Welcome all welcome to the November 20th 2019 Seattle School Board legislative meeting.
And in fact I say wistfully the last legislative meeting for several of our directors.
And let me again say how much I appreciate and love them each and all and how much I have learned in the last four years.
And we know where you live.
We have your telephone numbers and you're not done yet because we're going to keep you in the district and leverage the knowledge that you have worked so hard to earn.
As we begin we'd like to recognize and honor the first peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on the land of the coastal Salish tribes.
We'd also like to welcome Gabriella Payao close.
Thank you.
Who's joining us on the dais this evening from Cleveland STEM High School.
Gabriella will have a chance to give comments later in the evening and should she so choose she can stay till the bitter end and she can ask questions from the dais as well.
Welcome.
Ms. Loffelman roll call please.
Here.
Director DeWolf here Director Geary here Director Hersey here Director Mack present Director Pinkham present for the last time Director Harris present.
For those that wish to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
This is indeed a bonus evening.
We have two performances.
First we're going to welcome students from Lawton Elementary School who will perform.
And additionally we'll be hearing from the Robert Eagle Staff drumline after.
this performance.
Directors please take your seat in the front row.
We wanted to bring that to you.
And so from Magnolia to all of our friends we want to say we recognize our ESPs this week and their incredible job that they do in our school.
We welcome all people who are educators and parents because it is a team job that we do and we want to thank you as a school board and as a superintendent for all your leadership and the work that you do that helps make all of our classes including the arts possible.
So thank you.
I just you're going to put me on the spot.
Can somebody help me because I always say I say extra special people.
Can you tell me the actual.
Educators support professionals.
Sorry, educators support professionals.
I've been doing this for 12 years and I still can't spit that all out.
But what it means is all our paralegals, anybody who works with our children and interacts with them all day is very important to us at Lawton.
So thank you.
I have a student who's going to come, and two students that are going to come, three students, it keeps growing, that are going to come down and introduce our first song.
For our first song we're going to sing Tall Cedar Tree by Joseph Hilaire who is an elder from the Lummi Nation.
He gave this song to his daughter Pauline.
She shared it with the children of the Lummi Nation and with us.
We are singing this song because we need trees.
The red cedar tree is very important to the Lummi Nation Lummi Nation of Washington State.
Thank you Joseph Hilaire for inspiring us.
♪ Clap your hands and sing to me ♪ ♪ Way-oh, way-oh, way-oh, way-oh ♪ ♪ Oh, cedar tree, clap your hands and sing to me ♪ Clap your hands and sing with me.
Weheho, weheho, weheho, weheho.
We are also singing Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson and sometimes called the Black National Anthem.
This song is about how we will overcome.
How every day is a new day to be kind to every single person in this world.
And I have one thing that I think everybody should remember.
Everybody has a heart and everybody has feelings.
And we will lift our voices for what we believe in.
We will make things right.
It doesn't matter what you look like or your race or your gender.
We are all people and we will overcome.
Thank you.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Let us march on till victory is won.
I should note that Eden Mack had two sons who were with us at Lawton and with me from kindergarten all the way up until last year.
So we miss them and it's wonderful to see you here.
Thank you.
Eagle Staff!
Ravens!
Eagle Staff!
Ravens!
shhh you
Thank you all very very much.
Did you bring a coach or director with you.
Come on up.
Thank you.
We need your name.
We need how long you've been with the district.
How long you've been with Robert Eagle Staff Middle School.
My name is John Aguilar.
I have actually been with the district for.
A long time.
So I went to Concord Elementary School, I went to Denny Middle School, I went to West Seattle High School, Chief South High School, then went to the UW, and now back to Eagle Staff.
So I don't know how many years that is, but it's been a long time.
I've been with Eagle Staff since its inception in 2017. So I was the very first band director to build the program literally from nothing into what it is today.
I really want to highlight the work that Nazer Oliveira has done.
So Nazer, can you join me up here?
Naser was a member of our first ever drum line in 2017 and now he comes back and coaches these kids.
So not only do we promote musicians in the middle school level but also leadership as kids come back and serve the program that they were a part of.
So I just wanted to give Naser the spotlight.
Thank you.
I want to hand the microphone around your name your grade.
I'm Henry I'm in 8th grade.
I'm Graham and I'm in 7th.
I'm Matthew and I'm in 7th.
I'm Vincent I'm also in 7th.
I'm Carly I'm in 8th.
I'm Amy I'm in 8th.
I'm Lake I'm in 8th.
I'm Kyle I'm in 8th.
I'm Ilana and I'm in 8th.
I'm Kai and I'm in 8th.
I'm Cole and I'm in 8th.
I'm Miguel and I'm in 8th.
I'm Jerry I'm an 8th.
I'm true I'm an 8th.
I'm Logan and I'm an 8th.
Outstanding you guys.
Thank you very very much.
Thank you.
Madam Superintendent the floor is yours.
Well I'm always happy when my remarks are going to be so awesome.
We have a drum line right before it.
So that was a great student performance.
Really always thankful for the robust arts programming we have going on in our schools.
It's pretty spectacular when they're here to be able to show off all of their skills.
Hard to beat.
So thank you.
And as I usually do this is just a reminder of our strategic plan priorities so we always ground our conversations.
And as you all know this is the focus of our work for the next five years.
Before we start actually today though we've been doing a lot of work on the strategic plan and getting a lot of communication kinds of things out into our schools and so.
I think Carrie is here and we just want to kind of really quickly preview some of the posters the new posters that are going out to every school in our district so that they will be highlighted and reminded of the work that we need to remain focused on.
They would like them to come up front please.
Vanna's all the Vanna's.
Nice job comms team.
And specifically we are focused on these three goals in service to African-American boys and students furthest from educational justice.
I see this work playing out in classrooms all across the city as I visit and I'm so grateful to our school leaders and our teachers for embracing this work wholeheartedly.
Since our last meeting I visited Wing Luke and Martin Luther King elementary schools.
Both of these schools are intentionally working to create safe and welcoming environments for students.
Wing Luke is focused on getting students to school.
They have implemented a case management model for students who are working towards standard.
