics in our meeting, we're going to turn to tonight's agenda where we'll be beginning discussion of our current guardrails and the work underway to ensure safe and welcoming environments for all students.

This includes reviewing data on student perceptions of belonging and attendance trends.

We will also cover important updates regarding our enrollment and wait list practices.

We'll have a progress report on our strategic planning efforts, and we'll introduce guardrails, which reflect the values and priorities of the board heard directly from the community during our recent engagement efforts.

Regarding our legislature, as the 25-25 session comes to a close, I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to several individuals and groups.

First, I'd like to thank our Seattle delegation for their ongoing advocacy on behalf of our district.

I also especially want to thank Director Rankin for your leadership as the board's legislative liaison for your steadfast commitment in securing adequate resources for our students.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think that's a big deal.

We don't understand how much work that Director Rankin does on behalf of our legislature.

So on behalf of us with our legislature.

And finally, I'm grateful to all of our board members and communities for your ongoing collective efforts in urging the legislature to prioritize educational funding.

Your dedication helps ensure that we continue to provide high quality learning environments, programs, and services for all of our students.

So thank you.

I also want to acknowledge that yesterday we shared a message with our community providing updates, including leadership transitions within our highly capable services department.

We shared a safety and security update as we head into spring, and I want to encourage everyone to stay mindful and safe during this time of year as activities ramp up and the weather draws more of us outdoors.

Finally, we're looking forward to joining many of you at the Alliance for Education Recognition Gala this weekend.

It'll be a wonderful opportunity for us to celebrate the partnerships and achievements that strengthen our schools and uplift our students.

To end on a high note, we'll take a brief moment to watch a clip of our latest First Bell video.

This showcases some of the incredible work happening at SPS.

And thank you to the comms team and SPS TV for your work in filming and putting these wonderful highlights together for us.

This segment particularly highlights bright spots, including recognition of our SPS All-Stars, and that's a new initiative this year from our public affairs team, recognizing outstanding staff members who are making meaningful differences for our students and our communities.

So with that, we have a full agenda ahead of us.

Let's take a look at the first bill.

Hey SPS, I'm Sophia Charchuk.

And I'm Sandra Santos.

Thanks for tuning in to First Bell, where we chime in with news from around the district.

Meet our Opportunity Award winners.

By all accounts, Rachel Hardebeck is the epitome of an SPS all-star.

The Highland Park kindergarten teacher received a whopping 11 nomination letters shouting out her dedication and commitment to making all students feel included.

At Franklin High School, Jennifer Erickson is a dedicated special education teacher who works in the school's distinct program.

In her classroom, she fosters independence and empowers students to communicate their needs.

In her first year outside of the classroom, Katherine Landerholm has taken on the role of Levy Coordinator at Washington Middle School.

She builds meaningful relationships with students school-wide while helping to create a more structured school environment.

Also receiving honors were two music teachers, Bethany Grant from BF Day and Patrick Gordon who teaches band at Robert Eaglestaff Middle School.

Both teachers were recognized for their ability to create meaningful opportunities for students through music.

The district also recognized Bridges, a transition program that supports those who continue to need special education services after high school, and the Office of African American Male Achievement for their work in uplifting black students across the district.

We are the Green Team!

They came, they saw, and boy did they conquer.

The View Ridge Green Team was created by four girls who thought the school could do a better job of composting and recycling.

They took it upon themselves to create scripts, make posters, and visit classrooms to teach their peers how to properly use the bins.

We all want to keep this, the earth, clean and healthy.

I would do anything to keep this earth clean.

If you're at a school and you don't have a green team, you could just like start a thing.

I hope other people get inspired and they start their own so they can

It was a day of putting STEM academics to use as students moved through the facility, participating in activities that would give them a better understanding of maritime careers.

Activities included a navigational chart plotting exercise, the opportunity to operate a large vessel in a maritime simulator, and a buoyancy experiment using Legos.

They also got to tour the Vulcan, a repair barge docked at the Academy.

J.K. Burwell, the librarian for both schools, arranged the trip as part of their participation in the Global Reading Challenge.

They brought the book, Miles Lewis, King of the Ice, to life by learning about ice skating and expanding their vocabulary with all things related to the sport.

The field trip was the perfect way to connect literacy to real-world learning while diving into the history and culture of ice hockey.

The team celebrated their big win with a parade through the school, which culminated with an assembly in the gym.

This was head coach Mike Bethea's ninth title win.

Rainier Beach isn't the only SPS school celebrating state champions.

Ballard High School's girls gymnastics team became the first Seattle public school to win a state championship in the sport.

Not to be outdone, Ballard's cheer team defended their national champion title, earning their second USA Spirit national championship.

And in the Unified Special Olympics, both Lincoln and Roosevelt's unified basketball teams took second place.

Way to go, teams!

That's it for this episode.

But before we go, we want to give a quick shout out to Queen Anne Elementary's Library Links team for their win in the 2025 Global Reading Challenge.

An excellent job by Genesee Hill, Kimball, and Orca K8, who all tied for second place.

If you want to learn more about these stories, visit our website.

Until next time, I'm Sondra Santos.

And I'm Sofia Charchuk.

We'll catch you later for First Bell.

And that concludes my remarks.

Back to you, President Topp.

Thank you, Dr. Jones.

That was a great first bell, and I just want to echo thank you for Director Rankin's hard work this legislative session.

It is a lot of work, and I appreciate the update she sends every single week as well.

It's one of the favorite things I get in my inbox to be able to read.

I'm going to go to student board members joining us this evening, seeing if they have any comments.

On March 26th, Director Clark and I visited Ballard High School.

We met with the Associate Student Body and Student Senate, which are a group of student representatives from each classroom.

Many students emphasize the positive impact of having a teen health center at school.

AND HOW IT PROVIDED A SAFE AND WELCOMING SPACE FOR THEM THAT ALLOWS THEM TO ADDRESS THEIR NEEDS.

AND I JUST WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT WITH THE ADDITION OF FIVE NEW TEEN HEALTH CENTERS THROUGH THE FAMILY EDUCATION PRESCHOOL AND PROMISE LEVY, ALSO KNOWN AS THE FEP LEVY.

THIS IS VERY PROMISING TO SEE MORE STUDENTS WHO WILL BE PROVIDED THE SPACE.

DIRECTOR CLARK, WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD ANYTHING TO THE SCHOOL VISIT?

Thank you, Director Yoon.

Yeah, I thought it was a really great visit.

I was just sharing with Director Rankin that we were in the hallways when they were doing a send off for the girls gymnastics team to state.

And it was my first time having an experience like that where all the students were gathered in the hallways.

the marching band was going down the hall and the gymnastics team was in front and everybody was cheering and so congratulations bellard high school gymnastics team um i think i thought the meeting went really well um the students um you know answered various questions around concerns, feeling heard, what would they like to see change in the school and also we talked a bit about college and career readiness and if seniors are feeling prepared.

I think notably to me what stood out was just too many comments about the lack of safety that students were feeling taking public transportation to school, that students were feeling really heard and really seeking leadership opportunities and really engaging.

with their school leaders, and so that was great.

And then I think for the college and career readiness, the students were expressing that they just want more opportunities.

They want to do more service hours, more internships, and just gain, you know, as many resources as they possibly can to be ready to move on to the next stage.

And they felt that the art team is going really well.

Sports are easy to find and sign up for.

And so, yeah, it was a great visit and happy to be able to share some of the results with you all.

Sorry, I have one more thing.

I also attended the Superintendent Advisory Board meeting a couple weeks ago when we had the opportunity to meet with Congresswoman Jayapal.

I just wanted to share one message that really stood out to me and I wanted to resonate with everyone here in this room is to never lose hope, especially when it feels like your actions, your voice aren't bringing immediate change.

She specifically alluded to Dr. Martin Luther King's powerful notion of the arc of justice, which teaches us that journey towards equality and progress is long and requires persistence.

And during times when progress seems slow, I think it's really important that we all stay together and justice will eventually be on our side, as she shared.

I wanted to take a moment to highlight a few important updates from the student community.

First, with the superintendent search underway, I'd like to uplift an email we received from the NAACP Youth Council.

They've asked to be included in the decision-making process, and I want to echo that ask.

Youth, especially BIPOC students, deserve a voice in selecting the next leader of our district.

The council proposed holding focus groups, one-on-one interviews, or even a youth-led dinner to meet candidates.

I believe that creating space for student input is not only valuable, it is necessary.

I'd love to help support or co-organize efforts like this moving forward.

I also want to thank Director Hersey for making time to visit Franklin.

We've planned for him to meet with Franklin's ASB to hear directly from students about their school experience, goals, and the challenges they're facing.

This will mirror the visit Director Yoon organized at Ballard and we hope it can become a model for meaningful student-led engagement across other schools.

We're excited to share the results next month.

Lastly, I want to remind everyone that the application for the next student board member positions are open.

This year, I'm especially working to bring more students from the south end.

We're encouraging students from underrepresented groups, including those in the south and west Seattle schools, students with IEPs, and those in non-traditional academic pathways to apply.

I cannot stress this enough, but how important it is for this role to reflect the full diversity of the SPS student body.

Your voice matters and we need you at the table.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Bragg.

APPLY FOR THE SADDLE SCHOOL BOARD.

AND JUST A QUICK FOLLOW-UP, DIRECTOR SARGYU AND I AND STAFF AND STUDENT BOARD MEMBERS ARE WELCOME, HOPEFULLY MEETING WITH THE NAACP YOUTH COUNCIL TO FIGURE OUT HOW THEY CAN BE INCORPORATED INTO OUR SEARCH PROCESS.

But with that, we have reached our committee and liaison reports, and I'm going to start with just a recap and a preview of what we have been working on this spring.

First, our superintendent search process.

I'm going to get tired of saying this same thing over and over again, but Superintendent Jones has announced his upcoming departure from the district.

So in March, we launched our superintendent search process by issuing a request for proposals for an executive search firm to help the board conduct engagement, recruitment for, and move through the selection of our next superintendent.

We evaluated firm's proposals over several meetings, accumulating in a final meeting earlier today, and we will vote later tonight to authorize a contract for the selected firm.

Next, we have a series of engagement sessions over the next few weeks.

First, Director Hersey, Rankin, and I will be at Aki Kurose Middle School tomorrow night.

Our next engagement session after that will be April 30th at Denny International Middle School and then May 7th at Daniel Bagley Elementary School.

As the student board director said, we are also now recruiting high school students to apply to serve as student board members.

Board directors are headed out to some of the different high schools throughout the next month to be able to work on recruitment.

And more information is available on the board website with applications due on the 30th of May.

April.

April.

April.

Next one.

OK.

That is incongruent with our timeline because we're going out to high schools to recruit students to apply.

So we're going to figure that out.

Something is amiss there as far as the application deadline.

So note for our staff and we'll figure that one out.

Good thing that we caught that.

All right, additionally, a few notes on the work plan items included in our agenda tonight.

Our consent agenda includes action to set regular board meeting dates for next year.

This allows us to plan for the coming year.

It also has dates.

For special meetings and engagement sessions, a draft calendar for reference illustrates what this could look like.

But obviously, more planning will be done in June at our June retreat and then also likely again at our January retreat.

We also have two items related to interim metrics for our new goals and guardrails.

First, we will receive a presentation for interim metrics for new guardrails.

And the interim metrics for the goals are attached as an information item.

Lastly, I think during the break I reminded board directors we're going through our quarterly self-evaluation at the conclusion of tonight's meeting.

If you're uncertain which section you're assigned to complete, find Carrie board office staff so you can work through that during a break that we have.

Finally, some milestones.

So I want to echo Dr. Jones' excitement for the celebration of students entering Rainier Beach High School.

I had the opportunity to visit Rainier Beach with Dr. Jones I think a week and a half ago, and we welcomed students into this space.

This is very exciting.

personally an impactful moment for me to be part of this project.

My dad attended Rainier Beach High School, graduated from Rainier Beach High School, and this moment in my family was particularly impactful that I got to be a small part in this 10-year process of making this, opening up this school.

So, so much has been put into this project.

I want to thank all the staff and all of those who made it possible, including folks who supported our capital levy.

As I was toured, I was struck by the detail.

in the new gym floors, the dedicated space for our CTE stuff, as well as our Bridges program.

On the tour, I got to meet Israel Presley.

He is here this evening, a Rainier Beach alum, helping to actually build the new school through his work as an apprentice carpenter at Lighting Construction.

And I heard him speak at our BECCS BTA Oversight Committee, and I invited him here tonight just to hear from him.

His story is very impactful, in fact, made me tear up a little bit.

So invite him to the podium to share and introduce himself.

Welcome.

Wow, it's been a while since I've been up here.

Yeah, so my name is Israel Presley.

I attended Rainier Beach my senior year of high school, and actually before that, I even attended Garfield for two years.

Yeah, my story really goes as this.

I attended Rainier Beach, graduated, attempted to, actually I did attend South Seattle College and then COVID rolled around and I didn't really have an opportunity.

I wound up actually having to drop out just due to the circumstances.

And there was this awesome opportunity, this amazing opportunity to work, not only to work, but to have a second chance.

So I just want to first and foremost acknowledge what the Student Community Workforce Agreement does for us.

It allows for students like me whose original plan A kind of fell apart.

It gave me the opportunity to really take hold of my own life.

And from there, I was able to, sorry, I was able to I was able to work.

I was able to, while working on these projects, I was able to build a water district near my house.

So when my grandmother calls or my parents call the place that they pay their water bill every month, I got to have a hand in that.

I was able to work on the Rainier Beach Project, work on John Rogers Elementary, and during that project up at John Rogers Elementary, I had the privilege of getting married.

And I don't think any of that would have been possible because before I had this opportunity, I was scrubbing toilets overnight.

And so, yes, I got married.

And then to really, really show how beneficial this was, this past December, I actually purchased my first home.

And this is only a, you know, thank you.

You know, this is only, I mean, it sounds like a lot of time, but around the same amount of time you would have put in for your four years of high school, I was able to do this after high school.

I purchased my first home at 23. My wife, you know, it's me and my wife, and we actually just hosted Easter at my home.

So it's just an amazing turnaround to not only just support myself, but to support other members of my family.

but then also be an inspiration to younger people.

There was nothing better than seeing the students at Rainier Beach and ask me, oh, what's this?

Or how does this get built?

And I was actually able to give them answers.

The beautiful part about Rainier Beach for me is currently the old school is still there.

So recently I've been able to literally walk right through the old school straight into the new one.

And knowing that those same bathrooms my dad had to use.

I had uncles that used those bathrooms.

And he was telling me that they haven't changed since then.

And we make that joke all the time.

It's like the little trough toilets in there.

And you're like, oh, gosh.

And then you see the new bathrooms.

You're like, my goodness, this would have been nice.

Definitely the acoustics are a little bit better.

But truly, I really do have to say this, that This is a legacy project, knowing that students who attended this school, who really bleed that orange and blue, were able to be on this project.

Me, Orlando Norwood, and Jermaine Smith, we were all on this project.

We played ball together.

And knowing that we poured those foundations, and Lord willing, for the next 50 years to the next century, there's going to be students walking on the same concrete that I had the privilege of pouring.

There's going to be students walking through thresholds that I had the privilege of erecting.

Every nail I struck, I had an image of that community.

And I wouldn't trade that for the world.

So I just want to first and foremost, like I said, thank all of you guys, because this project wouldn't happen if it wasn't for the people who constantly show up and advocate.

I remember actually being a part of the NAACP Youth Coalition my senior year of high school.

So it's amazing seeing how this all comes full circle.

But yeah, Build a Beach for us, by us, was truly, truly a very surreal experience.

And so I just, like I said, thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for showing up this evening and sharing your story and also highlighting the student and community workforce agreement and the impact that it has on our community.

Gonna go to board director reports, anyone wanna follow that?

Director Rankin.

I'll just drop a big old wet blanket over that.

So policy committee, we're meeting on schedule.

We're getting through a lot of stuff.

It's myself, Vice President Briggs, Director Clark, looking forward to bringing a package to the board in a couple of months.

Any specific things people want to look at, it should all be online and meeting notes and materials and whatnot.

Legislatively, here comes the wet blanket.

We're very close to the end of session.

Somebody else, a long-time advocate and steadfast legislative expert called this one of the most grueling sessions they can remember, and it has been pretty brutal.

I'll start with really good news, really amazing news is that both the House and the Senate have passed plans for special education that eliminate the arbitrary cap on students who receive special education services.

That's a really, really big deal.

It's a huge, I think, moral and ethical victory.

It doesn't solve our financial issues, though, however.

For those of you who may not know, our state, unlike most other states, and now we can finally say like other states, we don't have this cap, our state provides special education funding on what's called a multiplier.

So for every student with an IEP, the state provides a general education allocation and then a special education multiplier allocation.

up to a point.

So the state would limit, they would say, yes, we're going to give this allocation for every student with an IEP.

A few years ago, it was only 13.5%, and we pushed really, really hard to get that to 14.5%, and then to the current 16%, and now it looks like we're finally going to eliminate it, which is incredible, and that just means that any student who qualifies for an IEP, the state will provide that multiplier apportionment regardless of how many students there are.

Because it's not easy to get an IEP.

It's not capricious.

There's a federal set of standards.

It's an evaluation done by professionals.

And every student who qualifies for that, it's our legal and moral obligation to serve them.

And now our state will provide funding for every student.

So that's really exciting.

Unfortunately, the multiplier is the bigger money impact.

