Seattle School Board Meeting April, 7 2021

This is Director Hampson.

I am now calling the April 7th 2021 Regular Board Meeting to order at 330 p.m.

This meeting is being recorded.

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

Ms. Wilson-Jones the roll call please.

Director DeWolf.

Present.

Director Dury.

Present.

Director Harris.

Director Harris.

Doesn't look like we have Director Harris yet.

Director Hersey and Director Hersey is not joining today.

Director Rankin.

Here.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

One more check for Director Harris and President Hampson.

Here.

It looks like we have everyone except for Director Hersey and Director Harris.

Thank you.

And please somebody alert me if Director Harris joins.

As we begin the meeting I would also sorry excuse me Superintendent Juneau is also joining us for today's meeting and additional staff will be briefing the board as we move through the agenda.

As we begin this meeting I would also like to welcome Rainier Beach High School Junior Lance Maligaya who will be providing student comments later in the meeting.

This meeting is being held remotely consistent with the governor's proclamation on open public meetings.

The public is being provided remote access today by phone and through SPS-TV by broadcast and streaming on YouTube.

To facilitate this meeting I will ask all participants to ensure you are muted when you are not speaking.

Staff may be muting participants to address feedback and ensure we can hear directors and staff.

I will now turn it over to Superintendent Juneau for her comments.

Wow that came up fast.

Hello everybody.

Thank you President Hampson.

Good afternoon directors.

This week as you all know was a very happy week for Seattle Public Schools as we welcome back grades 6-12 special education intensive service pathways and K-5 students.

I was able to get out to a few students or a few schools that was Rainier View Elementary MLK Junior Rising Star and Dunlap And I can tell you that it was awesome seeing educators staff students and families so excited.

It really gave me immense hope as we open our doors to all grades this month.

And while school does look different our staff have done an incredible job at creating safe and welcoming environments.

I want to give a shout out to everyone who worked hours and hours and hours to make this a successful transition for our students.

As you also know last week Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Education Association came to a tentative agreement that supports a safe return to buildings for grades 6-12 students starting on April 19th.

It will be brought before the SEA membership to be ratified and tonight during this meeting you all will vote on it as well.

The agreement prioritizes continuity of learning for all 6th through 12th grade students and ensures that no matter the model that families select most students will remain with their current classmates and teachers.

And I'm also happy to share that the agreement prioritizes social emotional and targeted intervention supports.

Small group instruction social emotional learning and community building are intentionally built into the schedule.

6th through 12th grade families were asked to answer an enrollment survey designating their choice between hybrid in-person learning or remaining 100 percent remote.

That survey closed last night.

And we know this was an important personal decision for families and students and just really want to thank everybody for bearing with our tight turnaround on needing responses back.

But we need to do all the behind the scenes work of matching the space and the teachers and the students.

So as I shared earlier the governor's order to immediately bring back all 6th through 12th grade students by April 19th significantly impacted our timelines.

We had been working in partnerships with SEA to thoughtfully bring back students and staff safely.

As the largest district in the state we are now working to respond as quickly and as nimbly as possible to ensure all our classrooms are ready for students and staff by April 19th.

Whether your student is returning in person or staying remote our district is committed to providing a high quality learning environment.

We're ready to support students academic and social needs.

And throughout this transition staff will help students get to know each other discuss how students are feeling about the changes and to lead with a sense of joy while providing individual support where needed.

There have been many questions about transportation.

Yellow buses will be prioritized this spring beginning with students that we are legally obligated to provide transportation for and those who are most vulnerable.

The Transportation Department is contacting families who have requested transportation through the intent to return survey.

And we'll continue to work to increase transportation access in the most equitable way possible.

We'll use our school equity tiering system as we develop routes and expand opportunities for general education students to return in-person with transportation.

And as you all know that there's been a big issue with hiring drivers and so there's no way that we can guarantee transportation for everybody which is unfortunate but it's how it is for now.

For 6th through 12th grade students ORCA cards are provided.

And we continue to work with King County Metro to coordinate additional safety and timing for routes routes.

Many people have also asked as we're heading into spring break what is the policy for travel during spring break.

With the governor's order to reopen at schools for in-person learning by April 19th this falls right after our spring break.

We urge our families and staff to keep our school communities in mind when making your vacation travel plans.

I know that a lot of vacation travel plans are made in advance but you know we still are in the middle of a pandemic and so we're asking people to kind of scale that back if if they're able.

We're strongly encouraging everyone to avoid non-essential travel during spring break to keep our school communities safe and healthy.

But we are not the district is not in a position to mandate students or staff quarantine following travel.

You can view more about travel guidance on our website or in our School Beat newsletter that was sent on Thursday.

And finally some of you shared your concerns that the secondary model is a study hall.

We've been getting emails on that.

That is not the case.

Educators are providing small group individual instruction and direct instruction during that in-person time.

This instruction comes from students content teachers for each class.

And you can learn more about those models on our website as well.

And I know that this has been a really tough year.

And again the joy on our students faces and our educators faces as I toured schools was pretty awesome.

And just want to thank you directors staff and families for making this transition back to in-person learning and supporting our students in the process.

I see you.

I appreciate you.

And that concludes my comments.

President Hampson.

Thanks.

Thank you Superintendent Juneau.

Again I would like to welcome Rainier Beach High School student Lance Maligaya.

He is a member of the school's LINC crew and is involved in student broadcasting through RVTV.

He is determined to give student voices a platform for all to learn and grow from personal experiences to influence and create motivation around the growth of our collaborative community.

Lance.

Good evening everyone.

I'm grateful to be a part of this board meeting today proudly representing my school that's Rainier Beach.

There's plenty to share reflect and collectively discover what actions we can take together continuously and anew.

Your presence is appreciated.

Currently in our school year we are all zooming past the homestretch of remote learning.

And the executive order of Governor Inslee to to reopen K-12 grade schools around the state by April 19th have echoed a lot of mixed emotions.

Everyone has been impacted by the environment that continues to grow within us.

Being a student in Rainier Beach I'm proud to share how our teachers have given us plenty of opportunities to listen and examine different insights within conflicts that are happening or have happened around our society.

Whether it is racial injustice gentrification hate crimes the purpose and the motivation of working together and rising through any form of uproar resonates with the perspectives that I have developed throughout this school year being at home.

And I know it has been a struggle for colleagues as well.

Together with our teachers we the students have been able to hear and endure our personal experiences and have values respected.

We have our disagreements and we can agree with each other but we are still able to discuss and find solutions just by speaking up towards these issues.

Our issues.

This has personally helped me realize how strong it is to be vulnerable and explicit through our bonds and who we are as people with emotions.

Not just being a student behind a computer screen.

We are much more than that and should be treated so.

I bring this up to recognize that as we continue to work together as a whole through our schools and community we can lead a strong confident and united comeback to reopening our schools.

We are all eager to come back.

As a student and hearing other experiences with other Seattle schools it has been a mental and emotional endeavor to attend classes and do schoolwork being cooped up in our own homes.

Going through the same cycle while juggling our own personal lives just imagine how our parents feel struggling to find control.

We miss physically socializing and catching up with our family created in school.

To share hugs and smiles through our hallways yet it is a priority that we have to come back safely and thoroughly.

Our confidence and mutual communication are important key players through this process.

It is how the governor's actions towards reopening are communicated.

It's the other authorities involved in our state our school district and our respective schools.

We are blessed to still have the hands-on personal resources even through this online learning space.

Honestly it feels a bit empty at times but these groups make the darkest days seem a bit brighter.

Rainier Beach has provided their communities food distributions tech support for students mental health resources that I've personally relied on all year.

There is much more awareness and acceptance of struggle right now.

But we must continue to work together with what we got and what we strive to be for ourselves and for others.

We can do more together doing so.

This is what keeps us going.

The connections we feel with people to simply reach out and recognize that we are all in this together.

This has to continue.

No matter where we are in reopening even if we're at its final phase even if it might seem like this raging virus has vanished we are stronger together and stronger will be because of this fight.

As a representative of Rainier Beach I say to you all the district and their partners must continue to keep funding the decisions that have been working in our school.

Listen to us.

Continue to fund Rainier Beach's International Baccalaureate Program to solidify support the integrity and the grit of the students that are hungry to be a part of such rigorous studies for their future.

Not just academically.

Recognize that the materials and the resources that you hand us do not define how we are as students and how we are as people.

We are much more.

No matter the disparities and no matter how many negative barriers get in our way our unity and unique Significant emotions of pride will withstand all.

Best believe that.

Thank you for listening.

Consider this.

Be heard and be felt.

Always.

Hear hear.

Thank you so much Lance.

And if you have any comments or questions that you'd like to bring up please feel free to to Raise your hand stay with us and be part of the meeting.

We of course know that you're nearing quarter end so you may have schoolwork but you're certainly more than welcome to stay with us and be part of this board today.

And thanks again for those very very thoughtful words.

And this now brings us to the consent portion of today's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

Director Rivera-Smith.

I move for approval of the consent agenda.

And may I have a second.

Is there a second.

Second.

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

Before I ask the question I want to note that I believe Director Harris was able to join us.

That's correct.

I'm here.

Okay.

Thank you.

She messaged me and as did Ellie so she's at 15 3 approximately 3 38 she was able to join us.

Okay.

Great.

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

Hearing none.

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

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Consent Agenda has passed unanimously.

We have now reached the public testimony portion of our meeting.

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

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

Board Procedure 1430BP provides the rules for testimony and I ask that speakers are respectful of these rules.

I will summarize some important parts of this procedure.

First testimony will be taken today from those individuals called from our public testimony list and if applicable the waiting list which are included on today's agenda posting on the school board website.

Only those who are called by name should unmute their phones and only one person should speak at a time.

Speakers from the list may cede their time to another person when the listed speaker's name is called.

The total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for the combined number of speakers and time will not be restarted after the new speaker begins.

In order to maximize opportunities for others to address the board each speaker is allowed only one speaking slot per meeting.

If a speaker cedes time to a later speaker on the testimony list or waiting list the person to whom time was ceded will not be called to provide testimony again later in the meeting.

as there is only one speaking slot per person.

Those who do not wish to have time ceded to them may decline and retain their place on the testimony or waitlist.

Finally the majority of the speaker's time should be spent on the topic they have indicated they wish to speak about.

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

Thank you President Hampson.

Speakers please remain muted until your name is called to provide testimony.

When your name is called please be sure you're unmuted on your phone and you can also press star-6 to unmute yourself on the conference call line at that time.

Each speaker will have a 2-minute speaking time and you will hear a chime when your time is exhausted and the next speaker will then be called.

First on today's public testimony list is Chris Jackins.

My name is Chris Jackins.

Box 84063 Seattle 98124. On the resolution for funding Kimball Northgate and Viewlands the district wants to demolish these schools and shrink their play areas.

Please vote no.

On board policy 6220 and three school projects.

Four points.

Number one at West Woodland one million dollars to get extra new furniture.

Number two at Rainier Beach five hundred thousand dollars to add a sub-consultant.

Number three at Rising Star a $500,000 change order for work that has already been performed.

Number four big contractors seem to know that the current board is handing out free money.

Number five but it gets worse.

Board review is currently required for amounts above $250,000 but the board is proposing to up the amount to $500,000 and further reduce board oversight.

Please vote no.

On the Herff Jones yearbook contract I encouraged a local small minority and women-owned business to apply and they were ignored.

Please vote no.

On Jane Addams field lighting the project would endanger water quality in Thornton Creek.

Please vote no.

On the GCCM contract for Rainier Beach the project would demolish the school.

Please vote no.

On the actions to pay the expenses of defending six of the board directors on recall charges.

Three points.

Number one.

In the past I have noted to the board that some of its actions could constitute grounds for recall.

Number two board actions tonight involve similar concerns.

Number three the board scheduled voting on most items before public testimony has been heard.

Thank you.

Next for public testimony is Laura Teo.

Laura Teo.

Apologies.

Can you hear me.

Can you hear me.

Hello my name is Laura Kayu and I'm a parent of three SPS students.

I speak to you today to question how the proposed hybrid model for grades 6-12 meets the intent of the governor's proclamation.

First I believe SPS is not meeting the in-person instruction hour requirements.

The proposal provides only two half days of in-person learning for eight weeks which comes out to a weekly average of 23 percent in-person hours.

A far cry from the governor's mandated minimum of 30 percent.

And it only doubles that in the very last week of school by combining the cohorts to make up for the 30 percent mandated average.

The governor also stated that districts must work as quickly as possible to exceed the 30 percent.

SPS never does that as its proposal only averages out to 30 percent by the last week.

Please explain how UNSCA concluded that this plan meets the governor's intent.

Secondly this plan still delivers primary instruction only via remote lessons with no new instruction during in-person hours.

In a letter from OSPI to Superintendent Juneau and Dr. Scarlett on March 22nd OSPI stated quote some of the synchronous in-person time can be dedicated to SEL support with the bulk of time dedicated to content delivery unquote.

How does the plan equate to OSPI's request for content delivery.

It certainly does not alleviate issues for students who continue struggling to learn through screens.

Why can't teachers simultaneously teach in-person students while also streaming remotely when they are expected to help both cohorts at the same time anyway.

Please explain why UNSCA chose to not provide any new content instruction during in-person hours when other neighboring districts are doing so.

Shoreline is providing 4 half days in-person with simultaneous remote teaching.

And finally this plan actually reduces the amount of instruction of new content for all students.

Did UNSCA educate ask educators whether they can cover all required content before the end of the school year.

Can AP teachers still prepare their students for AP exams in less than 2 months.

Governor Inslee framed the situation as a mental health emergency and while your plan allows students to return to the classroom for SEL support and personal contact it fails on many other levels.

This plan would have made sense months ago when we had less data and no vaccinations.

Not now when many districts are going back full-time or with better hybrid models that benefit everyone on both mental health and academic levels.

SPS can and should do better.

Please vote no on the MOU.

Thank you.

Next for public testimony is Manuela Slye.

Manuela Slye.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon again.

My name is Manuela Slye.

I'm a parent in Seattle Public Schools and the current President of Seattle Council PTSA.

For a little bit of context I want to say our council has collaborated with the school board consistently for years and extensively for the last few months.

Since the beginning of the pandemic we have spent hours working together on behalf of Seattle Public Schools students.

As someone that has worked closely with each and every one of you I have witnessed firsthand your dedication and commitment to students and families.

We have not always agreed but always always have treated each other with respect.

Today I want to say that Seattle Council PTSA stands behind you.

We are ashamed members of our community have decided to use their privilege to file a recall request that does not serve anyone and hurts many.

Because time effort money and resources will be deployed to legally represent and defend the very people that have stepped up to the plate to selflessly serve our students and families.

So to each and every one of you members of the school board please know that you're supported.

Please stay strong focused and continue to do the work you do on behalf of our students.

You are appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Thank you Ms. Lye.

Ms. Lesenger.

Next for testimony is Sabrina Burr.

Sabrina Burr.

Sabrina Burr.

I'll move to the next speaker.