The case managers use the check and connect an engagement tool to check in with students on a daily basis.
They use family engagement social emotional learning strategies as well as meeting with each student and his or her teacher to get to set goals for reading and behavior.
The staff at Martin Luther King truly know the story strengths and needs of each student.
They are at MLK leading the social emotional learning at their school.
A group of fourth and fifth graders explained when I was visiting how they taught a lesson to the entire school over the intercom about self-management and self-awareness.
We discussed how scary public speaking is even for adults and they gave me some of their strategies to overcome that fear of speaking in public and in fact I'm using some of them right now.
They were so very proud of this their experiences and their growth.
And did you know that Wing Luke is a leader in providing students English language learners learning services.
After my visit I do know why in a third grade blended ELL classroom students held a writing collaboration.
Students sat in two circles and they shared their stories after sharing students would ask the author about their story.
And so the two groups were very respectful of each other and their stories were very thoughtful.
They were encouraged to speak with each other about their writing.
Martin Luther King students are embracing their inner super reader.
The picture on the right is outside a kindergarten classroom.
In the three through five grade classes staff work collaboratively with each other and with students.
They use student data to set individual goals for and with each student.
Teachers are using close reading strategies to help students understand complex texts.
As a result of this focused intentional work they are seeing positive results in their formative assessments.
Principal Mendoza Principal Scott and their teams are committed to culturally responsive practices in both buildings.
The staff shared the need to build more diverse book collections and classroom libraries as well as their main school library at Wing Luke staff is partnering with Wing Luke Museum to use diverse lessons about immigration which many students have experienced firsthand.
Staff is also reading a book called Routines for Reasoning to boost their skills to better serve students in ELL and math classes.
After each new learning in their book as they sit in their PLC's they practice the skills in their classrooms and report back the student performance data to their PLC.
So that circle of inquiry and practice is really showing promising results.
We had a great conversation with the principal about that work.
Martin Luther King staff is committed to holding opening and closing circles each day.
In one classroom I visited students were creating a list of thousand dollar feeling words.
For example they were providing the teacher with better descriptor words than just excited.
Swapping instead with words like exhilarated and enthusiastic super cute about the deeper meaning of what their feelings were.
They use strategies from caring school community which comes from our adopted literacy materials.
Caring school community promotes positive behavior to direct teaching of responsibility empathy and cooperation creating a setting where students feel heard known and cared for.
I just want to thank Principal Mendoza and Principal Scott for their leadership and thank the staff at Wing Luke and MLK for their focus on student learning.
And finally there is no shortage of black excellence in our schools.
I see it in every single space I enter across our district.
The top right picture shows you the level of enthusiasm our learners have in their classrooms.
This happens to be a lesson like I spoke to earlier about immigration and culture but our young leaders are excited to share their knowledge with each other and their teachers in many of our classrooms.
The other two pictures highlight young leaders at MLK.
These students shared their feelings about public speaking with me and with each other.
They were honest articulate vulnerable and supportive of each other in this space.
The topics they shared over the school intercom were about self-awareness and self-management.
They told me things like I felt like I was the chosen one.
I felt exhilarated.
I did this because I wanted to grow as a student.
This young lady featured in the top left photo told us that she is she spoke and she was like I am a school person.
I jump out of bed every day excited to come to school.
I'm just I'm just when I hear those stories and sit with students I'm just so thankful for the staff in our schools and our community who that are creating these spaces for our young leaders.
They're very very powerful.
And when you sit with them and you see smiles like that about learning it's hard to beat.
So with that I'm going to go to the front of the room to.
And as was spoken earlier as you all know this is the last meeting for three of our directors Director Burke Director Pinkham and Director Geary.
Outgoing directors thank you for helping to bring me to Seattle and putting your faith in me to lead Seattle Public Schools.
It's been great getting to know each of you your passions your dreams for our district and your commitment to our scholars.
We all know that change is inevitable.
In fact the best thing I've ever seen regarding change was on a coffee shop tip jar.
It said if you fear change leave it here.
But thank you for helping to adopt a bold strategic plan that is steeped in racial equity.
No other district in the country has a strategic plan as strong as Seattle Excellence.
Thank you all for your unwavering commitment to students in Seattle Public Schools.
I hope that as you step off the board you realize the changes you have made while you sat in your seat and that those changes have made a huge positive difference.
The work that school boards do is impactful for our entire community.
So thank you for your deliberate thoughtful student centered equity based decision making.
I have a small token of appreciation for each of you a certificate and a joke book.
So you don't forget that even though we deal with really big hard issues we need to keep a sense of humor and not always take ourselves so seriously.
So the first one Director Burke you've been a fierce and vocal advocate for career and technical education among many other issues.
Your experiences have given Seattle Public Schools access to some of the region's most successful entrepreneurs and business owners.
Thank you for supporting our CTE division to plan yesterday's very first industry partnerships and education forum at which Seattle Public Schools.
It was pretty awesome.
At which SPS issued a challenge to our community and business and industry partners a challenge to become more involved with providing high school students with job shadowing internships and jobs.
And just even just through that small work and those small steps Director Burke your legacy and SPS will live on in many ways.
But most importantly I think what you've done to advance career and technical education.
and thank you for our service for your service to our staff and students.
So it's time for your picture.
And my little notation inside the book says Rick keep trying to be funny.
Director Pinkham thank you for holding us accountable to make the invisible visible.
You consistently challenged challenged us to do better with our data to ensure all students are represented especially our Native students.
You have been relentless in your quest for the best services for Native students.
You help lead the way in our work to adopt since time immemorial and you insist that our staff get trained in that curriculum.
I'm confident Gail Morris and her team will continue the great work that you helped kickstart.
And just given that it's Native American Heritage Month and your service and your election to this board is pretty significant.
And so I thank you for stepping up for raising your hand and for serving this district in such a strong.
Culturally responsive way.
Thank you so much.
Director Geary staff consistently talk about your growth and your leadership in our racial equity work.
Thank you for modeling how to be a lifelong learner in service to Seattle Public School students.