And we started off with a really strong, strong bill in the House and also one in the Senate.

The House bill failed to advance earlier in the session, and the Senate, led by Seattle's own Senator Jamie Peterson, was the high watermark.

um that unfortunately and is not to not unexpected has been whittled down as we get close to the end of budget reconciliation which is the house and the senate have to agree on one budget for the state and the governor has to sign off on it so as we're approaching that end point which is next week bargains are being made and those amounts are shrinking.

And we've seen many, many different proposals for increased revenue from both the House and the Senate.

And it is the governor who has indicated he will veto most of those.

He said he is open to increasing revenue, but so far has shut down all of the proposals that have come forward.

So unclear what revenue, what new revenue streams he would accept.

So that's kind of as we end the session, that's what the House and the Senate are grappling with is, you know, when there's a budget deficit, you either have to spend less or raise more to make it close.

And the amount that the governor has indicated he's willing to sign off on has been shrinking.

And so that is coming out of these proposals for special education.

So, excuse me, for K-12.

All told, right now, we will get around $9.2 million from the state for basic education costs.

That is the big three, which became the big two, which now is the kind of small two.

for materials operating material supplies and operating costs and special education pretty far cry from what districts actually spend we will take it we will be grateful for it and we will keep going back and asking for more until we have what our students need and SO THAT'S LOOKING LIKE ABOUT 9.2 MILLION.

THE OTHER PIECE THAT'S IN PLAY IS AN AUTHORIZATION TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS THAT PASS LOCAL LEVIES TO COLLECT A HIGHER AMOUNT THAN IS CURRENTLY ALLOWED BY THE STATE.

had the foresight to ask and our voters had the generosity to approve levies at a higher rate just this past February at a higher rate than the state allows to collect.

So should this levy bill pass, we will immediately be able to collect that higher amount.

Some other districts will have to go back out and ask again for the higher amount.

We've planned for it.

The really unfortunate side of what's happening, in addition to not closing our full deficit, but is that there was an ask with this levy bill to provide what's called LEA, which is state assistance for districts who struggle to pass levies.

And that has been eliminated right now.

So that is rough for districts who already struggle to pass levies.

And so we're still, you know, it's not done till it's done.

There's still several days left.

It's a great time to contact your legislatures and let them know what you would like to see and the governor.

And, you know, we will have to grapple with whatever we're able to get when we get it.

And I do want to thank our Seattle delegation for their really steadfast commitment to trying to push that envelope.

It really just comes down to at the end what both sides and the governor will agree to sign off on at the end of the day.

Other chair or liaison reports.

All right.

So we have 10 minutes so we start public testimony.

Do we want to go to the tables and start progress monitoring or do we want to take a break for 10 minutes is sort of the question here.

All right, so I'm hearing a break, so we will be in recess till five o'clock when we will start public testimony.

Recess, looking to board directors to come find their seats.

We are going to start public testimony here on time, so calling board directors, Dr. Jones, back to the podium.

Okay, we are missing Director Clark, Director Rankin, Director Jones.

I'm going to start calling him out by name.

All right, we're gonna start here.

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

board procedure 1430 BP provides rules for the testimony the board expects the same standard of civility for those participating in public comment as the board expects of itself as board president I have the right to and I will interrupt any speaker who fails to observe the standard of civility required by our procedure A speaker who refuses or fails to comply with these guidelines or who otherwise substantially disrupts the orderly operation of this meeting may be asked to leave the meeting.

I'm going to pass it to staff now to summarize a few additional points and read off the testimony speakers.

Thank you, President Topp.

The board will take testimony from those today on the testimony list and will go to the waiting list if we are missing speakers.

Please wait until called to approach the podium or unmute if you're online, and only one person may speak at a time.

The board's procedure provides that most of your time should be spent on the topic you signed up to speak to.

Speakers may cede their time to another person, but this must be done when the listed speaker is called.

Time isn't restarted, and the total time remains two minutes.

The timer at the podium will indicate the time remaining for speakers here in person.

When the light is red and a beep sounds, that means your time has already been exhausted, and we will call the next speaker.

For those joining by phone, the beep will be an indication that time has been exhausted.

Moving into our list now, for those joining by phone, you'll need to press star six to unmute on the conference line.

And for everyone, please do reintroduce yourself when called, as I will miss some pronunciations as we move through today's list.

The first speaker today is Janice White.

Hi, I'm Janice White and I'm running for the school board in District 5. First of all tonight, I wanna send my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Salvador Junior Granillo, a Garfield High School senior who lost his life to gun violence on Sunday.

I'm holding the Garfield community in my heart as they cope with the loss of another beloved student.

Please remove items six and seven from the consent agenda.

The Emerald Learning Center is located in the former Northwest Soil with many of the same staff.

After OSPI and school districts failed to address years of complaints about Northwest Soil, please see the April 18th Seattle Times article I have provided.

You are responsible for making sure that we don't make the same mistake again and send vulnerable students to a harmful program.

I've heard generally positive things about Emerald, but you need to be sure that district staff are monitoring it closely.

Also, do you know the racial demographics of the children being sent there?

And do you know how many children we are sending out of district to receive special education services?

The bar for the Emerald Contract states that three students are being added, but all three students have been there since the fall.

Why did it take so long to ask to increase the contract amount?

Both Emerald and Elevate provide ABA services.

ABA is controversial among autistic people, many of whom consider it abusive.

Is the district making sure that families are informed before they consent?

And are we offering alternatives to ABA for families that want an alternative?

In light of the vile comments made last week by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about autistic people and autistic children, we must make sure that our autistic and disabled children receive the education they are entitled to and deserve to reach their full potential.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Samantha Fogg.

Hello, this is Samantha Fogg.

I'm a parent of three students in Seattle Public Schools and co-president of Seattle Council PTSA.

Everything begins and ends in the classroom.

Every child who comes into our school deserves not only access to academics, but to actually getting to achieve academic growth in a safe and welcoming environment, where they can navigate challenges with the support of educators who value them.

We need a superintendent who cares about every child in their education, who is comfortable with and wants to connect with the full diversity of our students.

I'm asking that if you choose a process, engagement be inclusive of those students who have been least well served, most excluded, most ignored.

We need to see that our next superintendent enjoys communicating with, listening to, and engaging with students in transition services, interagency, virtual option, our deaf and hard of hearing students, our highly capable cohort students, We need a superintendent who values community and family engagement.

Of course, care and connection are not enough.

We need a superintendent who can hire and fire, who can implement board policies.

And we need a superintendent who will stand up for the civil rights of our students whether or not our legal system continues to do so.

I must note that in the joy and celebration of Rainier Beach High School, which I too share, it's a little bit painful knowing that the students at Rock Hill Annex, who should be part of the beach community, who thought they were part of the beach community, haven't had communication about a potential return to beach and have been completely left out and are continuing to be in a building without hot lunch, without adequate potable water, and with other myriad breakdowns.

We hope to see a more inclusive Seattle Public Schools as we move through the search process.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. On the personnel report, Superintendent Brent Jones has announced his resignation.

I wish to thank Mr. Jones for his service to the district.

On authorizing $4 million of capital fund interest for use by the operating budget, I have advocated such use for years, but the amount should be much more, tens of millions of dollars.

On items in the consent agenda, six points.

Number one, pull items off the consent agenda for public discussion rather than silent rubber stamping, or else vote no.

Number two, Carpenter's contract.

Wage rates for the final two years will later be reopened for negotiations.

Is there a similar approach for the SEA contract?

3. BF Day windows contract.

$34,000 per window for each of 212 windows.

Seems like pretty pricey windows.

4. Final acceptance of Northgate.

This mega-school project toward closing schools is not really final.

Number five, on Mercer and Maple, both projects involve installing plastic grass with forever chemicals.

Number six, on Van Asselt and Jane Addams, the board reports cite change orders of 10 percent and 28 percent.

We need many more school board candidates who will say, don't close schools, so drop me a card.

P.O.

Box 84063, Seattle 98124. Four seats are up.

We need at least three candidates for each seat or else there will be no primary and discussion of issues.

It's really great to have everybody here today.

Thank you all.

Thanks a lot.

Bye bye for now.

The next speaker is Manuel Eslay.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Hello, good afternoon.

I am a parent at West Seattle high school and also a board member of Seattle Council PTSA.

On behalf of our immigrant and refugee families and students, I request that important decisions such as superintendent search and selection and strategic plan development honor the voices of those with language barriers.

I cede the rest of my time to fellow parent, Sean Sonder, and he's in the room.

Thank you.

hello hello board my name is Sam Sanders hopefully you can hear me I'm a parent here in Seattle I have four children and three are going through the Seattle public school system now and when I started I was we had a very hard time getting interpreters for family meetings concerts plays school events And now I feel like I've given up.

I haven't bothered with getting interpreters because there's a lot of work and it's not yielding any results.

I also believe that we should not be responsible for that extra responsibility for the SPS community.

And I am a Seattle Public School teacher.

I work at the Rosen School.

And a big part of our program is development and developing the community and a sense of belonging.

And I feel like it's very important to grow and have the success for our children.

So really what I'm asking for, and it's not for just language access, but a welcoming community to build our community, no matter what barriers we have, and to be able to have an open access to our culture.

And us as deaf people and our CODAs, our children of deaf adults, have a very vast culture.

and we need to see it at TOPS, and we want to see, and the deaf parents should be able to have recognition for that.

Our next superintendent, please recognize our deaf families, our language access needs, and because now, now we want to be able to be part of this.

Thank you so much.

The next speaker is Jessica Chong.

Jessica was gonna cede her time to me.

Is she online?

Jessica, if you're online, you'll need to press star six.

We will need to hear from you in order for you to cede time.

I'm gonna go to the next speaker, but we will come back around to Jessica in case she's able to join at that point.

So the next speaker on our list is Chi Creneta.

Good evening.

My name is Chi Crenata, and I have two highly capable kids at a West Seattle K-8 school, a first grader and a third grader.

Both of my kids say that their grade level material in class is too easy for them, and they're often bored.

For my first grader, this boredom unfortunately translates into disengagement, disruptive behavior, and loss of interest in school.

Their teachers are often busy helping the students with the highest needs and have little, if any, time left to give the advanced learners more challenging instructions and material.

On paper, SPS said that there is a plan to provide advanced learning and highly capable services at every neighborhood school, but in reality, there's nothing.

I know because I volunteered my kids' classrooms.

There also has been no guidance, training, or resources from SPS on how to provide AL and HC services within the classroom, and the teachers would very much welcome such supplemental support.

In both of my kids' classes, about 20% of the students are advanced learners or are highly capable.

In West Seattle, there are at least 156 HC elementary students who currently have no cohort and practically no HC services.

We used to have a cohort in West Seattle at Fairmount Park Elementary, but that was ended.

So if West Seattle students want to go to a school with an HC cohort, They must take a bus ride that could be up to 80 minutes long each way to the near school, which is Thurgood Marshall Elementary.

That long commute is unreasonable and unfair, and it's the reason why many West Seattle families choose not to send their kids to a cohort school.

West Seattle families would like to have a reasonable access to HC services and to have a cohort in our region again.

We also want the curriculum department to allow acceleration in math, to allow students to take above grade level classes if that's where they're at, and to allow all middle school students to test into and access advanced math.

We should be pushing our students to excel and not to be holding them back.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Lindsey Blom.

Lindsey Blom.

Hi, Lindsay Bloom.

I am a member of the Seattle Student Options Coalition, which is a parent group that advocates for option schools in SPS.

I'm also a mom of two option school kids and a PTSA president.

I'm going to tell you the story of our school, but the same thing is happening at many other schools, including neighborhood schools.

Across the district, a thousand students were left on waiting lists at neighborhood schools, with another thousand left on option school waiting lists.

SPS's enrollment cap is affecting all schools.

Thanks to a capital project in 2018, Queen Anne Elementary's capacity was increased by 67% to 500 students.

However, despite having a new building and highly engaged school community, SPS left students on the waiting list last year when there was ample physical space.

This year, the district has further curtailed enrollment to 152 students, leaving 350 spots open and limiting us to one kindergarten class for the second year in a row.

Meanwhile, as of yesterday, we have 32 students waitlisted with no clarity on whether any of them will be admitted.

The board is referring to this as stability, but I can tell you from my conversations with 17 families on the waiting list yesterday that this is anything but stability for these families.

The 350 spots in our school, however, these families found out yesterday that they're on the waiting list, including a family with siblings in our geo zone.

can you tell how can you tell me how that family is feeling stability our community wrote over 50 letters to the district on this issue each letter received a form response citing elements of privilege power equity and fairness no doubt there are equity issues that need to be addressed however it's a grave mistake to confuse those issues with that of enrollment policy indeed public schools are meant to be open to anyone yet the district is artificially capping enrollment at a fictional number that is wholly unrelated to the school's capacity we implore you to enroll in interested families at all schools that have physical space to accommodate them likewise we urge sps to resolve issues with small schools responsibly by engaging those communities to define their future if enrollment policy doesn't change these schools and the success stories they embody are going to wither and die on the vine thank you the next speaker is anna mansell carriganis the next speaker is anna mansell carriganis

I cede my time to Patrick Conway.

One moment.

Ms. Wilson-Jones, let's make sure time has not started here.

Okay.

Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Patrick.

I am back again to comment on the access policy here in SPS for CODAS.

I met Liza recently in February.

And I thank you for your support.

And for the rest of you for standing by when we take the vote for the TSAP.

Just FYI, my daughter is on the waiting list, and they haven't done anything yet.

It's very low impact for you and life-changing for us.

Honestly, I don't understand why the enrollment office is pushing back on this.

It's cheaper to reduce your legal liability.

To be blunt, this is why parents don't see it.

We don't need a big study to tell us why we don't feel like we're being heard.

We don't know what it feels like to be isolated without access.

You don't know what it feels like to have your children grow up speaking a different language.

You don't know what it feels like to be told that someone else knows better than you about the access means.

Just because I use my voice, where are our voices?

We want to commit to SPS and the deaf community within.

My wife works four days a week at TOPS as an SLP for the deaf children.

She is a skilled signer and culturally sensitive, a rare thing.

I went there a few weeks ago as a part of a career fair and I am on the board for a hearing speech and deaf center.

Many TOPS parents signed the petition.

They want us there, but if SPS doesn't want to commit to us, then we're leaving.

We want a district that will give us the needs without making it so painful.

When the TSAP vote comes, you guys have the power to make a meaningful change and win the trust of deaf people.

Thank you.

Next is Erin McDougall.

Hi, my name is Erin McDougall and I cede my time to Tammy Morales.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm Tammy Morales.

I'm a South End resident and the parent of a Cleveland senior.

Today, we'll hear that school assignment decisions are being made to balance enrollment across the district.

But from my perspective, what's really happening is that families are being pushed out of the district.

As a Cleveland parent, I've seen how an option school can really support kids in thriving.

Cleveland is the only option high school in the South End, a part of town where students and classrooms are under-resourced.

And right now, Cleveland has 129 students on the wait list.

In full disclosure, my daughter is one of them.

The answer isn't to block students from enrolling in their preferred school.

The answer is to staff and resource schools appropriately.

Your argument is that you want to protect stability and that choice is a threat to that stability, which is frankly absurd and is deeply wrong of SPS to frame it in that way.

Cleveland has fewer than 900 students.

Giving choice is protecting learning stability for families, and you must accept all 129 students on that wait list.

Families make decisions about what's best for their children and it is not radical to send your kid to the school that best supports their learning needs.

STEM is an important opportunity to access high quality public education and it's especially important in the South End where families have few options.

Pushing kids away, keeping them on a waiting list for reasons that are still unclear means that families are looking to charter schools.

You should be focused on growing enrollment.

Lift the wait list for families who know the school system is stronger because of school choice, not despite of it.

Your internal policy decision-making process has been opaque and confusing, and you must rebuild the trust of Seattle families because our kids deserve better.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Alicia Drucker.

Alicia Drucker.

Please press star six to unmute on the conference line.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Great.

Thank you.

I'm Alicia Drucker, here to testify on the waitlist dissonance within SBS.

We've heard repeatedly that there's an enrollment issue in the district which constrains school budgets during an extreme budget crisis.

Meanwhile, the district is refusing to move waitlists when spots are available.

At John Stanford International School, this has been extremely frustrating for many families.

As you know only students who are already fluent or native speakers are able to join VLI schools from second grade and above with natural attrition from schools that leaves empty spots in classrooms.

In the 23-24 academic year I had rising third and fifth graders both fluent in Spanish and my third grader was offered a spot at JSIS.

My fifth grader was refused a spot along with every other child on the wait list for fifth grade despite the fact that there were 19 free spots in the grade.

My kids attended two different elementary schools last year which was difficult for our family.

The district enrollment director told me, and I quote, capacity is managed centrally to ensure equitable practices in balancing enrollment for all schools are met.

We do not have any seats available in fifth grade to make an offer to your son.

This was dishonest and a distortion of the truth that there were spots available.

Obviously, this arose trust in the district.

Along with that, the district is assuming that one, all families refuse a spot at their desired school will go to another SDS school, which we know is false.

And two, it is somehow equitable to refuse to allow children to learn in their preferred language.

My story is only one of many.

Our parent community knows a mother who is a refugee from Venezuela with a son who was in the fifth grade in November last academic year.

JSIS is located near the mother's workplace and continue to have space in the fifth grade Spanish program, and our community encouraged this mother to apply for her son.

She applied, and despite the support of our principal, SPS rejected her request.

She appealed but lost her case.