Christina Pizana.

Christina Pizana.

This is Christina.

Hi this is yes this is Christina Pizana.

Okay go ahead.

Sure.

Hi.

I'm a queer Chicana mom and president of an equity-based PTA at Thornton Creek Elementary School in Northeast Seattle.

As you can imagine that's been a very challenging role for a person of color in the mostly White mostly affluent region that has benefited immensely from institutional racism centered on white flight and redlining.

And especially after a racially-based kid finding and settlement paid out by the district for $350,000 which unfortunately pointed out the price BIPOC families pay in being a part of a lack of reckoning with those historic inequities and continue to play out.

I want to thank Liz Brazil for reporting and following Christina Ellis.

I would like to thank Christina Ellis for doing what was right for her family and not giving up.

She had resources to do what was right and create hope and space to create likely the only positive thing that came from that traumatic time for her and her son.

She plans to create a legal fund.

But our school is far from that.

Figuring all of this out.

We have in the past have had families threatened to sue if what they were not what what their beliefs and ideas were not followed through on except through numerous meetings and events to try and make change thoughtfully throughout the 5 and 3 years as a PTA president and board member.

And I've been left out of many meetings.

Not all families or organizations have the resources to fall back on on on finding money to solve all of these problems.

Seattle School Board directors are putting themselves out there.

They're doing the work every day showing up doing their best and actively being a partner in our complex system of Seattle Public Schools in the most transparent ways.

I've been fortunate enough to sit on Capacity Enrollment and Facility Master Planning Advisory Committee briefly with Eden Mack.

I was one of the hundred people who attended the February last February listening session.

And then I've also benefited from Liza and Chandra personally helping our school and centering equity.

And Chandra I appreciate all of your work.

Liza I appreciate all your work.

And we benefit from you all and I we support you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Wilson-Jones I think Sabrina Burr is trying to let's see if she's unmuted this time.

Sabrina I believe you were just unmuted and you may have just muted yourself.

There you look looks like you are now unmuted.

Hello.

We can hear you.

Did it.

You're on.

Can you hear me.

Yep.

Okay.

I'm great.

My name is Sabrina Burr.

I'm a Cleveland High School parent.

I'm also a strong advocate for our children.

Not just some of them but everyone in Seattle Public Schools.

And it's really sad and disheartening when we all have our right to our opinion.

But when we are not rolling up the sleeves to be a part of the solution.

And we do things that tear down the work that people are given the time that people are given to have governance over our district.

It's not an easy job.

Often the things that people want the board to do is not even in their purview.

And so I support our board and this whole recall legal debacle is really saddening at a time that we need it.

At least at a time when no other school board has had to work under such strenuous situations that we would have this.

We have to come together.

And I vote that we give our school board directors the dollars that they need to have the right legal representation.

And this is bigger than money because we talk about money but you can never get back time.

We can never get back time that the board could be doing helping us to reopen to get ready for next year to transition to a new superintendent.

There's so many things that the board can be doing.

But right now they're doing this for people who want to give their opinion but are not a part of the actual rolling up your sleeves and doing the work.

So I thank the board and I hope that we give them the funds of the district dollars in order to have the legal representation representation that they need.

And again I want to thank each and every board member for everything you do.

And to the people who put this together I call BS.

Thank you Ms. Burr.

Next for public test.

Next for public testimony is Ana or Ana Claudia Magana.

Ana Claudia Magana.

We can hear you.

Hi.

Can you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Hello.

As a staff member of Cleveland High School I am wanting to hold the school board and district to the district model.

Every student achieving.

Everyone accountable.

Going back to in-person learning who will be accountable for our students' fears and anxieties with the risk of contracting COVID.

Who will be accountable for families getting sick if their child contracts COVID at school.

We want to be ready to receive students and currently we are not.

We want our timeline pushed back.

We haven't been given adequate time to prepare and our families haven't been given time to complete surveys and receive accurate information.

This isn't fair to our families who are most systemically disenfranchised either through lack of access time constraints or otherwise.

Our families at Cleveland High School have expressed their fears and frustrations with in-person learning.

Even though COVID has targeted people from all different races social economic statuses and walks of life time and again it is Black Indigenous and people of color who are most at risk of dying from COVID.

We know that this stems from inequalities already in existence in our national frameworks.

Even our district survey indicated that White families are twice as likely as their Black families to opt for in-person learning.

Our proposed model for hybrid learning disrupts our current systems and routines and cuts down on the learning time while unequally prioritizing students who opt for in-person learning.

Although students and families can choose to opt out of in-person learning we know We as teachers will not be able to provide the same amount of support and learning to students who choose not to return.

And disrupting students routines in April with only two months left of the school year and at the start of the final quarter is going to hurt our students emotionally mentally and academically.

Please decide school board that not just with your voices that SPS believes our students of color matter.

Show it through our choices to stand in solidarity to postpone the start date of April 19th We can either just be another disappointing cliched district that becomes complicit and succumbing to a racist policy or we can become the largest district in the state to stand up for our families our students and our staff.

Thank you.

Next for public testimony is Carrie Kaplan.

Carrie Kaplan.

Carrie Kaplan.

You may need to press star-6 to unmute on the conference call line and make sure your phone is also unmuted.

Oh is that Carrie.

Hi.

This is Carrie Kaplan.

Hi.

And it was very nice to hear all the previous people speaking including including Liam.

And I am part of a group that's been very concerned with trying to reopen the schools and One of our one of my main concerns is for all the underserved children that do so much better with community community learning and for us to isolate them more into remote situations where they don't have any options is very disheartening for them and for their futures.

And there are that have been shown in our society that there are safe ways for us all to return.

safe ways and where we can and education is all about dissipating fears.

And teachers I've talked to say that when they try to get like outdoor programs started they have so much they had to work through so many issues that it barely ever even got started before it ended.

And I would really like for us to try to think more progressively about how we can open safely how we can move from being a fearful society into being a society that really values our kids and education and coming together in a community and stop being in isolation in safe ways.

And there are ways.

Our CDC has said it.

The governor has said it.

Our superintendent has said it.

And so many educators and medical people have said it.

And now we have the vaccination.

We can have all these possibilities of being outdoors with our kids and having smaller groups.

working on their physical emotional and mental health in community ways that would be so enriching and and COVID could teach us how to be better educators for our kids and and more of a good resource.

And also kids need school for a for support.

Just like Liam said how important building community spirit.

How wonderful that was to hear that.

And that's what we need to move towards.

And I really want the.

And also we can't have homeless homeless camps in our in our school.

Thanks.

That was the final speaker on today's testimony list.

So I see Vivian VanGelder on the testimony list but didn't call her.

On the online testimony list.

Yes.

And she's here waiting.

My apologies I think that it just didn't make it into the spreadsheet I am calling from.

So Vivian if you are on the line if you could go ahead.

And Vivian you may need to press star-6 to unmute.

Oh sorry we could hear you.

We can't hear you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Vivian VanGilder.

I'm the parent of two children attending Seattle Public Schools and I'm the current president of Meany Middle School PTSA.

And I would like to speak in support of stability for our students and our district and against current efforts to recall school board directors.

I believe that introducing unnecessary instability into our district at this already difficult and unsettled time will inevitably cause further harm to our students and their families.

especially those who are already most vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic.

And in my work with our school's PDSA I personally found our current school board directors in particular Director Hampson Director Rankin Director DeWolf and Director Hersey to consistently demonstrate a genuine commitment to centering students especially students of color furthest from educational justice.

And I believe they should be supported as they continue their important work in this regard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now that was the final speaker.

Thanks for catching that President Hampson and apologies Vivian.

Thank you Ellie.

We now move to the action items on today's agenda.

We will move to Action Item Number 1. Amending Board Policy Number 6220 Procurement.

May I have a motion for this item.

I move that the school board amend Board Policy Number 6220 Procurement as attached to the Board Action Report.

Second.

Second.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Rankin.

And I believe we are going to concurrently You'll Ms. Wilson-Jones you'll correct me if I'm wrong but consider the amendment.

And so I'm going to go ahead and move for the amendment.

Director Hampson this is Chief Legal Counsel Greg Narver.

I believe that's the correct order to proceed and you would offer the amendment and if that is seconded You could explain the purposes for it.

The board would then vote on whether or not to agree to the amendment and then the vote would be on the underlying action either as amended or in its original form depending on the vote on the amendment.

Thank you Chief Narver.

I move that the school board approve Amendment Number 1 to the Board Action Report titled Amending Board Policy Number 6220 Procurement and Substitute Board Policy Number 6220 as attached to the amendment.

To the extent the attached substitute policy conflicts with the information presented in the underlying board action report titled Amending Board Policy Number 6220 Procurement the substitute policy shall control.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Is there a second for the amendment.

That was seconded motion by Director Hampson and myself and seconded I believe by Director Dury first.

And then I will just briefly introduce the amendment and and then we'll go to questions and comments about the amendment before we consider the broader item.

But we can we can sorry we can discuss both the underlying motion and the amendment.

So just briefly the amendment is actually simply a clarification of language.

In the amendment it's not it's not intended to be a difference of or a shift in the content but rather a clear explanation in applying this very policy in the Audit and Finance Committee this week.

We it was apparent that we could provide some additional clarity to make sure that it's well understood by staff or directors and public exactly where the aggregate policies fall for for different approval levels.

In addition I added through this amendment a long-sought-after by myself and other directors commitment to women and minority-owned business enterprises.

And I drew this particular language from the model WASDA Washington State Washington State School Directors Association policy.

So thank you for that WSSDA.

And and with that I'm offering up these amendments.

So again no content to the underlying no major content change to the underlying board action reports and policy but but simply a clarification which I hope is perceived that way and I'll find out from you shortly.

And then the addition of the Women and Minority-Owned Business Enterprise commitment as consistent with the WSSDA model policy.

And with that I'll go to directors for questions starting with Director Dury.

I have no questions just a comment to say thank you for the added clarification and putting this forward.

Director Harris.

I appreciate the add-on and the amendment for Minority and Women Business Enterprise.

We have not done a great job on that.

We need to redouble our efforts.

And we need to make the org chart very clear as to who might be responsible for that and to report back to the board those efforts that have been made.

I will be voting no.

I will vote yes for the amendment.

I will vote no for the underlying policy.

Is addressing $250,000 time-consuming.

Absolutely.

Did we know that when we ran for or ran for appointment to the board.

Yes we did.

I believe I quoted Tip O'Neill last time.

A few zeros and a few commas add up to real money.

It's our job for oversight transparency and accountability to to review all of these items.

And and sometimes yes it's not very sexy and it's awfully darn boring but it's terribly important work.

I would go back to our CFO's catching linked separate contracts in the past couple of years for tech.

I would go back even farther than that to Silas Potter Potter which which was a scandal and rightly so a scandal.

It's our job.

our fiduciary duty to keep track of this.

And I again emphatically will be voting no.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

Good to see your face.

Okay.

Now we will go to Director Rivera-Smith.

Hi thank you.

Likewise I appreciate the addition of the women and minority-owned businesses.

That's really good to see you there.

I have a question about on the bottom of page 1 of the amendment document the procurement policy that's under the amendment.

It's crossed out the if more than one modification causes the combined total contract modification amount to exceed $500,000 the school board must be notified through the appropriate board committee as an informational item.

That was crossed out.

I'm wondering why.

So Chief Narver correct me if I'm wrong but because I did sorry I forgot to give kudos to Chief Narver for supporting me on this.

to try to provide this clarity.

I believe we've thought that was duplicative based on the other clarity.

Yes this is Chief I'm sorry I'm going to turn my camera on when I speak.

Chief Counsel Greg Narver again.

By making a requirement that all amendments of $500,000 or more have to be approved and also making it clear that where in the past there would have just been notification to the board of contracts under the threshold that are subsequently amended even if the amendments put it over the threshold those would now come to the board for approval.

I at least couldn't conceive of the circumstances under which that provision would be needed given the clarity as to the board approval provisions.

That was that was the thinking.

Maybe more expansive minds than mine could figure out why why that provision would still be needed.

It seemed that in light of the clarifications to the main paragraph that that section wasn't wasn't serving any purpose.

Oh okay because it's what this is to protect against if I understand this correctly is to protect against there being one for say it's you know 280 and another for 250 that would go over the 500 and that would protect us against doing a bunch like letting those go unchecked.

Correct.

So where is that going to be reported to us then again if it's not coming before us.

Sorry I had to unmute again there.

So we already have the language about the what has to be reported above.

Then we have the paragraph right above the one that was stricken which is about multiple changes and amendments being considered together so that if there's a question about whether you're reaching the 500,000 through a number of or trying or avoiding the 500,000 threshold for reporting of amendments through adding things together I think that's already covered between that so that if you have multiple changes and amendments that together hit the 500,000 amendment threshold for reporting or which put the total amount of the contract over one million both of those come not just reporting but both of those come to the board for approval.

Okay.

So it's more of they just are we're directing staff to not do multiples because if there are multiples of the same multiples and changes and amendments which are the same or similar they'll be considered as a single action.

So.

Those are a single action.

And if they hit the $500,000 threshold they have to be approved by the board which is why I thought the $500,000 notification wasn't playing wasn't going to be invoked anymore because if those multiples add up to 500,000 it has to come to the board for approval as an amendment over 500,000.

Sorry.

I hope I haven't made it more confusing but I do I don't I don't believe that provision served any purpose anymore given the changes to what we set up above.

Okay.

Thank you.

No more questions right now.

Okay and then we will go to Director Rankin.

Thank you.

And yeah thanks for the amendment.

I will echo Director Dury I believe in you know the the language for supporting women and minority owned businesses comes I believe from a WSSDA model policy.

But so my question is similar to Director Dury of you know how what's what I guess the procedure.

I'm interested to know more about the procedure but definitely support the addition to this policy.

In terms of the the base policy I you know my understanding with the Silas Potter scandal is that the there were multiple people who were complicit in that who were also fired.

And my sense is that since then There has been significant improvement in procedures and other accountability measures among staff that wouldn't allow that to happen again.

It wouldn't necessarily be mitigated by board purview of certain amounts given the level of detail that expenditures go through.

So I will be supporting this.

I think the the kind of added busywork of of routing bars and whatnot that go that that these amounts currently go through is unnecessary and onerous given that we do have other existing checks and balances now and in response to the Silas Potter case that would actually actively prevent that type of thing from happening again including and I don't know enough about the specifics of that but that is another reason that the anti-retaliation Policy work is really important so that should staff notice something that seems off or realize that there's something going on that shouldn't be going on that they are protected in speaking up and in helping flag any issues like that.

So I will be supporting this.

Director DeWolf.

Thanks President Hampson.

As far as the amendment I support it.

I appreciate you bringing this forward.

Would you rather me focus my comments on the overall conversation today here or do you want me to wait for the underlying because I'd happy to do it here and just and have no questions in the latter part.

Yeah go ahead.

I think we've everyone else has covered both at the same time so we can we can save a little bit of time if you want to answer now.

I mean ask now.