Your leadership helped ensure that we have a strong theory of action focused in racial equity in our strategic plan Seattle Excellence.
I look forward to moving the anti-racist policy you drafted in partnership with community to the full board for approval later this year.
You have also held us accountable to better serve students needing special education services because of you.
Our special education services are a model for others in the state and nation.
You will be missed and I'm hopeful and I'm hopeful you will continue in your efforts to support Seattle Public Schools.
Thank you for your service to staff and students throughout the district.
And with that I just need to say that it's been really meaningful and I really do.
I'm very very happy to be here and I'm happy you chose me and I was really happy to work with all of you.
So thank you Madam President.
Thank you.
OK we are at Roman for board committee reports and today we are going to start with the director of internal audit and ethics officer Andrew Medina for the office of internal audit and ethics annual report.
Come on up.
Floor is yours sir.
Working now.
Andrew Medina director of internal audit and ethics officer and I'm here to provide two annual reports.
The first is the annual internal auditor internal audit report board procedure requires that I provide an annual report that goes over the audits completed major audit findings corrective actions taken by administrative managers and significant findings not addressed by management.
So this year we completed four audits and three board director projects.
We also conducted some internal audit benchmarking which was provided to you a couple of weeks ago and we also created and began using a racial equity advancement internal audit consideration tool in our audits.
This is a tool designed to help make us aware of any potential racial equity considerations impacting the areas that we're going to be auditing.
The next three slides identify the different findings we noted this year.
The Thornton Creek Elementary School was also audited by the state auditor's office.
Their results were largely similar to ours and included many of the same issues and recommendations.
The findings on the slides have more detailed information in the actual audit reports which are available on our public website.
These findings that are listed represent the areas that we'll want to monitor to ensure that corrective actions are taken.
The audit process itself is very transparent.
Each audit finding is discussed in detail at a public Audit and Finance Committee meeting.
After that it's posted to the our department's public website and then at the next board meeting the chair of the Audit and Finance Committee makes an announcement of the completed audits.
The next topic is corrective action plans.
It's important to note that the corrective action process is a management function.
Administrative management responsible for maintaining an adequate system of internal controls and this includes following up on outstanding audit recommendations.
Since we may have to audit the same area again in the future it's important that we remain independent.
of the corrective action process so that we can be objective if we ever have to audit that area again.
So we don't.
So we do make recommendations only.
We don't direct staff write procedures or design internal control procedures.
That is a management function because it is a management function.
I'm not going to go through all of the steps that they're taking but I did want to highlight the procedures that they have in place.
They employ a.
an audit response manager who reports to the CFO and is independent of the internal audit department.
Each quarter management provides an audit provides the Audit and Finance Committee an update on the status of the corrective action plan and after the corrective actions have been implemented we can do follow up audits if necessary.
So even though I'm not going to go through each step they've taken I do have some data on the how Well they are responding implementing the corrective actions.
We've issued five hundred and seven total recommendations since the internal audit department started in 2011. Of those only 1 percent are overdue but less than 1 percent are overdue and only 1 percent are still in progress.
By in progress it means they're still within their six month window to implement recommendations or they've received an extension from the Audit and Finance Committee.
I think the slide shows that management is implementing corrective actions.
The one thing to keep in mind however is that this data is based upon management's assertion.
They inform the audit committee that items have been corrected but internal audit doesn't go in and actually verify that the corrective procedures were adequate unless we've done a formal follow up audit.
The two overdue items relate to items that must be bargained We have not had any actual disagreements with management where they've refused to input our recommendations.
We have had some instances of misunderstanding that have required further clarification but the only outstanding items that have a significant delay are the ones that involve bargaining.
The next report is the annual ethics report.
It requires a report on the number and types of contacts received the percentage of contacts submitted anonymously and the status of the ethics training program.
So every contact I receive gets logged into one of 10 types of contacts.
The majority are advisory opinions 42 percent.
These are employees that are trying to be proactive and do the right thing.
I think a high number of advisory opinions is Very positive, it shows that employees want to do the right thing before they actually do it, so they're reaching out to me to make sure it's okay in advance.
16 percent are categorized as other.
These are items that are not related to ethics nor are they complaints.
They can be public records requests other school districts asking for help or just being copied on notifications.
Personnel complaints are 11 percent.
These typically involve discrimination harassment and bullying or employee assignments.
These are not part of the ethics office authority.
So these are automatically forwarded on to human resources.
Miscellaneous complaints represent 9 percent.
These are complaints that don't involve the ethics policy and are also not considered whistleblower or personnel.
Ethics complaints represent 8 percent.
These are complaints that are actually an allegation that an employee has violated the district's ethics policy and 8 percent of the contacts are also employees that are Not necessarily employees but just anybody exploring available options.
They just have questions about what happens if they move forward and where it'll go.
Conflict of interest disclosures are 4 percent and then less than 1 percent are whistleblower complaints training requests and whistleblower retaliation.
As far as anonymous complaints this slide shows all types of complaints.
Anonymous complaints can be a bit concerning because it may signify that there is a lack of trust in the system or a fear of retaliation.
This like I said this is all complaints but the next slide breaks it down a little further by the individual type of complaints of the four types that I receive personnel miscellaneous ethics and whistleblower overall for 59 percent are received anonymously.
But if you look at the breakdown of Most of those are the personnel complaints that are forwarded on to human resources.
If you're looking at just the whistleblower ethics and miscellaneous complaints only 46 percent of those are anonymous.
There are no changes to the ethics training program this year.
Ethics policy is covered in new employee orientation.
There is a training course available on safe schools and I will respond to requests for training.
And as I mentioned I do get quite a high number of advisory opinions advisory opinion requests.
And then there is also an FAQ document on the ethics website to help guide employees.
But the ethics office was established to be reactive to complaints and inquiries and we have good policies and procedures set up to address that.
But we really haven't established the resources yet to make it proactive and develop a quality training program yet.
And that's pretty much it.
The audit plan for the current year has been approved by the Audit and Finance Committee and is available on the public Web site.
All of our completed audit reports are available there also.
Just click on the from the district's home page click on departments and then you'll find internal audit.