Her son suffered socially and academically in an all-English speaking school while there were spots available at John Stanford.

And this mother had to reduce her working hours to be able to get him to from his school, far from where she works.

How is that equity?

Quoting a native-speaking family in the Japanese program, our middle child is at JSIS.

Our oldest child, currently in third grade at another school, has been trying unsuccessfully to get into one of the Japanese DLI programs for four years now.

The process last year was particularly confusing, as friends with children at both McDonald's and JSIS knew firsthand that there were open spaces.

Please, we call on you to consider the impact of refusing to fill schools from the wait list.

SPS is eroding trust, losing enrollment, and causing harm to families by refusing to move the waitlist.

Your time has expired.

Please conclude your remarks.

The data published this week shows 118 kids on the waitlist from K-5 at JSIS for next year.

Please let those kids in.

Please fill our school and do the same for other option in neighborhood schools.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Elias Cass.

Elias Cass.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Hi, my name is Elias Kass and I'm the father of two SPS students.

SPS must answer two very simple questions about highly capable programming in neighborhood schools.

One, will acceleration be allowed?

And two, will advanced coursework be allowed?

If the answer is no, then highly capable programming will not be available in neighborhood schools.

You cannot accelerate within grade level curriculum without eventually running out of material.

If the answer is yes, then the district can move on to implementation.

This must be a district-wide plan, not left up to each building individually.

There must be a clear standard that defines HC services in neighborhood schools so services are consistently delivered and can be consistently assessed.

And though this may seem obvious, so that parents can know whether or not their child is actually receiving services.

Current CSIPs say things like, students who are achieving well above grade level standards are targeted under MTSS for Tier 2 interventions.

But how is that assessed?

And what are those interventions?

If I don't know what they are, how do I know if my child is receiving them?

Overturning the ban on advanced curriculum in neighborhood schools will open so many doors for so many students.

Acceleration allows for students qualifying in a single subject and for HC students with higher support needs to have their academic needs met as well.

It will allow for multi-language learners to accelerate in math, though if you really want to identify multi-language learners as highly capable, you should probably stop giving the test solely in English.

The question of acceleration is fundamental to determining our path forward.

True acceleration belongs in all schools, not just cohort schools.

If you can't get advanced coursework in your neighborhood school, then you don't have highly capable services.

You just have extra worksheets.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Kim Steffensmeyer.

Hello, can you hear me?

We can.

I cede my time to Faisal Akhtar.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Faisal Akhtar.

I'm a resident of Northeast Seattle, U.S. Army veteran, and a father of three children in Seattle, the oldest of whom is a kindergartner in the Seattle public school system.

Perhaps most importantly is I'm a vested stakeholder in the Seattle public school system, deeply vested.

And I'm here to talk about the under enrollment of the Seattle public school system as I understand it.

And yet I see 400 families on the wait list that stepped away from the Seattle public school system due to being on the wait list.

I say that as a father, the oldest of whom is on a wait list in Seattle public school system.

And I wonder about this self-purported crisis of under-enrollment as I sit here with all these other families on the waitlist here asking the board to please open the waitlist.

It's not a crisis of enrollment or demand, but clearly a crisis of people and families not being heard.

And so I ask, the school system, please open up the wait lists and meet the demand that exists for families to access the Seattle public school system.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Kim Gold.

Kim Gold.

Kim, if you're online, please press star six to unmute.

I'm gonna go to the next speaker.

I'm here.

Oh, are you Kim?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, good evening board members, Dr. Jones, SPS staff.

My name is Kim Gould.

I and my entire family are proud graduates of SPS.

And I'm here to advocate for full-time librarians in the high schools in the 25, thank you, in the 25-26 budget.

There's a concern out there that they'll be cut to half time.

I work as a volunteer at Garfield High School.

Our librarian asked me to share with you my front row view of what he does all day so you can see why this position is critical to ensuring our students achieve the life-ready goal that you set as the 2025-2030 SPS adopted goals.

A group of girls wants to compare the Quran to the Bible.

A display of 3D printed pyramids leads to discussions of the ancient wonders of the world.

A student loves a book and can immediately help order similar additional books for the library.

These one-on-ones take time and effort, but they are high engagement moments that get our kids to fall in love with reading.

He supports a student-run effort called the Weekly News Quiz, which is such a success it led to a write-up in the Seattle Times, a radio show interview, and a presentation to the UW Poly Sci class.

Last year, he took six students to UW for the Misinformation Day, where they learned to think critically about disinformation and fake news.

This year, it was expanded to 15 students who are hoping to take 25 next year.

He runs a very popular library club for a number of students.

The library for many students is a safe place.

And there's tech support.

With 1,500 students, a continuous stream of them need help with laptops, printers, and Xeroxing.

So in summary, for our kids to be life-ready, they need to become critical thinkers, which in turn requires strong media literacy and a lifelong love of reading.

It is our professional librarians that will provide this necessary environment for this.

Please continue to prioritize full-time librarians in our high schools.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Jai Lee.

I cede my time to Mary Dixon.

She's calling in on the phone.

Hi, this is Mary.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you.

I am a parent in South Seattle and I live in Rainier Beach, a few blocks away from a neighborhood school that we are not zoned for and a K-8 option school where I currently have a second grader with an HC designation and a kindergartner Southeast Seattle has a waitlist that don't move because we are told the district does not want to hurt enrollment at small or quote under enrolled schools by moving families out of them.

But denying families choice is not the way to maintain or increase enrollment.

Why not take those programs that are in demand like dual language immersion STEM education and advanced learning cohorts and start new programs at the schools in need of an enrollment boost.

This could be a win for everyone.

Universal screening increased HC kids at my school from 3 to 20 in one year.

This is great.

We should celebrate an influx of newly identified kids from diverse backgrounds who qualify for advanced learning.

But instead of using programs that work, like walk to math and reading, a student's HC experience today is entirely teacher dependent.

Because we can't predict what our child's experience will be in our neighborhood school, we decided to bus them to the cohort school next year.

But South Seattle has enough students to support its own HC elementary cohort, and it could definitely support more dual language programs.

Spanish and Vietnamese are two of the most common languages spoken at our school, and the DLI schools have huge wait lists.

Like HC, more dual language programming would provide culturally relevant options for families who crave rigor and don't want to bus an hour away.

We know that every school can't have every program, but every school could have its own unique and compelling program and let families choose their path.

By providing culturally relevant and academically rigorous options, we can recover families who have left the district and retain the ones who are here.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Liz Berry.

Liz Berry.

Hi, good afternoon.

I'm Liz Berry.

I'm an SPS dual language teacher at Denny International Middle School.

I'm on the Seattle Council PTSA board, and I'm an SPS parent, and I want to cede my time today to Wellesie Kinney.

Hi, I'm Welsey Kenny, a highly capable student in SPS and a dual language student as well.

I'm here to talk about student mental health.

So in 2022, there was a proposal to divert $20 million to mental health services for students at the Seattle Public Schools District.

This proposal was quickly vetoed and only $4 million were set aside for these resources.

That year, we saw a significant spike in anxiety and depression rates among students, and by now, about 20% of youth, that's one in every five, experience a mental health disorder.

This is a huge problem.

The SPS 2025 to 26 budget for mental health is 19.25 million.

This may seem like a lot, but considering that the average salary for a mental health counselor in Seattle is $70,000, it may be noted that this money is only enough to fund approximately 205, sorry, 275 counselors across 106 schools and 52,000 students.

In Seattle, that would be an overwhelming 189 students for every single mental health counselor and statewide approximately 448 students for every one counselor.

My proposal is increased funding to diverse counselors and mental health education.

If we increase funding by only $5 million, bumping up the budget to $31 million in 2025 to 26, we could get over 70 more counselors in schools or hire staff to teach about mental health and healthy coping mechanisms.

We need more people learning to identify their emotions and cope with them healthily if we want our students to get the educations they deserve.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Emily Merrill.

Emily Merrill.

Hi, I'm Emily Merrill.

I'm an instructional assistant in Ingram High School.

And I'm here to start from the top of what I actually wrote.

The last meeting I was at, a transgender student came up and said something like 20% of transgender students had attempted suicide in the last year.

And that's both incredibly bleak.

And also, I remember saying when I was 19, that that number was 40%.

It's both, there's a lot of work left to do, right?

But also, I want to say that the work that we are doing matters and that's particularly important with the deteriorating federal conditions, you know, and the attempts to roll back the improvements we've made over that last, you know, 10, 15 years.

And so I wanted to thank you for restating Superintendent Policy 3211 when the federal government started putting pressure on the schools to remove transgender support policies in schools.

And I want to say that if more pressure comes your way, you know, please, please maintain those policies.

Please protect superintendent policy 3211, you know, even if there are threats to federal funding, even if there is, you know, significant federal pressure, those are, these things are a matter of life and death, right?

You know, we have basically cut in half of regeneration, the suicide rate of children of a particular group.

We need to keep working on that, obviously.

Seattle is an island of stability, I think, for transgender people, insofar as there is a place that is stable in the world right now.

And let's build that island of stability into a fortress of equality.

Let's keep working on this.

Let's keep making sure that our transgender students have equal, fair, and just access to the world they live in.

Thank you.

Keep up the good work.

And also, keep working on this.

The next speaker is Erica Block.

Erica Block.

I do not believe Erica was going to be able to join us, but I want to scan the room real quick.

She is on the phone?

Okay, Erica, if you could press star six to unmute.

Erica, if you're on the line, you'll need to press star six to unmute on the conference call line.

I'm not seeing Erica's number, so I'm going to go to the next speaker, but we will go back around to those we missed.

The next speaker is Katie Roberts.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Katie.

Katie Roberts.

Hi.

I'm a professor at Seattle Center Community College, SCC.

I am deaf.

I'm a parent of a child who is hearing.

My son is a CODA, a child of a deaf adult.

And they are now in the third grade at SPS, through SPS.

And I want to explain a little bit more about my experience once my son was going into kindergarten.

I was wondering how I would find interpreter services for myself and how I would be able to do that.

So I went onto the website.

and I saw that they were using, or on the search bar, I searched deaf, and I didn't see any results for interpreters.

I searched ASL, again, no results.

So I tried for an IEP search, and I was able to find a result for deaf students, disabled students, and that came up with resources.

However, for the school system and public schools, do you guys not consider deaf parents as part of the community?

Do you not have readily available services and guides and things for deaf parents?

So how am I able to contact my child's school.

Luckily, my son's teacher his kindergarten teacher, emailed me and said, hi, I'm your child's teacher.

And I thought, yes, great, now I have a contact.

Am I able to get an interpreter for you?

Or am I able to contact them and get an interpreter?

Everyone was so friendly and so nice when I went to go talk to them, but I was trying to figure out how I could contact them.

Did I need to use my video phone to be able to talk with the principal?

I was having a really hard time getting services and then When my son was in first grade, we had a parent-teacher conference, and they forgot to get an interpreter.

They forgot to bring an interpreter for our meeting.

So my wife is hearing, and so she was able to interpret the meeting while trying to attend the meeting at the same time.

But that's not her role.

She needed to be able to communicate for herself, and I need to be able to communicate for myself.

The communication was lost.

There was miscommunication, and it was really a bad experience.

So since then, I have been seeing other issues through SBS.

However, I did decide to contact the vice president and say, hey, it doesn't seem like you have any information available for or guidelines, would you mind if I wrote a guideline for you?

Would I be able to type something out to make a flyer?

I'm willing to do that for you and explain the process of getting interpreters, so I wanted to be able to give that to them for their school, for other deaf parents.

And since then, I have noticed improvement, and I am very lucky because my child's school is so friendly and they're willing to communicate with me.

However, I know that other schools are not as willing.

These other deaf parents don't have the same experience that I do.

We want to make sure that all deaf parents are having access to language and the ability to communicate with their child's teachers.

And if I need to teach you guys, I'm willing to do that.

We need to figure out how we can have interpreting services available for parents.

Looking back, when my son started preschool at the Rosen family preschool.

That was an amazing bilingual program.

ASL and English were both taught and it was a beautiful experience.

I was able to go to my child's school and know that I'm going to have communication access when I'm going to talk to my children's teachers.

It was a beautiful community that had But I don't always have that access and I need to be able to have that access instead of having to re-explain that I need an interpreter every single time I need to talk with a teacher or talk with someone at the school.

And I want to explain that we have to use interpreters and what we use interpreters for.

I'm willing to send flyers and advocate, but I have to do that every single year.

And now I'm thinking about the future, and I'm concerned about my son entering middle school and high school.

Am I going to have the same opportunities?

Am I going to be lucky to be able to contact those schools and be able to get interpreters?

I don't know.

I know that these schools are very overwhelmed, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to have communication with them.

I think it's really important that you guys prioritize deaf parents to have support and to have support services for their hearing children.

This needs to be more of a priority.

Have the students be put at tops.

Like my son, I want to be able to have them enter at tops so they can have access to a community and be able to communicate with their peers.

Deaf and hearing peers.

So that's my vision for my son.

But I also want to add that Yes, I am a white middle-aged woman.

I have education and I have time to advocate for myself.

I understand my privilege in that, right?

But other parents who may be immigrants and other deaf parents don't have that access and they are not able to be involved with their children's education.

That needs to change with SPS, and I believe in SPS.

I believe in the people here that you guys have a good heart, but you guys need to improve, and we need to provide better access to education, educate teachers, educate the admin, and figure out how we can improve these services for the future.

Thank you so much in listening to my testimony.

The next speaker is Julia Sandler.

Julia Sandler.

Hi there.

Thanks for hearing me out.

I agree with the other speakers, please, for more dual language programs and interpreting services.

But today, I'm here to tell you about our experience so far with your current math sequence policies.

I'm the parent of a seventh grader in northeast Seattle.

So our son enjoyed attending a diverse neighborhood elementary school.

But what we saw in terms of math instruction was nothing more than a race to the bottom.

a few extra problems or computerized curriculum was not enough enrichment for him or many of the diverse advanced learners who chose to stay and hc peers who chose to stay at the neighborhood school even though my son had become designated hc and consistently showed mastery of the high school level content on district administered tests when we entered middle school he was not allowed to join the middle school highly capable cohort which was one or two years ahead And neither he nor the cohort kids were assessed to place them into the most appropriate course.

I want to say that your restrictive policies against acceleration above grade level acceleration lie in stark contrast to our neighboring North Shore District where they are expanding access by qualifying students as highly capable in math only so they can access appropriate math curriculum at all elementary and middle schools.

And they do readiness testing for algebra one in sixth grade for all.

So they kind of reset at that time.

The math pathways you've laid out hold kids like my son back at the standard grade level for years when they're young and eager to move forward and they have time and attention to study the subject they love.

Then they have to play catch up later on.

And I'm really appalled at the policy of having students double up in math at the cost of music, foreign language, and other electives.

or having to kind of rush at the end and take just one year of calculus instead of AB and BC, which is such a big topic.

They need more time to study it.

In a world-class tech hub city like Seattle, you have a sizable minority of exceptional math students, and you're not providing their state-mandated accelerated and enhanced instruction.

So it's no wonder that Seattle companies have to import and sponsor visas for so many of their computer scientists.

I urge you to once again, as you used to do, allow above-grade acceleration in neighborhood schools and allow some procedure for achievement and readiness-based placement in middle school math.

Thank you.

Next is Will Roach.

Will Roach.

My name is Will Roche.

Before I get into my testimony, I would like to disclose something to everyone here.

Because of my schedule this evening, I wasn't able to go in person to testify.

So I had to call in on the telephone, which is audio only.

There is no way for me to make a webcam call.

Now I am deaf and I'm speaking for a sign language interpreter.

I had to secure my own interpreter this evening so I could testify.

I want you to unpack that and take a look at what kind of audism I'm experiencing right now during this meeting.

Now, on with my testimony.

As I said, I'm speaking through an ASL interpreter.

I am an active deaf community member in Seattle, deaf parent to a CODA, child of deaf, adult, toddler, former president of Puget Sound Association of the Deaf, and a senior engineer at an aerospace company.

I'm asking for priority enrollment for my COTA child in Seattle Public Schools with the deaf and hard of hearing program, such as TOPS.

This supports their first language, which is American Sign Language, connection to deaf and hard of hearing peers, and allows me to stay actively involved in their education.

Growing up isolated in Wyoming, my life changed when I attended a signing school in Arizona.

My grades and confidence improved, COTA peers bring real benefits to deaf and hard of hearing students with shared language and community belonging.

I highly recommend looking at the hearing speech in deafness centers Rosen preschool as a strong inclusive model that gives deaf families full access to their child's education.

It is a strong bilingual ASL and English program that helps so many deaf and hard of hearing and CODA kids thrive and go on to signing inclusive schools like TOPS.

It's the kind of support I wish I had had and what I want for my child and others like her.

Thank you very much for your time and your consideration.

The next speaker is Julie Schneider.

Julie Schneider.

Hi, I'm Julie Schneider and I cede my time to students Nat Schneider, Owen Wayland and Olivia Walters.

Hi, I'm Nathaniel Schneider, a fifth grader at Salmon Bay.

I've been paying attention to the work my mom and her friends have been doing to advocate for enrollment and funding of our school.

Students are who you are supposed to be paying the most attention to.

I'm here to tell you that you are creating the problem by not allowing kids to come to Sembe who want to be at my school.

I know that many of the kids who don't get in are choosing to homeschool or go to private school, which means less money for all public schools.

Hi, I'm Owen Weyland.

I'm also a fifth grader at Salmon Bay.

