School Board Meeting 312017 Part 2

So thank you again to the Van Asselt performing arts troupe.

They were fantastic.

All right so next up is our superintendent comments and then we'll go on to our student comments.

Our student Theo Lasky has joined us but we're going to start off with Deputy Superintendent Nielsen.

Thank you.

Good evening everyone.

Thank you for help on the microphone.

We were just commenting for those of you on television outside this room how amazing the moves were from the Van Asselt troop and how sophisticated it is for the age that they are.

It's beyond, I wouldn't have the courage to go do what they just did in front of all of us and it's pretty impressive to see what they're doing.

So again thank you for that.

I want one of their outfits too.

And as Director Peters mentioned Dr. Nyland is at a conference on eliminating the opportunity gap the most important work of our time so I'm sitting in for him tonight.

And I just want to touch on a few things and there will be more information on our Friday memo gives a little bit more detail about what's going on and there's much to celebrate many good things.

Next week on the 8th of this month we will be having a work session on our smart goals which is a real in-depth look at the alignment of our multiple work around Improving student achievement in schools and we would invite anyone watching and anyone in the audience to attend that.

That's next week.

We'll be looking at how all of the pieces fit together to improve student achievement.

So we are trying to bite off a large plate of information and we will compress it into a work session and we are excited about that because it really focuses our work around the schools and the importance of what we just saw in the arts and how all of these things work to improve student achievement.

So we hope that you are able to attend that.

I also want to thank many of our partners in all of the work that we do.

Seattle education Association, the principals Association, the Seattle Council for PTSA, district staff, Director Burke, we've had a rehearsal and several run throughs on this to try to make a lot of information understandable in a short amount of time.

So thanks to all of those people who have helped to a great degree.

In the athletic arena many things have been going on in the Seattle schools and our success has gone above and beyond what one might expect from one school district.

Nevertheless we are really good.

And right now in this week we will be having the Tacoma Dome basketball championships and that's going on over the weekend as you probably might have heard Nathan Hale has been rated number one in the country.

and we are very proud of them, we are also very proud of all of our other schools.

It's worth noting that we could sweep the state so even a team that is in third or fourth place would normally be in first place.

That's how amazing our sports is and we appreciate all of the support we get from external funders and the work of the kids.

South Seattle College has helped us tremendously by pioneering for the 13th year in a row scholarships for graduates.

They are working with Cleveland, Rainier Beach and Chief Sealth.

We are expanding that to West Seattle next year.

They have served 1500 students since 2008 and we want to thank them for that.

We've got a consolidated program review with OSPI that's the superintendent of public instruction.

They come in and look at how we are doing and they provide feedback and they ask us to do better and we appreciate that.

We're making progress.

We had 11 things that they wanted us to work on last year.

We successfully fixed five of them and we're down to six.

And they were particularly complimentary about Bailey Gatzert, Mercer and Rainier Beach.

And we want to thank all of the people and staff and our parents who are helping us with this.

Our college bound scholarship program is working well and the governor just announced that he has acknowledged us as one of the top performing college bound districts in the state.

What does that mean?

It means that students are able to get access to college who otherwise do not find it available.

This is a big deal.

And it opens doors and changes lives and we really appreciate what that does and the funding behind it.

Aki Kurose, Broadview, Denny, Hamilton, Jane Adams, Licton Springs, Madison, McClure, Mercer, Orca, Pathfinder, Salmon Bay, Seattle World School, TOPS, Washington and Whitman all have 100% participation.

So that's terrific.

Back to Rainier Beach basketball not only do they perform well on the court they also have a special day for Ronald McDonald house students and they went in and did some work there to help with those kids and their lives and it shows the value of athletics both on the court and what it means off the court as well.

We've just celebrated black history month and students from Cleveland, Franklin, Garfield Rainier Beach were invited to attend a special presentation by one of my heroes and I'm sure everyone in this room representative John Lewis who has presented to us a series of books on the human rights efforts over the last 50 years.

It's called the March trilogy.

and we will be getting 3000 copies of those books to share with our students.

We also have a change in the consent agenda today.

and it's a departure from what we normally do in our personnel report.

It's important it's a different formatting and we thought the board might have some questions so Clover Codd is going to come and explain those to us and that might help you as you look at the agenda in a few minutes.

So Clover thank you.

All right.

Good evening directors.

Clover Codd assistant superintendent for human resources.

So each year human resources department looks at the teacher qualifications and to ensure that teachers are teaching within their endorsed area.

This has been happening for the last 10 last 10 years under no child left behind.

We've been reporting to the state.

No child left behind is no longer.

we now have the new element actually ESSA I can't remember what it stands for and OSPI is still struggling with what the new requirements are going to be because they are not quite clear yet so what they are doing this year for the first time is asking that we report any teachers who are teaching out of endorsement currently and that the board approve those.

So you will see on the personnel action report there are 45 teachers listed that are teaching in subjects that are out of their endorsement area.

Actually only 11 of those are real, the others need to be cleaned up, it's data that needs to be cleaned up in CEDARS.

So we are working with those 11 teachers to make sure that they are either getting the correct endorsement, OSPI has suggested that they apply for a substitute certificate, a substitute certificate would ensure that they are actually qualified to teach any subject and then should they still be teaching out of subject by the end of the year we would need to move them to a classroom where they are endorsed for the fall.

We did receive a commendation note from the out of the consolidated program review where they said there are several teachers in Seattle that are teaching outside their endorsed area.

Based on the size of the district it is evident that Seattle makes a concerted effort to ensure that students are taught by infield properly endorsed teachers.

Amy Valenti should be commended for her efforts to keep the district in compliance with state certification and licensure requirements.

Amy works in HR.

I'll open it up for questions if you have any now.

Peters Are there any questions or comments?

Director Pinkham.

Pinkham Thank you.

My question would just be about for our out of area do we know where we are lacking at?

Is there something where we need to hopefully pick up some slack?

Is it math, English, sciences?

There are no trends, each situation is very unique so one example is we've got a native Japanese speaker who is teaching in a dual language school who has an ELL endorsement but doesn't happen to have the K8 endorsement but is teaching in an elementary school but she is a very good teacher and qualified so you have instances where you have teachers who have a special ed endorsement but they are teaching in an elementary classroom and they may need a language arts endorsement if they are teaching in secondary.

So these are good teachers, they did nothing wrong it's just that they are currently teaching in subjects or maybe pushing into classrooms in subjects where there is another teacher in the classroom and they don't have that endorsement.

Peters Director Harris and Director Patu.

I wanted to say thank you.

Had some questions today you answered them for us.

I really appreciate that.

Don't so much appreciate being told after the fact by other agencies that we're doing things differently.

And I'm hopeful that we've got some lessons learned here and we don't have to deal with this in the future.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

Director Patu.

So is there a limit in terms of these teachers actually teaching even though it's not their subject areas that they're teaching in?

So OSPI will give us through the school year they can teach in this out of endorsed area through the rest of the school year but they would not be able to teach that subject come the fall if they did not get the endorsement in the area that they're teaching they would need to move to a different subject.

Okay thank you.

Director Burke.

Hi there thanks for the report and I appreciate the work that's done to align our endorsements with our needs.

Can you shed some light on you know what are the system level things that you struggle with?

You mentioned that some of these are not actually out of endorsement but just need to be cleaned up.

Are there things that I guess barriers to doing that?

How did

How might this happen?

Well, how might this happen?

Why do you have to come up here and tell us that it needs to be cleaned up as compared to just cleaning it up and bringing a cleaned version?

So we have 4000 teachers.

Teachers always start off in a subject they're endorsed in they're hired into the position as things shift and schedules shift.

One teacher might for second semester teach point two of a class where there's an out of endorsement.

So at the beginning of the year the data was correct.

It's still it's there's a lag time between entering the data and making sure it's correct.

So it's it's really just sort of cleaning things up because of time and shifts in the school schedule.

Any other questions or comments?

Thank you very much.

Thank you Clover.

So now to the more sober side of the superintendent's report and that is our budget.

It's worth noting that we are a very high performing school district that we do amazing things as we just saw from the Van Asselt A team of students that make a difference in students lives.

We are facing the largest budget shortfall that we've had since the double levy failure in the late 70s and it's a making of effort that is going to be a problem in our schools, it's a problem to our parents, it's a problem to our children and it's something that should not be reality.

It's also worth noting that we've worked hard over the last several months with our local legislators and they have been extremely helpful in trying to resolve the problem before yesterday.

And unfortunately the legislature was unable to resolve the levy cliff by yesterday which means that as of today we have put out budget information in terms of staffing for our schools and the staffing cuts reflect the reality of our loss of funds coming from Olympia.

And what that means is now the difference between talking, we've had community engagement, our Seattle Council PTSA has been extremely helpful in getting this information out so thanks to them.

