Stephanie does yeoman's work.
Over the last several months she stepped in to provide additional support in the board office as well.
And we've been short staffed.
We have hired a board office administrator Tina Loeffelman but she's already left this evening.
We'll do a proper introduction of her in the next legislative meeting.
But I got to tell you.
Between Ellie Wilson Jones who's not here so she can't get mad at me.
Tina and Stephanie.
They do a heck of a job and we hugely appreciate them.
Thank you again.
OK.
We are on C action items.
We have moved.
The legislative agenda which is number three on the consent calendar to the action item agenda.
This came before executive committee October 10 for approval.
Motion please.
Mr. Burke.
I move that the school board adopt the 2019 dash 20 legislative agenda as attached to the board action report.
Second.
Director Mack you removed it.
I suspect that you would like to speak to same.
Yes thank you.
Actually I think I'm getting a hard copy so I can actually read it.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
So I pulled it because.
There it is.
It's not in color but I pulled it because it had been altered between intro and action.
Our staff actually reformatted it made it look a lot nicer which I'm appreciative of and just wanted to clarify that the language is the same as before.
So that didn't get changed.
But that it looks a lot nicer.
But in public testimony we had two people bring up a very good point that there is a bit of a conflict in the way that this is framed.
on the first point provide services supports and staffing for the whole child to eliminate the opportunity gap.
But it also speaks to the whole child in terms of all of the services and not just the opportunity gap.
So I'd like to make a motion to correct that conflict in the way that it's framed and I think the best way to do that might be to just.
take out the to eliminate the opportunity gap because it isn't it is included in the other language but it doesn't need to be in that top level.
Second the motion second the motion for the amendment.
Comments questions concerns from my colleagues please.
I think this just, and thank you for the folks that brought this up, I don't actually think they're in the audience anymore, but thank you for speaking to this tonight.
You know, I actually think often we lean on process as preventing us from doing anything.
And I get concerned when we pick and choose how and when that process needs to be followed and when we can circumvent or forgo that process.
And I think for me my big concern is on one hand it is true we did not have any community engagement around this.
And as a district that is just from Director Mack earlier mentioning lack of process around things.
This is an example of when we did lack community engagement process.
So I think we have to be really thoughtful about when we choose when community engagement is a part of our work.
and not when it is convenient.
So I think either we need to slow down and actually do some community engagement around this or we can't use that rule for to pick and choose when we lean on process as preventing us from moving forward on something.
So in my opinion we failed in this regard using the logic of earlier that we need to make sure we're doing community engagement and processes so we could do better.
Director Geary please.
I appreciate both of the comments.
I think they're both they're both good.
I am concerned that the idea of stacking more and more process on what we do.
will unless we are going to commit to really reducing the amount of work that we're going to do as a board at all because already it is my experience recently we are having a difficulty.
We're having difficulty getting things finalized.
We are pushing things out because we realize here that We've been called out on community process.
And so we do have a tool a community engagement tool that is that we don't we haven't been following it.
It's included in the bar in terms of that analysis whether you're going to inform consult collaborate.
So perhaps we need to have a discussion about how within when bars are being brought we're going to do that.
But I don't want us to just be calling each other out based upon the whether or not community engagement has been done.
And my other the only other point I want to make on that is one of the things that we did is we started talking about our committee reports.
And we have our board reports and we are the representatives and we engage several times a week I mean several times a month by coming forward and being the representatives of the people.
And now we all talk about what we're doing in committee so that if it gets out into the public sphere that work that's on our table.
And so Eden and I have been talking about the legislative agenda since summertime.
Every time we come up here there's two of us.
So I just I just raise that that it is hard to make sure that you're getting the right piece of information to the right person at the exact right time on the way they want it.
It's really really hard.
So let's be mindful that we're doing the best we can to come up with processes and when we can go back and say we have as a board been talking about this legislative agenda for about three months to say that we haven't allowed people to engage with us.
But no we haven't done the full blown engagement and we need to be clear that that full blown engagement is really expensive.