I know the school district has already chosen to take away one of our school's K-1 teachers for the next year.

But there are 19 kindergartners on the wait list to get in, which will be in a none or whole class.

Also, my brother is about to go to high school and wants to go to Ballard.

We are zoned for Lincoln.

Ironically, there are 45 kids on both Ballard and Lincoln ninth grade wait lists.

Why can't the district honor student and family choice figure out how to get kids enrolled and where they want to attend?

I cede the rest of my time to Olivia Walters, who's in the room.

Hello, my name is Olivia Walters.

I am a sixth grader at Hazel Wolf K-8.

I am concerned that you are not enrolling students into their preferred schools.

I really love my school and I want others to go to schools that they love.

Thank you.

Next is Jennifer Shaffer.

Good evening, I'm Jennifer Shaffer, a Southwest Seattle parent.

I can relate to the constraints of teachers, administrators in the district, so much so that I hesitated to speak tonight.

But then I looked at my younger fourth grade's child and remembered my commitment to advocate for him and to be honest with you about the experiences of highly capable learners.

The bottom line is this, act now, do better for advanced learners in West Seattle.

Right now we face the impossible choice of keeping our children in Southwest neighborhood schools who are trying their best, but class sizes and instruction approaches mean that our children get little to no differentiation.

Or a bus can pick up our child at 6.32 AM, 83 minutes before the start of the school day to be challenged.

We looked at the numbers.

Southwest elementary students represent 12% of HC identified students in the district, but only 2% of HC cohort students.

Parents do not see the options as reasonable access, and they're voting with their feet, which is impacting enrollment.

That wasn't the case a few years ago when my older sixth grade child was in the last cohort in West Seattle.

He was thriving in a full class, engaged with the material embedded in his community, not commuting unreasonable lengths.

My sixth grader and my fourth graders' experience are worlds apart and the HC program decisions made that gap.

You can close the gap.

reinstate West Seattle Cohort School, give neighborhood schools support for meaningful differentiation, and ensure advanced learning opportunities into middle school, including math placement.

Act now to ensure reasonable access for Southwest Seattle.

Act now because my fourth graders time is running out, and even a year deferred on this is another class lost.

Please act now.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Jamie Keen.

Jamie Keen.

Hi, my name is Jamie Keen and I cede my time to Marian Wigner.

Hi, I'm Marian Wagner.

I've been a teacher in Seattle Public Schools alternative and option schools for 20 years now.

Most of those have been at Salmon Bay, also a year at Hazel Wolf and now at Thornton Creek.

As a teacher leader in Seattle Public Schools, I've also been lucky to see the excellent work of teaching and learning happening across so many of our schools.

So there will be no pitting of option schools versus neighborhood schools against each other by me.

What I'm here to daylight today is the real harm being intentionally done to our option schools that we need some answers for.

In the last two years, enrollment has been manipulated to allow fewer students into our schools and is intentionally shrinking our programs.

Our services are being cut, our support staff has been reduced, wait lists don't move.

I'm a special education resource teacher now and I can see the impact of reduced support staff on our most vulnerable students because of our declining enrollment.

I understand if there are fewer students enrolling, these cuts would happen somewhere.

But why has SPS made the choice for families by eliminating options spots?

It's demoralizing to feel like option schools are not valued by our leadership.

It is confusing what to tell families waitlisted what to expect since you have dramatically changed your enrollment process so much in the last two years.

What we should be doing is growing our creative options and our program offerings and honoring families trying to make a choice for their own kids, whether it's going to an option school or a different neighborhood school.

Families are not one size fits all.

Kids are not one size fits all.

Of course, all schools have the same high standards for learning and high quality teaching, but not all schools need to follow the same path to reach those standards and to meet students' needs.

I know Dr. Jones has said he values creative options and wants to keep our option schools in SPS.

I thank him for articulating that.

Can the school board or enrollment speak up and give us some answers about why they are shrinking our option programs by removing option seats and leaving kids on wait lists when we have seats for them?

Thank you.

The next speaker is Sabrina Burr.

Sabrina Burr.

Good evening, I am Sabrina Burr, the co-president of Seattle Council PTSA and I have some different things to say.

School board testimony sign up is problematic.

I signed up at 8.01 and I'm on 24. Last school board meeting you guys didn't even print the whole wait list.

There's something going on with this and I think it needs to be investigated.

How are the children?

The children are not well.

There was a time in this district that we valued family engagement under Dr. Nyland.

Family engagement, MTSS, and equity, or a braid.

We talk about multi-tier systems of support, but we don't talk about families.

If a student needs support and their family's not involved, that is problematic.

We sit here and we have these work sessions and we talk about how it is, but how we hear in these work sessions is in no reality of what we hear in schools and from students.

You guys are excited about DIBELS for your assessment and you think DIBELS is a great thing.

And I just wanna tell you, a lot of school districts have tried DIBELS in the past and most of them have moved away.

My question is why are we moving toward it?

We have to do better.

And the fact that we have all these families here shows that we don't value family engagement.

And our families who are not privileged enough to be here, they can't even get access to even get the support or to even get their problems taken care of.

You know, we have to do better.

and enrollment services, we are in a huge deficit.

Why are we pushing families out, not only for highly capable?

And one thing I do want to say, we do not talk about differentiated learning.

And if we're not talking about it, we're not teaching our highest learners or our learners who need acceleration.

Every last student in Seattle Public Schools deserve adequate growth.

And so we stopped, we capped it two grade levels, and I don't know when we did that, and that's bad.

We used to have 15 and 20 students from South Shore walking over to Rainier Beach for Walk to Math.

Why did we stop Walk to Math?

We have the solutions, but we are not engaging in families.

And the last thing I do want to say is why are these meetings that we have, community meetings, at a time where most of our families can't?

530 is the height of traffic, and you're not going to get your diverse families that you need to hear from.

I just need all of us to do better.

Go look at the work of Dr. Nyland, and let's get back to that.

The next speaker is Gabe De Los Angeles.

Gabe De Los Angeles.

Have Gabe in the room.

Good afternoon.

My name is Gabriel D. Los Angeles.

I am son of Chief Andy D. Los Angeles of the Snoqualmie Nation.

I'm here as the board president for the Indian Parent Advisory Committee for Seattle Public Schools.

I'm here to make two direct asks that are dependent on the things that have historically happened this year under the leadership and watch of Brent Jones and this current school board.

I have already met with the board to ask about how to follow up on these as well.

They instructed that I try to meet with Brent and also come in and give this on public record.

We have an ask of creating a Native American education department on its own, not reliant or underneath any other departments.

And the other ask is for that the IPAC, the Indian Parent Advisory Committee that has signed its name on federal documents to get federal monies here under Title VI to be represented more deeply and prioritized as the first people to go to when talking about Native American families, students, and their communities.

SPS has failed the Native families under the leadership of Brent Jones because they Destroyed the Native American Education Department with a forced removal of Gail Morris the dispersal of all of its staff within a matter of weeks Ending a 11-year run as a nationally recognized model for Native American education Along with that, the Executive Director of Curriculum Assessment Instruction also continued to antagonize, defend, deny, and delay communications and information that was highly needed for IPAC to do its job.

There's a lot more.

And I would love to be able to go into conversations with you on this.

You already know that Brent had already agreed to talk to a CBO of Native groups before he talked to the Native Family Organization and Committee that he signs his name on for Title VI dollars.

I urge you to consider these two requests and meet with the IPAC as soon as possible.

I'm gonna go back now to the two speakers who were not on the line earlier when we tried.

First, going to Jessica Chong.

Jessica Chong, if you're on the line, please unmute now.

Okay, I'm gonna go to...

Can you hear me?

Oh, yes, we can hear you, Jessica.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Good.

I'm ceding my time to Emily Wheeler.

Thank you.

Hi.

Why does South Seattle have fewer HC education opportunities than North Seattle?

Why?

Actually, let's not discuss how the situation was created.

The facts are that South Seattle has fewer options for accelerated learning than North Seattle.

Let's figure out how to expand South Seattle opportunities and restore parity of education and opportunities throughout the city.

My older son graduated from high school, sorry, from Garfield last year and is at UW.

He started HCC at Thurgood Marshall in 2014 and then went to Washington Middle School in Garfield.

My younger son is now at Thurgood Marshall and will not have similar experiences moving ahead to middle school.

With eight years between kids, I've seen the arc of change in Seattle Public Schools from changing the name from APP to HCC expanding HCC to West Seattle and North Seattle, then bringing TAF to Washington Middle School, the reduction in HC services, especially in South and West Seattle, and a huge reduction in communication about these services over the past five years.

SBS needs to offer quality science, world language, and math opportunities at all middle schools.

Why don't all middle schools offer world languages?

Washington Middle School has no foreign languages, none.

We don't think our middle schoolers need to learn a second language or a third.

Why don't all middle schools offer advanced science classes?

Why don't they offer Algebra I and Geometry?

Why can't kids test into higher math?

Why are we holding our kids back?

Seriously, what data shows that limiting our kids' opportunities is helpful?

Just seven years ago, Washington Middle School offered Algebra I in sixth grade.

Kids could take a test and then challenge themselves.

My younger son does not have this opportunity.

Why are we holding our kids back?

Washington Middle School feeds into Garfield.

With Washington Middle School's reduction in class options over the past five years, Garfield is now struggling to offer their AP classes.

They're having to reduce opportunities, which limits opportunities for all kids in South Seattle.

Garfield has amazing teachers and unbelievable quality classes.

It is struggling, it is losing students, and part of the reason is the removal of HCC opportunities in South Seattle.

We urge the district to implement all middle schools to have three years of world language.

Washington Middle School has none.

We are an international city.

We need to be teaching our kids more than one language.

Seattle Public Schools needs to require all middle schools to offer algebra and geometry and to offer testing in.

We can't be limiting our kids.

South Seattle needs its HC middle school services restored and on equal footing with the rest of the city.

We need to ask ourselves, why not?

Thank you.

Also, I provided handouts.

Going back now to an earlier speaker we didn't hear from.

Handouts, I'd appreciate that.

Thank you.

Handouts can go to staff here.

They were already distributed, and you should have them.

It shows the reduction of students at Washington Middle School.

It shows what's going on with the middle schools.

It shows that Thurgood Marshall is not even on the current map for HCC.

Why?

Going back now to the other speaker we didn't hear from, that was Katie Roberts.

Is Katie Roberts on the line or here in person?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Erica Block.

Erica Block.

And I don't believe Erica was planning to be with us.

She is on the phone or is not?

Okay.

Erica, you'll need to press star six to unmute.

Okay.

Oh, are you there, Erica?

Can you hear Erica Block?

Yes, we can.

Perfect.

I'd like to cede my time to Mike Monroe.

This is the first school board meeting I've ever attended.

I don't love public speaking, but I'm here because what's happening is completely unacceptable.

Tonight you're going to see a presentation that poses a false decision, stability or choice.

The district is going to suggest we can either protect the stability of our schools or allow families the freedom to choose what's best for their kids.

That's completely absurd and I urge the board to reject this narrative.

Here are the facts.

Number one, last year, SPS blocked over 2,700 students from enrolling in the schools they wanted to attend.

20% of those students left the district entirely.

That's over $11 million in lost revenue.

Losing 456 students doesn't create stability.

It deepens the budget crisis.

Number two, this isn't about option versus assigned schools.

Half of those students were waitlisted at neighborhood schools, nor is this about north versus south.

The highest concentration of choice applications come from Southeast Seattle, but you won't see that in the presentation tonight because that data was removed this afternoon from the deck.

Number three, the district hasn't asked families why they're trying to leave.

Not the mother moving her son to escape a bad social crowd.

Not the immigrant family choosing a school for their child to be with their cousins.

Not the parents assigned to a school over a mile away while another school sits down the block.

I run a small property management company, and when a tenant wants to leave, I don't block the door.

I ask what's wrong.

If I force people to stay where they didn't want to be, I'd be out of business.

It's not about what I want, it's about what they need.

So here's my call to action.

Enroll every student into the school they want to attend.

Full stop.

You can't save small schools by forcing people into them.

You save them by listening and building schools people want to be a part of.

Thank you.

President Topp, that was the 25th speaker and concludes public testimony.

Great.

Thank you all for being here this evening.

I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy lives to come and engage with the school board.

We also, as I mentioned at the start, have three engagement sessions coming up in the next few weeks.

We're going to, board members, continue on with our agenda this evening.

We're going to go to progress monitoring, which is back at the tables.

We're going to power through progress monitoring, after which we will take a break.

before moving into the rest of the agenda.

Please bring your microphones with you.

All right, board directors, we are not taking a recess here.

We're gonna start right away.

All right, I am missing Director Mizrahi.

I'm missing Director Sarju.

All right.

For folks who came to testify this evening, if you want to continue your conversations out in the lobby, we are going to continue our meeting this evening.

Thank you.

All right, so we are moving into progress monitoring.

Director Hersey is our progress monitoring lead and will facilitate this portion of the meeting.

Yeah, we'll just take a second as folks continue to relocate.

No rush.

Thank you for continuing your conversations on the other side of that door.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you all.

Y'all are the best.

Awesome.

Okay.

assuming that everybody at home can still hear us quickly, we will begin with progress monitoring this evening and I will turn it over to Dr. Jones and his team to take it away.

Yes, thank you for your time to talk about one of our guardrails and according to our cadence, we will do written reports on guardrails and then one annual verbal report.

This is an annual verbal report on guardrail number five.

We're gonna talk about safe and welcoming environments.

Dr. Torres Morales is going to be leading us through this area, this initiative, and talk about, you know, the progress that we've made accordingly.

So, guardrail, We have new guardrails coming forward later on in the presentation about the interim guardrails, which will be separate than this.

This is the completion of this year's set of five guardrails.

Next year we have another set of five guardrails, which we'll be talking about, just so you don't get confused.

Without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Torres Morales, please.

I'm getting feedback here.

There we go.

Good evening, board directors.

So I'm going to walk us through this presentation on guardrail five over safe and welcoming environments.

Next slide, please.

As a reminder, this is the color scale for the indicators for each of the guardrails.

This guardrail contains three components, component 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3.

So each of those would be rated according to this scale as one of these colors, and then overall a rating for the guardrail.

Overall at this time we did give this a rating of an orange which means the interim metrics indicate the results are unlikely to be delivered without significant changes.

Next slide please.

So as you see here, interim guardrail 5.1 we rated as green, and 5.2 we rated as green.

But 5.3 we did rate as orange, therefore that is why we gave the guardrail as a whole an orange overall.

But in terms of guardrail 5.1 and 5.2, I do want to share what these data tell us.

So for example, the guardrail that relates to belonging and relationships, this is based on panorama student data.

So this is student reported about how they feel.

So I just want to share with you the questions that the students are asked that are related to this guardrail.

So for belonging and relationships, students are asked, I feel comfortable talking to adults at my school if I have a problem.

Adults at school care about me.

There are adults at my school who share my same culture and life experiences, and I feel like people accept me for who I am as a person at school.

Students can then decide whether they strongly agree with that statement, agree, or kind of agree.

In terms of equity and anti-racism, the questions that they are asked on the survey are, this school is safe and welcoming place for people of all races and cultural backgrounds.

Adults take action to address racial issues and acts of racism at school and at this school students of different races and cultural backgrounds treat each other with respect and I feel safe and welcome at my school.

Next slide please.

So this is the belonging and relationships data.

And if you see here, you can see in grades three through five, we've actually been fairly flat at this.

This isn't something we've been particularly excited about because we would have liked to see that number go up, but also want to recognize that 81% is a strong number, and we've held strong on that.

When you get to our sixth through eighth grade data, you will see that we did have a 6% increase over time in this construct based on students reporting whether they agree with these statements or not.

And additionally, we also did see that in ninth through 12th grade, a 6% increase over time.

So what this lets us to know is that what we're doing is indeed working in terms of these constructs.

However, it does give us some pause and wants us to think about what are we doing in our elementary programming potentially to get those numbers to move as well not just our middle school and high school numbers next slide please this is 5.2 so this was equity and anti-racism same similar to the questions i had just shared with you all this is student reported whether they kind of agree agree or strongly agree If we look at third through fifth grade, we actually saw somewhat of a decline in this of three percentage points over the trend data from fall of 21 to fall of 24. Sixth through eighth grade, we also saw a decline from 82% to 78%.

In ninth through 12th grade, it was flat from 86% to 86%.

However, we still rated this green because if you go to fall of 2023, Once again, we know that we have some work to do in our elementaries, particularly because our third through fifth grade data is not the strongest.

But if you look through sixth through eighth grade data, we did see a 2% increase.

And if you look through ninth through 12th grade data, we saw a 5% increase.

What is this telling us?

There's a term often when you get into student outcomes focused governance called strategic abandonment.

So what this is showing us is that we had declines going up until fall of 23. We started doing things differently, and we're seeing the data go in the other direction.

So this is letting us know that some of the shifts that we've made are actually having a positive impact on this, hence why it was rated green, because the things we are doing are starting to show some fruit here.

Next slide, please.

This is our interim guardrail on attendance, and this is the one that we rated orange.

If you look, we actually had, this trend data goes all the way back to 2018-19, and this has been very interesting data for us because where we see that we've had our strongest increase was during remote school.

What we did was we ended up engaging with families to find out what was happening, how was it that this number went up drastically for us while kids were in remote school versus when they were in our buildings.

What we heard oftentimes, particularly from our African-American families, were that students actually felt safer when we were in remote school than they did in our school buildings.