You know I just want to clarify too that my understanding is that and I serve as the Operations Committee Chairperson so my understanding from the BEX BTA Oversight Committee is that they also support these improvements and adjustments in our policy.

So I just want to clarify that.

And I do want to underscore what Director Rankin shared because Silas Potter was about 10 or 11 years ago.

So my understanding and maybe if JoLynn's here I know Excuse me Chief Berge is here so I know that she could probably clarify if it's helpful.

But in addition to the policy that was was created and passed to address some of the issues that came up from Silas Potter in those 10 years there have also been additional mechanisms and place and things put in place to to further prevent this from happening in the future.

So I would just want to clarify to our audience that yes that Silas Potter experience exposed a lot of things in our district.

But last I checked that was over a decade ago now and we have made some meaningful improvements in this area.

So I don't know if Chief Berge you have any of those to share for the listening public but.

Sure.

Thanks.

So JoLynn Berge Chief Financial Officer.

Just robust internal controls were really put into place so that there's multiple levels of review based on the dollar value that come internally.

And if you ask any chief or person who's worked one of these there are lots of questions and commentary back and forth as we really work to ensure that we're meeting all of our procurement policies.

And you know we have been audited several times and we're not perfect but we definitely have a lot of scrutiny and oversight over this area which we feel very comfortable or we would not as staff have moved us forward.

Thank you.

Thank you Chief Berge I appreciate that.

I don't have any questions.

President Hampson I'm I'm really looking forward to this.

I just want to address something that was brought up too that this is not about sexiness.

This job is not about sexiness.

What this is about is about efficiency and I think particularly for this board and our work we could really use some options for making our work more efficient because the more time we're focused on these these contracts There's less time we're focused on what I'm really excited about the conversations we have been having around student-focused and student outcome-focused governance.

So I'm really looking forward to having a little bit more breathing room to be able to focus on those types of issues.

So thank you.

Okay.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

And again thanks to Chief Narver for helping me work through providing some of this clarity with this brief amendment and Chief Berge's openness to adding that clarity.

So with that Ms. Wilson-Jones would you call for the vote on the amendment.

Yes.

Roll call vote now on Amendment 1. Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye Director Harris aye and President Hampson aye.

Amendment 1 has passed unanimously.

And I would now entertain a motion for the underlying item as amended.

I move approval of the underlying board action report titled Amending Board Policy Number 62 6220 Procurement as amended by Amendment 1.

This item as amended has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Dury.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will you please call for the vote.

Oh sorry do any do any final comments or questions before we call for the vote.

I have a question.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Yeah I know when we were going through this in committee there was a time in which there was a section about still bringing quarterly reports for the items that were of a certain dollar value.

I don't think I see that in here anymore unless maybe I missed it.

Could you let me know if that still lives in here somewhere or if that was taken out.

President Hampson would you like me to respond.

Oh yes please.

It's in the procedure.

It's still in the procedure.

Okay which one.

It should be in the very first one.

Let me find it.

I know there's a lot of them so that's why I thought maybe I just missed it because all the lines add to confusion sometimes.

This is Ellie Wilson-Jones.

If it's helpful I believe it might be in Superintendent Procedure 6220 SPD.

That's the one you're thinking of Chief Berge.

I don't know.

There's like six of them so I wasn't sure what I was thinking.

I was thinking it was in here though.

All right.

Ellie if you have it go ahead and read it.

On the final page of 6220 SPD it says a listing of non-construction contract modifications brief description of services and values excluding sales tax and contingencies between $250,000 and $500,000 will be taken to the Audit and Finance Committee on a quarterly basis as an information item.

I found it and agree.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I see it now too Ellie.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Very very important to have it there.

Okay.

That I have no other questions.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Rivera-Smith.

Okay.

If there's nothing else Ms. Wilson-Jones will you please call for the vote.

And this is the roll call vote on the underlying item as amended by Amendment 1. Correct.

Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye Director Harris no Director Rankin aye President Hampson.

Aye.

This motion has passed by a vote of 5 yes to 1 no.

Thank you.

We will now move to Action Item Number 2. Approval to Rename the Southwest Athletic Complex SWAC to the Nino Cantu Southwest Athletic Complex.

This came through Ops on March 11 for approval.

May I have a motion for this item.

I move that the school board authorize the change of the name of the Southwest Athletic Complex SWAC to the Nino Canto Southwest Athletic Complex.

Second.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Dury.

Now to directors for any comments questions or questions before we move to the vote.

We'll go first to Director DeWolf the Chair of the Operations Committee.

Thank you so much President Hampson.

I don't have any comment today.

I'm really excited to see this come forward.

We had both an extensive conversation at our Operations Committee and then last at our last regular board meeting.

So I know that the community is really excited about this.

I saw a really wonderful story in the West Seattle blog.

I'm really excited to see this through.

So I'm not going to spend too much more time talking but I'll look forward to voting for this.

Okay.

Director Dury.

I don't have any questions.

I too am really excited about this and was thrilled to hear from the community about it at the last meeting and look forward to voting.

Director Harris.

Gratitude.

Nino Cantu is an amazing fellow.

Boots on the ground.

Every day loving on our students.

The community out here is. beyond sight.

It has truly been a boots on the ground mission.

I can see the lights from SWAC from my living room and it's my understanding that there is a community effort to have Mr. Hanson paint a mural as well as a as a plaque etc.

Thank you to Chair DeWolf on the Ops Committee.

Thank you to Principals Clark and Frazier-Hammer.

Thank you to Lunchroom Manager Dory Fazio-Young.

And high time and beyond excited and we should have a party when we put the plaque and the painting up.

Thanks so much.

Thanks Director Harris.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Yeah likewise no questions this time around.

It was really great to hear from the community two weeks ago and very excited to get the vote on this.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

No questions.

Have loved the opportunity to hear from community members and hear a little bit about Nino and his contributions to the community.

As I think I said before some people and especially in a and stuff around other other parts of the country have been critical of boards taking time to rename things at this point.

But I think it's a really nice reminder of what we all do this for which is for for our communities and for our students.

And and it's nice to have something to celebrate and and really important to recognize someone who is so important to the community.

So I look forward to the vote.

Okay and nothing further for me.

Thanks everyone for your comments and to staff for the work on this.

I think the time is when we can honor our community and their contributions to Seattle Public Schools are very important and meaningful times.

So please call for the vote.

Ms. Wilson-Jones.

Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye Director Harris Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye President Hampson aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you Ms. Wilson-Jones.

We will now move to Action Item Number 3. Approval of the Memorandum of Understanding between Seattle Public Schools the district and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 609 609 regarding enhanced cleaning during the COVID pandemic.

May I have a motion for this item.

I move that the school board approve the MOU with 609 as attached.

I move that the school board approve the MOU with 609 as attached to the Board Action Report.

The action is in the best interest of the district.

I second.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Dury.

This item did not go to committee and is for introduction and action.

Chief Human Resources Officer Dr. Clover Codd I believe you will be briefing us.

Yes thank you.

Good evening.

So this Board Action Report would approve a Memorandum of Understanding with Local 609 for a one-time $1,000 bonus for all 609 employees who commit to working extra shifts at least 16 hours of additional cleaning work per week on average through the remainder of the 2021 school year.

Back.

In January of 2021 we began negotiating how we might staff for this additional cleaning needs associated with a return for in-person instruction.

We did reach a tentative agreement on March 29th.

You do have a redlined version of the MOU in the packet and for public to review for tonight.

None of the changes reflect a change in cost estimate.

The three main components are that 609 employees will have the ability to commit to extra hours many of which would behave be paid overtime and 609 members get first preference for all extra hours.

If that does not meet our needs we are allowed to use subcontractors.

609 members who sign up for these extra hours will get a one-time thousand dollar bonus if they commit to the 16 hours of extra cleaning per week.

And this is non-precedent setting and does expire on June 30th 2021. And with that I've got Tom Polis here Director of Labor Relations just in case you all have any questions about this.

Thank you.

And this let's see we'll go first to what would be Hersey so he's not here we'll go next to Director Dury.

Thank you.

Just one point of clarification.

You said 16 hours per week for the $1,000 bonus.

Is that like for for every week or is it that once you hit the 16 hours in a week.

Tom Polis can you answer that.

I believe it's each week but I want Tom to clarify.

Yes.

629 members need to commit to at least 16 hours per week each week starting the week of April 19th.

through the end of the school year in order to qualify for the $1,000 bonus.

However if our work needs in a given week are not actually 16 hours or more as long as they work what we need them to work then they would still qualify for the bonus as well.

Thank you for that clarification.

No further questions.

Harris.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions about this but I do want to extend my thanks to Mr. Polis who I understand will be losing on July 1 for great service and stepping in and doing a great job.

We will miss you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much Director Harris.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Here likewise.

Mr. Tom thank you for all your work and good luck where you're going.

I appreciate the work for this reassembly you.

I know that there's going to be a lot of extra hours coming to them so I don't have any questions.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

I don't think I have any questions that haven't already been asked.

So I'm glad we could.

I'm happy that we've come to an agreement with a labor partner.

Director DeWolf.

Thanks President Hampson.

No questions here.

Just hands up.

Thanks to our Seattle Public Schools team for their work on this.

And thank you to our our the workers within Local 6 and 9.

And for me I just want to it sounded a little confusing in response to the question so I just want to confirm as and I'm just reading straight from the board action report that this is we have based on approximately 259 employees who responded to committing to this they would each get a thousand a thousand dollars for committing to that extra 16 hours of work per week.

I'm assuming they get their hourly salary or their hourly wage right.

So the MOU states that they get their current hourly rate in whatever position they're in for any of those extra hours including any overtime rates that apply.

However if they're in a position that pays less than the assistant custodian rate then they would get paid that higher assistant custodian rate and that would apply to some of our nutrition services members.

OK.

And then but then it's just a one a singular $1,000 bonus per person which is how we get to $259,000.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

So I just wanted to make sure that that was clear was in response to Director Dury's question for the record.

So other than that I am also glad we were able to come to this agreement particularly with 609 who's been working steadily throughout this this pandemic.

With that we'll go to Director I mean to Ms. Wilson-Jones for the vote.

Director Dury aye Director Harris aye Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf aye President Hampson aye This motion has passed unanimously.

We will now move to Action Item Number 4. Approval of an Addendum to the August 2020 Memorandum of Understanding between Seattle the Seattle School District Number 1 and Seattle Education Association.

May I have a motion for this item.

I move that the school board approve the addendum to the August 2020 MOU as attached to this board action report which will become effective upon ratification by the SEA estimated to be on or before April 16th 2021. I further move that the school board waive the provision of policy number 1420 that that board action reports and relevant supplementary information will be posted to the district's website at least three days in advance of board meetings.

This action authorizes the superintendent to take all steps necessary to implement the district responsibilities detailed in the addendum.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

President Hampson this is Clover Codd.

I'll just make a couple remarks and then I'd like to.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Chief Codd I just need a second.

Second.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director DeWolf and now I will happily hand it over to you Chief Codd.

Sorry about that.

Thank you.

That's okay.

So just want to make sure the public and the board are aware that this addendum does outline a secondary model of remote and hybrid instruction for all students in grades 6-12 but that all other areas of the previous addendum that we presented to the board and was approved by the board for PK-5 and Special Education Intensive Service Pathways.

It does apply those provisions do apply to the secondary educators as well.

And with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Keisha Scarlett our Chief Academic Officer and Dr. Caleb Perkins Executive Director of Curriculum Assessment Instruction to present the instructional model to you all.

Thank you Dr. Codd and thank you to the board for the opportunity to provide an overview of the Secondary Instructional Model.

I'll do some introductory comments and then Dr. Scarlett and I will take your questions.

I also just want to make sure I thank the many people who helped put together the Secondary Instructional Model school leaders district leaders and of course educators including our SEA partners.

It was a collaborative effort to figure out the plan for April 19th through the end of the year for grades 6 through 12. We have some slides here.

As a background we wanted to just share that there was a number of considerations we we had to keep in mind as we put together this model.

First of all we wanted to make sure students were able to complete their courses in which they're currently enrolled.

We wanted to make sure that there were S there was SEL support across the day.

That was both something the state shared interest in and we we shared that interest with the state.

And there was also the the challenging requirement of the Governor's 312 March 12th proclamation requiring 30 percent of available instructional time be available in person for those students who are interested in that.

And that translated for those last 9 weeks into about 80.2 instructional hours which is a real helpful number in terms of the planning.

But most importantly the consideration we wanted the model to continue to promote our goals for racial equity and to really focus on our students of color furthest from educational justice.

That was a shared commitment as you see in the introductory from the district and SEA around promoting racial equity through this model.

And in particular that led us to many helpful conversations around the students who are fully remote that we believe they should get strong high-quality instructional support throughout the day.

just as the students who decide to come in person.

The anticipation is that many of our students of color for the District of Educational Justice will choose to stay fully remote.

And we wanted to make sure regardless of the model that they were getting the high quality support throughout the day.

As it's stated in our joint press release we're committed to ensuring equitable systems support for those students but whether they stay remote or whether they come in person.

And that all students should have high quality instruction throughout the day in this in the model that we have.

So we have some some slides for you to get a sense of the instructional model.

So thank you to Ms. Wilson-Jones to help me just navigate those slides.

And with that we'll go to the first slide.

So first of all I just wanted to note that there are some basic components.

All of these schedules will meet the same instructional minutes that we already are required to meet by the state.

And now into some of the details.

All students will receive 4 full days of instruction Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday.

Wednesdays will continue to be remote as currently scheduled.

In addition all students will receive remote live instruction in the mornings with their content teachers.

And that goes from 9 a.m.

to 11 10 a.m.

Students who select in-person hybrid model will receive 2 afternoon half days of instruction either on Mondays and Tuesdays or on Thursdays and Fridays.

The other two afternoon will be remote.

And those afternoons go from about 1140 to 350 with passing time included.

And in addition to what students who would like to go in-person we are committed to having our 100 percent remote students also receive 4 afternoons of small group and individual support with their content teachers just as the students who are coming in-person are receiving.

The final piece just in terms of the calculation the 80.2 hours I mentioned is the need to have Week 9 provide additional instructional minutes to make sure we meet that threshold.

So that's an overview.

The rest of the slides are example schedules and so I'll just briefly walk you through some of those.

Some of them are included in the TA that's actually as part of the BAR as well.

Actually this whole slide deck is part of the BAR but the TA includes some of the schedules.

If we go to the next slide.

So this is an example of a student who would be electing to come in person and assigned to what we're calling Cohort A. So Cohort A would have the option of coming in person on Monday and Tuesday afternoon.

And then as you can see all students whether they're remote or in-person would get that remote instruction with their content area teachers Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday in the mornings from 9 a.m.

to 11 10 a.m.

So they all get that same remote instruction whether they're in-person or not.

And then in the afternoon in this case for this example this student in Cohort A would have the would be going to school in-person where classes would start at 1155 and go to 350 for Monday and Tuesday as well as Thursday and Friday.