We thank all of our principals, we thank all of our teachers, we've worked with our partners at SEA and with PASS.

And yet when you're talking in the abstract about a cut it always feels like okay okay and today the reality hit.

And the cuts are severe.

They affect everyone.

They will affect here in the central office as well as at the schools.

And I just say a little bit more about that.

We've had cuts before and in many cases when we made cuts at the central office we never ever restored the positions.

When we've made cuts at the school level before, and we have, those positions have been restored because there are more parameters around class size and our collective bargaining agreements and therefore we always reinstate those positions back.

And as we recall this year we were able to put more staff into schools this current year than we have for many years.

Unfortunately starting today people will be looking at their rosters of enrollment and the number of staff allocated and they will be saying wow we are cutting dramatically.

So we don't appreciate that we don't think it's a good idea and we have tremendous empathy for all of us as we are going through this because as Dr. Nyland has said more than a few times this is something that people created it is not necessary.

I have hope that the legislature will act and will help us with the levy loss however because that date didn't meet, excuse me we didn't meet that date yesterday.

We have now put school staffs into the position of saying how do we do our work with fewer people?

And we are also asking them to build restoration plans when we hope the legislature will give us some relief between now and next fall.

The problem with that is there will be tremendous pain I hope most of it unnecessary between now and next fall and worst case is if we don't hear from the legislature with resolution on what restoration we will receive Starting in late August and in September we will be looking at vacancies in schools and it will make two years ago September so September of 15 look good.

For those of you that recall what happened then and it was not good.

So I want to say on behalf of Larry and on behalf of myself and staff we have a tremendous amount of empathy for everyone watching and listening.

I also want to thank the board.

This puts you in a very difficult position and I'm sure that this isn't something that you thought about when you signed up because it shouldn't have even been on anybody's rationality screen.

The last thing I would ask for those watching and in the room today is please don't come to the school board and ask for your cuts to be restored because that's not where the problem started and that's not how it can be fixed.

The fix comes in Olympia.

And you can contact your PTSA partners and they can help you understand how to advocate for that.

But again this is something that we have looked as carefully as we can to say how do we address these cuts.

We're using reserves.

We're trying to do everything we can to minimize the effect on people and staff.

But it's real and it will hurt.

So again thanks to the board, thank you for those in the schools that are going through this pain and together hopefully we will be able to resolve them.

On a more pleasant note, we have some accomplishments in community engagement.

Our nutrition task force has concluded its work.

I want to thank Peggy McEvoy for that work.

Thank you very much.

And the recommendations are being shared with Dr. Nyland.

We had FAFSA night.

Again that's a terrific opportunity for our families and our students and the Seattle Housing Authority helps us with that.

They are helping us with FAFSA applications for students and that again is a partnership that helps open up a life and an opportunity for children or students who otherwise wouldn't have that.

We also have changed our kindergarten enrollment events and we've increased them in conjunction with excuse me the Seattle Housing Authority and that has been highly successful.

They are working in New Holly, High Point, Rainier Vista and Yesler.

And it's made it easier for families to access the enrollment and to make it more successful for everyone.

And finally as we are opening Cedar Park as an option school next year there have been almost daily and oftentimes multiple times a day events associated with building up community and making that school successful and there is a long list of dates that we will put and events that will go into the Friday memo.

So with that my report on behalf of Dr. Nyland thank you very much.

Questions.

Peters Any questions or comments for Deputy Superintendent Nielsen?

Director Blanford.

I'm just wondering Deputy Superintendent Nielsen if you can share a little bit more about how the legislature didn't get to the point that they, why was yesterday an important day and what are the implications of them not taking action?

I know it has serious impacts on us but is there any opportunity for a bill to be introduced or is it done at this point?

Thank you for asking that.

And again I want to thank our Seattle delegation and other members of the legislature who went to great effort to try to resolve this by now.

And the failure and take this for my opinion and how things work in Olympia relates to the whole idea of how a bill becomes law and how major changes take place.

and the Senate Republicans do have a plan on reforming funding for education which addresses the McCleary bill.

and they attached a levy cliff fix to that bill so what you would call that in politics is you hold hostage that idea until you are able to further your plan through the session.

So because the Senate holds power on one side and the House on the other that back and forth was not resolved and therefore we are at a so far standoff.

It is possible that enough pressure comes outside of just this city from districts across the state and that is pressure, the pressure does exist that the resolution could happen before the end of session.

So we are saying all right we missed the first deadline that's bad.

But if you do anything please do it as soon as possible because we can make adjustments between now and the summertime and the sooner we can do it the better.

And then what we would do on a practical level is we'd be able to adjust our cuts to schools and to central office and we would be able to say all right now of course we would work with you as a board what would that look like in the restoration process and the sooner we can get to that the better.

We hope that the cooler heads prevail my words not theirs in Olympia and they resolve this quickly.

Worst case is they are unable to come to a solution, they go into special session and things just move on throughout the summer.

Does that answer your question?

Peters Thank you.

All right so I would now like to welcome our student representative from Nova high school Theo Lasky.

Mr. Lasky is a 10th grade student at Nova who's on track to graduate a year early.

He's politically active and highly motivated to serve his school and fight for social justice in the community.

He's an athlete and a photographer and is currently perfecting the art of kimchi fermentation.

Thank you Mr. Lasky.

Thank you.

Is it on?

There we go.

Is this better?

Okay.

Thank you for having me.

Sorry am I supposed to read what I had prepared now or later?

So, yeah, at Nova we've been talking a lot about the flash curriculum.

Is this better?

I'm not good with microphones.

At Nova we've been talking a lot about the flash curriculum and how it's implemented in schools and whether it's getting through to students.

And I know we have a couple of representatives from Nova who are here to talk about that as well.

So I myself identify as a queer transgender male.

I prefer he him pronouns and I began my transition in my freshman year of high school and I've been on hormone treatment for eight months now.

So my arrival at Nova in the fall of 2015 was kind of a life changing event.

I was finally able to come out and identify and present however I wanted.

I found adults and students who were like willing to see me who I truly was without question.

And within my first few months there I was able to change my name within the school system, come out to my family and order my first chest binder.

I also found to my surprise the first health class I had ever taken that not only mentioned but also went into some depth about the threats that are posed to folks in queer relationships from different forms of contraceptives we can use to discussions on consent within nontraditional relationships.

It was hard though to have access to this knowledge but not you know know how to actually access queer friendly health care and and sort of outside of my own school you know.

So I think this is really why we need comprehensive and culturally competent sex ed and health care in our schools.

The truth is that LGBT identified students are not just at Nova.

They're at every school in every district in every state.

I'm just someone who is lucky enough to have access to this really vital information.

So many other students even within our own district fall victim to sexually transmitted infections, sexual assault and even commit acts of self-harm and suicide due to their inability to access safe and queer friendly behavioral and physical health services within schools.

I can tell you firsthand how hard it is to be referred to as female when I have tried to use health centers at other schools.

Simply trying to gain access to contraceptives or vaccinations.

I may be trans but that does not mean that I cannot get pregnant I cannot get STIs or that I do not need to know how to safely engage with my partner no matter what genitalia they have.

Nova has been working to combat this for years.

We opened our first gender neutral bathroom in the 1970s and we have weekly queer focused discussion groups that are facilitated by myself as well as our assistant principal Ava Wynette.

Currently NOVA is working on opening up a teen health center within our school that would focus heavily on LGBT behavioral and physical care.

This would include mental and physical health professionals who are trained to engage safely with, oh hello, engage safely with queer youth so that even if a student just needed to get a vaccine they would know that they were safe from judgment, misgendering and other terrifying roadblocks that hinder LGBT people from accessing basic health care.

We've been working with the city of Seattle as well as King County to gain funding for this facility and would love to have the school board support in the advancement of this project.

Our dream is to have not only a space where students can access the care they need but a space where students can train with and learn from professionals enabling them to go out and spread this information via peer to peer education on personal and classroom levels.

We would heavily value student voice allowing students to dictate how it's run and how they would like the health center to improve.

This would promote a sense of safety and over ownership over the facility creating a community space and a healthy space focused on education.

When we don't hold our healthcare educators and professionals to a standard at which they respect queer bodies and voices we are failing our queer youth.

Navigating this world as an LGBT person is hard enough and the fear of accessing the education and healthcare prevents many people from living safe and healthy lives.

In a city as progressive as Seattle I believe that it is of great importance that we educate, accept and provide culturally competent health services to a community that's already scared for their survival.

Student voice and peer to peer education are really vitally important in a classroom setting especially when it comes to sexual education.

The fact is that as the times change so do common practices and students are going to have sex and they will they won't do it safely if they aren't equipped with the correct knowledge.