So we were aware of this.

When we got back into school, we saw a dip in our attendance, and it shows clearly in 21-22.

This data, or these data particularly, were actually also part of a national trend.

When we came back in a post-COVID world, attendance was down overall, not just for African American males and African American students, but in schools in general as a whole.

Given that, one of the things that we did were some different strategies to get this number up.

And so we still rated this orange because we see that we're starting to go in the right direction on this.

This does correlate with our safe and welcoming data that you saw in 5.1 because there is some sort of work you can see there where when kids feel more safe and welcome, they're more likely to go to school.

While that is true, we still see that we're drastically below where we would want to be.

That's why this thing is rated orange as of now, because we do need to do some additional work in that area.

If we can go to the next slide, please.

There is a little bit more detail there on the strategies and next steps that we're going to be taking.

A lot of this is related to that last guardrail 5.3, because that's where we saw we needed the most support and attention.

We have a system called Atlas, and Atlas is data reports, so there were many things done.

For example, our Office of African American Male Achievement created quick reference docs for all school leaders on how to access that information in the easiest way possible so that all school leaders could see their students' attendance quickly.

They didn't have to look around to see, how do I get this?

They also started compiling reports for each school around attendance, around behavioral incidents, around course completion, and started sharing that more broadly across the system.

There are coordinated efforts currently among counselors, family support workers, and community-based partners to help remove any barriers that may exist through conversations with families to get kids into school, expansion of restorative practices across the system, and then additional mental health supports for students that need them.

These are some of the things that are in process now and coming forward to work on that attendance number that we were looking at.

Next slide, please.

In terms of board support and action, I want to be clear that we have clear policy in Seattle Public Schools, which is policy 0030 and 0010 to support this work.

In terms of additional support from the board, I want to say that the continued board engagement has been great because we're getting more information from families, but just a reaffirmation to stay the course on these and that these are our values.

is where we're at.

I do want to be clear that we already have existing policy on this.

It is us getting to a space of doubling down and saying this is still where we're at and this is where we want to go.

And I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. Jones at this time.

Director Hersey, please feel free to facilitate some questions from the board.

And I see Director Sarju is eager to be the first participant.

By all means, please.

Director Sarju.

Thank you.

So I want to check my assumption that the results that you presented to us were done via survey, meaning we surveyed students.

Is that correct?

Okay.

Because otherwise my question is going to be irrelevant.

So I wasn't going to ask it.

What is the N?

Like what was the N like when you're doing a study you have N of 250 or whatever the number is.

And then how does that N compare to the total number in this case of, was it just black male students?

Yeah, these data were pulled specifically based on African-American male responses.

I will have to get you the actual insights, but I do know that when we were doing some analysis on this, we did see that we had a high level of responses.

So it wasn't as if we only had two students respond.

It was a very high level, and then these data were disaggregated

to slice out this these were the responses from the african-american male students because that aligns with the guardrail but we'll be able to get you the actual number and we can share it in a memo to the board dr. Torres Morales will you speak a little bit about just a construct of how we do surveys and kind of the history of we've had this climate survey for X amount of years and we have some muscle memory around doing this can you speak a little bit about that

Yeah, so this is done through what is called the panorama survey.

And if you see here, it's been going on for several years now.

We have data that go all the way back to fall.

I can't think of the exact date, but it's been for, I believe it was 2011. Yep.

What happens is it is done multiple times during the year.

One of the things that you'll note in these data is that this is fall data, but that's because we're currently getting into the spring administration.

We'll have fresh data coming out here shortly for what spring is.

So you're getting a fall over fall look.

But these are student responses.

There's time given during the school day for them to answer these questions.

We've had very good response rates letting us know that we can rely on these data because we've had enough students respond to give us confidence that this is valid and reliable.

And then one of the good things about this as well is that we've been able to do certain shifts when we needed to.

So, for example, When you think about policy 0010, a lot of the work I do in one of my other departments is around the inclusion initiative.

We were able to create our own constructs to really check on that.

Are we living the values of policy 0010?

And we have data aligned to that as well.

And so it's been something that's been very helpful for us.

It's something where we often hear about, what do the students think?

What do the students think?

This really gives us a look at this is what the students are saying, and it's a broad group.

So it's not that we're just only hearing from the loudest voices in the room.

We are really hearing from across the city, across demographic groups, what they're thinking.

Let's see.

Director Rankin and then Director Mizrahi.

Thank you.

This question is about the attendance interim.

Have, I'm looking at the next steps, and so I'm wondering if maybe this is part of a next step or if we have it now.

If the root cause of, I mean, we know that this is aligned with post-COVID trends in a lot of places.

But for Seattle specifically, have we identified root cause of the lowered attendance to think about, you know, like I appreciate, you know, prioritizing student belonging, coordinating effort to remove barriers.

Have we yet identified what those barriers are if there are trends in the barriers?

What do we know, I guess, more about the reason for students' lack of attendance?

A lot of what we heard has been around the idea of safe and welcoming.

And so that's where I was pointing to some of the data earlier around like, yeah, that's moving in the right direction.

But I would say that we do need to do a little bit more work on that to get a little bit deeper.

Like, what does that actually mean?

Just students saying, I feel safe in my building or I don't, or I feel welcome in my building and I don't.

fair, good, now we know that, but what do you mean by that?

Like what is the thing?

What is the thing?

Like where are we at with that?

Dr. Mia Williams has done a lot of work with this.

If we go through what the 2019 through 24 strategic plan was, was around targeted universalism.

And so she's done a lot of work with this.

and has great insights.

And that's where some of the ideas around like ABC reports came forward around attendance behavior coursework for us to actually see which kids are potentially off track, what's going on with their attendance.

And then she was able to do a broad a broad brush around this where it went from this was with Kingmakers in certain schools to how are we doing this for other schools?

How are we meeting with principals through professional learning networks so that they can do that at their school with their existing staff?

So those are some of the things that we're working on.

But to say ultimately we know exactly what the barrier is, not quite, but we do know that it lives somewhere in primarily how kids are reporting, how they feel safe and welcome in the space.

have not nailed down yet exactly, well, what is that thing, though?

What is it that has you feeling unsafe and unwelcome?

And then this is a curiosity that may need to be answered later, but I'm curious about how this student group compares with students overall.

Again, we'll pull it for you.

Thank you.

Director Mizrahi.

Yeah, two questions.

So one, I'm looking at the third to fifth grade data for both guardrail 5.1 and 5.2, and it strikes me that it's just remarkably stable.

And I'm wondering if there's any theories about, like, is it that the strategies that we're working aren't moving the needle, or is that just how kids that age are answering questions?

Like, what's the theory behind why it just seems to be holding very, very steady?

I apologize.

Were you saying for third through fifth grade?

Yes.

Yeah.

That's some of the stuff that we're looking at now because we did see that in ninth through twelfth grade, we're seeing some movement.

We're seeing it different places.

And we're working to figure out what is it in elementary that's not moving.

The numbers are nice.

It's nice to see 81%, but then it makes me wonder, how do we get to the 90s?

What are we missing?

So we do know that something is missing there, and we're not all the way sure as to what that is just yet.

Is it something that we can do curricularly?

Is it something with programming?

We don't know, but I do want to note and receive the feedback on, is it potentially some way that we're administering the survey, the way that kids are answering, the way conditions beforehand, is it something we can do with the way the teachers are asking the question or assisting with that?

I'm not certain, but it was surprising as well when I started looking at this, like how is it that we have not moved it at all?

It's been 81%, 81%, 81%.

Or gone down even, right?

It's just very stable, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

And then my other question.

So I assume that the survey results are all anonymous.

So you're not drilling down to like individual students, but thinking about like, so a ninth grader in 2021 would now be a 12th grader.

So they're sort of living within the same band.

They're surveyed now four times.

Can we see like, is the improvement, is it, is it, is it, the new incoming class that's sort of improving those numbers, or is it actually those students who in ninth grade were answering at the 80% now, that they're 12th graders, that their scores are higher?

You get my question?

Yes, and I don't know that.

We can try to do some analysis to pull that for you.

We have a team that can do that, but it is anonymous.

Right, right, yeah.

Yes, but we should be able to see in some ways, because I think we can break it out by grade, by grade a bit more, but we'll find out.

And then Director Rankin, to your question, if we look at the attendance graph, I believe there is an all students line on there as well.

So we should be able to see that there.

Yeah.

And we are seeing it's going up and down similarly for all students as well.

OK.

I have a question.

So given the fact that we're categorized in orange, and without significant change or impact from the board, we're likely not to hit a target, what are we suggesting?

Are we in a situation where we're going to keep course and continue to see if the strategies that we are utilizing need more time to take post pandemic?

Or are y'all anticipating that y'all will bring something that the board will need to consider in terms of funding for us to move the needle on this in a more significant way?

Yeah, let me take a crack at that.

So if we're looking at Guardrail 5.1, belonging and relationships, and Guardrail 5.2, equity and anti-racism, we've been doing that work for almost decades, plural now.

And so those two interim measures are relatively high.

They're 80%.

That overall is pretty high.

So we know what to do with that.

We have policy 0030 that focused on welcoming environment.

We've been doing that really deep belonging, welcoming environment work for for many years.

Similarly, around equity and anti-racism, we've had racial equity teams, we've had the Office of African American Male Achievement.

We've been doing this type of work for many years.

Where we haven't focused with the level of specificity is on attendance specifically.

That became very vivid to us during the pandemic and then coming back from the pandemic.

And so we've just now started to implement new specific relevant strategies for attendance.

And so what I think is it's going to take a little more time.

I think we have really good expertise.

Again, I'm safe and welcoming anti-racism and equity, but we haven't collectively decided that attendance is a place for us to focus.

And so with that level of focus, embedding that in our school improvement plans, bringing different groups together to look at data through Atlas in those areas, I think we'll start to see that.

The other piece that we're asking our community-based organizations and our partners to do is also report their data on what they're doing to also improve attendance.

I think we're working in the right direction.

And I think the things that we're talking about, again, reporting this information wasn't something that we did on an ongoing basis.

And so I think that's the difference between why we're seeing 5.1, 5.2 success there and why we're not meeting the mark at 5.3.

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense to me.

Another follow-up question, and this is more of a strategy question.

When I think about the types of questions that would be on a survey about belonging and X, Y, and Z, it's not a...

easy connection or jump to make for me to then relate that to like, okay, well, why aren't you coming to school?

You know what I mean?

So what my question there in is, is there like any question on the survey that asks the respondent what they like about school?

Like, what are the things that get them excited about coming to school?

in addition to the parts about, like, do you feel X, Y, or Z, right?

Because the reason that I ask that question is that it might be something really tangible, right?

Like, you know, I don't know if, for whatever reason, I could imagine if, like, a kid was getting lunch at school, lunch is no longer paid for, less of an incentive to go to school, right?

So those types of things, I'm wondering, like, what...

do our students consider to be the part of school that gets them up, that's not their parent or their alarm clock, to come to school that day?

What are the tangible human day-to-day benefits of going to school?

And I'm wondering, is that represented already in the survey?

If not, have we given some consideration to it?

I would just love to hear y'all riff a little bit on that.

Can I geek out just for a second?

Okay.

Dr. Hart came to us a couple months ago and he was doing our learning needs analysis for us.

He shared some information with us, particularly at the secondary level when students don't progress and matriculate through the curriculum and see themselves as scholarly early on, when they get to the secondary experience, they tend to not participate and be engaged in ways that we would see if a student had early success.

And so as we start to look at some of these factors, we need to start to say, particularly in our new goals, why is it so important to be on track in second grade reading?

Why is it so important to be on track with sixth grade math?

So by the time you get to that secondary level, you will be engaged and you will have a sense of You'll have an academic identity going forward.

That's one of the factors, but I think there's some things we need to take from that study that Dr. Hart gave us around our learning needs analysis to see what are some of the things, because it's not just belonging.

It's also a sense that I belong as a scholar that we need to start to add some more detail to and some more analysis.

I think that's great.

Follow-up question to that.

has there been any conversation or is there any research that shows, because something that you said in that moment really stuck out to me, it's why it's critical that by second grade a student is on track.

Is there any framework to help a student identify as a scholar regardless of if they're on track or not?

I'm wondering if we're taking a targeted, well, more so a universal approach to what scholarship is because it's a spectrum, like many things, and just because you may not necessarily be on track in this area, I wonder if the way that our system is thinking about, like, we need to get these kids on track so that they can identify as scholars and that can be an accurate title as opposed to every child is a scholar that has areas where they excel and areas where they might need to walk a little bit more slowly.

I'm wondering...

if from y'all's vantage point, we are doing enough in that area or anything in that area to communicate and like really universalize the idea that every child is academically gifted.

I'll let Dr. Torres Morales take it, but there's a couple of things.

One is when we start talking about concepts like being kindergarten ready.

Those aren't just academic.

competencies those are kind of being ready for school being ready for school competencies you start to and in the wisdom of this board you all have thought about this concept of fast strong start strong finish so to get on basically a pathway for success and so we've put we've implemented some of those things at the high school level now with the pathways that we've talked about in our goal three now we need to try to make sure that with the pre-K experiences that our students have, moving into elementary school, moving into middle school, that we put some scaffolding up so that they can stay on track and they can be engaged all the way through.

And so I think there's some intentionality along the way that we need to just, that's our next level of, that's our 2.0 of this, I would say.

Dr. Torres Morales, do you have anything to add to that?

No, I think, just to say it a different way, if I hear you, Director Hersey, it's around, is there a way we are intentionally looking at recognizing the brilliance in the kids and our students so that they do feel safe and welcome?

Because I may be brilliant in reading chapter books, but maybe not great in math, but that doesn't mean that I'm not brilliant.

And how are we doing that?

In the vein of, is that going to impact attendance potentially?

So I just, I think it's, I thank you for the feedback and the probe.

It's something that we'll take back with the team and really, really talk through around, you know, because it could be anything.

I think one of the things, especially when you think about giftedness, highly capable and those sort of things, we often talk about math and we talk about reading, but there's actually the arts, and there's other things that people can be highly gifted in that we don't talk enough about and see the brilliance in.

Yeah, and this is the last thing I'll say about this, is that to me, the 80-20 principle really comes into play here, right?

the idea that 80% of school could be great.

And for me, knowing that I'm going to do really well on a test is not a motivator for me to get up and go to school, right?

However, knowing that I'm going to bomb a test is a really good reason to not go to school.

So from the perspective of like, yes, Kids, I'm wondering if there's enough on the 80 side to minimize that 20. Because if I know that I'm struggling in math, that fear or that feeling that comes along with that, especially at a young age, fear is a stronger motivator than excitement.

You know what I mean?

So that's just what I'm trying to tease out is really building an understanding of like, are we doing enough to...

really, I would say characterize the identity of our students as scholars, capable, whatever the word is, regardless of their academic acumen at that particular moment?

And are we bringing in what we know about motivating and demotivating factors for attendance to that?

So that's not a question.

That's just me processing.

And we'll move on.

I see that we have a student member over here.

And then we will go around the rest of the room.

Are y'alls, are yours, excuse me, is yours back up?

Bet, yep, students first, so please take it away.

I am interested in how the metrics reflect student voice and lived experience.

I ask this because Guardrail 5 is supposed to center student well-being, and I think that has to include our voices, especially from underserved communities.

Success isn't just test scores, so I want to make sure students are helping define what really matters in their school experience.

I know.

I know when we pick questions for the survey contracts, there is involvement from students, from my understanding, but I want to say thank you for that feedback and for the push, because what it's going to do is make us go back and look and make sure, double, triple check, did they get involvement?

When we work with Panorama, it's actually a bank of questions.

And then when we think about creating one of the constructs or for this is for safe and welcoming, what are the questions we think align to safe and welcoming?

My understanding that there was some form of student involvement in that when we selected the questions.

However, want to, we'll get more information in the moment, want to say, Thank you.

Thank you for that.

So we can make sure.

Give a little background.

Yeah, no problem.

So Eric Anderson, Director of Research and Evaluation, and thank you.

So just a little bit more context.

So we use Panorama as a platform, but we historically have developed our own survey items and survey scales and constructs.

And we've done that because we wanted to make sure it was intentionally aligned to our strategic plan goals and also to take the time to get the student feedback and input.

So yes, We met with the superintendent's advisory committee at the time.

This was back in 2021. We had Mia's student group, Dr. Williams' student group.

So we got a lot of feedback.

I have those notes still to this day.

There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it ourselves.

And so we do do some psychometric validation work.

We field tested it.

We adjusted the item bank accordingly.

The one thing that we can't make the same level of claims like Panorama can about their survey scales in terms of the amount of research that goes into them.

The other thing that something like Panorama offers is it Surveys are subjective and panoramas results, you can actually benchmark how our schools compare to national averages because they're in like 30% of the districts around the country.

So we are gonna be weighing the pros and cons of redeveloping or refining our surveys that we design ourselves, again with more input aligned to the new strategic plan and thinking about the advantages of using some scales that have been developed by other experts in this area.

Sorry, I did want to make one other quick point, because Director Hersey, we have in the past included open-ended survey responses.

We don't currently have them, but we could.

We can use AI-assisted algorithms to quickly summarize what 5,000 kids say.

So whatever we want to think about, if it is about what brings you to school, we can do that, and I think we need to slow down Dr. Torres to make sure we've thought through thoughtfully what refinements we'll want to make for next year.

So I wasn't expecting.

You ended up addressing some of the things I was planning on addressing.