Monday and Tuesday would be in-person and Thursday and Friday would be remote.

And during that time the presumption it would be time for small group support individualized support but it is with their content teachers and it is it is very different from study hall.

It is a time to really deepen the understanding that they have from their content teachers often following up on the lessons that would have been launched in the morning.

So that's one picture.

We want to share you a couple more slides so if we go to the next one please.

This is showing the model for students who are in intensive service pathways in grades 6-12.

They have the opportunity to actually come in person each of the four days per the prior MOU that Dr. Codd referenced.

So they also as with all our students are getting remote instruction in the morning and then they have the opportunity to come in from 1155 to 350 on Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday.

And Wednesday as you can see continues to be follow the model that we've had this entire year.

That's that stays the same with the MOU for this year.

So that's one more picture and then I'm going to share a third which is if you go to the next slide.

This is for our 100 percent remote students.

And again we want to stress that we're trying to provide them with the same high quality instruction and support throughout the day as it states in the TA where they all get remote instruction in the morning from their content area teachers and then follow up with with small group individual support differentiated instruction in the afternoon alongside or along with their students who are coming in person.

So they have that support on Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday afternoons just as our students who are attending in person.

And that was critical to our model.

So that's one more picture.

The last two slides are going to be the more detailed look just so you can see the breakdown breakdown of the times.

This is in the case where a school has a 6-period offering which is most of our middle and high schools that they get live remote instruction in the morning in periods 1 2 3 on Monday.

They have the time to travel to school including some passing time and then they begin that period 1 at 1155. And that's when in this case this would be an example of the same group that we showed earlier Cohort A where they'd have in-person on Monday and Tuesday.

But you'll see on Thursday and Friday they still have live remote instruction in the morning with periods 1 2 3 on Thursday and Friday 4 5 6. And in the afternoon they work with those same content teachers to deepen their understanding through small groups through individual instruction through through differentiated instruction.

And they're alongside other remote students as well as being the students who are in-person.

So that's one picture.

That's the cohort A picture.

And then the last thing I'll share is a picture of what it looks like for those students who are 100 percent remote.

And again the similarities are are on purpose that they also get live remote instruction in the morning all 4 of those days Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday.

And then they will be getting support the same support remote small group instruction as their their the students in the other cohorts.

They'll just be remote during that time.

It's very critical to us that we make sure we're we clearly communicate that This is an opportunity for our remote students and our students who are electing to come in person to have support throughout the day and have high quality instruction on each of those 4 days.

The last thing I'll share before I will open it up to questions for Dr. Scarlett and me is just that we've been sharing these slides and other resources with our school leaders and with our educators scheduling office hours and providing other documents and supports to help them get ready.

It's obviously been a very short timeline And we want to just be really clear with everybody about what the plan is.

In particular we know there's been a number of conversations about what the afternoon is about and we just want to strongly stress that it is not a study hall.

It's a time for students to go deeper in their classes with their classroom teachers.

And we've been very intentional so that this is a time to really deepen that learning in the afternoon and provide again four full days of high quality instruction.

And with that I appreciate the opportunity to to share that and I will open it up to questions for myself and Dr. Scarlett.

Thank you.

Okay.

I'm going to start with our Student Services Curriculum and Instruction Chair Director Liza Rankin.

So this is our opportunity to ask You questions Dr. Perkins but is there another before you vote is there another general comment time or is this it.

Dr. Codd I don't know if you wanted to chime in but this is for intro and action just in terms of the just as we did I believe with the elementary TA because of the.

I guess this is really a question for President Hampson.

Sorry.

What's the question.

Is so this is our opportunity to ask questions of staff or is there going to be when we call for the vote is there another comment period or is this the comment period.

This is it.

Okay.

So I know I appreciate the the clarity and reinforcement for those who who may be listening hopefully.

that it's not we're not talking about study hall that students in secondary school secondary schools will be going to these periods changing classes between periods with the people who are already in those classes with their content area teacher with the teacher of record who is that the instructional person for that class.

It's not 15 it's not 15 random students with with whoever.

I think that that that that misconception came from a time very early on well early on two weeks ago or whenever the governor's proclamation was that that since then some of the health health guidance has changed.

So when the proclamation first came out And the sort of standard was 15-person 15-kid cohorts that would stay together all the time.

There was discussion of how is that possible to keep everybody with their classes.

And then the guidance changed.

So I just I think some people held on to that first first response but that the guidance has changed and allowed this agreement to to not maintain students in 15-person cohorts but that they will be moving between their classes as they are currently scheduled.

So I just wanted to make that even even more clear because we're still getting some questions about it.

The other thing that is is a comment but I can phrase it in the form of a question is you know we've got emails from from families who are you know unhappy This is not what they expected when they heard the governor's declaration.

I think some people really expected that it meant a return to school the way it used to be and and have asked the board to vote no on this.

And so my question really for Director Codd Dr. Codd is can you please I guess clarify or share with the public that But what a no vote on this means that we are our vote today is not on whether or not we approve of this instructional model.

It's whether or not we we approve and accept of the agreement between SEA and SPS which is just a little bit different.

And so for the people who who are are unhappy with the schedule or the amount or what's being provided in person can you Dr. Codd explain.

a little bit about bargaining and that that that voting no on this would would force us back into bargaining and not necessarily provide a different instructional model.

Sure.

Let me see if I can help.

So as as we all know the governor mandates per his proclamation that All students would be back in-person if the family so choose no later than April 19th for 6th through 12th graders.

So as we went into bargain we we aren't bargaining that mandate.

That's the mandate.

We are expected to return to school and the in-person amount of time does need to meet the 30 percent threshold.

So when we go into bargain SPS and SEA we are bargaining the working conditions of the employees which does include what does the day the work day the work schedule look like for educators.

That that's what we're bargaining.

A no vote.

would essentially undermine the bargaining process because you elect SPS individuals to go bargain as does SEA has their negotiators for their team.

We work through the details.

We come to a tentative agreement which means the hard work has gone into SEA and SPS working together at the leadership levels.

to put together a Memorandum of Understanding or actually technically an addendum to the Memorandum of Understanding that outlines the working conditions the schedules the workday for the educators.

A no vote essentially yes it would put us back in bargaining over spring break.

We would need to start bargaining again tomorrow.

It would not change the I don't know that it would change the instructional model per se but we would need to work out with SEA what additional changes need to come forward in the addendum if any.

And it is more likely that educators would report to work on the 19th of April without an agreement in place which would not be good for anybody.

So I don't know if that helps.

We are under several constraints here.

Of which we the board and we as management actually don't have a lot of authority or any authority to change.

So we are we have worked together with our labor partners to come to an agreement under the the circumstances that we have to try to put something together in a very short period of time that does meet the minimum requirements of the governor and also is satisfactory to both parties.

Thank you.

Yeah that does help.

In terms of the instructional model usually that is not something that we have to talk about in past times because the the school day sort of stays essentially the same year-to-year so that part's not really discussed.

But because of the unique circumstances and and rapidly changing circumstances our direction as a board was for a model of sooner introduction of in-person learning and rolling out through groups and the district and the union were not able to come to agreement around that.

And then during that process is when the governor's proclamation came which changed the direction and changed the bargain.

So I guess I guess I'm just hoping people It's it's a convoluted process and there are lots of different constraints but I I just was I appreciate you having that conversation with me live Dr. Codd because I think it's confusing and it's not super clear for the public to understand what is up for you know where the levers of influence are.

Although this is not the the model that I personally would have chosen I really liked what what we proposed and directed the district to do in December and again in February.

I will be supporting this because I think at this moment in time it's the most It meets the mandate and is the most predictable and stable for our students.

Retains them as much as possible with the educators that they already have relationships with.

They can continue their learning and and doesn't require some of the acrobatic teaching that some other districts are doing of having educators need to serve multiple students in multiple places in ways that I feel is going to reduce their access to education.

So I will be supporting the acceptance of this agreement.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Rankin.

We'll go now to Director Dury.

Hi.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I have one question and then But I'll get to it.

But first of all I I just wanted to say that I as a very new member of the board have appreciated everybody's assistance in getting us to this point and working on this.

And also really centering equity as we have to rush to come to a different agreement that was a different timeline and plan than we had earlier before the governor's proclamation.

My one question is we mentioned that 80.2 minutes to get to 30 percent with some minutes remaining to remain in Week 9. Do we know how many minutes are are needed to be added to Week 9.

Yeah.

Yes.

Thank you.

It's for what it's worth it's 80.2 hours and it's that last week we effectively have to double for those students who are interested.

So in other words instead of two afternoons we'd have to after for four afternoons.

If we can't accommodate that given health and safety restrictions we might have to do two full days morning and afternoon just for that that last week.

That said we're hopeful that a number of things will be happening in schools in terms of you know some seniors won't be there so there might be additional space so that we could potentially make it work without having to go to two full days.

Because again we want to stay focused on making sure our remote learners also get get the support they deserve that last week.

That's in in short we'd have to double the time for that one week.

Okay I appreciate that.

And again I do really appreciate the focus on ensuring that all students have access to equitable education in this process.

And I will a copy what Director Rankin said that this is not an ideal situation or an ideal moment.

But I also will be voting yes on this and agree that given where we are and the what we have right now that and like I said I appreciate the commitment to equity of access of education for all our students.

So I appreciate your time and everybody's work on this.

Thank you very much.

Director Harris.

Thank you.

I appreciate Chiefs Codd Perkins or Director Perkins and Scarlett's work on this as well as the rest of the staff.

This is not what this board director would have aspired to.

But you know the governor rather tied our hands and kneecapped us while we were planning for this program.

And we're doing the best we can.

I also applaud staff for responding to the rumors out there that this is a quote unquote study hall.

And extraordinary gratitude to our teachers and staff who are dealing with their own children their own students and extreme fear and vulnerability in this worldwide pandemic.

Nobody here is happy about where we have landed but this is in fact where we landed and we're trying our best.

And huge gratitude and thank you.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Hi.

Thank you.

I want to follow up with something that Dr. Perkins you just mentioned about the ninth week how we're still going to have to see how that plays out and that there might be room since seniors might be gone that week.

And then it makes me think about how a lot of this is our seniors are probably one of our our grade levels to really wants to get in and see each other.

So I'm wondering does this is there does some of you have any bearing on a school's ability to organize something where they bring seniors even seniors who were not doing in-person to do something on campus.

I think that the question is whether seniors particularly during that last week might be able to come in and do other things and be engaged in different ways.

Is that is it.

At any time at any time I'm just wondering if my question again was does this MOU because I know we're talking about the MOU.

Does it have any bearing on a school's options or abilities to if they wanted to do something for seniors even those who did not choose in-person learning to come together at any point for activities.

This MOU did not address sort of all those those senior activities.

You know I know there's a lot of interest in commencement and and and other pieces.

So this this this MOU did not tackle those issues to my knowledge.

But I know there are other people particularly the directors of schools who are very actively involved in in scoping that out.

Obviously it was a very big thing last year as well.

So I know there's a desire to learn as much as possible from last year and try to take advantage of the increased opportunities this year.

That's all I know but we could share more probably in a Friday board memo.

Okay yeah I just like I said I'm just curious to know if that's something again I know it might not be part of the MOU but I wasn't sure if there was any part of this that would that would limit or expand those abilities for school for school leaders to do something there.

So anything you find out would be great to great to know and share with our families our communities.

I'm also really concerned with the 45-minute lunch and passing period and I'm I'm wondering if there are any mitigations in place for students who might be late for reasons that are out of their control like transportation needing to eat.

I'm wondering whether are there are there any plans for that.

acknowledge that that's a big that's a challenge.

It's a big challenge and that we need to make sure things like attendance taking reflects the fact that some students through no fault of their own will will have challenges in getting to class even by the start of the 1155 time.

And we definitely try to think through every option we could.

JoLynn Berge was very helpful in trying to figure out how much passing time we would the state would allow in terms of still meeting the 80.2 hours.

But we will we will definitely make sure that the attendance procedures are as supportive as possible.

And I know that schools are already having conversations in terms of how to structure the in-person small group.

You know might they engage first with those remote students at the beginning of the period so that it would give the students who are coming in-person more time to arrive for that first period.

Those conversations are already starting and so grateful for that that creativity because we know it'll be needed.

Okay I know there was an idea floated around about doing attendance at the end of the period.

Is that something that teachers will have an option to do.

Yeah I don't I I'm not directly involved in in finalizing those exact procedures but yes that's I've heard that is being discussed.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So yeah as other directors were stating before this this in-person plan is is not what a lot of families expected.

But I know through hours and hours of negotiations and bargaining our education professionals at central office yourselves and our SEA education professionals have decided that it is the safest and most effective model we can put forward right now.

And since the impetus of the Governor's recommendation was centered around mental health You know through this model the students who truly need that in-person connection will get it.

If they're able to come back I know a lot of aren't going to be able to because of personal health and safety reasons.

But I know it was not easy to find a balance.

of that met all the needs of all those involved.

And I know our circumstance is different.

We might have a different model but this is what we're able to offer.

And it does meet the Governor's mandate.

We have confirmation directly from Chris Wykle.

So I trust that that is solid.

So I hope that even in even in their disappointment I hope that the students who are able to come in do find something of what they have been missing with 100 percent remote.

Thank you for all your work.

No further questions.

Okay Director DeWolf.

I don't have any questions.

This has all been really thorough.

I wanted to I appreciate Director Rivera-Smith's comments.

So for me I just want to hands up to our our bargaining teams.

Actually I do have one question.

Maybe it'd be for Dr. Codd or Caleb but.

Can you just clarify how this decision and kind of what we're doing is is or how or why it is student-focused.

How is the proposal sort of trying to keep students at the center of what we're proposing is that.

Yeah.

So I think the.

There's probably many ways to answer that question but I'll just revisit the main point which is that the assumption is that there will be a significant number of students who choose to come in person and a significant number of students who come who just who want to stay 100 percent remote for very good reasons.

And we want to support both groups.

In particular we we based on early survey data We know that there will be a significant number of students of color furthest from educational justice who choose fully remote.

So we decide we wanted to make the model as strong as possible for those students who chose fully remote and not not turn our schedule upside down just to to make the in-person experience the thing that gets all the attention.

So that's why every student gets the same morning experience.

They all get that same.

live remote instruction from their content teacher and that every teacher gets the opportunity to engage in the afternoon with their same content teachers building off of what they learned in the morning and going deeper through small group and individual.

Thank you very much.

Those are all my questions.

President Hampson.

Thank you.

We don't we don't have any data to share right now do we about our demographics in-person versus remote.

No we're gathering.

Hi everyone this is Concie Pedroza.

Nice to talk to you.

You were quick on that.

I know I was just waiting for that question.

I knew it was going to come from you or Director Smith or Rankin or somebody.

No we just closed the survey last night.

They're actually compiling the data right now.

where principals are currently asking me for that same data.

So we'll as soon as we get it out to everybody and we can get you the demographic data but the preliminary data is exactly what exactly what Dr. Perkins said is that it's actually showing that students of color Black families bilingual families are least likely to come in person.