I also want to remind everyone that the plan is designed to be flexible and can be changed mid year if necessary.
So if there are ever any concerns or new risks that are identified please feel free to bring those forward to me at any time.
So thank you for all your support and service.
And if there are any questions.
OK.
I want to make a couple of comments if I might and then we'll take questions from them.
You are one of two.
Board employees correct.
Answering directly to the board.
Yes.
You and the superintendent.
Yes.
OK.
And you also took a hit in your department this last year with respect to reduction in force.
Is that correct.
Yes.
We lost one auditor position through budget.
Right.
OK.
Questions comments concerns from my colleagues as to Mr. Medina's report.
Director Burke.
I'm just curious you know if the metrics you present.
Sorry I can't even speak.
Not gonna be a good evening.
The data that you shared if you have any trending information and if that's something that should be part of the regular annual report because I think that could help identify shifts in how our policies or how our culture is impacting your work.
I did start.
I do have the data available for that and I was kind of trending like anonymous complaints for a little bit.
Last year we did our definition of whistleblower complaints to be in line with state law and that kind of shifted things.
So if I went back and recategorized everything going all the way back.
It would be easy to do that.
But as of now a lot of things that used to be whistleblower are now miscellaneous because they were anonymous or they weren't submitted by an employee or they didn't involve the right categories.
So I can certainly start planning for that going forward.
I guess to be specific would you advise including trend lines as part of the report or is there enough change in you know how we label or how we structure that it could give us an artificial artificial data because of other factors.
Maybe that's a topic for you a direct answer topic for you and future chairs of audit and finance to work out.
I think the hard part about it is the number of complaints is actually fairly small.
The personnel and miscellaneous.
We get a lot of those but the whistleblower and ethics complaints there's not a lot of those.
So there's really not a lot of data to grab at least at least not in the last year or two.
Director Mack.
I just want to say thank you for a comprehensive and thoughtful presentation of the report.
As always I find the work that comes out of your office and your other auditors to be sound.
It's great work and I think it's really important part of the process and so thank you for the work that you do and looking forward to work in the future.
Thank you.
Any other director comments questions concerns.
Director Pinkham.
Chair of Audit and Finance.
Andrew thank you for your presentation tonight and thank you for all actually the last two years that you and I have been working together as a chair of Audit and Finance.
Just appreciate working with you getting to know you and service that you provide for our district.
You know that having our own internal auditor make sure that we're always going in the right direction and that if we start buying off a little bit you help us get back on the correct path.
So make sure that we're serving all of our students staff anyone that wants to be associated or is associated with the Seattle Public Schools that.
they feel confident in what they're getting and if they don't feel confident you're there to help and direct them which way to go and to hopefully get some answers and I just say thank you for your service.
It was a pleasure.
One of my last things that I'll be doing as a chair of our finances finish his evaluation for this year so I welcome any directors and send me any comments that they may want to share.
Again Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.
Thank you.
And Andrew before you leave the podium can you talk about the white paper that you led nationally for whom how that's been used benchmarking setting the bar high.
Yeah that was through the Council of Great City Schools.
They asked me to lead a white paper on best practices and internal auditing for school districts.
The Council of Great City Schools is this nation's largest urban school districts and the white paper we put together identifies the best practices and.
About eight or nine different categories, audit committee structure, reporting structure, risk assessments.
And then for each one of those, we identified the best practices and also the benefits of following those best practices, how it will help your district succeed.
And it's been very well accepted by some districts throughout the council.
Boston's the most recent one to implement a new internal audit function.
The auditor we lost to that I lost to budget cuts is now the director of internal audit for Portland School District had to go to Portland but they in her words they treat the white paper as the Bible and they're following it very closely to help her get set up.
OK I say round of applause for this gentleman.
Thank you.
OK let's hear from directors committee chairs and liaisons who would like to go first.
Good evening.
Relatively short report out.
There's not much to talk about from legislative since last meeting.
Other than WSSDA having its annual conference this week and we do have a WSSDA legislative committee meeting as well as other activities.
But the majority of that work we talked about last week or two weeks ago for operations.
We haven't had a meeting since the last meeting but we will be having one.
December 5th and we are anticipating a number of great conversations things on the agenda including.
Transportation service standards.
That's a document that lays out what our service standards for buses who who gets which types of service how.
So that'll be coming to Ops lease agreement on facilities warehouse the capacity management actions for 2020 one school year.
next school year.
That's helps decide if we need to increase or decrease space in buildings by adding classrooms or adding portables and that will be coming forward.
We'll also be talking again and getting closer hopefully to bring to the full board the policy revisions to 6901 which is the levy planning policy and the addition of the new 6900 which is facilities and I believe now in draft form facilities and technology planning.
So it's kind of covering the larger scope longer range piece of that.
So that'll be coming for further discussion in committee next week and hopefully it'll be coming to the board in the next few cycles.
Thank you.
And who would like to go.
Director Burke please.
I will cover the curriculum instruction policy committee meeting on behalf of of Chair Geary.
She gifted me the last meeting.
So thank you for that.
Brief brief agenda.
We had a only a.
A single board action report which is a really good one because it's adding cycling safety education and pedestrian safety for middle school to the Seattle Department transportation let's go bike and pedestrian safety education program.
So it's great program that we've got funding to move up to middle school.
You'll hear more about that.
We had a fairly rich and extensive conversation on the anti-racism policy update.
I think that was it was super insightful because the huge amount of work has been done.
The document that was shared that is in the curriculum instruction read aheads has the the tracking of.
where it started where it's where it's evolving to.
And we had a lot of conversations around how the policy can impact different people and how it can help them move from wherever they are in their journey to wherever they can best be to support the district work.
That idea of we try to meet students where they are and we want to meet the community as well where they are and who is the audience for our anti-racism policy.
And what is our role as a district in shifting hearts and minds outside of Seattle Public Schools.
So we in no means concluded that work but I think there were some really good conversations that took place and will continue.
We had standing agenda items on instruction materials review where we got updates on the since time immemorial and science implementations both progressing.