We must allow students to shape the curriculum so that they are getting the information that they need.

We need to teach consent beginning in elementary school so that when students reach my age they know how to say no.

When we teach only heterosexual able-bodied cisgender students how to be safe we are doing a disservice to everyone that does not fit into this model.

To not teach LGBT students how to be safe is an act of homophobia, an act of denial of humanity.

Flash needs to be taught intermittently throughout the year with many many more days reserved for the curriculum.

Flash needs to be engaging not just worksheets and slideshows.

Students don't learn anything if they're forced to sit down and memorize anatomy.

They learn from applications of knowledge through activities games and engaging work.

Most importantly Flash needs to be inclusive.

We're doing a disservice to thousands of students within our district not just those who are queer when we don't engage them with this vital information.

Slash doesn't need to be a list of words that we regurgitate onto a worksheet and forget a week later.

It doesn't have to be direct and boring.

There is a way to make the work rewarding interesting and extremely pertinent and this is listening to students allowing us to dictate what we need to know and allowing us to learn from each other.

So I'd like to thank you for this opportunity and I hope that what me and my fellow students from Nova are able to bring forward will help youth especially queer youth all throughout Seattle.

Thank you very much, Theo.

Does anybody have any questions for Theo or comments?

I spoke to Theo earlier and he said that he was going to be able to stay with us throughout the comments the public comments and so if he would like to comment afterwards in response to what we hear tonight he's certainly welcome to do that as well.

Thank you.

So we now have reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.

Would any director like to make a motion to remove an item from the consent agenda?

All right then do I hear a motion to approve the current consent agenda?

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

All those in favor say aye.

All those opposed say no.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Okay seeing none the consent agenda has passed.

We have not yet reached 530 which is when we have our public comments so we can now begin with some preliminary board comments if any directors have anything they'd like to discuss at this point.

Do I have any takers?

Director Harris and then Director Patu.

Director Harris Very quickly tonight.

56.3 million dollars is today's total of the fines at 100000 dollars a day that the Washington state Supreme Court has levied against the legislature on the McCleary debacle.

Again a profound number.

Thank you to the Van Asselt players.

They were awesome.

I wish that I wish that every school all 99 plus had robust arts because I agree with Mr. Finney.

It teaches us so much and Washington state standards common core whatever it is that we're calling it at the time it matters.

Theolasky Nova high school way to go.

You got my support hands down.

Upcoming issues.

We have a retreat on Saturday.

We start at 10 o'clock.

It's a public meeting.

I hope you all come down.

We usually feed you as well.

And we've got a couple of things that are of extreme interest to me.

We are going to learn about the Seattle Public Schools race and equity tool and the city of Seattle's race and equity tool.

So that's a.

That's learning up for the board members and for those of y'all that want to come down and understand how these phrases work how they're implemented.

And you know the devil's in the details.

So please come and you don't have to stay until three o'clock.

And the agenda is I believe on the website.

My next community meetings will be on March 18th.

and April 15th both at the Delridge library at 3 o'clock.

Both are on Saturdays.

On Friday night the city of Seattle channel city inside out 7 o'clock will be doing a program on the McCleary mess.

I was I think fortunate enough.

We'll see.

I probably won't like looking at myself much like I don't like looking at this video.

Was able to represent the Seattle school district on that.

And we have a number of our community partners that are weighing in as well.

On Sunday March 4th some very terrific parents activists Shauna Murphy Robin Schwartz have put together a panel advocacy 101 in South Park at 8201 10th Avenue South Park neighborhood center.

And we've got a lineup.

Lisa Herbold Seattle City Council person Lauren Berkowitz Burien's city council person, Summer Stinson Washington Paramount duty, Eden Mack Seattle Council PTSA legislative chair, Sabrina Burr president of Seattle's Council PTSA Liza Rankin.

Wave please.

Soup for teachers.

These are all people that have worked very very hard on legislative advocacy and I'll be joining the panel as well.

That's in District 6. Go District 6. My thanks to a number of the staff who have gotten up at 7 o'clock in the morning and assisted me in learning about the district again the devils in the details and rich and thoughtful conversations and problem solving.

And it doesn't get better than that to be able to work one on one be thoughtful and be candid and come up with new ideas.

Again it's an honor to do this work and I appreciate it very much.

Peters Thank you.

Director Patu.

I wanted to say a lot of thank you.

I wanted to say thank you to the Van Asselt performing arts for their performance was just excellent.

Students were so talented and amazing.

To see those young students perform the way they did today it's really amazing to see them really excel in more ways than one and that's why it's so important that we keep our arts program continuing on in our schools.

because a lot of our kids may not excel academically but the arts make them excel towards even helping them with academics so hopefully that we can continue to see that happening.

Thank you to our student representative from Nova, it is always great to have different students come and share their stories and what's happening in their schools.

Thank you so much for sharing your story, really appreciate it.

And yes we are certainly supportive of whatever it is that we can do in terms of helping support our kids.

Shout out to Cleveland, Franklin, Rainier Beach, Interagency, Emerson, Van Asselt, Orca, and Rainier View.

These are the schools that actually had a chance to go and visit.

and went into a lot of these classes and they do amazing work.

Sometimes you really don't know what schools are doing until you actually go into the classroom and really observe what they are doing in their classroom so I really appreciated the work that the kids were doing as I walked through those classes and saw them at work and just the learning that's taking place.

and I want to say thank you to the teachers and also those who are actually responsible for teaching our kids.

Continue the good work and thank you for all that you do for our kids.

I have my community meeting on March 25 at Rock and Tour in Seward Park and my meetings are usually from 10 to 12 noon.

Just you're welcome to come out and usually it's an opportunity if you don't have a chance to come to our board meeting this is a good chance for you to come out and meet board directors and be able to tell us your story and whatever it is that you want to talk to us about.

You have two hours which is normally that's not you know you don't get that many minutes when you come into a board meeting you got two minutes.

Whereas if you come to our meetings we give you a chance to talk as long as you want as long as it's two hours.

So I think that's it.

Peters Thank you Director Burke.

Thank you and good evening.

I want to share the shout out for the Ben Asselt performing arts troop and one of the things in addition to the amazing choreography and vocals was just the smiles and the energy in that group was awe inspiring.

Thank you Theo Lasky I think the we as a district we think we're doing right by our students by putting you know a a health sexuality education program, putting flash into the schools and having that be systemwide.

You come here and you tell us, you share with us, we're missing some things.

And so I really appreciate that because I think that's what we need is we need to hear the voices of the students that are not being met by what we think we're offering.

And so I just wanted to second what my colleagues have said.

Thanks for coming and sharing the places where we can continue to grow.

Some of the goings on, last week I had the pleasure of participating in a panel, sitting on a panel for the Chamber of Commerce monthly meeting and I had the opportunity to talk about two of my favorite things, education and manufacturing.

And so one of, we talk about STEM education and I continue to try to emphasize that the M in STEM doesn't have to be mathematics it can be manufacturing.

So you've got your science, technology, engineering and manufacturing because the past manufacturing was a dirty word and people were working in factories and Now manufacturing and technology are infused together and the enthusiasm in the workforce in the education community around the synergy between engineering, technology, manufacturing it's such a cool opportunity for students to have hands on experiences and it ties in with our career technical education work.

So it was a really neat opportunity to share some of that vision with employers, educators, and business leaders.

Another really interesting and exciting meeting was a community meeting around Lincoln high school that was a week and a half ago.

It was a little bit under enrolled from the previous meeting because it was the day before the midwinter break and although that wasn't optimum in terms of timing we still had some great conversations and got more information out there.

About 100 people we collected nominally 250 comments questions suggestions.

I just this morning finished consolidating that and we'll get it all posted within the next day or two on the BEX website.

So if anybody wants to follow that you can just do a search for BEX Lincoln and that information will be posted.

Some of the key themes that came out stem or steam was universally A preferred approach because of the tie-ins with local technology firms, University of Washington, student assignment plan and boundaries.

Families wanted to know with certainty this year when we do our boundaries and student assignment plan whether their students are going to be affected by the opening of Lincoln high school.

And then families also wanted to know more about opportunities for international continuation and advanced learners.

So those are some of the top themes and there are a lot more so I hope people will have a chance to look at some of those comments.

There will be follow up meetings over the next five to six months and by that time we hope to have a planning principle in place.

I had a community meeting last month, one of the dominant themes there was also boundaries related, this was around the Magnolia Elementary project.

The community there is trying to understand how the different boundary options for opening Magnolia Elementary will affect their enrollment.

Common theme, it's a big challenge for us to open a school to go from zero to a sustainable cohort and the community is really being thoughtful about Trying to get out ahead of it trying to understand both how to maintain viable cohorts in the existing schools and how to start up the new one successfully.