So that is the preliminary data we have.

Okay thank you.

And it's a question we're getting a lot.

And I you know I know for staff and many of the board we're not we don't think we're going to see any any big surprises but still have to remain open.

And there's some you know kind of some narratives out there about why that would be that you know if schools were open you know sort of then they would come.

But I think that diminishes the some some very very real issues associated with a whole myriad of reasons why families with students furthest from educational justice are less likely to return.

And as we're now seeing with what I hope is not a spike or a resurgence that hits Washington State you know there's there's reasonable fear that that is associated with with health and higher rates of the disease but also with the experience and trust levels within our school system.

And that's on all of us.

And and that's our job to improve that.

And I as far as this model is concerned first of all y'all did it within this time frame.

So thank you and and and thank you and thank you.

And and thank you to those that are going to now have to implement it because what I do understand is that you know we got to where we got to.

And I think that there's some some good stuff in here and some really frustrating stuff.

I know that it the nature of it limits what we can provide for transportation and that's incredibly frustrating.

And so for that I wish that it was full day.

At the same time I appreciate the model of morning afternoon morning instruction where it's you know everybody's getting the same remote instruction and then afternoon in-person.

And then you know I wish we could do that 4 days a week.

So I think those would have been my you know my wishes.

But all things considered I am glad that we got someplace.

And if we have something that I I do appreciate that design.

I do think that it provides a true acknowledgement as you stated and I I know you worked hard to make sure that we were in fact centering students furthest from educational justice that would continue to operate remotely and that's something that we've kind of gone back and forth on and struggled throughout this pandemic is really being able to do both of those things.

And you know I think ideally we would have been doing both of those things at the beginning meaning we would have been offering some in-person to students that we also knew we weren't capturing particular EL students and I'm I still feel badly about our inability to kind of wrap our arms around some of the student populations that we really did want to center in that return before we had the rush to get all of 6-12 back.

So it's amazing that you all did this in this time.

And and I'm so glad that you were able to do it.

There's a lot at stake.

And And I think the other thing that I want to I want to point out with respect to what y'all have had to go through to get here and now what teachers and administrators are having to to do to set this up.

And it is very different at secondary than it is at primary.

I think by and large the voices and the communication and you know it's so much about primary and and I'm sensing this great like being left out of the situation.

with respect to secondary and I'm grateful for staff on both sides that were able to step up and really represent for for secondary because it things look very different in the secondary world and it is incredibly complex.

And it's frustrating to me you know and continue to tell folks that you know hey I wasn't this wasn't about if you go back and you look at what we tried to do we were trying to get to in-person.

We saw we recognized the need for for in-person We needed the support from the governor back in January not this late date.

And so I'm just going to be straightforward about that that this would have been significantly easier if he was going to make this kind of motion that movement that this big movement that it was at an earlier date that we had prioritized teachers for vaccines earlier.

And so you know.

Those are those are the regrets but I think going back knowing what what folks were able to pull off for K-5 and how that's being rolled out.

And thank you all for that as well.

And that it's going to be a tough couple of weeks.

I'm I am very concerned about the amount of figuring out that folks are now having to do in the secondary level in buildings right because of how much you didn't have time to get through.

And so I'm I hope and I'm hearing a bit but I really encourage folks to take a breath and look past the extent to which we may have regrets that this isn't you know one thing or another about what we want but that it's a it's a relatively short period of time.

You know we need to get this stood up and get focused on fall and summer and and really show some genuine appreciation and support for are building administrators and staff because of how hard they're working and how hard you all are working in central office to get this done against some very very difficult circumstances.

And and I know that it is not lost on anybody here and the very few people that we have listening today that that it is heartbreaking that we don't have the option to provide more transportation.

And that there are other inequities that are that are still persisting throughout that we don't have any additional mental health supports at this time to offer other than you know the existing supports.

It's not as if we got those along with this return.

And and and yet we know students are going to need that.

And so I think preparing all of our secondary students with that same mantra of you know what have you lost during this or what are you mourning.

What have you gained or learned.

And then you know what are you going to try to get out of this next step in these coming weeks whether you're staying at home or you're going in person.

And and then hopefully and thank you to all of you who are standing up some student surveys that we will better understand what we need to provide for our students for next year.

And I know that that we're very committed to making that the the very best that it can be.

So I am definitely going to be supporting this and trying to do everything we can to support our building leaders in getting all of this stood up and we'll be out there you know carpooling and providing transportation in my own neighborhood as I'm sure others will be.

And and with that I think we're done with I don't have any particular questions.

I liked I appreciate the model and it makes sense to me.

And let's go.

So I think with that unless there are any other questions or comments that any staff or board want to make on this critical topic then let's get it done.

Ms.

Wilson-Jones.

Go ahead.

I just want to send a huge shout out to the behind-the-scenes folks who have been preparing buildings and had to pivot from Again as everybody did one one mode of operation of what we thought we were building up towards to suddenly having to prepare all 104 buildings for all students.

And I know a lot of those folks are probably exhausted and have been doing their best to keep up with everything.

So just big shout out to our facility facilities staff.

Okay Miss Wilson-Jones.

Director Harris aye Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye President Hampson aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you Ms. Wilson-Jones.

We will now move to Action Items 5-10.

Authorizing the district to pay the necessary expenses of defending school Seattle School Board Directors in judicial proceedings to determine the sufficiency of recall charges.

Item 5 authorize provides this authorization for Director DeWolf.

Item 6 for Director Hampson.

Item 7 for Director Harris.

Item 8 for Director Hersey.

Item 9 for Director Rankin and Item 10 for Director Rivera-Smith.

We will first take the motions and seconds for each of the items and then move into a briefing and discussion covering these 6 items together and then the roll call votes on each of them.

May I have the motion for Action Item Number 6.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Hold on a second.

What's yes Director Harris.

My question is is can we batch these together and take one vote.

Chief Narver help please.

Thank you.

Yes I'd be happy to address that.

The answer is that that would be permissible.

I structured it this way.

There are six separate recall charges and having six separate votes gives each director the option should they choose to abstain from the vote on their own their own legal expenses.

This is kind of going the extra mile in terms of even avoiding the appearance of having a personal interest in the outcome of the vote so that that's why it was structured this way.

My impression is that some directors would prefer to abstain on their own expenses.

I don't think there would be any problem.

It's not required to abstain.

It could be structured as one vote but this was kind of As I said going the extra mile to make sure that everything was clear with the ethics code personal interests and not having to even rely on the case law that I think does justify doing this as a single vote.

That's that's why these are brought this way.

I'll withdraw my question.

Thank you sir.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

Okay.

And then I need to actually We accidentally skipped number 5. So I'm going to I'm going to go back and say and ask if I can have a motion for item number 5 which is the authorization for Director DeWolf.

I move that the school board authorize the district to pay the necessary expenses of defending Director Zachary DeWolf in judicial proceedings to determine the efficiency of recall charges that were filed with the King County Department of Elections on March 22nd 2021. Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

I second.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Dury.

May I have the motion Oh sorry are we going to we're going to go ahead and vote right.

No I think we're going to do all read all 6 motions and then Ellie will just call 6 roll calls in a row but that way I'll just do the introduction once.

Okay got it.

So may I have the motion for action item number 6.

I move that the school board authorize the district to pay the necessary expenses of defending Director Chandra Hampson in judicial proceedings to determine the sufficiency of recall charges that were filed with the Keene County Department of Elections on March 22nd 2021. Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Dury.

May I have the motion for Action Item Number 7.

I move that the school board authorize the district to pay the necessary expenses of defending Director Nessie Harris in judicial proceedings to determine the sufficiency of recall charges that were filed with the King County Department of Elections on March 22nd 2021. Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Dury.

May I have the motion for Action Item Number 8.

I move that the school board authorize the district to pay the necessary expenses of defending Director Brandon Hersey in judicial proceedings to determine the sufficiency of recall charges that were filed with the King County Department of Elections on March 22nd 2021. Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Dury.

May I have the motion for Action Item Number 9.

I move that the school board authorize the district to pay the necessary expenses of defending Director Eliza Rankin in judicial proceedings to determine the sufficiency of recall charges that were filed with the King County Department of Elections on March 22nd 2021. Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

This item has been moved by Director Rivera-Smith and seconded by Director Dury.

May I have the action item the motion for Action Item Number 10.

This is Director Rankin.

I move that the school board authorize the district to pay the necessary expenses of defending Director Lisa Rivera-Smith in judicial proceedings to determine the sufficiency of recall charges that were filed with the King County Department of Elections on March 22nd 2021. Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

This item has been moved by Director Rankin and seconded by Director Dury.

These items did not go to committee and are for introduction and action.

Chief Legal Counsel Greg Narver I believe you will be briefing us.

Yes I will.

Thank you President Hampson and good afternoon again.

These are six related bars that relate to recall charges that were filed with King County Elections.

And we're here because state law which is described in the BAR provides that when recall charges are filed against an elected official of a local government entity such as Seattle Public Schools then the necessary expenses of defending those elected officials in judicial proceedings shall be paid by the local government entity if three conditions are met.

First the elected official has to request a defense.

And second the request has to be approved by the attorney for the legal government entity and as explained in the BAR both of those conditions have been met with respect to all six directors.

The final required step is that the request must be approved by the legislative authority of the local government entity.

And that's the board and that's the step being taken through these actions.

This is on for introduction and approval because the recall process moves on a very compressed time schedule.

There was not time to take this through committee or to do separate intro and action if we were to get outside council engaged in time to appear in court and present a defense to the recall.

And I'd be happy to take any questions from the board.

Director Dury.

Any questions.

No questions.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

I'm stifling myself.

No questions.

Thank you.

Director Rivera-Smith.

No questions.

Thank you.

I should have said or comments.

Director Rankin.

None for me.

Director DeWolf.

No.

None for me either.

Ms. Wilson-Jones will you please call for the votes.

respectively on Action Items 5-10.

Yes.

Beginning with Action Item 5 and Clayton if you could advance the slides as we move through just so we can keep track of which ones I'm calling the vote on.

So Action Item 5 with respect to Director DeWolf Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye Director Harris aye President Hampson aye.

This motion has passed by a vote of 5 yes with one abstention.

Moving to Action Item 6 with respect to Director Hampson.

Beginning the roll call vote.

Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye Director Harris aye Director Rankin aye President Hampson abstain.

motion has passed by a vote of 5 yes and with 1 abstention.

Moving to Action Item 7 with respect to Director Harris.

Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye Director Harris abstain Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith President Hampson aye.

This motion has passed by a vote of 5 yes with 1 abstention.

Moving to Action Item 8 with respect to Director Hersey Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye Director Harris aye Director Rankin Director Rivera-Smith aye Director Hampson aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

And then moving to Action Item 9 with respect to Director Rankin Director Dury aye Director Harris aye Director Rankin abstain Director Rivera-Smith Director DeWolf aye President Hampson aye.

This motion has passed by a vote of 5 yes with 1 abstention.

And now moving to the final action item Action Item 10 with respect to Director Rivera-Smith.

Director Harris aye Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith abstain Director DeWolf aye Director Dury aye President Hampson aye.

This motion has passed by a vote of 5 yes with 1 abstention.

We will now move to Introduction Item Number 1 Adoption of School Board Resolution Number 2020-21-24 Emergency Waiver of High School Graduation Requirements.

This item was not reviewed in committee.

Chief Academic Officer Dr. Keisha Scarlett I believe you will be briefing us.

Sorry, just a moment.

My computer didn't restart, so I apologize.

My talking points just left me, but there'll be it in just a moment.

It's OK, well, I'll just breathe.

Bad thing.

Thank you for that, sorry.

Alright, so.

Good evening board.

Thank you so much for having me to be able to talk about the talk in your emergency waiver bar.

So Dr. Keisha Scarlett Chief Academic Officer.

So we're here this evening to ask the board our board to approve the emergency waiver resolution for graduating seniors for the class of 2021 and class of 2020. The state has already approved our application to use the emergency waiver.

But SBE rules require permission from the state and resolution from local board.

The board approved an emergency waiver last year which expired in summer 2020. Here are some key details on these waivers.

Last year's waiver could be used to waive credits only.

This year's waiver can be used to waive credits up to two credits no more than one per subject.

And the graduation pathway from HB House Bill 1599. Not all students are eligible for the waiver are only eligible to apply for this waiver if they were reasonably expected to graduate this school year have demonstrated post-secondary preparation and have experienced a significant disruption to their ability to complete graduation requirements due to COVID-19 emergency.

Given the given the urgency of approving this waiver resolution the appropriate engagement level is to inform.

Students who may be eligible for the waiver will be informed and will discuss eligibility requirements and the pros and cons of using the waiver with their school counselors.

Students will not be required to use the waiver even if they are eligible.

That said We have already started working with counselors and our academic intervention specialists in order to support this waiver process.

In additional in addition it bypassed committee with approval of the board's executive committee.

Our equity analysis reveals the importance of approving this BAR and offering these waivers for these reasons.

Across the district 82 percent of our seniors are on track with overall credit earning but that percentage drops to 67 percent for our African-American male students and 76 percent for students of color furthest from educational justice.

Given the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on students of color the most equitable course of action we've determined is to approve the waiver resolution.

As for next steps if the resolution is approved Our college and career readiness staff will immediately inform school staff and seniors and initiate a process for approving waivers and to train counselors on this process.

Counselors will then meet with students to discuss the waiver and help them to apply.

And with that I'll take your questions and remind you that Dr. Caleb Perkins is here also to be able to respond to questions.

Thank you Dr. Scarlett.

Let's go first.

Let's go to the bottom of the order with Director DeWolf.

I'm sorry.

Apologies Director Rankin.

Let me start with you as Chair of Student Services Curriculum and Instruction.

Thank you.

Yeah.

As Dr. Scarlett mentioned we this was a waiver that similar to the one that we approved last year that then expired.

And so I don't have any questions just I guess wanted to echo that reminder that this is not a brand new thing and that it came directly from in response to concerns about students' ability to complete requirements in order to graduate in the midst of the COVID crisis.

Okay now let's go now to Director DeWolf.

Thank you President Hampson.

I don't have any questions.

Thank you.

Director Rivera-Smith.

No questions or comments.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

I am pleased to see this and I've been a big believer COVID worldwide pandemic or not.

that we should have alternative ways to evaluate our students' capacity to graduate including portfolios etc.

I think that a great many of the requirements that are on the books are not culturally responsive and I'm very pleased to see that we are addressing those issues and I hope that we keep them in place after the worldwide pandemic COVID-19.

Thanks so much.

Director Dury.

No questions.

Thank you.

And then Director Mack I'm sorry it's me.

I don't have any questions.

Thank you for that that presentation Dr. Scarlett and I'll look forward to approving this when it comes back around.

I think this is critical and I appreciate Director Harris's comments and concur with the need for additional pathways and I know there's some hard work going on in that that respect.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay we have now come to what is normally the board comments section of the agenda.