Training increasing on both our research evaluation team having monitoring components on both as well and then strategic plan updates on our third grade reading goal and on track college and career ready graduation which was another lively topic of conversation because we recognize the criticality of our ninth grade students that are not.
Did not receive six credits last year that are this year's 10th graders that are coming in behind pace to meet the 24 credit and then the 11th graders this year that are that don't have the 12 credits needed to be on pace.
So we talked a lot about what are the strategies how are we identifying those specific students.
You know this is this is an airplane emergency where.
We need to be identifying those individual students reaching out to them.
Adult.
Mentoring support.
So really great conversation around that.
And I know that there's a lot of work centrally and at the building level but the conversation committee just reinforced that.
Quarterly report on equitable access to programs and services what has changed in the last quarter on any of our programming specifically primarily around in this case special education services annual report on policy 2020. This is always a lively one waiver of basic instruction materials annual report.
As you may recall policy 2015 governs adoption of instruction materials that are board approved.
policy 2020 is what governs non board approved waivers.
These are approved by the superintendent and her her delegate delegates delegate whatever her team and come to us as an annual report.
The annual report this year shows a large number of math waivers being awarded.
Some of them are.
existing from prior years and several quite a few of them are new for this year.
So that's something for folks to be aware of.
You know what is the what is the reasons what does that mean.
What how does that impact our future adoption plans whether it's materials or supplements.
And that was the extent of it.
The next meeting is probably going to be heavily focused on calendar building and orientation for new directors and continuing to work forward.
Question back at you if I could.
Director Burke I believe the rich and rowdy discussion you referenced on the waivers referenced accountability measures that we did not see for continuing or rolling over waivers.
Could you speak to that please.
Thank you.
That is true.
There was the waiver policy 2020 and it's a it's a corresponding procedure has specific guidelines on what it takes to award a waiver but also on what it takes to renew a waiver.
And so this waiver schools choose materials because they make a strong case for they will better serve their students and provide better outcomes.
So to get a renewed waiver they have to demonstrate that the three years of investment and working with that waiver material did create increases in student achievement.
And on my brain I don't have the specifics of what that is.
And my recollection is is that the backup for that will be at the next C&I meeting.
Is that what you recall?
I would have to go to the minutes to be certain on that.
Thank you.
And that would be on December 10th.
Just FYI.
Director Pinkham chair of Audit and Finance please.
Yes.
First I want to thank my fellow board members for covering me while I was out of the office earlier this month.
Those who don't know my father was admitted to the hospital.
He's now in transitional care and hopefully doing better.
But you gave me some time to go and visit with him and my family.
There has no been no A&F meeting since the last board meeting.
Thank you Director Mack for chairing the meeting right before and giving the report on that.
All I can share right now is A&F we do have one action item on the agenda tonight and two on the intro.
The next quarterly A&F meeting will be or actually quarterly A&F meeting will be December 3rd.
Hopefully we'll again have the new board directors and joyfully join that and the next actually A&F meeting will be the following Monday on December 9th.
And I just want to thank everyone for supporting me during my absence.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.
Mack.
Yeah I just realized that I misspoke when I said that we didn't have our last operations committee since the last meeting that I reported on the previous meeting because we did in fact was the day after our last board meeting so I apologize for misspeaking.
And I have the minutes in front of me to remind me of the incredibly robust conversations we had over a number of topics.
Many of those things are in our agenda tonight so I won't review that.
But just to reiterate that the BEX BTA oversight committee provided their semiannual report and gave us some recommendations to consider in relation to how we do our work and approve contracts and maybe streamline some of our processes going forward.
So it's really great.
I'm really grateful to that advisory committee for all the work that they do and that they've provided some really robust recommendations.
And we also had an update on our green resolutions and our environmental efforts that have been going out which is really robust.
The district is doing many many things across many different what people might consider silos they're they're crossing silos to do this environmental sustainability work in the building of our buildings.
It's deeply embedded in the management of our facilities it's embedded.
So it's really great to get some good information on what's going on and thank you to all the students who participate on green teams and help support composting and all the various things that that they do.
We got an update on our advisory committees.
capacity enrollment and facilities master plan advisory committee is still getting spun up and we're still working on getting that advertising out for that advisory committee.
Hopefully this week or early next week it'll be posted and then it'll have some long you know a decent timeline.
It'll be pushed out to a lot of groups and hopefully we'll get some great membership for supporting that work as well as the SCWA the student student and community work.
workforce agreement task force.
Those meetings are now published on the operations committee agenda so that that's publicly noticed if you're interested in seeing that.
And it sounds like they're doing some really great work being facilitated well and they'll be coming out with recommendations.
Director DeWolf.
end of January beginning of February.
So thank you for allowing me to give that summary.
Thanks.
Thank you.
I want to ask a clarifying question if I might.
At what point was the facilities planning master planning task force approved calendar wise.
We approved the charge or charter that we use that word interchangeably we approved that I believe in July.
And we've we also the other task force was being planned at the same time and I can't remember if we actually approved that from the board standpoint if that's a superintendent task force.
Do you recall if we.
It's a board task force.
It's a board task force.
Did we do that one in the same meeting.
But it was about July.
So we had you know the two of these coming at the same time an advisory committee is a longer.
You know it's three years.
This is an ongoing body.
This is not just you know setting up a body of a short term.
We want input on a certain narrow topic.
This is a kind of a longer range thing.
So it's taken a while to get sorted.
But I'm looking forward to it.
And is it fair to say that that's a bandwidth issue for staff.
I think so and I think that I mean the planning that's part of the reason why I feel so personally committed to having an advisory committee of this sort is that in lots of organizations actual planning for the future goes by the same sidelines when we're dealing with the day to day.
And this is really critical work that we actually map and have conversations in advance and don't make Last minute decisions.
So.
Thank you.
Any other board or liaison reports.
Fair enough.
OK.
Last but not least real quick.
November 13th executive committee report.
We missed our conversation with the principals association of Seattle.
And I'm sad about that because.
Having our labor partners join us for conversation I think is really a healthy thing and we learn a lot about each other and we learn how to collaborate and and address our hopes our issues and maybe do a better job of being proactive as opposed to reactive.