My next community meeting is not scheduled yet but I hope to have that out in the next week.

And then in closing I just wanted to share my gratitude with the district staff about their willingness to work together.

One of the things as a director sometimes we can get into confrontational situations where you know we have to call staff out to answer some hard questions.

Sometimes in public hear from the dais and they continue to rise to the occasion.

But more recently I felt there's been a really great level of collaboration, willingness to work together.

And as was indicated in the superintendent comments, I was invited to sit in on a dry run of a presentation around what's being referred to as the coherence framework.

Trying to knit together all of these different streams of work that could seem like they're not working together but to try to put them into a common language and really provide clarity on how we are serving a wide swath of students.

So it's really neat to be part of this, sometimes it's not pretty inside the sausage factory and so the level of trust for the staff to invite directors in to help make the sausage factory an amazing place, I just want to really put out a public word of appreciation for that.

Would anyone else care to comment in the remaining 10 minutes or so?

Thank you Director Pinkham.

I won't take all 10 minutes though.

First of all thank you for your presentation here Theo Lasky and it's really caught me as far as when I look at things at what was taught here in school and how things definitely need to change where we have to be more accepting of everyone.

And in one of my classes at the University of Washington we talked about this as far as gender And the dichotomy that most is taught is just either male or female.

And one of my students asked if I knew if there was anything in the native languages that was more than just one or the other and what I recall for some native languages yes they did have more than just male and female.

They had words for other gender identities.

So being accepting of those kind of perspectives needs to be taught in schools.

That we need to be accepting of everyone that it isn't always just black or white, light or dark, male or female.

There's a lot more that we need to be accepting and aware of in our schools.

So again thank you I applaud for you being here and sharing what you have to say.

Also thank you to Van Asselt, I'm going to have to see if they're going to do a performance of that again otherwise I'm going to have to go and rent Arista Cats and watch it but I'll have to check in with Mr. Finney to see when they'll be performing again but I thoroughly enjoyed their performance with that.

I want to thank our staff for all that they've done for us especially with this budget issue and the crunch that we're facing and appreciate Deputy Superintendent Nielsen's comments and our Superintendent Nyland's absence that you know we are doing the best that we can given the situation that we have and the community here thank you for coming out and letting us know.

Yes go to the legislator and let them know hey help fund our schools.

You know what they are shortchanging isn't necessarily us it's our children.

Our youth of the future so make your voices heard as best as you can and help us out.

Help us help you.

And for those that have been waiting I've finally been able to actually the Seattle Public Library for other board members now has an online reservation system that I hopefully successfully navigated.

And right now I have a pending reservation for my district one community meeting on March 28 from 3 to March I'm sorry March 18 from 3 to 4 to 3 to 430. Maybe we'll take all 10 minutes just to get my words out here.

Let's try Saturday March 18 from 3 to 430 at the Lake City library.

Right now it's just a pending reservation and once I get confirmation from it I will get it posted to the district website.

And then also have pending for Saturday April 29 at the Broadview library from 10 to 1130. So those are my next two community meetings and for 10 bucks a piece I'll tutor the rest of the board members on how to do the reservations.

And I'll contribute those funds into a scholarship.

Peters Director Geary.

Geary Well I hope everybody had a nice relaxing midwinter break.

and we're ready and refreshed to get back at it in our schools.

Unfortunately we all wish we had better news in terms of the budget but I hope that we will band together and do what we can to fill the holes help our teachers keep the atmosphere positive in the schools for our kids is the best that any of us can do at this point.

Try to shield them from the adult problems that we're all trying to solve.

I want to thank the Van Assault and I have to say the choice of Aristocats has special meaning to me.

My first piece of technology was my Aristocat record player which I remember very fondly as being something that I got that I really cherish.

Probably one of the first gifts I ever had and I knew every single word in the era that Disney made animal stars rather than princesses.

That was my favorite and I love that movie and knew all the songs so that was particularly touching for me.

And always to see the talent in our schools is lovely.

It starts these meetings off and reminds us all well while why we are here and how we can continue to smile even through the darkest days.

Thank you Theo so much for coming.

I think back to the campaign where you know it will get better and it is getting better because you're here and everybody can see you and you're not afraid to talk out and that to me is a success for Seattle Public Schools and for you and for the community that supports you.

And so never be afraid, come back over and over again to let us know what we can do to support you because I know everybody on this board, the people who work in this district, we want to create an environment so that it doesn't have to be tomorrow.

You don't have to wait to get out of high school to start your life.

You can start it today and if you can think of ways that we can make that a safer place for our elementary kids.

Let us know.

We need to do it.

We need to just change that story for them.

Now not tomorrow.

So thank you very much.

I don't have a lot of things to report right now.

My meeting will be I'm having my Thursday morning coffee tomorrow at Zoka at 730 to 9 so please come and join me if you want to sit down drink coffee even if you don't want to talk we can read the paper grouse about you know things going on in the city that works for me too.

And I'm going to try to find a place to have my regular meeting on March 25th.

I did have a chance to meet with Nom Gundal a ballot teacher who would like to put together is working on putting together a climate justice resolution to bring or to propose to the board.

And while I can't say at this point whether or not that will go forward or if it's feasible I just wanted to thank him and want to thank everybody out there who even when you know it is again things are tight and it'd be easy to just curl up and wait for the hailstorm to pass that people are moving forward and they are going to continue to bring their energy and their creativity and their willingness to go out into the community and find the resources to bring important issues to our students in the classrooms.

Even if our legislators are not willing to support that we as a community have to bind together and look for ways to get this work done on behalf of our kids.

Thank you Noem for that.

And thank you to every teacher every group out there who continues to come before us.

I know it's hard when you feel like I know there's a budget crisis but but we have to keep looking for those buts and ways to do the work around.

So thank you everybody for your efforts in that.

And thank you everybody for being here today just for those reasons.

Peters does anybody else have anything to add?

Okay Director Blanford thank you.

Blanford Thank you much of what I would say has been already very eloquently stated by my colleagues so I will try to be brief and just again thank the Van Asselt troop for their fabulous work and their teacher Mr. Finney and also to Theo Lasky for a fabulous presentation that you gave us.

I know that sometimes it's not very comfortable for high schoolers to be speaking about gender issues and sexuality and you should know that it's not always easy for adults to listen to that.

But I think it is critically important for us to live up to our values around what we believe in and you've done an excellent job of educating us as board members.

I've had the pleasure of going into your school and watching in classrooms what actually transpires in the school.

I am so proud to represent Nova and know that it is an asset in our community.

So thank you for being here.

I had a difficult conversation with a group of parents at Madrona K8 and I knew it was going to be challenging in that We have recently voted around truncation so shrinking the program at did I say Nova I meant Madrona K8 okay great thank you.

So that it will become a K5 instead of a K8 and there were several parents who didn't understand at the time the rationale behind that decision and wanted to challenge aspects of it and we had a very frank and I think mostly positive conversation.

I know that for a fair number of people they are frustrated by the idea that there are those in our in central office who have been encouraging parents to not enroll their students at Madrona K8 and so I went back and did a little bit of research along with the senior staff of the relevant departments to find out that that is not something that they have been sharing with parents.

And so hopefully if anyone is hearing that those are stories that there is some legitimacy that they will share that information back with me so that we can come to some resolution on it.

I have assurance from The staff here that no such statements are being made and I believe that to be true but as always want to verify if that's not true.

Also there was an interesting dialogue that Director Burke and I had this morning we started the morning together.

and are ending the day together so we are brothers in arms or something.

Where we were talking about our career and technical education program with City Council person as well as a number of stakeholders in the community and it seemed like there was a couple of things.

powerful theme was that there are jobs that are desperately wanting for high quality graduates from Seattle Public Schools to take up those jobs and those are not low income jobs.

Those are middle income upper you know with a path towards making a good amount of money and we had good staff representation at the meeting and there was a lot of positive energy about how we can create pathways and all of us adults work more collaboratively and in a more aligned fashion to ensure that our students have great options when they finish from their K-12 experience and even before they finish their K-12 experience.

We learned that there are a number of a growing number of internships that people are putting forward for our students.

So even before they leave Seattle Public Schools they will have the opportunity to engage in some great summer learning opportunities that pay very well.

They are not free actually.

Hopefully we will be presenting more information on that going forward and I'm very excited to have to play any role in trying to build strong pathways for our students.

The point the question that I asked Deputy Superintendent Nielsen earlier today about our budget challenge and about the legislature was very intentional because I didn't hear enough about there's still work that can be done and still advocacy that can be taken up by parents and community members in Seattle.

And I hope, I hope beyond hope that we are able to rally enough legislators so that we can get, so that we don't have the cuts that have been projected because they will have devastating impact on a number of our students.