We did not have board committee reports on today's agenda to reserve time for our Student Outcomes Focused Governance discussion but committee chairs may now share those updates now and I would ask you to be very brief so that we can move into the work that we have for tonight.

Director Hersey's not here so we'll go to Director Dury.

Did you have any board comments for tonight.

I do not.

Thank you very much.

Director Harris.

I lost Leslie for a moment so I'll go to Director Rivera-Smith.

Hi.

Thank you.

I I I know we've We've been talking a lot about safety in our work sessions and in our board meetings and right now there's been a lot of concern about some encampments at our schools.

And just as the Director of District 2 neither of those are at schools that I represent so I have not been actively involved in any of the conversations or communications regarding them.

However as as each of us are elected citywide And we share the side of the entire district.

I do expect that you know I will be part of the conversations as a board we do decide to have on that.

And when when we get when we decide to take a vote or make an actual position on the matter as possibly the only board member we have right now who has personal experience being homeless it is an issue very close to my heart.

And I do not believe it is a question as simple as sweep or not sweep.

Because neither of those choices would truly address the needs of either the people living in those accountants or the people living in homes around them.

So you know I hope that we appreciate that this is a very delicate and nuanced.

Homelessness is a very delicate and nuanced situation and this necessitates an equally delicate and nuanced response.

So I appreciate the patience of community and of the city around us.

I look forward to working with the board in whatever capacity we have to address the issues there.

Also regarding safety as we approach Spring Break I know there's been a lot of talk about travel and what that means for students who are doing in-person learning and for teachers as well.

And I and I think I don't want us to not see the through the sea but the forest and the trees is that even if you don't travel for Spring Break you can definitely put yourselves in danger of exposure.

by going out to places where there's a lot of unmasked people and things like that.

So I want us to not just focus on travel.

Traveling I mean if you're traveling to a cabin by yourself you're probably safer than being in the city going to a restaurant.

So I encourage all of us to keep safety in mind whether we're home or traveling and to definitely just keep the safety of the greater community in mind.

So no other questions or comments tonight.

Thank you for that time.

Okay and Director Harris you're back with us.

Thank you so much.

Several comments.

One thanks ever so much for renaming the Southwest Athletic Center the Nino Cantu Southwest Athletic Center.

Could not be more pleased and huge gratitude to everyone that has lifted this up.

Principals.

and Lunchroom Manager Dory Fazio-Young and the communities of Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth International High School.

With respect to public comments from Mr. Jackins if everything is a problem then we lose the filter if you will of what is in fact a problem and I am hugely disappointed that so many appeals etc. are met with expenditures of board funds that could go to hiring staff and curriculum etc.

With respect to the Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction I remain beyond frustrated with their lack of communication to this school district which is larger by I think two-thirds than any other of the 295 other school districts and and begging for better communication and recognition of the fact that we are not a small district and that and that we have other issues to address.

I renew my call for a McCleary Number 2 lawsuit and a lawsuit on the STARS transportation funding algorithm.

It's unfair to the Seattle Public Schools and it is very much unfair to those families that are working and or do not have transportation to their schools whether it's the walk zone whether it's an option school issue.

It's just not fair.

And folks are not hearing us and I implore us all to push back and make that happen because the legislative process is not working so we need to move to the judicial process.

I also would like to see the school board start meeting in person and do a blended issue of online via voicemail comments and to move the timing of the school board meetings back so that working persons and parents who are supervising their students' education can access.

And I would suggest 530 or 6 p.m.

for that.

To our staff our teachers who have lifted greatly in the face of a worldwide pandemic COVID-19 I'm working triply hard to make this happen.

Huge huge gratitude to our building leaders our principals especially who are losing I think more than 15 assistant principals based on the current projections.

I thank you when you signed up for this.

I don't think you signed up for this this and I am Again most concerned about the waiting staffing standard formula.

I am also extremely concerned about the lack of community engagement and moving principals from school to school to school.

And I look forward to the promised memo from Chief Wyeth Jessee and Director Michael Strosky showing which moves are going to be made and what community engagement has in fact been had.

And the other issue that is difficult to bring up but I tread where angels fear to.

I am so very conflicted about homeless encampments next to our schools.

and the plethora of emails from concerned families and citizens.

I as a board member want to be copied on emails that are sent to the city council by individual board members so that we literally are all on the same page.

And I look forward to the time that we can meet in person.

Stay safe and wash your hands.

Thank you.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

I'm going to.

Can you hear me.

Okay.

I'm going to keep this brief because I know we have some more work to get to.

I just want to say thank you to our educators families building staff everyone who went back to school and and also those who didn't this week.

You know for for elementary students who opted to stay remote I think there was some you know some students lost access to their teacher.

because of that.

And I know that varied by school and everyone is doing their best so that also happened in a remarkably fast time and our principals were putting in lots and lots and lots of hours trying to align family survey responses with the realities of of who who could be in their building and the staffing and everything.

The the biggest it was it was in spite of all the difficulties that we've all been talking about and how this maybe you know wasn't the way we would have wanted to do this.

It was really exciting to see kids be so excited to get back to seeing their classmates and and for elementary schools to have kids on the playground again and and you know seeing each other in person sometimes for the first time.

Just a huge huge huge amounts of gratitude for making that happen for for our students and protecting the health and safety of our communities.

And yeah I've been the one of the homeless encampments is on is in my district and since being included in conversations about that about a week and a half ago for the first time I've been really grateful to building leadership there and our security office for bringing us up to speed on what's been going on and working with the city and community partners and getting to a resolution that is good for our students and good for our communities as a whole.

and help support people be connected with the services that they that they need.

So I've been spending a lot of time communicating with a lot of people on that issue and I'm sure that will continue.

But just a great big thanks and I hope everyone has an opportunity to take at least a breath.

over over spring break and definitely wash your hands and keep wearing your mask even if even if you're even if you're vaccinated.

Yeah.

Let's keep keep ourselves and each other safe and healthy.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you President Hampson.

I wanted to start today by kind of grounding us in the reality of Seattle Public Schools.

According to Seattle Public Schools the McKinney-Vento data McKinney-Vento being the department that serves and supports our students and their families experiencing homelessness.

We have 2,149 school students enrolled in the MKV program.

1,177 77 of these students and their families are living doubled up.

365 are living in transitional housing.

231 are unaccompanied youth doubled up in a group home or youth shelter.

218 are living in shelters for families.

57 are living in hotels or motels.

43 are unsheltered living on the streets in vehicles.

And 58 we still do not know their housing status.

You know one thing that came up with Director Rivera-Smith's comment that She presumes she's the only person that's experienced homelessness in her life.

It is not true.

I myself experienced homelessness and housing instability in my life.

And I think that's partially one of my my biggest frustrations about this whole issue that we're going through right now which is that people make a lot of assumptions.

People make a lot of assumptions about the people that are living outside.

It is really difficult in these conversations because we are still in the middle of a global pandemic.

We have just celebrated.

just come across the year mark in the in the COVID pandemic.

The UK variant is increasing in the country.

Not everybody is even vaccinated.

Millions of people lost their jobs and their incomes.

We saw an increase in homelessness.

More people getting unemployment.

More people using food banks.

We are still in this crisis.

So I just want to really really set the grounding here about the crisis that we are in.

And I also think about the fact that there are adults older than me 10 years older than me 20 years older than me 10 years ago 20 years ago excuse me I was 15. 30 years ago I was 5 years old.

Now some of these adults that I am an adult with in this adult population I'm having to push back and fight for what I believe is right.

And for you know the news which has somehow gathered emails from the city in a record time What they've gathered is true.

I do not believe what we we do with people living outside or experiencing homelessness should be done in the ways that have been harmful in the past particularly by this city.

I'm interested in something that's compassionate that takes people into account and remembers that people experiencing homelessness are still our neighbors.

People experiencing homelessness are students former students student families.

This issue while we want to just push it away is here.

And all the people that are doing that are wishing that we would do something about this a.k.a. sweeps are forgetting is that that's that's not the way.

We just spent a year in COVID in a great pause.

We told each other we were in this together.

Did we not learn anything in that year.

We're not changing our behaviors and our attitudes and our understandings about the world.

You know when I sent that email to the City Council and when Director President Hampson and I made that statement it was really hard to do.

It was the right thing to do.

And I stand by it.

And I look forward to to finding resolutions and solutions in collaboration with the city because we can do it.

People should just be patient and understand that we are doing our job because on school grounds and in our school communities everything that happens there is education is curriculum.

What are we teaching our students and and young people when we push people out sweep people criminalize people.

That's not the education Seattle Public Schools should be associated with.

And I certainly don't want to be associated with it either.

So I thank you to our student who spoke today.

Always always always appreciate and hands up to our students for coming and speaking to us.

And I'm really really grateful that we were able to push through the Nino Conti name change and excited to see that that development come forward.

That's my only comments for tonight.

Thank you so much President Hampson for the opportunity.

I look forward to our our work taking place on student-focused outcomes governance right after this.

Thank you.

I'm going to take my just a very brief moment to share some news from the that was shared with me by our Director of Native American Education Program.

Gail Morris and that we were given a commendation by OSPI with respect to tribal consultation.

Seattle Public Schools is to be commended for adoption of policy and for providing high-quality consistent and comprehensive professional learning for staff to fully implement the Since Time Immemorial Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum.

I know directors received that email from I believe from Gil Morris today and I just wanted to take time to actually highlight change that has been very strongly staff-driven that the board was able to support by fully passing that that state-mandated curriculum and and their hard work.

to make that training available.

And we know that we have more to do as we have issues that that I won't get into at this point but actually training kind of some of our most senior level folks to make sure that we understand exactly what tribal sovereignty is and what our tribal consultation obligations are because they are in many respects poorly understood by some of the most important people in this organization.

So we have work to do there but I'm really excited to highlight that good work and the fact that OSPI took note of that.

So congratulations to the Native Education team and to you Director Gil-Morris.

Okay so I didn't skip anybody I hope.

And with that we will continue our discussion from our March board retreat and last week's work session on Student Outcomes Focused Governance.

It's really critical that we start to have these these conversations in real time as part of our board meetings because our our intent is that we would learn to be having student outcomes focus as a much increasingly larger component of how we spend our time.

So AJ is going to be leading us in a continuation of that conversation.

He is with the AJ Crabill from the Council of Great City Schools.

who I'm very appreciative of particularly during this pandemic.

My goodness I don't know where my my head would be if not for their leadership and their sense-making of everything that educational institutions are dealing with throughout this district I mean throughout this country.

So AJ is going to be leading us in that continuation from our March 31st work session.

So AJ I will ask you to unmute and pass it over to you and everybody get your homework out.

Thank you so much for having me back.

It's good to be with you again.

In our previous conversation we focused all of our attention around what is the community's vision.

What is it that the community wants students to know and be able to do as a result of having spent time in Seattle Public Schools.

That vision has to be the driving factor for the school system.

This is why school systems exist is to really create growth in what it is that our students know and are able to do.

And so it's appropriate.

our first part of our time together having that conversation.

This conversation now I want to switch to the other part of the equation because it's actually the job of the board to represent both the vision and the values of the community.

Not just the vision but the vision and the values of the community.

So last week we talked about the vision of the community.

This week we're going to talk about how is it the board represents the values of the community.

And so to help put this in perspective what we talked about last week was the board listens for the community's vision.

What is it the community wants students to know and be able to do.

And takes all of that and distills it down into one to five goals.

And those goals are smart statements that describe what is it that we want our students to know and be able to do.

Similarly this week as we talk about the community's vision the work of the board is to listen for the vision And to distill all of that down to 1-5 statements that describe what are elements of the community's vision that are non-negotiable.

That the superintendent must honor on their path to accomplishing the vision.

We refer to these statements these 1-5 statements of the community's values the non-negotiables.

We refer to these as guardrails.

And so the board listens for the vision and Writes that down in the form of goals.

The board listens to the community's values and writes those down in the form of guardrails.

So let me stop there.

Before I go any further what questions do you have about either goals or guardrails.

We're going to go we're going to deep dive in all of this.

But before we go any further what questions do you have at this moment about goals or guardrails.

You all had a chance to do some homework so you've been drafting on this stuff.

So I want to make sure I get to whatever issues of clarity that you have before we move on.

Questions do you have.

All right.

Well then let's dive into it.

The work of guardrails this is where it gets a little bit different for folks because these are often structured in a way that's that is different.

It's just not what folks are used to.

And so it's important to describe a little bit of why.

So when we talk about the community's values the job of the board has to be how are we representing the community's vision and values.

But we also want to do so in a way that protects the ability of staff to be creative in the face of what are the needs of students.

And so the challenge there is we have to come up with a mechanism where we can make clear what would be unacceptable But do so in a way that doesn't turn into a series of mandates that deprives the staff and our teachers and our faculty of what are the flexibility they need to be responsive and to be able to pivot and adjust to the real-time needs of students.

And so our way of doing that is to describe the community's values in terms of what are the things that must not occur.

What are the things that the superintendent must protect against.

And so instead of giving the superintendent a list of our values you have to do this okay.

Well you have to you have to keep our children safe and you have to make sure that our teachers are well-respected.

Instead of creating a set of expectations and then the board is stuck with the job of enforcing about what the administration must do.

We actually transition those when we describe them in terms of what the superintendent can't do.

The superintendent is not allowed to create conditions that are unsafe for students.

The superintendent is not allowed to create conditions that are disrespectful for staff.

When we describe what is out of bounds what we're saying at that moment is that as a board we give full authority to the superintendent to take any action that she needs to take to move us in the trajectory of our community's vision.

As long as it does not violate these particular boundaries.

And so when we adopt guardrails we're saying what are the boundaries within the superintendent's authority exists that she may not go outside of.

These are the parameters of the community's values that have to be honored.

Again the key distinction here is that when we describe this in terms of what are the boundaries you can't go outside of.

We've created an awful lot of freedom for the superintendent and staff to make whatever decisions within those boundaries that they need to make for students.

When boards operate in the other direction we say well you have to do this you have to do this you have to do this.

In the back of staff's mind is always okay if we want to change something if we want to do something else we first have to go back to the board and get permission and make sure that it's okay.

And then once we figure out whether or not it's okay then we can start implementing change.

Students don't have time for all that.

Little AJ needs that change today, not to wait around another 30 days, 60 days, 90 days for the board to go through some full elaborate process.

And so the board's way of avoiding that while still representing the values of the community is to simply describe it in the negative.

Here are the things you can't do.

Anything that isn't this stuff, all of this, feel free to make the decision.

You don't have to come back to us and play mother may I all night.

get it done for our students.

We trust we give faith to our staff that they're going to make decisions that are best interests of students so long as it's within the parameters of our community's values.

And so that's where the idea of guardrails comes from.

And so when combined the board represents the vision using a set of goals.

The board represents the values using a set of guardrails.

With that as a setup let me just check in one more time.

Any questions about goals or guardrails before we dive into the drafting which is the work that we started last week and are going to pick up tonight.

Any questions about goals or guardrails before we move on.

I have one question.

Do guard are there limitations on guardrails.