We met the new director of DOTS that is. a directorship now that is in Chief CFO Berge's division or chiefdom I believe is the phrase we came up with that she doesn't like very much judging from her response there.
And he's a delightful fellow and I encourage you to reach out to him.
We changed the ITAC charge to add more students trying to be responsive.
to student voice and let's be real.
Some of them know a hell of a lot more about technology than we ever will.
And we talked a lot about transition planning our board retreat and making sure that our new directors have the tools they need.
And if possible could our directors elect stand up and wave and we can introduce you please.
Lisa Rivera-Smith and Chandra Hampson.
We discussed and approved the International Association of Machinists collective bargaining agreement that's coming before you tonight that addresses 16 folks who work in vehicle maintenance And we love them because most of our vehicles are very very old and without their assistance they would not be on the road safely.
And we do have a safe record on that.
OK.
We have a time check here of 524 and we have student comments 530 on the dot.
If you're not finished you get to finish your comments after public testimony.
Does that work for you.
Yeah.
OK.
Reintroduce Gabriella.
She's a senior at Cleveland STEM high school.
She's been a part of the ASB since her freshman year and she's also the ASB vice president for the school.
She enjoys partaking in leadership opportunities around the school and helping her community at Cleveland.
The floor is yours.
Tell us what we need to know.
Doesn't have to be good.
And do tell us what you've enjoyed as well.
Thank you.
Well so I've I personally do enjoy going to Cleveland.
I feel like Cleveland is probably one of the most diverse high schools in Seattle.
Also aside like Franklin and Rainier Beach but also I feel like the community at Cleveland is mostly is very most like.
welcoming and it feels more like home there just because I personally see a lot of races there and a lot of communities and families there.
Most definitely because since I'm a part of ASB general I get to look over at all the clubs there at Cleveland and there are so many diverse clubs there such as like the Latinx club or BSU club and like a Malcolm X club etc.
And to me it makes me happy to see how well people are really driven into their own race and how well they want to show it off to the school.
And since we have a multicultural night coming up December 19th I believe it is also such a good it's a good time for the community especially down in South Seattle to come in and to celebrate all the cultures there especially at Cleveland High School and it's most most definitely welcome to the community as well.
Also since I'm since I am a senior this year I'm getting ready for college and I'm getting ready to move on from this high school life and to become the young adult that I'm ready to be.
Cleveland is most definitely going really hard and strong about preparing these preparing us for college especially coming from like the start of your sophomore year.
all the way up to senior year.
They're really preparing you for college most definitely.
Today we did a lot of college work that is recommended for us to graduate.
Forgot what it was called but we did a lot of work online today especially in our advisories.
We took a lot of time doing that and that shows us as students how caring these teachers are towards getting our education and helping us to grow as people most definitely.
And I think one of the unique things about Cleveland is how it's a STEM school.
Most definitely is how STEM science technology engineering type school most definitely it helps.
I'm a SOED student which is the student of engineering and design.
I chose that pathway because.
I most definitely want to pursue in that going off towards high school.
And I feel like it really helps me to prepare because there are two pathways at Cleveland there's the life science and the engineering design pathway.
And you can see how students already are already driven to what they want to be when they grow up.
I most definitely already know like what I'm trying to strive for.
And it's really.
I don't know it's like I feel like Cleveland is such a good school because of how well the teachers are prepared to get you to be successful in life.
And I most definitely love the community of teachers there.
I've grown so much so many bonds with my teachers because of how well they're driven to get you to where you need to be and to help you.
Like if you have any problems with like work or like anything you really want to talk about they're always there for you.
They're really there as like as a teacher slash like friend type of type of way.
And I think that's what makes Cleveland stand out the most because of how well everybody treats you like family.
You know like the teachers there they know your name.
They know who you are.
If you walk in the halls everybody's going to say hi to you.
You're going to feel welcomed every time you walk into Cleveland.
And I've always felt that way for the last four years I've been there at Cleveland.
And I'm actually I'm it's kind of sad how I'm graduating this year over all the times I've complained like oh there's too much homework.
These teachers are getting me mad.
But.
Since I'm a senior this year I most definitely grew to see the bigger picture on why they're pushing me to giving me so much homework.
Why they're giving me such a hard time and in class and.
getting on my head calling me every time is because they really are knocking down and preparing me to become the person I really want to be.
And I'm actually really excited to move on forth with that and to get into college most definitely.
And I don't know.
I'm just I'm really glad to be an Eagle with that.
Can you introduce your your assistant principal.
Could you stand please.
Ms. Brown.
and other Cleveland staff you want to stand and students students.
Yay team.
Including one at least one that's on the superintendent's student advisory board.
Thank you for being here.
We're going to ask you questions board directors after we have public testimony because we have indeed reached 530 and we try and start Public testimony on time because we appreciate y'all coming down here to tell us your truths.
We also appreciate that it's an awkward time for folks and that the traffic frankly stinks.
As does our ingress and egress off Lander.
Getting better.
It's going faster.
OK.
The rules for public testimony are going to be on the big screen and I'm going to skip through most of them.
One person at a time speaks.
The majority of your comments need to be on the topic that you signed up for.
You have two two minutes total.
When you have 30 seconds left you will have a yellow light.
Please start wrapping up your comments.
That's out of respect for everybody in this room.
Focus on the comments should be on issues and solutions and should be directed to the board and we expect appropriate behavior.
No racial slurs personal insults ridicules or threats will be allowed.
Signs are subject to the same rule.
Ms. Loffelman could you read off the three folks on the list and if you hear your name is second and third as she reads the list if you would come stand behind so we can keep rolling this through.
Thank you.
The first three speakers are Justin Nguyen Alexander Lampwear and Aja Gilliwan.
All right.
Hello everyone.
In March 2018 ethnic studies was piloted in the second semester of six schools.
The Center School Denny International Middle School Garfield High School John Meyer Elementary School Orca K-8 school and Cleveland High School.
Ninety three percent of students at Cleveland High School are of minority backgrounds.
Students of color for the first time had the opportunity to truly learn about their heritage to learn about their communities activism and to learn about how their people resisted oppression.