So we can't do it for every issue that perhaps merits it because we need to put the money towards the substantive work as well.
Director Mack.
Yeah I appreciate that because having community members come out and say that they hadn't been engaged in this this is one of the challenging aspects of the work that we do.
Finding how do we engage and we we have been talking about this publicly.
It's been introed.
We also on top of that.
In our work together in the work that I do on WSSDA I we in in developing this consult with the other legislative agendas including PTA's agenda and that voice is incorporated.
So to say that we haven't actually had process and engagement we may not have reached some folks and they may not have intersected at the time and maybe we could do better.
And I think watching this process and being a part of this and having seen them in past years that this legislative agenda process was more engaging than maybe it has been in the past.
So I think there's room for improvement.
But on the point of the amendment I'm wondering if anyone has any questions about that.
Director DeWolf.
Thanks Director Mack and I think just to follow up I'm actually willing to forgo that it wasn't perfect.
in the support of the good.
I think you could really take that argument and transfer it to a lot of the other conversations we're going to have tonight.
So I recognize that we did have informal opportunities where we were doing community engagement and you can be damn sure excuse me I know that's going to be FCC violation.
You can be dang sure that we.
We've been talking about TAF probably since February.
We visited TAF in February and we've been talking about this so I will I am willing to forgo that it was not a perfect community engagement process and to recognize that we actually have done that community engagement.
It just may not be the perfect community engagement that the community wants but it actually has been pretty good.
And I would say that in a lot of our other processes that's exactly how it is.
Not perfect but it is in the support of the good.
Any other comments questions concerns for the amendment.
Director Burke Seeing none.
Roll call vote on the amendment please.
Director Burke aye Director DeWolf aye Director Geary aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Pinkham aye Director Harris aye.
This amendment has passed unanimously.
OK let's go back then to the amended motion.
Director Burke please.
I move that the school board adopt the legislative the 2019 legislative agenda as amended per Let me back up.
I move that the school board adopt the 2019 20 legislative agenda as attached to the board action report with the amendment approved.
Second.
Roll call please.
Director Pinkham aye Director DeWolf aye Director Geary aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Burke aye Director Harris aye.
This motion has passed unanimously.
OK we're at C action item number one requests by staff 2019 20 compensation bulletin for non-represented staff.
This came before executive committee October 10 for approval.
Motion please.
I move that the 2019 20 compensation bulletin for non-represented staff be approved by the board as attached to the school board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the document.
Second.
Comments questions concerns from my colleagues.
Director DeWolf.
Thanks President Harris.
I just want to.
I think one thing that I've noticed particularly about this BAR and what the BAR is intending to do is.
First of all thank you to the staff and for not only working on this but bringing us forward to bring some more equity to how we're supporting our staff.
But I haven't heard anybody really mention this.
So I would imagine that our community is OK with this.
I'm supporting it tonight.
So I'm just again just to reiterate thank you for all the work that you've done to put this together.
I know that this is a really important for our staff here.
So thanks JoLynn.
I just have a question to be educated because I don't I don't know where this information lies or when it comes to us or where it is publicly available.
And I should.
So I apologize.
Yeah I think maybe Ms. Berge you'll help answer this question.
I feel silly for asking it but where do we have posted the all of the roles and the compensation And the in central office the what do you call this when you've got the org chart.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So where does that information come annually to us or is it posted.
Where is that information found.
So there is an overarching org chart that we've posted.
I'm not sure.
It's on the superintendent's page.
It's on the superintendent's page.
Sorry.
I knew that we had one that we just updated recently.
So there's an org chart posted somewhere is there a regular part in part of our policy or is there an A02 policy that kind of governs this.
I'm just wondering if is there anything like a regular process for reporting to the board and the public.
This is the org chart.
This is how we're structured or is it something that we just do periodically.
I'm wondering if there's a policy that governs it or if it's just.
We're just doing things in practice.
To my knowledge there's not one specifically that requires the org chart.