Do they have to be like just one thing or can you put like communication and collaboration together or you know.

What you really want to have each guardrail can cover one specific area.

And so that area can be relatively broad.

You know we don't you know the superintendent the superintendent may not take action without communicating with stakeholders.

Or you could make it really specific.

The superintendent may not bring recommendations to the board without first having had public comment period 30-day public comment period with parents and staff.

And so you can make it as broad as you want or as specific as you want but each guardrail really needs to focus on what is one particular value that that the community has that must be protected as the work of achieving the vision is being executed.

Any other questions about goals or guardrails before we dive into typing up some ideas.

I have a clarifying maybe fundamental question.

On the guardrails do they have do they are they tied to the goal or goals or can they be broader in terms of like general movement.

Yeah they can be in what the thing that you want to do is you want to go wherever the community values lead.

And so the community values really line up very closely to one of your goals.

I think that's great.

That'd be wonderful.

But if the community's values are the things that the community's kind of feeling most animated most concerned about is something entirely different.

You know the community is like you know we absolutely are opposed to buses that are orange.

Okay well great.

You know that's what it is and that's what it isn't.

In that moment you know the superintendent shall not You know use or acquire orange buses.

Now you only get 5 of these bad boys.

So if you want to squander one of them on orange buses more power to you.

But I suspect your community might not see that as in the top 5 values that it most wants to see protected.

And by the way this is this is intentional that there are only 5. Is that the job of the board isn't just to listen for the vision and values but you really need to represent them.

Part of what that means is you're going to have to prioritize.

There's not ever going to be just five values that need to be honored at Seattle Public Schools.

You're simply too large for that.

There's always going to be hundreds.

What you all are really looking to do is what are the what are the 1-5 absolutely non-negotiable.

The ones that are so big that these have to be protected and that these have to be part of the framework that all of our staff think of.

when they go to make choices for students.

Like oh wait a minute wait a minute okay I'm going to make this choice but I can't do this or this.

Okay what else could I do that would meet the student's need that wouldn't have me violate this or this.

Well if you've got a hundred of those your staff will ignore all of them.

There's just too much and it's unreasonable to expect any staff member to juggle all of them.

This is why we generally recommend about three.

And this then allows the entire staff to calibrate around okay we can make any choice that's going to help our students get to the vision as long as we don't do this this or this.

Okay got it.

And then now that frees me up to be creative about how do I go about meeting the needs of the student in front of me.

And so they could be anywhere at all.

You're just going to have to prioritize what are the highest priority values that have to be protected the non-negotiables.

Other questions.

I have a question.

Yeah.

Hi.

I'm wondering do the guardrails need to be measurable like specifically measurable.

Great question.

The answer is no.

Unlike your goals the guardrails where the goals themselves are smart and the interim goals that you'll use to progress measure them are smart.

The guardrails themselves are not smart.

But the interim guardrails that you'll use to progress measure them will be.

So you will have smart metrics that you use to track them just like you'll have smart metrics that you use to track your goals you know on a formative basis.

But the guardrails themselves do not have to be.

They certainly can be.

I've seen some boys do that but they don't have to be.

So there are interim guardrails too.

Yeah so you have.

So as the board we haven't gotten this gotten here yet but this is a good time to interject it.

The board adopts a set of goals and those goals are about student outcomes.

They're about what it is that we want students to know and be able to do at the end of the cycle.

Whether that's the end of the school year or the end of their full K-12 journey or whatever.

But goals describe what is it that we want students to know and be able to do.

What are the student outcomes.

The problem with student outcomes is By the time you know the outcome for students it's too late to have an impact on the outcome.

It's kind of like once you know who won or lost the game can you influence who's going to win or lose the game.

So this is the problem with student with your goals is they're about student outcomes.

They really tell you did we win or lose for students.

But you can't really monitor that very effectively throughout the year.

And so what you need in addition to goals once the board has set its goals then the superintendent will be tasked with coming back with a set of interim goals.

And these instead of being based on student outcomes are based on student outputs.

So this is formative data that's knowable throughout the school year that is aligned with the goals and that as we look at this data as it trends up then it's likely that the goal is trending up.

And if they're trending down then it's likely that the goal is going to trend down as well.

And so we've got goals that are the student outcomes.

The board sets those.

We've got interim goals.

Those are student outputs and superintendent sets those.

But those are the metrics you use to monitor month by month.

Are we likely to be making progress relative to the goals we've set.

Similarly the board will set the guardrails.

Here are the non-negotiable values of the community.

And then the superintendent will identify a set of interim guardrails.

that are the SMART metrics used by the board to monitor is the superintendent adequately protecting the values of the community.

And so on a month-by-month basis you're able to look and see the data about your guardrails.

Are we actually honoring this or not.

You know and so with the earlier example is the you know the superintendent may not allow conditions for students that are unsafe in their classrooms.

Well maybe one of the progress measures is you know the percentage of You know the the number of incident classroom incidents where students were physically harmed will decrease from this number in August of 2020 to down to this number you know by August of 2023. And so that will be the data that you're using to track are we actually honoring are we making progress in terms of honoring the values that the community has put in place.

until you have goals and interim goals that are your progress measures.

Guardrails and interim guardrails that are your progress measures.

The board sets the goals and guardrails.

The superintendent sets the interim goals and interim guardrails.

Thank you for the question.

And that's a great example.

That example you said about safety.

Then is there a place where we should define safety or is.

You are most wise.

So this the thing about both the goals and the guardrails is wherever the board stops defining guess who takes over the interpretation.

Superintendent.

That's right.

And so if when you think safety you're not thinking physical safety you're thinking emotional safety but you don't define that.

When the superintendent comes back with some progress measures around physical safety Who dropped the ball.

We did.

Yeah the board did.

So this means it's really really important for the board to be methodical to be really intentional about what are the values of our community and to what degree of specificity do we do we as a board need to define that.

And once you've reached a place of description where really any reasonable interpretation you'd be willing to accept then you're good to go.

But if a reasonable person would interpret it to mean this over here and that doesn't work for you then it's your job as a board to further define what you mean.

And so instead of saying the superintendent will not allow conditions for students that are unsafe maybe you'd say the superintendent will not allow conditions for students that are emotionally unsafe as emotionally and physically unsafe.

Then you've added some definition to it and then that will influence the progress measures that the superintendent brings back.

Is it Leslie do I see your hand up.

Indeed.

And I am I am thank you for that.

I'm trepidatious I'm bringing this up and I hope that Chief Narver is Chief Narver on the line please.

I am.

Thank you.

I want to use a real example and that would be James Johnson.

And I need coaching and guidance from Chief Narver here before I go to jail.

So first what is the community value that needs to be honored.

Student safety.

We'll do just one quick example and then we'll have you all start.

Student safety.

You said student safety.

That's correct.

Chief Narver can you help me out here please.

Well hold on.

Before we before we bring staff in I want to make sure that you're clear.

What do you mean when you say student safety.

I mean hoping that our students aren't being beat the hell up.

Yeah.

That sounds like a great thing to hope for.

Got it.

So the it sounds like so if you were going to describe that in terms of something the superintendent may not allow what is it that you don't want the superintendent to allow.

Chief Narver I need your help here.

I'm on very very precipice grounds.

Well is is there a need to use a specific example.

I mean the the circumstances.

We can use a hypothetical.

I definitely don't want to put any student names or anything with any identifiable stuff out there right now.

But if you were going to describe what is it that you don't want.

Leslie what is it that you don't want the superintendent to allow.

I do not want the superintendent to allow students to be harmed.

In my view in my view our first responsibility is to keep students safe.

N.

Ray Galt.

Way back when.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The challenge is if they're not safe it's kind of hard to educate them.

And so realistically when families send their children to us There is a very explicit expectation that we will return them in the with the degree of safety with which they were handed over if not better.

And so yeah this idea of the community value being expressed as a superintendent and may not allow students to be physically unsafe in our schools.

Then that could be that could be one of your guardrails.

And then in response to that Leslie what would happen is the superintendent would say okay I see what you're saying by that.

And then they identify three SMART metrics that would give you evidence on a recurring basis as to whether or not that value is being honored.

So you wouldn't have to take the superintendent's word for it.

Our recommendation to boards is always when it comes to superintendents don't just trust.

Trust but verify.

And so your way of verifying would be to look at those interim guardrails to figure out are we actually seeing safety for our students.

And that's that's the evidence that you would that you would be able to rely upon.

Is that responsive to your inquiry Leslie.

Not necessarily because that hasn't played out that way.

Oh well yeah.

So what what you what we're talking about right now is building out a means of you all being able to monitor that.

So right now to my knowledge That's not something that you all have agreed upon a set of metrics regarding and that you all are then in a position to receive regular monitoring reports on.

The whole point of this conversation about the goals and guardrails is to build that out so that instead of the board wondering whether or not things for its students are improving and the circumstances for its students are honoring the committee's values instead of the board wondering about that or taking the superintendent's word you have actual data.

That's that's the entire point of this process is to put something in place that I suspect currently is not adequately in place.

Respectfully disagree.

We have asked for years for quarterly reports for student harm documentation and have been.

When you say we.

We the board.

So you all took a vote requesting this.

No policy vote but often in terms of legislative meetings and in terms of.

Is this expectation.

Committee meetings.

Somewhere.

Probably so in work sessions and committee meetings.

So the board did adopt this as an expectation.

I believe so.

Anybody else can can can you point me to where this is written.

I would point you to work sessions.

I would point you to emails.

I would I would point you to.

It's not a board decision.

It's not a decision the board has made.

Well then I will stand down.

Please enunciate President Hampson.

I just said that to if I understand what you're talking about this isn't something that we voted on that's in policy.

Yeah and so my recommendation to you is don't rely on informal conversation to provide adequate guidance you know for the superintendent.

Be explicit.

Put it in writing and obligate the superintendent to come back with specific metrics that you can use to monitor is this being honored.

And so going through an intentional process whereby you all do that that's what the intention of this is so that When you all say this is something that we want evidence on and we want evidence on that on this recurring basis we're going to actually build out a calendar that says okay in this particular data we want to see it at this board meeting and this board meeting and we're going to build out this calendar for the next five years.

We're going to tell you exactly when we want to see data.

That's what this process is about.

And so it sounds like you don't have that yet but it sounds like through this process we could get there.

So thank you for surfacing that.

But that is a significant distinction between things the board has said and talked about and things the board has actually acted on as a body.

And in my experience the former rarely drives significant changes in adult behavior.

The latter actually has some capacity to do so.

Other questions about goals and guardrails before we have you start writing.

All right then with all of this as your warm-up go ahead and take a few moments we'll just give you a little bit of time to write down no more than three potential guardrails.

And so what you want to do here is you want to think of what are the values that as I am out in the community and I'm constantly listening for the value of the community.

And I hear dozens and dozens of different things that the community values.

As I try to distill all of that what are the three most important values the most urgent values that I hear.

So there's going to be a whole bunch of them.

That's that's a given.

But but you've got to try to identify which ones are the most urgent.

Which ones are the ones that just have to be non-negotiable.

in order for us to have a shot at creating the outcomes we want for our students.

So take a moment and come up with no more than three potential guardrails that the board might consider.

Happy writing.

I get nothing.

Come up with no more than three guardrails.

Three statements that describe what are some of the most urgent values of the community that must be honored that are non-negotiable.

What would those three be.

AJ.

Yes.

Hi.

Can I can you help me with the kind of prompt language that will precede the guardrail.

I'm just trying to get my.

Yeah.

What is it that the superintendent may not do or the superintendent may not allow.

So the superintendent may not jump up and down on a pogo stick or the superintendent may not allow others to jump up and down on pogo sticks.

So.

What is it that you want the superintendent to in their actions and in the actions of the organization to really protect against?

Okay, thank you.

Give you just another minute or so.

All right.

Who will be the first to share.

And so what we want to do is we'll go around and give give each of you opportunity to share the if you you've written no more than three.

So of those three now pick which of those three is to you just the most vital the absolute most vital.

And then share that one and we'll give everybody a chance to share one and then we'll see where we are at that point.

Who will be the first to share.

the number one on your list.

I can go.

All right.

Thanks for jumping in there.

So I I have a wording question so I'm going to say it one way and then I'm going to say it another way.

No problem.

That's what we're here for.

Okay.

So the superintendent will not put students' mental physical or emotional safety at risk.

Or the superintendent will not allow decisions or actions that put students' mental physical or emotional safety at risk.

Now this is fun.

What's the difference between the two and why would you pick one over the other.

I feel like the first version puts the risk like the interpretation of it could be that it is on that individual person and and what they do.

Whereas the second way sort of ripples that out to be in building and with Teach Lake I feel like the ripple effect out into practice is more is more center and less and doesn't allow wiggle room.

Yeah.

So this is a really important distinction that you've lifted up is do does the nature of the community value really apply to senior-level leadership or does the nature of the community value really apply to the entire institution.

And sometimes it's going to be the former and sometimes it'll be the latter.

It sounds like in this case it's the latter.

So what I wrote down is the superintendent will not allow actions that put students' mental physical or emotional safety at risk.

Got it.

And thank you for being the first to go.

Always appreciate folks who you know summon the courage to go first.

Who will be the next to share.

Yeah.

Oh I knew it.

I knew he was going to be the next to go.

Take us away.

Okay.

Mine I think it's pretty simple.

Superintendent may not allow exclusionary discipline practices within Seattle Public Schools.

Why is that important to you.

I I think you know within the last two I guess two years now since I've been on the board discipline and how we how the district approaches that and has come up a lot and I really think it's a critical issue particularly as we're thinking about you know this return to in-person.

So I you know there are many other more student-centered equitable just more meaningful discipline practices that would be better.

All right all right.

So now we get to have fun.

We get to play a game called What Might Be the Unintended Consequence.

So if the board adopts one of its guardrails the superintendent may not allow exclusionary discipline practices within Seattle Public Schools.

What might be an unintended consequence of such a guardrail.

Let me ask it differently.

Are there any edge cases you can think of where the most appropriate action would be to have the student separate from the rest of the student body.

Yes.

I thought there might be.

And so the next lesson about guardrails is that these things can be incredibly powerful.

And so you you want to just think through okay what What is all the intentionality that we have and is that properly being captured.

Or have we accidentally included language that pushes us into places that we didn't intend.

So if you want to make some modifications to this how might you modify it.

Could I offer my other one instead.

Go for it.

Go for it.

Okay.

Superintendent may not allow racist curriculum to be used in classrooms.

Hallways yes.

Classrooms no.

Yep.

I guess I got I missed that one too.

Yeah.

So so really the supernumbing racist curriculum I think might cover it.

Or if you want to be more specific you know in our schools or something of that nature.

But yeah I mean you just want to constantly think about okay how is this going to be interpreted.

That's right.

It's like you and your racism into the hallway or to the one to be cherished.

Exactly.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

No this is and so this is why we do this practice is because it really makes you think.

Like if I'm trying to capture the values of the community they often are a specific thing but but but be but being cautious and being mindful about not kind of overstating what what the intention of the value is.