Never before has a new beautiful and diverse perspective been the focus at a school in South Seattle.
Not at Mercer Aki Kurose or South Shore Pre K-8 neither Franklin or Rainier Beach.
Yet all of these schools consist of 85 percent students of color or over.
From the ethnic studies curriculum Cleveland students have grown to embrace and appreciate their culture learning about their heritage allowing students of color to reflect upon themselves finding their identity and connecting with the material.
As one of these six schools piloted with an ethnic studies course we at Cleveland advocate for the adoption of ethnic studies to be the to be focused on south end Seattle schools.
Thank you.
Hello.
Alex is on his way.
He's stuck in traffic.
I'm Asia.
I'm the third person up.
Hello.
I'm a junior.
I'm 16 years old and I identify as Cherokee.
I'm also African-American Italian and Japanese.
I'd like I'd also like to add that I am a junior in both Seattle Public Schools and I'm also enrolled in Lakeside High.
Clear Sky is a place where we find pride in our culture when much of it is appropriated and misinterpreted.
It's a place to celebrate our heritage and fight for our voice as Native youth.
Clear Sky is also a home with peers I relate to and faculty I consider as family.
It's nice to have a place with people like me that I can work with, that understand my background and know how to help me.
The abruptness of Clear Sky being evicted from Robert Eagle Staff gave me doubt in myself and my ability to continue to perform at school and find strength in my self-identity because of the lack of support I'd have without Clear Sky.
Going to Clear Sky every week gives me reassurance in my capability as a native student and gives me a feeling of safety since I know it's a place of strength that I can fall back on.
Personally I don't have much stability in my life that I can depend on.
And Clear Sky's state of homelessness caused me stress and contributed to my overall anxiety that has affected my school performance my academics and my family life.
As a student enrolled in Seattle Public Schools it's confusing why I'm unable to find the support I need that comes from Clear Sky and I'm hopeful that this changes not just for myself but for other native students that will be part of Seattle Public Schools.
Thank you.
Next up are Anna Howell Chris Jackins and Jimmy R. Simmons.
Good evening Seattle Public Schools board and staff.
My name is Anna Howell.
I'm a Seattle Public Schools employee of 13 years and a mother of two Maple students Swift and Ewen.
I'm here with all these families who are part of the Maple family.
Some are being impacted by the boundary changes and others are not.
We are here to ask that you vote in line with the Seattle Public Schools boundary committee's recommendation and grandfather all Maple students and families.
We understand that boundary changes happen.
What has been the biggest stress to the families and school communities over the last six years has been the issue of grandfathering.
When a child starts kindergarten both students and families begin a relationship with the school community teachers and staff.
Parents join the PTSA ELL students begin working with specialists and students with IEPs have the support team in place to make sure their individual needs are being met.
And we all know that students learn best when they feel safe and secure.
We also understand by grant grandfathering students it does not provide an immediate relief to the enrollment at the school.
But what it does do is ensure that FTE is not lost.
Funding can be secure and a long term plan can be put in place.
Will Maple need some support in this.
Yes and we hope that the district will provide that.
But we are not in the business of doing but we are not we are in the business of doing what is right for kids and families and not what is easiest in the moment.
And that is not pulling kids from their school community.
These are our kids.
All of us right here and others who couldn't come have put time and energy into making our school a welcome and safe place for all that go there.
These kids are not numbers.
They're not robots and you can't reprogram them to go to a new school.
Students need consistency trust and stability to be successful in school and by uprooting entire schools you're going to cause trauma to hundreds of families.
Please let them complete their education at the school that they consider their second home.
We chose Maple because it is our neighborhood school.
We invested time in Maple because it is our neighborhood school and we have built relationships with Maple because it is our neighborhood school.
Please let us stay at our neighborhood school.
Please support Seattle Public Schools Committee recommendation and vote yes to grandfathering.
Thank you.
My name is Chris Jackins Box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4. On the three board directors who are leaving the school board I wish to thank these board members for their work for Seattle Public Schools.
On the Spanish instruction materials adoption RCW 28 A 3 2 0 2 3 0 requires the board to approve the members of the instructional materials committee.
This has not happened.
Please vote no.
On the southeast elementary attendance area boundary changes six points.
Number one the board action would adopt scenario G.
Number two the board report analyzed the effects on enrollment at five effective schools including racial statistics.
Number three according to the definitions in state law WAC 3 9 2 3 4 2 0 2 5. Four of these schools are currently racially imbalanced.
Their white and non-white percentages are more than 25 percent away from the district average.
Number four scenario G would aggravate racial imbalance at two of these schools Dearborn Park and Maple causing their white and non-white percentages to become further away from the district wide average.
Number five in order to receive state matching funds for capital projects the school board voted to adopt resolutions pledging that the district would not use the facilities in a way that would aggravate racial imbalance.
Number six if the board votes to approve scenario G it appears that the board will be violating state law WAC 3 9 2 3 4 2 0 2 5. Please vote no.
On Indian Heritage High School and the African-American Academy please quickly reopen these schools.
Also it's nice to have Maple and Clear Sky here tonight.
Thank you.
Next up are Jimmy R. Simmons Kevin Byers and Melissa Westbrook.
Good evening I'm Jim Simmons.
I'm here to speak regarding item 3 of your action list or your action list resolution 2019 slash 20 — 17 having to do with the.
Certification of excess levies and calculation of general fund levy rollback for 2020. I don't have a great deal to say regarding that specifically only that any monies that you might find available for any purpose please donate not donate but use them to support the Native American students in our school district and their families.
Most specifically to do the very best that you can to get them back into and onto the Licton Springs site.
I know full well that you as board members constantly struggle with an underfunded situation, and there are many more needs always than you can meet.
And even with the McCleary decision, I know that it's still, you're massively underfunded.
At the same time we all know as well that you have the awesome responsibility of setting the policies and authorizing the procedures by which education is delivered to the students and families of the city of Seattle.
This awesome responsibility of course is yours and I just wanted to remind you of it and that I know that you employ administration then to carry out your policies and procedures.