Oftentimes what you'll see is when we do each of the oversight work sessions we give very detailed org charts at that point starting from the top and working down.
So there are components of detailed org charts that are provided.
Usually we have five ten depends on the year but those oversight work sessions are providing those detailed org charts.
Director Burke.
Just point of clarification since you brought it up policy A02 is around performance management and it does provide kind of a high level overarching structure or framework but it doesn't go into specific organizational charts.
It just indicates that there should be cascading goals and provide some of those policy level things.
But it would be something that if the if the board would like to look at that in the future that would be a place to put something like that potentially.
And new board members like Director Hersey were just provided work charts as well as part of their onboarding.
Other comments questions concerns from my colleagues.
Well then there's me.
CFO Berge you had to know that was coming because we've had some thoughtful robust conversations about this.
As part of the BAR you put.
the lesser paid non-representative staff in as examples and in executive committee and also I believe in an executive session we've had some conversations about our higher higher paid staff.
Some of the folks here are making really good money and there is no question whatsoever in my mind that they are working extraordinarily hard for same salaries.
But the level of disparity between the lowest paid and the highest paid income disparity is a concern not just for me for this building and non-represented staff but in this city as we are seeing that income disparity.
Can you talk about some of the things that we talked about that there'll be a class and comp study done that this was amended to address that.
and about whether or not we are losing staff because of salary and benefit inequality because indeed I haven't gotten the 250 emails on this that I have other items on the agenda tonight.
But I will bet you real money that we do hear later on about that and I want to create a good clear record.
Thank you.
Sure.
So we provided a chart in the back.
I think that really speaks to.
The structure.
And one of the things.
We have bargaining for other units.
That drives compression.
That also impacts what happens at central office because.
Explain what compression means.
That's one of those words that.
channel 26 may not have.
Yeah it means that when we have central office positions and they're over a whole division like let's say the library manager we recruit out of the teacher core or out of the principal core when those salaries surpass what we're paying a central office you're so you're trying to get the best of the best to come and lead the program district-wide what happens is as you raise salaries and other collective bargaining agreements The salaries that we're paying at central office are lower or very little.
So compression is the amount of space or differential there is between each step of salary.
And it's a critical component of how you structure a whole organization.
There's a whole architecture for salaries that happens and grading positions and that sort of thing.
So one of the things that we recognized is that we have given the inflationary increase or lower to our non-rep staff over the past several years and that we needed to make an additional move to catch up and that we think that that's step one.
One of the things that we, you asked us to do is a complete market study.
It'll be about five years since we did the last market study and it just compares us to other districts, other governmental entities.
So, we do those market studies as part of bargaining.
That market study then will cover non-reps in the same way.
And we'll make other adjustments based on that market study.
The other component that we look at is turnover.
So, we measure turnover.
We were retaining about 90 percent of our teachers so 10 percent turnover for an urban district is really good.
In central office that percentage of turnover is 25 percent.
So it's significantly higher than it is for our leaders our principals or our other staff.
So all of those things factored together we felt like we had a very compelling case to bring forward.
Thank you for that.
Any other questions comments concerns seeing none roll call please.
Director Geary aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Pinkham aye Director Burke aye Director DeWolf aye Director Harris aye this motion is passed unanimously.
Number two annual approval of programs for schools using the alternative learning experience.
ALE model and review of policy 2255 alternative learning experience schools or programs.
This came before C&I October 8 for approval.
Motion please.
I move that the board approve the alternative learning experience of the Cascade parent partnership program interagency academy school Nova high school and middle college school in the form of the plans and annual reports for each school attached to the board action report with such minor additions deletions and modifications as the superintendent deems necessary and directs the superintendent to implement such plans and pursuant to the school board review conducted We agree to make no changes to policy number 2 2 5 5 alternative learning experience schools or programs.
Second.
Chief academic officer Diane DeBacker please speak to this if you would.
There were two questions that came up during introduction.