And there is still work to be done and I hear in the response that there is still opportunity so I'm hoping that folks who are concerned about the conditions of our schools will rally.

I know that our Seattle delegation has been very diligent in moving our agenda forward so they are not necessarily the folks that we need to talk to.

So our time down in the legislature and your time down in the legislature should really be focused on those folks who are resistant to the idea of fully funding education.

And lastly I will end my remarks by noting that I have a community meeting that is scheduled for the 25th of March.

Location is still to be determined, I have not been having much success but it is scheduled for 10 until 12 o'clock and if we are unable to identify a location then we might end up at a coffee shop and I will try to let folks know in advance of that date.

Thank you.

Thank you so we have now gone a little bit beyond 530 so we can now move on to public testimony.

The rules for public testimony are on the screen and I would ask that the speakers be respectful of these rules.

I would note that the board does not take public comments on items related to personnel or individually named staff.

I would also like to note that each speaker has a two-minute speaking time.

When the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

Ms. Ritchie will read off the names of the testimony speakers.

Thank you all for coming tonight.

Sam Wise-Williams, Naj Ali, Thut Nhi Vo,

We would like to discuss the issues with the flash curriculum specifically about excuse me can you please speak into the microphone so we can hear you.

Thanks.

We would like to discuss the issues with the flash curriculum specifically about how it is taught.

The flash curriculum is the curriculum in place for teachers to use during sexual education.

My name is Sam Wise.

I use he him pronouns.

Though the flash curriculum covers LGBTQ health teachers are often too uncomfortable to teach it.

During my first year of high school I offered to go to a flash training in the hopes of teaching younger students about LGBTQ health.

An authority higher than me and my school told me that I couldn't because peer teaching isn't effective.

So who is going to teach our students when their peers are the only people comfortable to?

My name is Mirabai and I use she her pronouns.

When sex ed fails to account for different gender and sexual orientations it makes us uninterested with the class because it doesn't apply to us.

It makes us feel like our identities aren't important like we're not normal.

Also it's unsafe.

All students need to learn about safe sex and how to foster a healthy relationship.

Education systems without inclusive sex ed programs lead to further ostracization of the LGBTQ community because it makes us seem abnormal or even non-existent.

My name is Luciana and I use she her pronouns.

I've had a very traumatic experience with flash in the past.

I was taught that women were people with vaginas and men were people with penises.

This this was a horrible experience for me.

The teacher noticed my disdain after a few classes.

She then taught the class about this separate group from men and women called transgenders.

She taught me that these people were men that wanted to be called women or vice versa.

She said that trans people weren't really the gender they identified as.

Needless to say that night I held a knife to my neck.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for sharing with us.

Nyjah Lee.

Naja Ali is actually absent, but I'm Twitney, so I'll be speaking.

Good evening school board members.

My name is Twitney Vo and I'm a student as well as an advocate for Rainier Beach High School.

I've been I've been a student at Rainier Beach High School for about seven months now and I'm glad I was assigned to Rainier Beach.

Although I wasn't at first before coming to the school I did.

I didn't have high hopes about whether I would like it because of the negative reputation that Beach held.

Being a student at Beach has made me so prideful despite of all the bad light we get.

Getting a renovation would better our reputation and make us even more content with ourselves.

Every day through the intercom we state the mantra that everybody is a somebody.

But because of the way that we are being treated we feel the exact opposite.

As you can see on the posters that I've done we are really committed and dedicated to getting a renovation for Beach.

Thank you for your time.

Next speaker is Gian Rosario followed by Diego Reyes Foster.

Good evening school board members my name is Gian Rosario and I'm a student at Rainier Beach high school.

I'd like to bring up some issues with the building and why we need Rainier Beach high school to be renovated.

You could refer to the pictures in the packets that we've given out.

The first picture that I'll be referring to is this one.

It's a pipe that says contains asbestos fiber, avoid creating dust, cancer and lung disease hazard.

Avoid breathing asbestos fiber.

So asbestos is used in building materials because the fibers are strong but they don't add weight.

It's also an ideal substance to add to cement and as you know the entire building is built with brick and cement.

The piping are also left exposed in the classrooms like this one some of the pipes are hot and students could easily touch them without knowing that they are hot.

This is a serious hazard to student health.

Also the last time we had a renovation which is the last time we had a renovation some of the glass that were installed were painted over like this one.

And not only that we also had the lockers where the wood at the bottom that holds up the lockers are exposed and then the peeling like this one.

Some of the ceilings are open and you can also see the pipes like this one.

There are many issues with the building and all will like we look at other schools and they're getting all these renovations.

For example recently Garfield got a renovation to fix their roof.

So I hope the school board members didn't forget about us.

Thank you.

Okay good evening school board members my name is Diego Reyes Foster and I'm a student at Rainier Beach High School.

At the last school board meeting school board member Rick Burke told us to come up with a list of short and long term renovations for Rainier Beach High School.

We thought about the short and long-term improvements and one of the things that we realized is that we cannot proceed with any short-term projects in Rainier Beach high school.

It requires us to break the brick walls to access the pipelines to make any adjustments.

One of our alumni a few years ago mentioned that the school had a sewage backup.

There was no running water and things were wrong with the pipes.

The piping is behind the brick wall.

To replace the piping system we would have to tear down the brick wall that supported the second floor of our school.

But then the second forward would lose support causing a hazard to the students.

A couple new piping were installed but they were placed outside of the walls.

Some of the pipes were hot and could be touched by students again causing another hazard.

So my main point is that if we get these small term improvements now such as new tiles and windows they will be eventually removed or torn down with the big improvement comes.

I don't think small improvements will help the school in the long term it would only deplete the limited resources we have.

So we're looking at our only option and that's a full building renovation.

Our next speaker is Monte Britt, followed by Syed Onoor.

Good evening school board members.

My name is Monte Britt and I am an attending student at Rainier Beach High School.

I'm coming to you today to talk about the impacts on student life.

There are countless examples of research on how facilities impact students performance.

School facility conditions after teacher recruitment and commitment and effort will with respect of the students school faculties affect health behavior engagement learning and growth.

in the achievement.

Thus researchers generally conclude that without adequate facilities and resources it is extremely difficult to serve a large number of children with complex needs such as those at Rainier Beach.

We we have multiple students and various achievement levels speaking English as a second language or coming from homes with other issues.

This is an ongoing struggle at Rainier Beach that is within the school district's power to change.

We we aren't able to maintain quality instructors or attract high school achieving students because the facility substandard and they have better options.

We deserve better and we are demanding better.

Hello my name is Saeeda Noor and I am also a student at Rainier Beach High School.

Like I've said before my peers and I will be coming to every school board meeting until we are made a priority.

Rainier Beach High School is not only the oldest school in the district but also the most diverse.

Rainier Beach High School students live in the most diverse neighborhood in the whole country and yet are the last to be granted a better environment.

Time after time we have come and asked to get a renovation and twice, twice I say that has been taken away from us.

I am here today to make sure it's not a third.

I am tired of my voice not being heard, of my peers voices not being heard, of my school not being heard.

Why?

Why do we have to go through this?

Why are you making this process so hard?

Because honestly we are not asking for anything we don't deserve.

We are not asking for anything that isn't entitled to us already.

I know you are new school board members so we are depending on you to change.

what the old school board members did not do like granting us a renovation.

You the board directors are the ones that can change it all.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Erin Rosario.

Good evening school board members my name is Arianne Rosario and I'm a seventh grader at South Shore.

I'm here today to raise awareness of some issues I believe to be important in my school as well as positive things that have happened.

To start off we have an alternative classroom for those who misbehave.

Those put in an alternative classroom learn by using a computer screen instead of learning with a teacher.

I believe that alternative classrooms won't help students.

It will only isolate them and prevent them from working on their social skills.

This is not what education should be.

Teachers and students should be learning hand in hand.

It should be a student and a teacher taking part of the process in education not a computer screen.

Now to some positive things.

Our middle school ASB has been very active.

We've raised money from fundraisers and events These events were run by students with the guidance and help of teachers.

I'd also like to voice my support for Rainier Beach High School.

We've also started collaborating on an event with Rainier Beach High School's ASB.

We're hoping this collaboration event will strengthen our ties with Rainier Beach and give us some knowledge on how to navigate high school.

The event is a talent show that will happen at the end of April.

We hope that our school board members would come and support.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Chris Jackins.

Mr. Jackins will be followed by Mindy Wong and Phyllis Campano.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124. On the city year contract modification three points.

Number one the board is being asked to approve $310,000 including some $110,000 from the general fund.

Number two the board report indicates that these funds were not approved prior to the work being performed.

Number three was this a violation of board policy.

On the Seattle preschool program service agreement five points.