Because as a student, of course, I have experienced, you don't want to go to school if you're going to fail a test.

Yeah, that's just real.

And especially when it comes to the attendance versus the belonging things, and on these questions, which having the unique experience of I've answered these.

When it comes to that, when I'm answering these questions and when I've seen my peers talk about answering these questions, feeling comfortable at your school is a primary reason to attend it, but it's also feeling confident in the curriculum you're taking and feeling represented in it.

One thing I would like to see that I don't know if it's possible in this memo is that a lot of these presented statistics are following all of these questions, but I know that there are, would it be possible to see these statistics for specific questions?

Because when I hear, when I answer a question, adults at my school care about me, that's different than me answering and me going to school for that, than me answering a question at this school different, or I feel welcomed at my school.

Or the, I do not remember if there's questions.

It's not on here.

Going into attendance rates, feeling welcome at school versus feeling like you have people at the school who represent your identities versus feeling the curriculum represents your identities also affects attendance.

And I would like to see if those questions were answered, what those statistics are lined up with attendance.

Because if I saw people, if I felt really safe at school, but I didn't like the curriculum, that's going to affect my attendance versus if I really liked the curriculum, but I didn't feel safe.

Those are two very different reasons to not attend school.

One, thank you for that.

That was great.

And then two, yes, we can pull data by question and get that for you all.

So an adult that cares about me was one of the key questions that we've been looking at for years.

And Dr. Anderson can speak a little bit about kind of that construct.

But I'd also like to mention that when we start talking about absenteeism, there's a range of absenteeism so you can talk about chronic absenteeism which is missing 10 percent of your school year or you can talk about the other side of that being at school and not being engaged and so there's all those variables in between so when we talk about absenteeism it's not just are you physically at school it's do you have the confidence when it comes test taking time do you have a friend group do you have an adult that cares about you these are all ways that we're talking about, either time on task or engage in a subject matter, there's a lot of contours about absenteeism.

So I'd like Eric to maybe speak a little bit about just the question bank and how we kind of work through those.

One thing that I can say, I'm sure you'll recall, is that we actually did some statistical analyses, probably around 2018, 19, where we were looking at the relationship between how students responded on the climate survey and kind of the academic growth that we're getting.

And we were able to actually detect statistically significant correlations between students, black voice responses, to the extent to which they felt that the adults cared about them, to the extent to which they felt that adults cared if they weren't there at school, and the actual academic growth that they were getting.

And so this was actually really foundational stuff that we did in Cabinet, and we talked through that because it really kind of propelled the push at the time around positive relationships and belonging.

I mean, that's a construct that's been around for a long time, but to try to be more intentional about it, we obviously could be BETTER AT IT THAN WE ARE NOW, BUT I THINK THERE HAS BEEN A FAIR MIND OF INTENTION THAT WAS DATA GROUNDED BASED ON WHAT WE'RE SEEING IN THOSE PATTERNS.

DIRECTOR BRICKS, AND THEN WE'LL GO TO DIRECTOR CLARK.

I've been looking at this for the last ten minutes trying to figure out what's going on with these numbers.

So guard rail 5.1, the increase in percentage of African-American males from third through 12th graders feeling a sense of belonging will go from 56% to 75%.

But then 56% in 2021. But then in the chart next year, down below that, in the fall of 2021, there's nothing that, there's no category of student that is saying it's 56%.

When these data are reported out, it's looking at students that answered kind of agree, agree, and strongly agree.

And so when you see the 56%, When we think about that as a baseline, we took the kind of agree out of there for certain purposes.

And then when we were doing the actual analysis, what we're looking at is for kind of agree, agree, and strongly agree.

Because if a student kind of agreed, we wanted to know, we wanted to know, basically.

And so that's why those are what those numbers are for, that anyone that gave us any sort of agree versus the other side was I believe it's strongly disagree, agree, kind of disagree.

Let me know if it doesn't.

I'm confused.

Okay.

I just, I, I, well, just because it, it's, maybe it's just me and the way my brain works, but it is hard for me to actually see what, what the trend is here.

If we're saying that we started at 56%, our baseline was 56% and the goal was to get to 75%, but then, we're using different metrics or ending up with a totally different number set that is actually saying that in the fall of 2021, it wasn't 56%, but actually 81%.

I'm just having, I'm sorry, I might need that explained again.

Yep.

So what this is saying in this chart, this is presenting the kind of agree, the agree and strongly agree.

When you think of the 56%, that would have been if you take out the kind of agree.

Wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry, can you go back to the, where is it saying agree, strongly agree, somewhat agree?

If you look under, at the top of figure 1.1, it has it there, and then it's in the memo where it talks about the number of students who...

What page are we on?

Yeah, can...

Is it this document or this document?

Go to the slide for 5.1.

There, at the top?

Yeah, that's what I'm on.

The proportion of third through 12th graders.

Right, oh, oh, oh, okay, okay, okay, thank you.

The proportion of, all right, who were favorable, agreed, or kind of agreed.

Yes, when you think about the 56%, that's if you took off the kind of agree.

So you could say that there were 20 some percent of students that basically said they kind of agreed, and that's what it would get to the 81%.

Okay, so...

Director Briggs, I see why you're confused, and we'll make this better.

I get it, because we, this is, so, yes, we get it.

I just want to confirm what you're seeing.

We need to fix that.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, in order to compare apples to apples, I feel like we have to use the same, you know.

And then my second comment was around the attendance issue.

And I know these are our old guardrails that are on their way out, and I don't believe we have an attendance-related guardrail in our new crop of guardrails, which is great, because I have heard many times our governance coaches advise against that, simply because there are so many factors that prevent a student from coming to school that are actually totally out of our control.

But what is in our control and as the parent of a child who routinely skips class, I'm wondering about like, you know, measuring attendance versus skipping class.

So, we know a kid is coming to school.

Their parent thinks they're at school until they get the robocall at 5.30 saying, your kid has marked absent for appearance three, four, and five.

Please remind your student to attend class.

I'm curious about what is being done there, because I know that I get the robocall every day, and I'm like, but I'm not in the building.

So, I can't really do anything about that.

So, what adults are keeping track of the kids who are chronically not showing up to class?

And what are we doing about that?

Because we do have control over that.

Whether or not they set foot in the building in the morning is largely out of our control.

I mean, we can't know how much control we have over that.

But once they're there in the building, we have some control over that at that point.

So I just wanted to call attention to that distinction.

So one of the things I think we might change the language instead of absenteeism is missed instructional time.

You know what I'm saying?

Because that's really what we're talking about, whether you're there 180 days or not.

But if you're there 180 days and then you get the robocall because you miss math every day because it's just not working for you or you don't have a sense of belonging, I think what we're really talking about is missed instructional time.

Whether you have a dentist appointment and you take it during the school day or whether – Maybe a teacher wasn't on point that day and wasn't really providing the instructional rigor that we needed.

Missed instructional time is missed instructional time.

And I think that's really what we're talking about, particularly when we're trying to have this differentiated instruction.

We're trying to have this UDL approach.

That means our students have to be present absorbing the learning.

And so I think it's about instructional time that we're really concerned about and parents probably have a deep concern about that as well.

Okay, so just in the interest of time, our last two questions are going to be Director Clark and Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll be really brief then.

I just had a question about I got confused when you guys were talking about the Panorama platform that we develop our own bank of questions.

It sounded to me like every time the students take the survey, they're answering different questions.

Is that correct?

Clean that up, Dr. Anderson.

No, good question.

It's, I would say, about every three to five years, we redo the questions.

The last time that we did redesign the questions was 2021. That's when we built our core set of questions.

We field tested them and then developed them.

And then, as Dr. Torres Morales also mentioned, we have added to it.

For example, we have a new inclusionary practices construct that is more recently developed and added to the survey.

But we're probably at that stage where we need to decide, are we going to retool it or switch to another system?

Thank you.

Related to the, back to the root cause, and it was sort of addressed by Director Briggs and what you just said, Dr. Jones, I would, I'm curious about academic outcomes for these students.

I wouldn't necessarily assume, or I wonder, I guess, that the students who are not coming to school are not necessarily struggling academically.

Some of them might be, but some of them might not be.

And I just, in examining what the root cause is, if we assume that they're all students who are struggling academically, I think we're going to miss a lot of what's going on.

And connected also, I appreciate the missed instructional time, because that would include skipping class.

That would include being totally disengaged.

It would also include exclusionary discipline.

Oh, yep.

which is really, really important.

And my kid doesn't skip class.

He just doesn't go to school.

He does not feel unsafe.

He doesn't feel unwelcome.

He just doesn't think it matters, which is a whole other ball of wax and a heartbreaker as a school board director.

So I would like to know more about, in terms of root cause, this group of students here if there are trends related to academic outcomes, because I don't believe they're necessarily going to be low.

But I would like to see it.

We'll get you more on that.

I'll just give you a little piece, because this was something when I was talking about the ABCs earlier that Dr. Mia Williams did, and she pulled some of the data.

And what we were able to see was that some of our students who actually didn't appear in this attendance at all, they were above 90%, yet their course completion and their grades actually weren't great.

So that led us into a conversation on, so what is happening?

So if the kids are there and they're going to school, what's going on in the classroom?

And I think that relates to what Director Bragg is saying.

There is something there around curriculum, seeing yourself, something is there.

What that is, we just don't know yet, but yes, we did see some of that.

And I'm not trying to steal Director Hersey's thunder, but I think one of the student board directors had one more question.

We will always add time for our student members, so please.

I had a question about the mental health support mentioned on the strategy implementation slide.

It's the fourth bullet point on the last paragraph under strategies and next steps.

So what does this support look like and what resources or initiatives are we adding to schools that will help students?

If a student is missing school due to mental health challenges, there's probably something serious going on on that student's end and I just want to know what this process will look like because and I just really need more context because as I said if a student is missing school for mental health it's probably something serious and they're probably not getting sufficient support from the school so I'm just curious about like what's being added or if not what's what are the next steps and plans for those

Yeah, this is some of the work I think we've heard mentioned a couple times around 20 million and work with the city and those sort of things.

So there is some intentional work coming now around, one, universal screening, particularly for all of our high schools.

So for any areas around potential substance abuse and those sort of things, we often know that when those things occur, it is because of some other underlying issue.

And the other thing is we're working with the city now to examine, we're not all the way there yet, what it would look like to be able to have telehealth options for all students across the city.

We're not there yet, so I don't want to make any commitments to that.

But that is some of the investments.

And when we're talking about strategy difference, going in those directions to make those things happen to basically make better impacts and outcomes for kids.

How exactly are you guys ensuring that you get every student to fill out this form?

I have not filled out this form in the past two years because I'm a Running Start student.

So, yeah, like maybe you guys should approach it a different way.

Like we need every single student to fill out this form to accurately get data and yeah maybe an incentive for schools that get all of their students to fill it out I don't really know but yeah there's definitely students that are missing so yeah

Elevating that I think it's a it's something I've been thinking about just recently.

So before the pandemic we used to do a paper based version of the survey and there were kind of stricter protocols around doing it.

We've got about 85 to 90 percent of students in the district would complete the survey since the pandemic and other things and now that we're doing it all.

computer-based or online we're probably getting closer to 65 percent completion across the board and we haven't really addressed that issue like how are we going to solve that problem and i definitely think there are ways to address it and i i think even some incentives or even healthy competition or things like that there are definitely some creative ways to do it we've reached out to some other districts and how they've addressed that issue so so thank you for elevating that is something that we really need to pay attention to because Just like with our families, the kids that we're not hearing from are sometimes the kids we want to hear from the most.

All right.

That wraps up progress monitoring.

Thank you, Director Hersey.

So we have a packed agenda, but I promised a quick break.

We will have a seven-minute break.

That means back at 7.10.

7.10, we will be back at the dais.

We still have a lot to go through this evening.

There's so much.

We've got a packed, packed agenda.

So I'm gonna try to move us along here and make this next section as smooth as possible.

Who are we?

Okay.

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

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I MOVE APPROVAL OF THE CONSENT AGENDA.

SECOND.

APPROVAL OF THE CONSENT AGENDA HAS BEEN MOVED BY VICE PRESIDENT BRIGS AND SECONDED BY DIRECTOR MISERAHI.

DO DIRECTORS HAVE ANY ITEMS THEY WOULD LIKE TO REMOVE FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA?

I DO.

I WOULD LIKE TO PULL ITEM 7.

All right, item seven has been pulled from the consent agenda.

So this means that we are going to, are there any other items to be removed from the consent agenda?

Okay, seeing none, what we're going to do is first take a vote on the remaining items on the consent agenda.

I thought we had to take a vote for the amended.

YEAH, THAT'S WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO.

YEAH.

YES.

SO WE'VE GOT OUR, BUT WE'RE GOING TO FIRST SEE IF THERE IS A MOTION, MAY I HAVE A REVISED MOTION FOR THE CONSENT AGENDA AS AMENDED.

I MOVE APPROVAL OF THE CONSENT AGENDA AS AMENDED.

SECOND.

ONE MORE TIME, DIRECTOR MISERAHI.

SECOND.

Thank you.

All right.

Approval of the consent agenda as amended has been moved by Vice President Briggs and seconded by Director Mizrahi.

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

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

Okay, we've passed unanimously.

Thank you.

So now we are going to move to items removed from the consent agenda.

First, I'm going to read the item removed from the consent agenda, approval of the Emerald Learning Center contract amendment for 2024 to 2025 school year.

Do I have a motion for this item?

No, she'll make the regular motion.

Yeah.

Please stop me if this is not the right thing to read.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to approve the contract amendment with Elevate LLC in the amount of.

No.

OK.

Number seven.

Oh, number seven.

I thought you said six.

I did say six earlier when I spoke to you.

Okay.

We got this.

Okay.

I move that the school board authorized the superintendent to approve the contract amendment with Emerald Learning Center in the amount of $414,407 for a total contract amount of $1,329,287.

WITH ANY MINOR ADDITION SOLUTIONS AND MODIFICATIONS DEEMED NECESSARY BY THE SUPERINTENDENT AND TO TAKE ANY NECESSARY ACTIONS TO IMPLEMENT THIS CONTRACT.

IMMEDIATE ACTION IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE DISTRICT.

SECOND.

DIRECTOR RANKIN.

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

NO.

LET'S SEE HERE.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, so it was actually noted in public testimony, but I had planned to pull it already.

I had a wonder about Emerald Learning Center, as that was a new outside vendor, new name to me. and also noticed that it is the same address as Northwest soil and so I would like to know more about the I guess comfort level or what's what's I mean given given the history of Northwest soil I am uncomfortable with the same story a different name and would like to know who were contracting with

So we have staff.

Is your microphone on?

Go for it.

Yep.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

In order for us to begin work with them, we would, of course, have to have gone through our standing processes and procedures.

We have not heard any issues from families as of yet that I am aware of.

But I do want to note that we receive your feedback.

And I want to take some time to go back to the team so we can do more looking into this, given the history that we've had and others have had with Northwest Soil, just to make sure before we would move forward on something like that.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

So would that mean, is there, if there's not a time constraint, well, other directors might have questions too, but I would propose that we move this vote to a future meeting if that is appropriate.

But I don't know, do we have to close out the existing motion?

No.

Okay.

No.

You would make that motion.

Okay.

So I'm ready to move that we table the vote, but does anybody else have questions before I...

Director Sarju has questions?

I don't have a question, but I have an expectation and request that there be an assurance that it's not a new name.

Like, same thing, different day.

Mm-hmm.

I don't want any illusions here.

Like, this is serious.

I don't think it's a coincidence that it's the same address.

So I need 100% assurance that it is a completely different organization, and it is coincidental that it's at the same address.

Yep.

We won't get that information for you.

So Director Mizorah, he has a question as well.

Yeah, just just for my understanding.

So what we're what we would be tabling and then maybe approving in a future meeting.

This is for services that have already occurred or just for a future.

Is this for future services?

What generally happens is when the contract hits a certain amount, meaning we're getting billed for or getting ready to bill for, that's when we have to bring it forward.

So there could be potential impacts on our students servicing.

However, I am in a space of, given the context, going back to the vendor and saying, no, we need you to provide the service while you answer some questions for us.

And I don't think that that's unreasonable of an ask on our end.

So there won't be delays in any services that we're...

I will be pushing for no delays.

Okay.

And then if for some reason that does become problematic, I'd be sure to get with you all.

Fairly quick order.

Okay.

Director Rankin, you want to make your motion?

Yes.

Thank you, everybody.

I move that the board postpone consideration of consent agenda item number seven until the May 14th, 2025 regular board meeting or sooner if staff brings it to us.

Second.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All right.

We have a motion made by.

Sorry.

So the proper motion under Robert's Rules of Order is a motion to postpone to a certain time.

So I think it's better if the motion just identified the May 14th regular board meeting as the time this will be taken up for consideration.

the if sooner ready runs into some parliamentary issues.

It's better if we set the time now.

Okay.

So, but then should it become necessary to call a special meeting sooner than that?

That would just be the motion at the time.

That would be the motion at that time.

But for now, to take it off the agenda, we're moving it to a time.

Got it.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

So, I'll restate my motion.

Thank you.

I move that the board postpone consideration of consent agenda number seven until the May 14th, 2025 regular board meeting.

Second.

Okay.

We have a motion from Director Brigg, sorry, Director Rankin, seconded by Director Mizorahi.

Ms. Wilson-Jones, please call the roll.

Please, yeah.

She needs a microphone.

Our meeting's going so long, our microphones are dying.

You know why I'm laughing.