The first question was from Director Pinkham about us using numbers that were fewer than 10 as we looked at the student numbers.
We have checked that we do not believe that that is a violation of FERPA because if you go on to the OSPI website and you look at report cards and you go down drill down into a specific school for example Nova it will actually show two Native American students enrolled just like our report.
So we believe that we have answered that and we're confident that we have not violated any FERPA violations there.
The second question was from Director DeWolf and it was around the health clinic so it wasn't quite related to this but that is in progress.
Data's on that progress.
Braytel.
They have.
They contracted.
Health.
Has contracted with a company to do community engagement.
They have done many different community engagement.
Events and they will be making a recommendation sending out an RFP for a request for proposals to host a clinic within Nova High School and they hope to have that up and running by spring.
Director Mack.
Just so I'm understanding what this motion is in fact these are the approval of the alternative learning plans for each school not necessarily the individual student.
plans correct?
Correct.
The four schools that are identified as ALE programs in Seattle Public Schools.
This is the annual report that we have to send in.
And so this is the response to that.
And alternative learning experiences even though the word says alternative the actual learning experience requires each student to have a personalized plan.
That is the major component to an ALA program.
And that's what and that's done at the school level but this plan is what kind of approves the whole reporting of that.
OK.
Excellent.
I just wanted to clarify that because I find that interesting because the world alternative doesn't recognize that these are in these are individualized plans for students and that's what this learning environment provides.
The other thing is that the motion says that we agree to make no changes to the policy.
I'm wondering if that's just at this time.
It's it's kind of curious to me to have a statement saying that we agree to make no changes to the policy that seems like a very underscored period kind of statement to be putting in a motion.
I believe that was probably taking taken from last year's report.
I have not seen any indication.
You can add to this conversation.
Thank you.
Sherry Cox senior advisor to the superintendent.
It's required Director Mack per policy every year for the board to reapprove the current schools listed.
And I think that's what that statement is trying to capture is that you are reapproving Nova Middle College Cascade parent partnership.
I think that's all of them and interagency as ALEs for the upcoming year because this policy comes back to you every year.
But the statement about no changes to policy number 2 2 5 5 is one of my questions about.
And I just want clarification that we're not making a grand statement that we're never changing that policy.
It's renewed year to year.
OK.
Thank you.
And I can tell you that five or six years ago we got in trouble with an audit from OSPI.
We fixed it.
We moved on.
We also changed student assignment transition plan to talk about rolling enrollment and we got rid of the dreaded footnote number four for middle college and being a believer in alternative education and continuous enrollment and that kind of flexibility for our different learners.
Did you have something director DeWolf.
Oh.
It looks good.
Other comments questions concerns roll call please.
Director Pinkham aye Director Geary aye Director Burke aye Director DeWolf aye Director Mack aye Director Hersey aye Director Harris aye.
This motion is passed unanimously.
Number three.
6 through 12 Spanish instructional materials adoption.
This came before C&I October 8th for approval motion please.
I move that the school board approve the recommendation of the instruction materials committee to adopt Vista higher learning series of products for all Spanish world language classrooms in grades 6 through 12. The middle and high school Spanish adoption committee's unanimous selection.
This action will provide materials for more than 7000 students per year for nine years.
The specific materials to be approved are.
1. Senderos 1, 2, and 3 for Spanish 1, 2, and 3. Imaginus for Spanish 4 and also IB Spanish 4. AP Tomas for AP Spanish 5. I further move that the school board authorize the superintendent to purchase Vista higher learning series as the core instructional material for all Seattle Public Schools middle and high school Spanish 1 through AP 5 world language classrooms for a multi-year purchase in the amount of four hundred thousand dollars in year one school year 2019 20. with the balance of adoption purchases to occur in future years contingent on legislative funding.
Second point of clarification.
Have we approved the instructional materials committee for this adoption?
We use the same IMC that we use for science same members.
We notified the board of that on May 3rd in a Friday memo.
We were following the former policy of 2015 that said that the board had to be informed of IMC not approve IMC.