To that point I'd like to talk a little bit about what happened with the partnership and UNEA.
It was severed abruptly with a letter.
It seems as though there was no attempt by the school district to talk about this issue or this severing prior to the severance of that partnership arrangement and the eviction of UNEA from the site.
You talk about transparency as being One of the things that I think most of you used probably at your election campaign, how is this transparent?
It seems as though you may be the captive of administration.
They do things perhaps which you aren't aware they're going to do, and you're stuck with it.
And then since there's a hush order out, if there's a lawsuit filed, you can't talk about it.
Therefore, our school board has made no comment whatsoever to the public, to the Native American community, regarding the action that was taken.
I would hope that you would be able to prevent this sort of betrayal by at least looking at your policies and procedures that frustrate your transparency, that leave you dealing with decisions made by administration which you were not aware, bang, you're blindsided, there it is, now you've got to deal with it, set up some sort of policies and procedures to control that, to improve your transparency, to stop being captive to administration, which I believe most management studies would say if you leave bureaucratic administration to themselves, they will serve themselves rather than the purpose to which they were created.
And you're responsible for that.
You're responsible for having an administration that adheres to your policies and that you control sufficiently to avoid being captive to their decisions.
That's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Hi thanks for having me.
My name is Kevin Byers and I'm a proud parent of two Maple Monarchs a second grader and a kindergartner.
There's a strong community at Maple Elementary that has been strained over the last 18 months with the reemergence of the boundary to change discussion.
As we adults sit here discuss it our children are listening.
They're wondering what they did wrong.
Why are they getting moved.
What about all their new friends.
It's causing unneeded stress and uncertainty in their lives.
Many students affected by the boundary change are already facing stress and uncertainty in their everyday lives whether it's lower socioeconomic backgrounds homelessness or fighting institutional racism.
Moving current Maple students out of Maple doesn't help.
Consistency is crucial with childhood development especially in school.
Sometimes school is the only consistent thing in these students lives.
Please keep these students and their community together.
Please give these students consistency.
Please grandfather all students at Maple Elementary.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I will be speaking to the epi use contract as well as making remarks about several other subjects and I want to end with an announcement.
So that's going to take time but since the board seemed to have suspended the rules for testimony, a few board meetings back to allow yelling and name calling.
I'm going to take the time to say what I want to say.
So the district is going to spend over four hundred thousand dollars on the FEU's contract because one person left payroll and benefits office.
I would count that as a major strike against the work on the strategic plan being operationally sound.
It actually sounds a little nuts so board you might want to ask for the receipts on that spending.
As far as the Urban Native Education Alliance it's hard to just fathom how the district could have unilaterally cut off a 10 year relationship.
And it's just sad, in recent emails we see that the principal of Robert Eagle Staff Middle School just eyeballed a crowd and decided that some people were not students, nor were they Native American.
UNEA does great work and it's sad that a whisper campaign in this building has ended that.
I would warn the district and the board about looking at someone and deciding who they are.
I've had this thing to me via Chandra Hampson, who is replacing Director Geary, and let me tell you, it's quite a thing for someone to look at you and decide who you are racially, to decide on who your background is, just by looking at you.
So for parents who come in to testify, you have to wonder if they're going to be judged as well.
On the subject of advanced learning, I've left you packets of info about a study called Grouping the Gifted.
And what's fascinating about this study is it references a study in Montana in 2009 from the superintendent and her staff when she headed public education in the state of Montana.
One key point, Junok concluded that individualized and differentiated instruction for gifted students is, quote, easy to articulate but is fiendishly difficult to achieve in schools where standardization is the norm.
So what the superintendent has missed in a lot of this is parents in the program have been advocating for years for change.
This is nothing new.
You could read both reports and perhaps ask the superintendent how her views have changed so much despite the fact that the research largely remains the same.
What I wanted to announce is that I like Director Geary I am moving away from Seattle and so with that I will be closing down my blog Seattle Schools Community Forum.
It's been more than 20 years of being a public education activist in Seattle and more than 10 years of writing the blog.
I've seen a lot heard a lot learned a lot.
I do have people in this building I just want to thank people who may have disagreed with me but always treated me with kindness and respect.
Those include Peggy McEvoy, Clover Codd, Carrie Campbell, Tom Redman, sorry, Stephen Nielsen, Brent Jones, Wyeth Jesse, and Noel Treat.
And a big shout out to all the people who have ever worked in the board office.
For their kindness and helpfulness.
But the one person who deserves the most credit.
The quiet watchdog the conscience of this district is Chris Jackins.
He knows more about the district than I ever will.
I thank him for being a true friend in this work.
I will end here.
I'll miss Seattle but it's time to move on.
Thank you.
Next three speakers will be Sarah Sens Wilson Chandler Charles and Thomas Raymond Spear.
Good evening.
My name is Sarah Sens Wilson.
I'm Oglala.
We stand here today in celebration and recognition of Native Heritage Month and to honor Scott Pinkham for his four years of service to Seattle Public Schools.
Members of our community including parents students alumni allies UNEA elders youth council Have a plethora of concerns and questions related to Indian education.
Number one what is the funding commitment for the current and the future Licton Springs students at the Webster building.
How will number two how will Seattle Public Schools assist Licton Springs with the native focus and in keeping promises of past board members.
How will Seattle Public Schools address the Title 6 parent advisory committee compliance concerns.
How will Seattle Public Schools address the void created by your decisions and provide culture based services to Licton Springs and the Robert Eagle Staff learning community.
When and how will Seattle Public Schools begin to authentically engage with community of the urban Native community.
What is the purpose charge goal and the role of this new Native American liaison and what is his plan for reaching the urban Native groups and organizations.
Seattle Public Schools staff continue to demonstrate lack of accountability lack of transparency The district practice of co-opting and coercive tactics only deepens the divide and further marginalizes and alienates Native American students and families from accessing critical resources and services.
Our hope is that Seattle Public Schools will commit to equitable solutions through shared decision making and incorporating culturally responsive methods for including the community families and youth.
Thank you.
You were stuck in traffic as well, I would imagine.
Yeah, Charles and Tom.