Number one I have concerns about the whole idea of trying to cram more education into kids at an early age.

Number two past school board director Michael Preston once objected to the district's contention that if kids did not read at grade level by third grade it was basically too late.

Number three, I agree with the objection.

In response I noted to the board a study in which London cabbies brains grew larger from their experience navigating London streets.

Number four, one argument put forward seems to be that if educational professionals can just get more time with kids in the early years then education will flourish.

High quality preschool or daycare or all day kindergarten with aligned curriculum and evaluations is supposed to perform magic that parents cannot.

Number five I'm not comfortable with the argument.

Public school is a wonderful opportunity for children to learn about the world but children should not be robbed of their childhood in the pursuit of academic success.

Thank you.

Peters Thank you.

Good evening my name is Mindy Huang and I am with the Southeast Seattle education coalition.

We are a coalition of over 70 community-based organizations, schools, parents, educators and community members.

I am also a proud graduate of Seattle Public Schools having attended from elementary through high school.

I'm here tonight to let you know that our coalition believes in and values high-quality early learning.

Our partners at moms rising have collected over 170 signatures supporting pre-K.

We see preschool as a crucial way to support our community and to ensure children and families are off to a great start.

CSEC has invested time by serving on the Seattle schools preschool task force.

Expanding to serve more children and creating inclusive blended classrooms will support many families and children.

We see these measures as important ways in helping to close opportunity and achievement gaps.

According to James Heckman, a Nobel Prize winning economist, investing in early childhood education is a cost-effective strategy, even during a budget crisis.

Short-term costs are more than offset by the immediate and long-term benefits through reduction in the need for special education and remediation, better health outcomes, reduced need for social services, lower criminal justice costs, and increased self-sufficiency and productivity among families.

Skills learned in preschool especially executive function social emotional skills do not fade out in elementary school.

The social emotional skills gained in preschool often persist and give children an important foundation to achieve upward mobility.

Supporting preschool expansion across Seattle Public Schools will help more children enter kindergarten ready to learn.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Campano will be followed by Melissa Westbrook and Sabrina Burr.

Good evening directors my name is Phyllis Campano I'm a special education teacher and the president of Seattle education Association.

First I'd like to take a minute to thank Dr. Nyland and the rest of the upper cabinet for all the work they've done reaching out to the educators and the principals and the school communities to keep us updated on the budget.

We get an update from him personally every couple of weeks so we really appreciate that getting the message out and keeping on top of it.

But what I am here for is to let you all know that SEA does support both the motions of continuing and expanding up to nine preschool classrooms within Seattle Public Schools.

The current high-quality preschool classrooms have been extremely successful here in Seattle Public Schools in preparing our children for kindergarten.

I think you all have the data on that.

Closing the opportunity gap should be of our highest priority especially here in Seattle Public Schools we do have an issue with that.

Our educators know that our preschools help students be more successful in knowing school culture, socialization skills and preparing kids academically for day one of kindergarten.

This proposal increases pre-K in the northeast region where some of our most vulnerable students are now as poverty is starting to creep into the north end of Seattle.

We need to make sure that we take care of all of our kids.

This is a modest increase in a strategy we know works on closing the opportunity gap.

It's beyond me why anyone would say no to closing the opportunity gap here in Seattle Public Schools.

We know what research says the long term effects actually help our graduation rates.

This is clearly the right investment for our future of our children.

Thank you.

Good evening to answer Director Blanford's question there is a separate levy cliff bill it is HB 1059 it went to the Senate yesterday and they refused to bring it to the floor for a vote.

Good evening about the bar for the city pre-K program I'm baffled about the choice of Cedar Park as a location because it's a woeful facility to start with.

Some of the school population is already going to be out in portables they have just one bathroom for each gender in the entire building.

Pre-K needs its own bathroom, where will that be located and who is going to pay for that?

I also note that the bar says there was a family survey done in November 2016 and they are waiting for the data to be available.

I find it quite odd that this data is not available just as you are voting on expansion.

Page five also mentions getting enrollment data to determine where sites should be.

Why is that not available to you?

Also there is nothing in this contract referencing student data privacy.

I find that disturbing.

The only thing that vaguely comes up is this, student health files will be kept separately from student education files.

You do know that just means physical location because any health record generated at a school are part of child's educational record under FERPA and that should be made clear to parents.

On the advanced learning bar for introduction I hope you read my email I sent you earlier this week.

I applaud the staff for finally admitting as the board has said before themselves there is a lack of consistency and common definition of services.

The district has stated there is urgency over equity as well as addressing the needs of students of color in the district.

And yet that priority is at odds with the leisurely pace that staff is going to take in order to make AL a better program.

If there are students of color not being served by this program why isn't AL a priority?

Isn't a mine a terrible thing to waste?

I urge you to consider this going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sabrina Burr who will be followed by Brian Terry and Karen Betancourt.

Mr. Terry.

Good evening directors.

The HCC program is based on a theory that one or 2% of students are highly capable unique learners whose needs are best met in a self-contained classroom.

Ideally this program would identify students proportionally across all populations.

Unfortunately testing of all second graders at Title I schools shows conclusively that students of color are at a major disadvantage.

For example less than 0.3% of African-American students who participated in universal testing last year became eligible for HCC.

This means that the needs of highly capable students of color are either not being met at all or being met in a separate but equal way.

This is unconstitutional and in violation of both state law and district policy 0030. We must immediately adjust the process to identify a broader diversity of highly capable students.

This requires a shift in expectations for students entering HCC.

While some may already be performing two grades ahead in all subjects others may not.

HCC teachers should be expected to use differentiated instruction to meet a diversity of needs.

I am on the racial equity and HCC team working with the district on this issue.

I ask for the board's full support of my team and the district as we adjust how we identify and serve highly capable students.

In this way we can create a brighter future for all of our highly capable students.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Following Karen Betancourt will be Janet Blessing and Susan Olson.

Hello I'm here to ask for your help in streamlining the appeals process to the advanced learning program.

Despite spending more than 30 hours trying to find a provider and having the willingness to pay out of pocket I was left without any options to comply with the current appeals process.

The 21 day appeal window started at 7 PM on February 3 when I found that my younger daughter had passed the cognitive testing but didn't pass the ITBS.

I looked up the appeal rules, read them and began emailing suggested providers on the SPS website for an available appointment.

Each email was individualized and gave a brief vignette of my daughter and why we needed testing and the pressing deadline.

The weekend passed and I got zero responses.

On February 8 one person responded to say they had availability in late April.

Unfortunately not acceptable for the three week appeals process that closed in February.

I widened my search to plus or minus 50 miles, started cold calling clinical psychologists.

Nothing.

Of those who would even answer they either had openings in May, had no training or were unwilling to test someone as young as eight years old.

I reached out to the University of Washington who trains people in these tests.

No openings to meet the deadline.

I emailed a work email list of 5000 people.

No one knew anyone available.

If the appeals process must be so time bound the district should either bring an available group of psychologists to test on given days and reduce the need for parents to understand testing protocols to devote significant time and effort just to get an appointment to afford the testing.

I urge you to reevaluate having an appeals process if the bar to appeal is so high that it cannot be met within the time period.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Janet Blessing.

My name is Janet and I'm a parent of a sixth grader and I was six months ago I had no I was totally clueless about the impact of the subject I'm going to be talking about and it's such a short subject I'm going to jump to my final thing and I'll provide you some I mean such a detailed subject that I'm not going to I'm going to stop start at the end here.

Well first of all the subject is lowering Wi-Fi in the school which I know is a very non-Seattle PC, very taboo, very sacrilegious subject.

And I'm going to go to my plea which is to plead that the board will educate themselves on the issue of extensive Wi-Fi and to protect my child, her classmates and teachers from needlessly high Wi-Fi and excessive and encourage them to turn off Wi-Fi when not in use in the classroom and find the minimal strengths necessary to audaciously I will even add retro back to Ethernet and dongle up the iPads and turn off the Wi-Fi on each individual computer.

Back to Wi-Fi, I celebrate that internet and computers are vital in education and the world today.

Wi-Fi is logically useful, fun, the future which is all the more important that we protect our children now.

It's been a major planetary experiment, it's rapidly expanding and it's not inert to insects, plants.

There's all kinds of frequencies that add to it.

And all of these add together to create major havoc on the body.

It breaks DNA, permeates the blood brain barrier, extensive inflammation, wreaks havoc on blood sugar, blood cell viscosity, nerve transmission, dopamine and other neurotransmitters which means that minor and major health issues such as head and muscle aches, mental and behavioral issues, learning disabilities, diabetes, seizures, even cancers, it's no mystery why stomach cancer is increasing with the amount of young kids with the amount of iPads on the thing.