Vice President Briggs?

Aye.

Director Clark?

Aye.

Director Hersey?

Aye.

Director Mizrahi?

Aye.

Director Rankin?

Aye.

Director Sarju?

Aye.

And President Topp?

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Okay.

Thank you.

WE ARE NOW MOVED TO THE ACTION ITEMS ON TODAY'S AGENDA.

ACTION ITEM 1 IS THE AUTHORIZATION TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT WITH AN EXECUTIVE SEARCH FIRM FOR THE SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH.

CAN I HAVE A MOTION FOR THE ITEM?

I MOVE THAT THE SCHOOL BOARD AUTHORIZE THE BOARD PRESIDENT TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT WITH HYA TO SUPPORT THE BOARD SEARCH PROCESS FOR THE NEXT SUPERINTENDENT.

SECOND.

All right.

This motion is moved by Vice President Briggs, seconded by Director Mizrahi.

This was introduced at our April 9th special meeting.

Since that time, we've reviewed proposals from five different firms, narrowed it down to three finalists, and interviewed those firms.

And finally, today, we finished our scoring for the finalists.

The firm we discussed selecting during an earlier meeting is HYA.

So we're going to update this process slightly because we have to make a motion to amend, but Ellie's coming to say the same thing to me?

Okay.

So do we need to amend or not?

No.

No.

Okay.

All right.

So we are going to then move in for discussion, I guess.

Director Rankin.

So I have a question that, well, I guess my question is whether or not to ask this question now or at a future date.

So I, this is all been very clear and transparent and very quick.

And so we haven't had a conversation as a board about our expectations for transition or about the timing of this contract.

I think we need to be really clear about by what date we would, if we don't find the right, so we don't want to pick a candidate to pick a candidate.

We want to pick the right successor, right?

And so if at some point, We realize that time is running short.

We haven't found the right person.

We want to pivot to an interim.

I think we need to agree on what date that is and what will happen.

So my question is, is now in relation to the contract the time to talk about that expectation of timeline or is the contract the contract and we can sometime soon discuss.

Well, so I think we need expectations for outgoing superintendent.

We need expectations for transition.

And then we would need dates by which we have an interim or a permanent and how that is all going to work.

We haven't had that conversation.

The announcement of the termination of our employment of Dr. Jones and then all of this has happened very quickly.

We haven't had that conversation as a board.

The termination of the contract.

The termination of the contract.

Sorry, sorry.

The end of the agreement.

The end of the employment agreement.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Sorry.

The resignation of our superintendent.

Sorry.

So I think it'll bring us back to this is just a vote on the selection of the search firm.

Okay.

So when then is our conversation as a full board about exit strategy, transition, date by which we would pivot to an interim versus a, there's just, there's so many factors in there, and time's not on our side, and I think we need to be really clear as a body how we're, what our expectations are for between now and September, for ourselves, for the firm, and for our retiring superintendent.

Other comments?

Director Clark?

I think that we do need to have that conversation.

I agree with Director Rankin.

I think it would be helpful for us to try to have that conversation before we begin the actual search process, but I also noted that the search firms did talk about their abilities to help us navigate that process.

It's not clear to me what the financial implication would be of us depending upon or adding that to the contract or not, but I do think that we need to set some of those markers in the sand for ourselves.

and go into the conversation with the search firm with those lines in the sand.

Director Mizrahi.

I agree with everything that you just said.

And I would add that now that we have selected a search firm, I think it would be helpful to engage their expertise.

And also, what are the pinch points of knowing, OK, so now that we have identified candidates, that seems like a good pinch point for us to say, yeesh, none of these people are right.

Or is it after some of the community engagement?

What do they think the benchmarks are of the points that we should be checking in AS A BOARD TO SAY THIS PROCESS DOESN'T SEEM TO BE WORKING.

WE NEED TO GO WITH AN INTERIM VERSUS LET'S AT LEAST KEEP MOVING TO THE NEXT STEP.

OTHER BOARD DIRECTORS?

ALL RIGHT.

THAT CONCLUDES DISCUSSION.

I'LL ASK MS. WILSON-JONES FOR A ROLL CALL FOR THE VOTE.

DIRECTOR HERSEY.

I. DIRECTOR MISRAHI.

Aye.

Director Rankin?

Aye.

Director Sarju?

Aye.

Vice President Briggs?

Aye.

Director Clark?

Aye.

President Topp?

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Great.

Moving right along, we're going to...

So how do we schedule that next conversation?

I think that we first have to contract with the search firm because I think they'll help facilitate some of that conversation as sort of the next step in that process.

So now that we have the ability and authority to do that, we will be able to set up some of those structures in place.

Okay.

Yeah, I guess I'm wondering, do you need a request from a board member for something on the agenda?

Do we need to request a separate meeting?

I just, I don't want to get us caught to where we start the process and haven't established that as a board.

I've heard the request.

I don't have an answer right off the top of my head.

I know that we, I'm going to do what the next step is, which is contracting with a search firm and figuring out how we structure the conversation, those conversations within our meeting timeline here.

We're at the start of the process.

Make a suggestion.

We can make whatever process we want.

I just think that asking the same question, she doesn't have an answer for you at this moment.

And I think that it's perfectly reasonable.

I think we should do those things.

Just make a suggestion.

Send an email.

I'll back you up.

We'll get it done.

Let's keep moving because we've got an intense agenda.

That answers the question.

All right, we're going to move into introduced items on today's agenda.

So the first item for introduction is approval of Board Resolution 242517, authorizing an amendment to the repayment plan of the economic stabilization account and authorizing the use of capital fund interest earnings for instructional supplies, equipment, or capital outlay purposes.

I think we have staff here, Dr. Buddleman, to walk us through this.

Yes, I can briefly introduce this.

Kurt Buddleman, Assistant Superintendent for Finance.

This school board action report is being brought to the board today for first reading in anticipation of needing to utilize these resources for the 25-26 budget.

Although, as Director Rankin indicated, we do not have final information on the outcome of the legislative session, and how that financial situation for Seattle Public Schools will be impacted, we felt it was prudent to bring this forward now as a first step in the budget submission process.

I should note that in the unlikely event that the legislature provides more funding than currently anticipated, we'd amend this board action request accordingly.

This board action report and resolution specifically requests amending the economic stabilization account repayment plan and authorizing the use of capital fund interest earnings for instructional supplies, equipment, or capital outlays.

The total of these two actions would provide $18 million in resources to be applied to closing the budget gap for 25-26.

As we have said and will continue to discuss, this is not a long-term solution to the structural deficit facing Seattle Public Schools and many other districts in the state of Washington.

However, we believe the utilization of these options in the short term is the preferred alternative to additional reductions in resources that directly support students and student learning.

Questions from directors from this introduced item?

Director Rankin.

Would the anticipated action on this item be at our May 14th board meeting?

That's what it's currently scheduled for, yes.

Okay.

So my question actually has more to do with the context of this.

I am still, we asked in January for preliminary budget proposals that covered multiple scenarios.

I do not feel we have gotten those.

SO FOR I UNDERSTAND THIS ITEM AS PRESENTED, BUT FOR THE CONTEXT OF WHAT CHOICES WE'RE MAKING, I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION ABOUT THE BUDGET AS A WHOLE AND WHAT'S BEING PROPOSED, WHAT OTHER OPTIONS MIGHT THERE BE, MIGHT NOT THERE BE, WHAT'S GOING TO BE RECOMMENDED TO US FOR THE 25-26 BUDGET.

DIRECTOR SARJU.

So did you say May 15th?

May 14th.

May 14th.

So, you know, seen die is, is it Sunday?

Yes.

Right.

So at that time, the legislature will, they could extend.

They could extend.

So we may not actually have information.

And so I'm wondering about the logic of the May 14th, since we don't have a crystal ball, where we can predict whether April 27th is actually going to be the be all, end all, and nothing further.

Just a thought.

Other directors?

ALL RIGHT.

I'LL JUST ADD THAT REGARDLESS OF THE END DATE, WE STILL HAVE A DECENT IDEA OF WHAT THE OPTIONS ARE OR AREN'T.

AND I AM, STAFF DEFINITELY HAS, YOU'RE NOT WAITING FOR THE LAST DAY OF LEGISLATIVE SESSION TO PUT TOGETHER A BUDGET.

SO WE STILL NEED TO SEE what the options are, what's being considered.

And the public certainly needs to see that as well to understand what the impact is going to be to their students next year.

Any other questions for Dr. Puddleman?

All right, then we're going to move on to our next introduced item.

Amending and renaming board policy number 2409 competency slash proficiency based credit and board policy number 2413 evaluacy credit for career and technical courses.

Dr. Perkins.

Thank you, President Topp.

Good evening.

Caleb Perkins, Executive Director for College and Career Readiness.

To briefly introduce this bar, this is enabling two credit earning options for our students related to recent changes in state laws and regulations.

So 2409 and 2413 each provides a different way for students to earn credit for work-based learning.

We're excited to provide these additional opportunities.

We appreciate your consideration.

And I'm going to turn it over briefly to our Director of STEM and CTE to quickly just share a little bit more about those benefits.

Good evening all.

Very briefly, policy 2409 is an update to the policy that expands access to work site learning by allowing a mastery-based option for earning credit through internships and work experience.

Instead of requiring 180 documented hours, which is a fund-driven threshold, students can now earn credit for demonstrating core competencies.

This reduces barriers for students and community partners.

Though enabled by state law, districts must adopt the policy in order to implement.

The policy 2413 update allows students to earn elective credit for work experience without a CTE learning plan.

This provides an alternative for students needing elective credit to graduate.

The policy is established in law and must be adopted by the district in order to implement.

Thank you.

Questions from directors for this introduced item?

Questions?

All right.

Thank you so much.

All right, board directors, we're going to move to the tables for we're going into interim metrics for new guardrails.

And we will be at the tables for the rest of the remaining rest of this board meeting minus executive session.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What's up, what's up, what's up, how are you?

Testing, oh, it works, yeah.

Well, other people, yes.

Thank you.

All right, in an effort to keep us moving, I'm going to pass this now to Superintendent Jones now to begin the presentation on interim metrics.

Thank you, board members.

You all did your work in establishing guardrails.

The superintendent's role, aka staff's role, is to develop interim guardrails.

Each of these people at the table, to my right and to my left, are what we're referencing as guardrail owners.

And so we want to walk you through what we've developed.

And these guardrails are consistent with governance best practices.

The school board and the superintendent have adopted goals and guardrails to guide the development of our district's next strategic plan.

And just to ground us, goals describe our strategic priorities for improving student outcomes and guardrails reflect the non-negotiable community values that must be honored while pursuing those goals.

And so the values reflected in our guardrails are aligned with Seattle Public Schools instructional philosophy and commitment to three things, providing rigorous, equitable, and inclusive educational experiences for all SPS students, providing safe and welcoming learning environments, and high expectations for adult practices for creating the necessary conditions in schools for student outcomes to improve consistent with our goals.

And so I'm going to stop right there and allow the team to keep moving on this.

But we're going to try to be efficient and make sure that we're clear on what we're trying to get done, our interpretation of the guardrails that you established and really trying to tie them to some outcomes.

And so I'm passing on to accountability officer Howard.

All right.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Our director, superintendent, I want to set the stage by inviting you to dinner.

You guys have set the stage.

We are accountability with appetizers before you get to the main dinner over here.

So as I state that, I want to talk to you a little bit about how we have developed these guardrails.

We started off by taking a look at what we consider outcome focus, which is starting off approaching students to meeting students to mastering students.

And when you look at that in the governance model, you can see how we started, where we're at.

So I want you to just kind of take that under consideration as we're moving through talking about our guardrails.

Are we at no student focus, approaching students, meeting students, and then mastering students?

And so I'm honored to be able to talk to you tonight about the continuous work that we'll be doing together.

As we learn more and more, we'll adjust and pivot and continue to grow.

Seattle Public Schools is pledging to our students and families, and what we're saying is no matter where you go to school, who you are, or what you need, your success matters.

We've created five guardrails to ensure every school moves in the right direction.

Guardrail one, geographic equity.

This means where a student lives shouldn't decide what kind of school experience they'll have.

We want every student, no matter their zip code, background, or family income, to have great teachers, challenging classes like AP or IB offerings, and have a safe, supportive learning environment.

We'll track the number of schools that consistently offer these opportunities and ensure that all students are included.

Guardrail 2, safety.

Every student and staff members deserve to feel safe physically and emotionally, and we'll look at student surveys that ask, do you feel safe at school?

Emergency drills that help schools get ready for any situation, but drills aren't enough.

We will also ensure schools feel safe from fights, bullying, and threats because students can't learn if they don't feel safe.

Guardrail 3, anti-racism.

We're saying clearly racism has no place in our schools.

Adults in schools need to take anti-racism training, use fair and respectful teaching materials, and show students and families that they care about issues of race and equity.

We'll ask students and families if they see this happening.

Their voice will guide us.

Guardrail 4, engagement.

We believe that the best decisions come from working together and building trust, which means two-way communication.

We listen and learn from students, families, and staff.

Principals and leaders will support in communicating and inviting feedback and planning with their school communities.

before finalizing any major decisions that impact students and families, we'll ask questions, stay open to new ideas, and improve based on what students, staff, and communities share with SPS.

Engagement is more than a survey.

It's ongoing relationship and building trust.

Guardrail five, allocation.

We must ensure resources are focused on what matters most, teaching and learning for every student.

We'll focus on how our resources flow into the classroom, instruction, tutoring, and teaching support.

If some of our schools are areas that need more help, we'll redistribute resources to meet those student needs.

When spending doesn't align with teaching and learning priorities, we'll provide school professional development and clear direction to understand how and why to make necessary changes.

Every dollar should help improve student learning and we'll work together to ensure that happens.

And in closing, these guardrails are more than a checklist.

They reflect our promise to every student.

We're listening with care, we're learning with humility, and we're acting with a purpose.

We're not just setting goals, we're walking alongside our schools, ensuring each step honors every child's dignity, brilliance, and potential, because we are creating a future filled with hope, opportunity, and belonging.

And I will turn it over to Dr. Anderson.

Thank you.

Thank you, Assistant Superintendent Howard.

That was a very helpful overview.

And I think that's one thing to keep in mind that we don't want to think of these as disparate measures that taken together, our guardrails, we believe reflect a coherent theory of action that connects our expectations for adult professional practice to creating the necessary conditions in every school for student outcomes to improve consistent with our goals.

So it's a connected piece and we want you to, if you're not seeing that, then we want you to keep pressing us until you do see that in how we are looking at our guardrails.

Before I turn it over to each of our guardrail leads to speak specifically to their measures for which they'll be providing oversight, I just want to provide a couple of general thoughts and considerations about our approach to measurement.

First, for most guardrails, we'll be instituting new measures and collecting data that we have not collected before.

So therefore, the baseline will, in most cases, be established in the fall of next year.

And then we will be setting targets for improvement for the following spring or the following fall.

So that's why they're not currently constructed with actual baseline targets just yet.

Next, it's helpful to keep in mind that unlike the goals, the guardrails themselves are not SMART, capital S-M-A-R-T.

There's no top line measure.

So we can't really prove or show that our interim guardrails are predictive of the top line or the guardrail itself in the same way that we can with the academic goals.

So our approach was to provide a rationale for the construct that we're measuring and then to develop a reasonably reliable and valid measure for that construct.

So you should be asking yourself, does this seem like a good construct to measure?

And do you have questions about what we're proposing as a valid and reliable measure?

And those are fair things to be asking about.

Also, we are using a fair amount of surveys, not entirely, but you'll see surveys show up on more than one occasion, so I just want to make a couple of general points about that.

It's undeniable that in most cases surveys are subjective measures, but that being said, they are valid and reliable indicators of stakeholder perceptions, what students feel, what staff feels, what families feel.

And in some cases, we believe that is important to measure and to improve over time, improve over time.

For example, how students feel about their safety while at school, we believe is an important construct to measure, even if it isn't necessarily a wholly objective measure of school safety.

So that's one thing to keep in mind.

point about surveys, particularly our family surveys, is we know that we typically receive racially disproportionate responses to the surveys we send out to families.

And so to account for either low response rates and or disproportionality in who's responding, we would propose to use assistical weighting methodology to estimate overall population percentages accounting for over and underrepresented respondent groups.

So that's one common theme I wanted you to keep in mind.

And then lastly, We recognize that these are imperfect measures and still a work in progress.

We nonetheless have endeavored to align the intent of each guardrail to the adult behaviors we seek to ensure and to students, staff, and family experiences that are reflective of these values.

So your feedback is highly valued.

We hope to listen and absorb your input tonight so that we can continue to refine and improve our measures before they are finalized.

So with that, I think I'll turn it over to Dr. Swarovski.

Good evening, everyone.

So we have a clear theory of action on the previous slide that I think is really important for all of us to be clear about, as Dr. Anderson spoke about, is that we're really focusing the guardrails on the adult behaviors in service of students.

And so our theory of action is if Seattle Public Schools establishes clear and actionable expectations for adult professional practice while respecting and leveraging the expertise of our educators, then schools, in collaboration with central office, will create the necessary conditions for educators to effectively support high-quality student learning.

So by honoring professional knowledge and providing clear guidance, this alignment will foster consistent improvement in student outcomes, promoting progress toward our district's established goals.

So we feel very much that the guardrails that have been chosen through listening sessions with our community is reflected in our interpretations of these guardrails.

Next slide, please.