Yeah.

So really really appreciate that.

Thanks for those examples.

Who will be the next to share.

Yeah jump in there.

Go ahead.

I have.

This is one that I I can't remember if I brought up the last time or not.

Superintendent will not allow the use of discipline.

This is sort of sort of goes along maybe with what Director DeWolf was getting at.

The superintendent will not allow the use of disciplinary action as a substitute for culturally responsive behavioral and social emotional supports for students with and without disabilities.

Say that one more time.

The superintendent will not allow the use of disciplinary action as a substitute for culturally responsive behavioral and socially emotional supports for students with and without disabilities.

Why is that important to you.

It's important to me for a bunch of reasons.

One is that we have some big gaps I know in our reporting of various disciplinary actions.

And as Director DeWolf mentioned these tend to be exclusionary.

Students are repeatedly removed from the educational environment for behavior that's age-appropriate could be related to a disability could be related to trauma or something else a student is going going through and it they're repeatedly removed from their education their access to their education the educational environment.

When when students are seen through a punitive lens of non-compliance with behavioral expectations instead of the lens of seeing their individual needs.

And as a result we have a lot of racial disproportionality in who is disciplined and how students receive special education services.

Those two things get conflated.

But ultimately what it means is removal from the educational environment and an engagement with education through obedience instead of through accessing education and being having their their needs met and their individual selves honored.

Thank you.

And so once once more I'll read it back.

Superintendent will not allow the use of disciplinary actions as a substitute for culturally responsive behavioral and socio-emotional supports for students with and without disabilities.

Why that last piece.

But last piece.

Well if we if we don't specifically mention disability it tends to only apply to kids without disabilities.

When people kind of think all students they are not necessarily thinking about every student.

You're worried that they don't actually mean that.

Got it.

All right.

Liza thank you very much.

Who will be the next to share.

Go ahead Lisa.

Go ahead.

Yeah Lisa jump in.

Sorry I think I would delay in my thing.

I had a couple.

I think one of them was actually kind of and maybe you can help me clarify this.

I think I had one about teachers taking like I had some like the school superintendent will not allow will not retain educators who do not complete anti-racist and or culturally responsive training.

But I guess then I think why why is it important because when they do that the idea is it's safer.

So maybe that's covered in Director Dury's safety guardrail.

Yeah I really appreciate.

First I want to make sure I got this.

The superintendent will not retain educators who have not completed anti-racist and what training.

And or culturally responsive training.

Got it.

And I had offered by the district like the ones we offered on they should take.

I got it.

And so the inquiry I hear you lifting up is is that the value that the community most urgently wants us to protect or is is that a means to the larger value of safety.

Is that what you're asking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean that's what that's what I started to think about.

I think that is a great thing to wrestle with.

And that is a very common thing that you'll start to look at gardeners and think you know I feel like we've got three different ones that are all kind of lean in the same direction that if these things were happening it'd give us this.

So do we want this one or do we want these ones.

You know it comes down to which is more important to really be explicit about the means by which these things are done which yours accomplishes or explicit about the result that is being honored which the other one accomplishes.

And this is purely a decision for the board to make.

You all are literally the representatives of the community's values and so you all have to wrestle with that and decide which of those is the more urgent and authentic representation of the community's values.

I think it's a great question on the surface.

Great question.

Okay.

So in thinking of that because I was trying to focus on you said think of the values so I was trying to think about the values our safety equity which those two tie into.

And then so if that one is already covered I guess by Director Rivera then my other one was about my other value was communications because our ability to communicate with families and so I had the superintendent will not allow any barriers to effective and meaningful communications to exist between the district and families.

That was.

kind of back up I guess.

I got the superintendent will not allow any barriers to effective and meaningful communication to exist between the district and families.

Did I hear you correctly.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Chandra I think you're up.

So I have some kind of the values that I'm trying to express narrowed down in my head and the first one that is that I'm trying to express is related to racism and the guardrail I've come up with is the superintendent will not allow incidents and cultures of racism and discrimination in schools to go unacknowledged and unaddressed.

Okay the superintendent will not allow incidents or cultures of racism in schools unacknowledged or unaddressed.

I feel like I haven't asked a piece.

No that's good enough.

You made it shorter it's better.

Why is this important to you.

Because it's harmful and ubiquitous and and and it makes it this is the thing that I hear from students that makes it most difficult from them for them to learn.

And so for you really the value is learning and what you're lifting up is a set of conditions that have to be in place that the community would just consider non-negotiable conditions that have to be in place to facilitate that learning.

Got it.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you.

Who's next.

I'll go next.

Good evening.

Superintendent will not design community meetings without engagement principles that are predictable consistent and coordinated.

Superintendent will not design community meetings without engagement principles that are consistent and coordinated.

I missed one thing.

that are predictable predictable consistent and coordinated.

Why is that important to you.

I think we're all on the same page about wanting to strengthen our community engagement and community deserves to know that they're going to enter into a predictable engagement with district staff people.

And so I think it's more about a consistency of experience with district leadership.

Got it.

Anyone else want to offer one.

Anybody else.

Feel free to jump in.

Can I offer a second one.

Yes just one second.

Is there anybody that.

Oh Leslie hasn't got yet.

Leslie did you get a chance to offer one.

I'm good with my questions about safety that I started with.

Thank you.

All right.

And I did write the and I did write that down while we were talking.

So I've got that captioned as well.

All right.

Chandra you're up.

Still kind of playing with this one to to make it stronger.

But the superintendent shall not allow the persistence of weak internal and external communication systems.

Why is that important to you.

You can have all the great values and vision and the world and even operationalization and implementation plans but if nobody knows about any of it either inside or outside of the organization it's meaningless and nothing actually turns into reality because then you're just herding cats.

Yeah.

Does anyone else have a second.

And I like cats.

Despite the joy the cats bring.

Can't tell you how many days kitten videos have pulled me out of a funk.

So anyone else have a second guardrail to an offer that has not been a topic that hasn't been surfaced yet.

I have a second second one that's I don't think has come up yet.

The superintendent will not allow provision of special education services to determine student access to general education buildings programs and opportunities.

The superintendent will not allow provision of special education services to determine access to general education services or opportunities.

Did I catch that.

Buildings programs and opportunities.

Buildings programs and opportunities.

Got it.

So that's mighty specific.

It is.

So when I hear Gardner-Rosalind is this specific There's normally a story behind it.

So so are these circumstances that have just really been that parents have really been surfacing a lot recently.

A lot not just recently but in my experience as a parent and community member prior to my extensive 15 months as a school board director during a pandemic.

That the special education service model that Seattle Public Schools uses limits access to students to their own neighborhood school and to option schools and highly capable programs and other things.

And because it's based upon it's it's actually codified in contract language instead of board policy and it's it staffs It staffs special education programs first and then fills in students instead of saying who's in our community and what do they need in order to meet the needs of their IEP's what do they need to be served and then providing the staffing.

So families will hear you know oh the access program is full for second graders.

You have to go to that school.

Or we don't serve your student.

Your student needs this level of support.

We don't do that here at this school.

And it's totally arbitrary.

It's it's unique to Seattle.

These different boundaries around students have to do with the percentage the amount of time that a student spends in a general education setting or a special education setting.

It's not it's not responsive to the needs of the student.

And I would add to that excuse me Leslie here.

I would add to this that this is not the last 15 months that Director Rankin is talking about but this is decades.

No no that's what I said it's not limited to my to recently.

It's not limited to recently my 15 months it's.

And many quasi-director what's the word appeals We've heard that it's just way too darned expensive to address this.

So.

Actually that was the that was the exact issue I said I was going to surface.

So let's imagine the board adopts this as one of its guardrails.

What will be the result of the board adopting this as a guardrail.

But the result I mean the positive results would be that students with disabilities are not limited to where they can attend school with their peers and are not defined by can be defined by who they are instead of the service that they are designated to receive.

It would it would I imagine have some impact maybe on enrollment where students go.

I actually think that if we if we can lose these rigid boxes that we put students in we it will actually free up free us up to respond to student need in a way that I think will be less expensive because right now that's very very regimented as opposed to the number of staff and the number of student and you know this and that.

And I think that it will allow us to provide better more supportive service to students and provide them more access to their peers.

And on the general on the typically developing peer side we have schools where students do not encounter other students with disabilities.

And that's not that's not how the world exists.

And so we're I mean I we're actually denying denying student with disabilities the opportunity to learn with their peers but we're also denying general education students without disabilities the opportunity to engage with other humans.

Yeah.

So what I suspect is that you're absolutely accurate that if the board adopts this guardrail and then the superintendent has to go implement it that students with disabilities and students without disabilities will both experience benefit and will be better served.

That part I think you're absolutely correct.

The other part about it being less expensive I think you probably could not be more inaccurate.

And.

And let's be here.

I've never heard in the last five years what the numbers are.

What the fiscal.

Excuse me.

He was trying to speak.

Just one second Leslie I was trying to finish up a conversation with Eliza then I'll call on you next.

Because I know you want to.

This is a issue that's really present for you as well.

So what I suggested is that it is almost certain that if the board adopts this you know as a guardrail that I tend to agree with you.

My my philosophy on this is that students with disabilities and students without disabilities would be better served by what you're describing.

And that would be a blessing you know educationally for both of them.

However I suspect the expense would be significant.

Now that's not problematic.

What you as a board will have to decide is is this a value so worth protecting that we're prepared to pay the cost of honoring this particular value.

And this is and this dovetails with the conversation we were having last week which is the board can have whatever goals it wants so long as it's willing to pay for them.

So if the board says we want to move from this person we want to go our rate of growth to be 3X what it's normally been for the last few years then my coaching to you is well expect that that might be a 3X expense.

that if we've been spending $100 to get this result and we want to see a result three times that magnitude, then we might have to spend $300 on it.

And so in the same way that there is a relationship between your goals and budgeting, in moments like this, there's also going to be a relationship between your guardrails and budgeting.

And so I would not encourage you to shy away from it.

I would not encourage that at all.

If this is the value that's most present for your community, I think you'd be foolish not to lean all the way in.

But be clear that it won't come freely and that in the moment that you adopt it you are also committing yourselves to whatever financial savings the superintendent has to enact in other places in order to honor the value in this place.

So I can't remember I think one of the examples I may have given was in my own school system We wanted on the goal side we wanted to dramatically increase the percentage of our students who entered the system kindergarten ready.

And so to do that we the state wasn't helping.

They weren't giving us any money for that.

And so to do that we had to spend a significant amount of money to create more high-quality pre-K seats.

But that money didn't come out of nowhere.

And so we knew when we adopted that as a goal that meant that we were committing ourselves to whatever we had to do organizationally to realign in order to to free up the resources for that.

In our case we ultimately wound up increasing class sizes at the high school level a little bit in order to fund more classrooms at the pre-K level and we did wind up closing some school sites in order to try to be more efficient with resources to free up dollars to expand pre-K seats.

And so I put that out there to suggest, whatever your values are, my coaching to you is you all need to be about the business of honoring those, but recognizing that there's not a free lunch.

The size of the pie is the size of the pie.

And you all are going to have to be willing to go into the community and say, here are the trade-offs that we're making because these values are worth honoring.

And as long as you're willing to do that, then I would say, that I would say adopt it as a guardrail.

The moment you are hesitant to stand behind it financially then I would caution you to lean back from it as a guardrail.

That's a decision only the board can make.

Does that make sense.

Yeah it does.

The other thing with this guardrail which I knew when I said said it as you were right when you said sounds like there's something very specific behind this.

This is a problem that.

is embedded in some different places.

And so I actually don't think in having had this conversation I don't think it is really an appropriate guardrail at this point in time because it's also a contract issue.

So I don't we can't we can't adopt a guardrail that violates an existing contract right.

No no no no no whoa whoa.

Time out.

Your job is to represent the vision and values of the community.

And so if the vision and values of the community are in conflict with whatever, you know, if you have entered into a contract with A.J.' 's Pencil Company, and the vision and values of the community are in conflict, you know, with something about, you know, A.J.' 's Pencils, then A.J.' 's Pencils, you know, needs to be up for discussion, not the community's values.

So no, I do not believe that you represent your vendors.

I believe that you represent your community's values.

And so yeah if there if the state has some type of thing in place and you all simply can't overcome that so be it.

But that's that's a discussion for your superintendent and your attorneys and other people.

But I would not I would not coach you to step away from the community's values because there are legal complications you know with state statute.

I'd say go to the state legislature and say hey look of our values and your laws are out of sync.

Y'all need to y'all need to switch it up.

Like I would be I would be a candidate for your community values.

That's actually really helpful because I do think we have places where the community's values are not reflected in some of the things that have become policy or procedure and and we need to change them.

Yeah.

So for example you know one place in Texas You know there's circumstance where the assess the state assessment was taking an increasingly long long long amount of time.

And at one point a group of school board members got together and says you know we we believe in assessment because we want to know how our students are doing but we don't believe in assessment taking this much time.

And they went to the state capitol and said your laws are out of sync with our values.

You need to change your laws.

And it is and the legislature did and they actually put a cap on how long the state assessment could be as a result of that.

But but I would not encourage the districts of Texas to just okay well we'll just you know we just won't adhere to our parents values about the length of assessment.

You can't just go along with state law.

No I'd recommend you do the same thing those board members did.

Go and advocate on behalf of your community's values.

Leslie you are up next.

You want to jump in here too.

What I'm missing here is is specific to Director Rankin's question about option schools and other schools and placements.

We've heard for years that it's not possible but we've never had the real bottom line data to prove that.

That it's just way too expensive.

What we need to do is we need to focus it in geographic districts etc.

And and it's been extraordinarily problematic in terms of appeals etc.

So so could one of the guardrails be that the superintendent will give us real data in terms of students needing special education.

And.

Yeah.

So it sounds like this is data you need to help you know the appropriate guardrails to set.

So this it sounds like you have this really specific one-time need.

What I would say to that and this is this is part of my job is as boards are in discernment around the community's vision and values if there are questions that require some type of data from the administration then part of my job as your facilitator is to work with your administration to make sure that you have access to that data.

So if that specific question you asked that sounds like it is knowable.

It sounds like it'll take a little bit of homework but it does sound like it is in fact knowable.

And so what I really hear you asking is before we commit ourselves to a particular guardrail there is specific information we want to know.

So instead of it being kind of a blank check situation that we that we go into it cognizant of what is the the expense in reality.

I think that's an incredibly fair question to ask Leslie and my responsibility as your facilitator in this process is to work with your administration to make sure that if to the extent that that's a question the board has that we get that information as part of this process.

Thank you.

Yeah.

No it's really if you all have caught on to nothing else like the There is a particularity that needs to be observed in this because you could really easily adopt something that has unintended consequences that you just hadn't hadn't thought through.

And so to the extent that we can de-risk this process by making sure that you have access to reasonably available data then part of my role is to make sure that we do that.

I don't want you all out on a limb without having some kind of idea of what the what the shape of the limb is.

Anyone else.