We do not have safe wireless safety things in effect the ICNRP does not work it was made for thermal levels not bio safety health levels for soldiers in the field and not for our children in extensive times in the classroom.

Fate has it that my daughter is in one of the highest levels of ICA ever and I'm pleading that the board will take responsibility.

I'm not here to bring fear, I'm here to raise awareness so that we can protect our children and it won't happen to other people.

Thank you.

Peters Susan Olsen, Catherine Cortez and Lori Hilts.

Susan Olsen.

Good evening I'm Catherine Cortez.

I'm here speaking to the preschool item and it's as a parent of a special education child, a child with an IEP at Broadview Thompson, he's a kindergartner there.

My son Julian has significant physical disabilities and has benefited from being in developmental pre-K in the Seattle Public Schools for two years prior to kindergarten and was also previously in the EEU in an inclusive classroom before that.

And I raise this because what I don't see in the item is really robust engagement with the existing pre-K that exists within Seattle schools the developmental pre-K program I would really like to see that addressed more in alignment with the expansion.

I think we benefit a lot from the best practices including inclusion and that right now that's not really deeply embedded in what I'm seeing as the preschool expansion.

I think that there's a real strength and a great value to the pre-K program, the developmental pre-K program and I would love to see that grow in order to benefit both regularly developing children as well as our kids who have IEP's and do face that opportunity gap more so than perhaps other kids as the Seattle preschool expands to make sure that kids who have IEP's in our special education have the same opportunity for the neighborhood locations to be able to stay in place and have stability and can bring their special strengths to make sure that all preschool children and all children in Seattle public schools really benefit from their presence.

So I just wanted to share that and encourage you to embed language as you can to make sure that alignment continues and to really recognize those developmental pre-K classrooms as part of this overall program and expansion.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Lori Hiltz I'm here today to speak as the president of the Seattle special education PTSA and would like to touch briefly on two issues.

First is the upcoming vote on the Seattle preschool program service agreement.

I urge you to vote yes to approve this program with the caveat that we have special concerns around the developmental preschools and the need for more inclusive preschools.

One of the major concerns I hear from parents around preschool is the segregation of special education preschoolers.

The developmental preschool program as it currently exists segregates special education preschoolers leaving them with little to no exposure to their non-disabled peers.

This does a grave disservice to the special education preschoolers of the city.

Voting yes on this motion does not solve that problem however it is an important step towards inclusion and could be a starting point for solving the segregation problem.

The second issue I'd like to talk about is an update from the special ed PTSA.

As you may recall I was here a few weeks ago describing each of the parent engagement groups in special ed.

Tonight I'd like to talk more in depth about the special education PTSA.

The PTSA is more of a grassroots organization.

We strive to bring the voice of the parent community to the district.

On the PTSA board we have a SEAC liaison who brings parent concerns to that committee.

We sponsor both large general meetings and small topic based group meetings both with special ed administrators participation.

Additionally we attend regular meetings between the PTSA board and the district all with the goals of identifying and solving both individual and systemic issues.

Another important function of the PTSA this year is outreach.

Our outreach chair Ariane Fowler is working to identify parents in every Seattle school who act as a point person around special ed with the goals of increasing community, sharing resources, communication between schools district and parents and to work to build more consistency around inclusion in special ed from school to school.

Finally I will mention our collaboration with Greg Abel of sound options.

We are sponsoring free parent workshops for parents to learn skills around engaging in difficult conversations in order to increase effective advocacy.

This will be offered in the spring.

As always please feel free to contact me if there are questions regarding special education issues.

I will email you my contact information again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Sabrina Burr.

I thought I had missed public testimony I was talking to those awesome students from Rainier Beach out there.

Good evening Dr. Nyland.

Oh not Dr. Nyland.

Nice to see Steve and school board directors.

You normally see me wearing a hat as Seattle Council PTSA president.

Tonight I'm wearing my most important hat and that is my hat of mother.

You guys know my daughter and a lot of you might not know her accomplishments but at 13 she is an outstanding young philanthropist for Washington, the youngest superhero for parent map magazine, a regional scholarship winner for Kohl's magazine, Kohl's department store and the current Seattle South Shore ASB president.

I mean yes.

I say this to tell you that that foundation came from early learning and early learning is so important in how I got into education advocacy.

She is who she is because of the foundation of her early learning.

And it was so powerful and so profound that when she wasn't quite five years old she asked people for money for the homeless babies to go to school.

And that's how she became what she is today.

I tell you that because when my daughter was in preschool We did not have many early learning abilities and I first told my story on the steps of the Capitol.

6,000 strong in solidarity for our kids that I actually had to catch the bus from Southeast Seattle to the north end to 130th.

A whole half a day to get there for early learning for this foundation for my daughter.

Tonight you have a choice.

to welcome children that are going to come.

Like a pregnancy that's a surprise.

The child is going to come, what are the conditions?

Are we going to welcome new space?

Are we going to include the city as our partner?

I say it's worth it.

And I say let's close the gap coming in and let's vote in this time to do right for early learning to make more successful children like my daughter because they all have the same gift and they're all worth your vote for more early learning space as our partners as we have in South Shore always been P through 8. Let's do it together.

Thank you.

Next Susan Olsen, okay Liza Rankin.

Hi I didn't prepare remarks but I'm here with my SPP preschooler so I thought why not take the opportunity to put in an extra support for inclusion.

He attends the EEO and he's in one of the pilot classrooms of SPP at EEO and it allows him to go all day have all day preschool.

My other son who is sitting right there in the green is an EEU graduate.

For him he was in the regular EEU preschool program that's a half day.

It was great for him.

He really benefits from the whole day.

And for both of them The benefit of having access to peers who are not the same as they are is amazing for all involved.

I think when we talk about inclusion it's so important for kids receiving special education but it's also so important for the typically developing peers for all of us to learn together, grow together, you know recognize and accept differences from the very beginning because kids naturally recognize differences and they also naturally don't discriminate.

And when you enable kids the opportunity to have that whole day experience with all kinds of different kids from all kinds of different backgrounds with all kinds of different needs.

It's a really beautiful thing.

And so I just wanted to support making that more available for as many kids as possible and learning from the model set forth for us at the EU.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If there are no other speakers tonight I guess that concludes our public comments.

So now I'd like to offer our student guest Theo Lasky an opportunity to comment if you would like to.

Otherwise I will open the floor again to directors.

I think what the students from Rainier Beach High School brought forward was super important and should be a very Like I think that that should be a priority because I I grew up in North Seattle very North Seattle almost shoreline and going to school in the central district.

I've seen how the schools in the north end that are primarily white tend to be treated better and get more renovations and I think that it's vitally important that when we have incredible diverse communities that are are working together and are this dedicated and care this much about their school and their community.

We should honor that and definitely put forward obviously with the budget issues right now that's difficult but when it is feasible that should be a definite priority.

And I think that that was very powerful and thank you guys for bringing that forward.

I think that's all.

Peters Thank you very much.

Would any directors like to weigh in at this point?

Director Burke.

I just want to also thank the Rainier Beach community for coming down again and I would like to just publicly state that I'd like to visit your school and see firsthand some of the things that you are experiencing and learn how we as a board can work that into our strategy.

I also want to push back a little bit on the gentleman with the short-term projects and long-term projects when you come up with short-term projects and have a painting project need somebody with coveralls I'll come and help when you've got a self-help project so sign me up for that.

And then I'm going to touch on a different maybe a little bit more challenging topic that I just want to get a thought out there recognizing this may be a little bit confrontational but the testimony of Mr. Jackins and some of the testimony from some of our community around pre-K.

Recognizing this could be a little bit of a divisive issue.

One of the challenges I've experienced as a board director is looking at the landscape of our students as they come into our system and thinking about historically what was the role of families, parents, the home environment versus the school environment.

and how our culture is shifting.

We have more single parent families we have more two parent working families.

We have less time to spend with our students.

And so the the the idealist in me still goes continually goes back to the the wish that values sense of belonging sense of self comes from home life.

But there's a recognition that that's not always the case.

And so we have a growing body of work that we have to do as a district around social emotional learning and that is in all of our grades but it also relates to our early learning and getting our kids prepared for the for their kindergarten and beyond.

So I just wanted to ask people when they're having this you know thinking about this that we keep in mind that we have a lot of families that have different levels of ability to to engage to help their kids develop that sense and so I think that the growth of our portfolio is kind of a.

not a very sensitive word but our capability to offer support for families that that want to get their kids more of a head start is a really important thing and that's something that's been growing on me just in the first year on the board and talking to different families and different teachers and different schools.

It's since it's something that's become more prevalent to me I just wanted to publicly state that.

Director Patu.

I just also would like to do a shout out to the Rainier Beach high school students for doing an excellent job of continue to let us know what's important.

And you're right.

You know your school is very important because that is where you spent most of your time.