So as we go through each of the guardrails, the repetition that you can be expecting is that we'll discuss specifically and define the guardrail, we'll share the key metrics that we have arrived to at this moment in time, and then the rationale behind that, and then provide opportunities for questions before we're moving on to each next guardrail.

So guardrail one is geographic equity.

The superintendent will not allow a student's school assignment, family income, race or ethnicity, need or identity to determine access to high standards, rigorous programming, high quality teaching and supports.

And what that has resulted in, next slide please.

is for our key metrics, our three main areas.

And as Dr. Anderson spoke to, we don't yet have our baselines, but we will be having those in the future, and you see those reflected in our draft here.

So our key metrics for guardrail one is access to consistently effective learning environments, access to high quality standards aligned instruction, and completion of advanced courses.

So for the first one, access to consistently effective learning environments, the percentage of foundational schools as measured by the Washington School Improvement Framework, will increase from X in 2024 to blank in 2029, indicating improvement in consistent high quality educational experiences.

Two, access to high quality standards aligned instruction, the percentage of students receiving Appropriately paced instruction as measured by their participation in the curriculum embedded assessments will increase from X to Y, year over year.

And finally, completion of advanced courses, the percentage of students of color furthest from educational justice who complete advanced courses during high school as defined by advanced placement, international baccalaureate or IB classes, college in the high school, tech prep, or running start will increase from X to Y year over year.

And so for us, our rationale is consistent with the guardrail in that it's focusing on high quality teaching and support Using our district-adopted curriculum aligns two standards, providing access to challenging coursework for all of our students, and creating positive, effective learning environments.

So to ensure that this is working for all of our students, clearly calling out our students based on race, ethnicity, needs, identities, family incomes, where they live in our city, is that they have equitable access to all of these great things that we want to provide for our students through the training and support of our educators.

So what you see in those three bottom bullets there is the consistent implementation of our district adopted curriculum matters for our students across our city.

access to and completion of advanced courses, it's just not access to advanced courses, it's passing and doing well in advanced courses is equally important, which we want to measure.

And then the percentage of schools rated as foundational, which for our board and our public moving forward will need to provide more information and teaching around the Washington School Improvement Framework.

But it's the percentage of schools foundational, and that is strong in the state school improvement framework, which measures both academic outcomes and learning environment metrics.

And so for us, next slide please, is that we believe that by focusing on the adults and our measures, Looking out for all of our students, regardless of who they are and where they are, is where this guardrail lands.

And so for us, and you'll see this replicated for each guardrail, is how will these metrics allow you to monitor progress towards the guardrail?

And if it does or if it does not, what information is missing so that our staff can go back and try to get some of those answers for you?

Director Sarju.

I don't necessarily have a question formed, but I'm going to connect what I heard in public testimony tonight.

And I'm going to try to do it without emotion, specifically the emotion of anger.

What I witnessed from our deaf participants was not they were not asking for anything extreme.

We've had them come before.

I'm almost at the end of my term, and I find it really hard to believe that our deaf families are still not able to access interpreters for parent teacher conferences.

It is not okay for children or family members to be interpreting either in sign language or any other language for their parents.

That is not best practice.

It puts an undue burden on the children or the other family member.

um and so when i hear about need and for all um i'm skeptical because we wouldn't have them coming asking for basic they're asking for basic deserving support and so when i read that I'm skeptical because it actually right now we are not including all.

And so how do we get to that?

What is the actual real tangible plan?

It took me one too many emails to get interpreters at school board meetings.

I don't have a deaf child.

But when we talk about need, when we talk about equity, I care about it all.

I care about it all because there are black deaf kids in our schools.

Yes, we have highlighted African-American males.

There are deaf black boys in our midst.

So how can we assure families like our deaf and hard of hearing families that we can actually deliver on this.

They should never have to come to another school board meeting and express for I don't know how many umpteenth time what we witnessed tonight.

If we're going to put it on paper, then we've got to deliver it.

No excuses, no explanations, because otherwise we're lying to them.

We're lying.

It's just a bold face lie.

And I really want to be, I want us to take this seriously.

If we don't mean all, then remove the word.

If we don't actually, we're not serious about those in need, remove the word.

Let's be real with the families and then let them make their decision based on that.

But we should never have to witness again what we witnessed tonight.

This should be a done deal.

And when I read this, I don't even see us doing it now.

Director Sarju, are you asking for some, or suggesting maybe some information is missing in the key metrics along that line in some way?

I specifically said I did not have a question.

I said I was going to connect what I saw tonight with what has been written on the paper, because I can tell you The deaf and hard of hearing families, we still have someone signing.

They're likely online.

They're sitting there saying, that doesn't match with my experience that I showed up and testified about.

So it's not a question.

But we've put it on the paper.

If we cannot live up to it, it's performance.

We're performing around this table.

And I'm asking, if we're going to put it on the paper, we need to figure out how to deliver it.

Because we're not doing it now.

Director Rankin.

So, I, yeah, I am, I don't know, what was the state measure that you said?

The Washington School Improvement Framework.

Okay, so I don't know enough about that now to be able to know whether or not this is going to be a meaningful metric.

But for the other ones, there, so what I'm looking for in the interim metric is how do we, is evidence that our guardrail is becoming more true?

So if we're saying the superintendent will not allow a student's school assignment, family income, race or ethnicity, need or identity to determine access to these things, I don't think that the percentage of students overall receiving appropriately paced instruction measured by curriculum embedded assessments actually tells me whether or not that's true or becoming more true.

And the same with the completion of advanced courses.

I don't see how knowing the percentage of students of color from educational justice who complete advanced courses would tell me whether or not the superintendent is or isn't allowing a student's school assignment, family income, et cetera, et cetera.

So, there's something not quite lining up here.

These feel a little bit more goal-y than guard rail-y.

So...

Yeah, that's the information for me that's missing is I want to know how do we know whether or not our guardrail is true.

And I don't think that the answers to these questions tell me that.

So would it be most appropriate for staff to take the question, put an answer down on paper and respond, or should we be doing that now?

So, I mean, in general, the superintendent is in charge of these interim measures, and we're supposed to ask, we're supposed to specifically answer, you know, do these align, do these guardrails get to what we're trying to measure?

lies is saying they don't so i think maybe an explanation of what or reasoning why you think they they measure the guardrail would be helpful is that correct yeah i think if if there's something i'm missing like convince me convince me otherwise i just wanted to add that i had the exact same comment slash question i don't understand how i would love to know

how you all arrived at these three choices for the metrics for this guardrail because they don't seem to me to be providing the information that we are meeting the guardrail.

So I'll step in a little bit here.

So with the issue of equity, I'm just gonna start with equity first and foremost for the rationale behind curriculum embedded assessments.

We've been spending time together this year really focusing on just Reporting back out to you, the curriculum embedded assessments, the investments that this school board, this community has made in our curriculum aligned to standards matters.

And also we know that we have inconsistent implementation of curriculum.

that plays itself out in varying ways across our system that some students get access to the standards based grade level curriculum and some students do not.

And one of the ways that we're wanting to measure that is through curriculum embedded assessments so that we can say confidently that our superintendent can say confidently to you and to the public that our students are receiving our district adopted curriculum, our students are receiving the instruction, our educators are getting the support that they need to be able to teach that content, and we're also measuring it.

all across our system, all across the city.

That's one of the rationales for the curriculum embedded assessments being a part of that.

It also supports our interim and top line measures of our goals.

It's aligned in support of that.

The other issue specifically about bringing up advanced course work specifically is that we do have inconsistent course offerings in our secondary schools that for any number of reasons that we want to improve on.

And so it's not just for us in some of our own research what we've seen is that we have students who we can say at a specific school they have the class, it doesn't mean that all of our students are getting access to that class or are prepared for that class.

Specifically in goals to our second grade, sixth grade are in alignment of building the the skills of our students, the confidence of our students, so that they are prepared to go into those advanced classes.

Those advanced classes can look any number of ways, depending on the school community, which is why we had the varying definitions of what advanced coursework looks like.

So for our students, it's not just the access, but it's also how well they are doing in the classes and then also measuring who those students are who are getting access to those classes and how well they're doing.

It's our rationale for why guardrail one, is measuring about equity, access, and then also to give the superintendent the opportunity to say for us, hey, if something's not happening for our students in our secondary schools, specifically around advanced courses, then we need to do something about it.

We are required to do it in support of not only our goals, but the guard rail supports us in helping support the adult behaviors connected to this guardrail?

Is some of the rationale for staff in our interpretation of this guardrail one and why these three metrics?

Director Clark.

No, Director.

Sorry, I forgot to put my tab down.

I'm still thinking.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

That's helpful and I think indicates that the interpretation may be a little different than what I believe the board intended.

So, and somebody jump in if I'm misremembering, but what we really heard strongly from our community was that a student who lives in the Rainier Beach attendance area should not have less access to option schools, highly capable, whatever it is, than a student who lives in the Ingram attendance area.

So the preparedness for the students to be successful, of course, is important.

This specifically was about families really being, families and students being very aware of how different their experience with Seattle Public Schools is based on where they live.

And that is about the services and access.

That is about knowing because I live here, I don't get to do what those students do.

It's not even available where my kid goes to school.

So that's what this one was actually getting at.

Equity in terms of what's available.

And the other part that you're talking about is important.

I think we address that more in our goals.

And this value was more like we cannot have this system where it's by chance.

If a principal feels strongly about dual language, you get dual language.

The district's not going to pay for curriculum, but the principal decided they're going to have it and now we have it.

Or with an option school, again, this community, this principal decided we want an option school and now they have one.

And it's this hodgepodge of people fighting over resources and us being willing to perpetuate a system where some kids have what they need and some kids don't.

Some kids have the option of option school, neighborhood school, highly capable, whatever.

Some kids, because they have a disability, are on a separate option school wait list than all this other wait list stuff.

Some kids, because they have a disability and are highly capable, are told you either have to forgo highly capable services or waive your IEP.

So that is what this was getting at is how completely inequitably we resource and serve and provide basic education and how acutely aware students, families, and communities are about the inequities and we have to address it.

Everybody deserves access to a high quality basic education and where we offer option schools, cohort, whatever, whatever, it has to be in a way that anybody who could benefit from it can access it.

Right now we don't have that.

That is what this is about.

So hearing that take on the definition, our reminder, what we can do is go back and revisit it with a different lens.

Thank you for your call and response to my agitatedness.

I apologize for that.

So board and director Rankin, can we skip to guard rail five?

I want to see what guardrail 5 is looking like versus guardrail 1. Because my interpretation of guardrail 5 is your interpretation of guardrail 1 in part.

So I just want to see if we can do a little bit of back and forth with that.

So with that said, if President Topp will allow me, I want to jump to 5 and see if...

Let's go to five and then we can continue this conversation.

Okay.

Do you just want us to introduce this and...

All right.

Do you want me to just introduce this?

Should I just introduce this?

Let's continue on, Dr. Budelman.

So guardrail five is around.

Superintendent will not allow people, time, money, and other resources to be allocated in a manner inconsistent with student need.

That's rude.

That's rude.

Alright, we're going to take a quick 10 minute recess and we will come back.

So we will come back at 8.20pm.

Alright, we're going to come back together here.

all right thank you everyone for taking a short breather with me as we go through this evening there is a lot to cover and there's a lot of dense material because we are getting later in the evening here we're gonna cover we're gonna go through interim guardrail number five we're gonna have staff review guardrail five and then I think we're gonna take a pause on the guardrails this evening and continue on with our agenda and board members allow this to sit with district staff for a little bit and then we board directors who have additional feedback this will come back up to us but additional feedback as we're looking at this let's get this to staff and I think Accountability Officer Howard, Doctor, I'm not sure.

Mr. Howard is going to kind of ground us in a little bit of the process of where we're at from the Student Outcomes Focus section, talking about sort of where we are in the process, I think, to kind of help ground us as we're setting these guardrails.

So that's the goal, so I'm gonna send it to Dr. Jones here to start with interim guardrail 5.

Thank you President Todd.

Real quick is anybody cold because I will close the door.

And just to try to bridge guardrail one with guardrail five to see to director Rankin's point about what the board's interpretation of the guardrail was, I was trying to see if there are elements in guardrail five that touch that.

And if it doesn't, that's fine.

Just was trying to see if there was some synergy there.

So let's walk through guardrail five.

and then accountability officer howard's going to do his piece okay thank you so i just wanted to ground us really quickly dr jones wanted to make sure that we had interpreted the guardrail in collaboration with you so as we do the root cause analysis around the goals what we're getting into in guardrail five is actually at the beginning level so if you say we're at a zero and we're trying to get to five, we're at a zero right now.

We're just starting out.

But as we continue to work with the board, we will hone that to get to a five.

And so right now, we're getting our baseline.

We're going to discover things.

And then as we continue to keep coming back during progress monitoring and we discover things, we will share that.

80% of that, Dr. Jones has control over what's going to shift.

The superintendent has 80%.

And that's why we picked a guardrail that 80% can shift.

So if we discover something, it will shift.

If we learn something in the process, it will shift.

So we understand that we're expanding our supports.

So in Guardrail 5, I just wanted to ground us and says what we're trying to do is make sure we ensure all our resources are focused on what matters most, which is teaching and learning.

And so we want to make sure, as we're focusing on teaching and learning, we'll focus on how resources flow into the classroom, instruction, tutoring, and teaching support.

this guardrail five is meant to do to make sure we're aligned and that there's equity there.

But that's what we're doing right now.

But we're starting at ground zero.

And as we learn, we come back during progress monitoring, you'll see us say, we learned this, and these are adjustments we're making.

We learned more about this, and we're making these adjustments.

And so as we get feedback from the community, feedback from the board, feedback from our initial baseline, getting it from our students and families, our staff, these things will shift.

So I just wanted you to see that we're not to perfection yet, but this is a learning process, and we're used to bringing you guys a baked cake, all done, and then you say, well, what about the icing, what about this?

No, this cake hasn't even been baked yet.

It hasn't been started.

We're just looking at the ingredients and trying to put it together.

There we are.

Marnie's excited over there, I can see her.

So just wanted to ground us there, and then I want to give it over to Fred and Dr. Buddleman.

I'll let Dr. Buddleman take the lead on this.

I do think we wanted to note that we heard the board that you wanted to do more than finances in this, that it was people, time, and money, and all sorts of resources, given where we are in kind of financial planning and dealing with our situation.

that our accounting practices, our budgeting practices, payroll costs, is the easiest way to get data about the allocation of resources.

We're going in through that door, but we understand that the board's interest is a lot broader than just examining expenditures, but that is an entree and is As Mr. Howard alluded to, we're building this as we go, so we would see this evolving and getting richer over time, but I think we'll lean heavily on finance, so I'll turn it over to Dr. Buttigieg.

SO IF WE CAN GO BACK TO THE OTHER SLIDE JUST TO READ THE GUARD RAIL ITSELF.

THE SUPERINTENDENT WILL NOT ALLOW PEOPLE, TIME, MONEY AND OTHER RESOURCES TO BE ALLOCATED IN A MANNER INCONSISTENT WITH STUDENT NEED.

THAT'S THE GUARD RAIL WE'RE TRYING TO PRESENT INTERMETRIC PROPOSALS ON.

TO MR. HOWARD'S POINT, THERE WILL BE SHIFTS IN THIS ONE PARTICULARLY.

You'll see a note on the next slide and on the documentation that this will be further informed by the resource and strategy analysis work that's going on with ERS and the strategic plan community task force that's being formed.

So this is one, a good example of something that will evolve over time and probably fairly quickly, fairly soon.

On the next slide, you'll see the proposed interim metrics.

As Chief Podesta said, they're around spending and spending of funding at school.

So the first one leans into teaching and teaching support being the business of the school district.

and making sure that percentage of spending is appropriate out of the entire budget.

Just for context, those numbers currently are about 74%.

So if you combine teaching and teaching support, it's in the mid 70% range currently.

So again, just a proposed metric at this point, we're gonna work further on the and strategy analysis findings to see if there's more depth there that can be used in these, but that's one of the proposed tonight.

The other is around spending at schools, so the board and the superintendent allocates funding to schools with the intent of using that funding for the students that year.

There are schools within our district that spend 80 something percent of their funding each year and there's other schools that spend 100 percent or more.

And so trying to be more proactive in being on top of that with principals and with the district and with leadership to ensure that those funds are being spent appropriately in those schools is what that second metric is trying to capture.

And then on the next slide, you'll see the sort of repeat there about high quality teaching and support.

We'll continue to monitor that spending and share that information.

I think it's good information to also share because the way Seattle Public Schools currently reports through the state system, there's a lot of folks that don't appear to be spending their time in schools, but are spending their time in schools.

So this is a good opportunity to refine some of that information.

So an accurate accounting of how dollars are being spent in schools is represented.

And then you'll see there, we're proposing that student need, which is part of that guardrail, defined by students impacted by poverty for this guardrail.

So that's the definition we're using for need as we're looking at this guardrail.

Fred or Dr. Pritchett, anything to add?

This was kind of a joint effort.

And I think as you see this all come together, give you kind of a preview of what it will look like when we're all aligned.

The collaboration means, going back to Guard Rail 1, that if we looked at Highly Capable at Rainier Beach, you would see the same thing at Ingram.

You would see the same thing at Garfield.

You would see the same thing at Lincoln.

You'd see the same thing at Cleveland.

It wouldn't be something where the staff decided not to offer a highly capable or a world language course.

And so when we start putting everything together, you'll start to see it come together.

But we're looking at it now in just little pieces of it.