And it's been a long time.

You know I hear you loud and clear.

I was at Rainier Beach for many years and yes We are always the last school to get anything and right now we are still waiting for our renovation so hopefully time will come.

So congratulations to continue on the fight.

We want you to continue on to let us know exactly you know what would remind us because we know that's very important.

And I also want to say as Suprena Burr has said that preschool is very important.

I know that because I had five kids and each one of them went to preschool and I can actually say that all five of my children actually were above grade level because they all went to preschool at a very young age, graduated from college, and are doing great.

You know I like to see that happening with a lot of our students that actually especially families of color.

You know when we want to close the achievement gap that is one way that we can close the achievement gap is providing our young kids opportunity to be ready school ready when they come to school.

Because a lot of our kids are not ready when they go into kindergartens.

So to me is that it's an opportunity for our kids to be able to get to step ahead and be able to learn and get ready before they actually get into actual elementary school and kindergarten.

So to me preschool is very important because you know I know preschool is very important because I've actually had all my children in preschool and that's the reason why I support it very highly because I think that every child who's at that age deserve to have a great education.

And that's the best way that we can actually prepare our kids for their education is to provide preschool.

Peters OK.

Director Geary.

Like Director Patu I appreciate the needs how as we expand preschool throughout the city it can truly meet the needs of some of our families of color, help us close the gaps with regard to achievement and opportunity.

It's the opportunity.

that we need to provide that will hopefully then reflect in closing the achievement gap.

And I want to give a special shout out thank you to the special ed community to also come and let us know about preschool and your desire to see it expand and let you know that I am very much tuned into the idea that as we expand preschool we have to be constantly mindful that we are expanding as well the opportunity for all of our little Littles to interact with lots of different kinds of people within the classroom and that we need to make sure that those pathways are including opportunities for everybody and great diversity in the preschool classroom because as Ms. Rankin showed I believe it was Ms. Rankin but one of the parents said that discrimination isn't something that they know at that level and if we can expose our kids to a wide variety of ways to be, ways to live, ways to be valued.

That is something that we will see them carry through and just as we may lessen our need for academic education or remedial education in academics going forward I would like to think that by providing high quality integrated preschools we will also close or lessen our need to provide social emotional interventions going forward.

So I see it hits on a lot of really great strength for us and we need to keep working to maximize the diversity through that tool.

Director Blanford.

Being as everybody else has jumped into the game around preschools I'll share a few thoughts of my own.

It has been interesting to listen to this dialogue in a prior life I was a preschool provider I was the executive director of the White Center early learning initiative which built a $21 million state-of-the-art preschool learning center to serve as a demonstration project for what preschools could actually do for a community in this case the white center community where we had a goal of ensuring that every child from 0 to 5 years old when they entered kindergarten was ready to learn.

And the statistics that I've seen most recently say that that project is actually having a huge benefit both for Highline public schools where many of the kids have enrolled but as anyone that spends much time on Roxbury knows that that is a very porous border between Highline and Seattle.

And there are many families that move back and forth between that border on a regular basis.

When I was the executive director I had the opportunity to meet with lots of governmental officials, with philanthropists, with people in the community and talk about the power of an investment in early learning.

And someone shared some of the statistics around the James Heckman study that said that An investment reaps these huge rewards.

We would use the figure that every dollar invested resulted in $17 worth of savings societywide as a result of kids not performing at higher levels, becoming taxpayers, not having healthier outcomes, not becoming involved in the criminal justice system.

And I think morally just being ending up being more self-actualized as people which we don't talk about that a lot but I think that is we do our work in public education that's something we need to be thinking about all the time.

How do we How do we move kids to their potential?

The children that have been entrusted to us and I believe really strongly that investment in early learning will reap those types of rewards.

And so I am grateful for all of the show of support for the resolution that we have before us and I'm hopeful that we can pass it.

and that we implement with fidelity the program because I know that it's based in a lot of research-based practices and so if well implemented then I believe that we will see similar results and we can serve as a beacon for other communities around the state and around the country that are also exploring this idea.

So I'm again thankful to all of those who came and testified to those who wrote passionate letters to us over the last couple of weeks and my hope is that we can move this forward quickly.

Director Peters.

Thank you to all the people that shared their comments today, Rainier Beach and their students, those with the preschool initiative here.

And as a senator I just wanted to share something from one of my favorite authors, Vine Deloria Jr.

And he was looking at education and he noticed that education in the dominant society appears to be a creator of communities.

Or he saw that you know it's oriented towards the production of income producing skills and he looked around and saw the housing business entertainment and other sectors reflected that.

That's what education was was actually education was a creator of communities.

But then reflected on the tribal settings that he was familiar with.

And he saw that it was the other way around that the tribal communities were the producers of education.

And seeing people come up here and sharing that we need to be more inclusive.

We need to have a flash that's more inclusive of just you know the dichotomy of male female that we need to see that our special ed students are incorporated into our classrooms at an earlier time and that other students get that opportunity.

So I see that happening with the Seattle School District and I want to say you know bravo for the schools that were involved in our community in the education and that the community is coming forward and saying this is what we need to be taught.

This is what we need to share with other students.

And as we do that Vine Deloria notes that when communities produce education the groupings of the community reflect the charisma wisdom and activities of the various parts of the community.

The respective activities can be viewed in relation to their importance to the community and that way the sacredness of the community can be protected and developed.

I just want to share those words.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay thank you to my colleagues for all your comments and to Theo.

So to the Rainier Beach high school students you're doing an excellent job bringing to our attention the issues around your school.

I wonder if it would be helpful for some of the students to meet with perhaps a staff member who could help them understand what the timeline is for our next levy and understand from them what they would like in a renovated school because it is on the list of things to do.

I do agree that it's overdue and so I think a conversation with the students and with staff could be a helpful next step.

So please let me know or let the board know if that sounds like something that you'd be interested in doing.

I'd like to thank the students from Van Asselt who provided a wonderful fantastic and charming performance.

I also want to give a shout out to the costuming that they did it was wonderful.

In my district one of the issues that's coming up is the opening of Magnolia Elementary and I just want to remind everybody that there is a meeting coming up regarding that.

I believe it's March 13 and people are welcome to come and weigh in on that.

We're going to have to do some rezoning in order to open up that school and I'm optimistic that it's going to be a great school, great location.

We just need to figure out what's the best way to launch this school in a way that doesn't disrupt students and families who are in other schools.

It's always a tricky matter but that is definitely something that's on my radar.

And I encourage families to weigh in on that.

My next community meeting is hopefully going to be next weekend.

Like Director Pinkham I discovered that the Seattle Public Libraries has a new system for signing up for the meeting rooms and so I need to log into that and get myself set up again.

Starting from scratch apparently.

So hopefully that will work out.

Regarding the Wi-Fi dangers you know that's something I've wondered about as well.

And so I would like to ask staff whether it's our IT department or operations department if they have ever done any kind of analysis.

There's any kind of information they've looked at regarding whether there are dangers of Wi-Fi to our students in our buildings.

So I'd be interested to know to know that.

And then we can perhaps share that in the Friday memo and that then becomes a public some public information for everybody.

I very much want to thank the Nova students for coming out tonight and reminding us of something that wasn't even on my radar I have to admit.

I mean I'm familiar with the flash curriculum to some extent both my students went through the program but reminding us that it needs to be more queer friendly and that there's a cultural competency to that that needs to be included.

Thank you very much for bringing that up.

This also reminded me that we've had some troubling developments from the Trump administration regarding transgender bathroom use and unfortunately this has been a step backwards as far as I'm concerned from the Trump administration.

They have rescinded guidelines from the Obama administration that allowed students to choose which bathrooms they went to.

I just want to just reaffirm for the students of Seattle Public Schools that the school board and the district remains committed and it's in protecting the rights of all of its students regardless of race, religion or gender identity.

This includes its gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer students.

And I applaud the students and schools that have taken initiatives to welcome all students of all genders and identities such as establishing gender neutral bathrooms.

And I was really impressed to hear that Nova's had one since 1970s.

I also want to remind our greater school community of 53,000 students and families that we have policies that firmly establish the rights and protections of every student, that we do not tolerate harassment or bullying of any kind, that we believe that our district and city must rise to the highest standards beyond that of our current federal government in our treatment of each other and the most vulnerable amongst us.

So I want to specifically direct your attention to policy 3210 and then also policy superintendent procedure 3210 SPC and you'll take a look there and you can see various things are covered in that including the use of names and pronouns, official records, restroom accessibility, locker room accessibility.

These are what guide our district and that has not changed.

and will not change.

Thank you Director Harris.

So with that the board is going to take a recess now for 15 minutes.

Thank you all.

We will resume at oh gosh 646. Thank you all.

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