You will remember that when you pass the revised 2015 a month ago that we have corrected that and now the IMC members will come to you for approval in future adoptions.
Chief Narver can we get you up here to the podium.
Thank you sir.
Greg Narver, Chief Legal Counsel.
So as Chief DeBacker was saying, the prior version of 2015 was in place when these materials were before the Instructional Materials Committee, I believe in June.
It was the same process used for adoption of the science curriculum as well.
That process is currently the subject of an administrative appeal.
So this issue of whether the old policy which had approval I believe by the curriculum committee and notice to the board was sufficiently out of line enough with state law to be grounds for reversal.
That's something that's being litigated now and we're defending of course the district's position on that.
Going forward we've got a policy that is unambiguously in line with state law.
This is an open issue that's being litigated now.
But the this is the same same thing that was done for science was done here in accordance with the old policy.
Thank you so much for the clarification.
Other comments questions concerns from my colleagues.
Director Mack.
I guess my fundamental question is whether or not we have the possibility of if we adopt this and say yes tonight that it may be under the same legal challenge that the science adoption is experiencing now.
I don't want to invite litigation against the district.
It's certainly a possibility.
At this point, what was done was in compliance with the old policy and we are seeking to vindicate that position in a currently pending appeal with respect to science.
I don't the alternative tonight is not to not to approve this at all and kind of reform the IMC under the new policy.
But I think we have a good faith position that the old policy was sufficiently in line with state law that that's not a reason to either reject this tonight or restart the process.
Director Geary please.
Well there's the third there's the alternative possibility of waiting to see the outcome of the administrative action.
Do we have a time frame for that?
I'm not the person handling it.
I don't I can find that out and get back to you.
We have outside counsel handling the.
I believe it was continued for about 25 days or some such.
So we're looking at December.
OK that may be.
I wonder if there's another alternative at this point that the IMC that was used could be brought forward for approval to the board as it existed in terms of a retroactive approval process.
I don't know that.
Could we ratify?
I think I'd need to look into that.
I don't know I can give you off the top of my head opinion on that but it's certainly certainly something to look into.
Director DeWolf please and then Director Geary.
Yes thanks President Harris.
I was just on the instructional materials office page on our website and I guess my understanding of the kind of the nuance here is the IMC approves the membership of the adoption committee and I think the conversation here but that there's a difference between the IMC which is the instructional materials committee and the adoption committee.
So my understanding is the adoption committee has membership approved by the IMC not necessarily the.
Yes I'm trying to say is I don't see the same issue because it seems like the adoption committee was approved by the IMC which we approve.
The issue is the membership whether the membership of the IMC was approved by the board or approved by a board committee with notice given to the board.
The issue is the approval of the IMC not the adoption committee is my understanding.
And that's required by law.
So that's the difference.
Is there so is there a way we could get an answer on the ratification and move this for approval at our next board meeting before the current board changes.
Got to tell you that would be my preference.
It's cleaner it's more elegant and I will feel comfortable not inviting litigation.
OK so I think I heard a motion to move this.
To date certain to the next legislative meeting motions to table to a time certain or not debatable.
I will make that motion to table this to the November 20th legislative meeting.
Second that.
Roll call please.
Director Burke aye Director DeWolf aye Director Geary aye Director Hersey aye Director Mack aye Director Pinkham aye Director Harris aye.
This motion is passed unanimously.
Thank you for the clarification.
Much appreciate.
Number four revisions to board policy number 2 0 2 2 electronic resources and use of the Internet.
This came before C&I October 8 for consideration.
Motion please.
I move that the school board approve the revisions to policy number 2 0 2 2 electronic resources and the use of the Internet as attached to the board action report.
Second.
Who from staff is presenting.
I believe there is an amendment to this.
There is.
Are we going to talk about the main motion before we talk about the amendment.
I think we talked.
I was not here I was in the little box last time and I think there was a good conversation around this that was had and I think we had some public testimony around it.
OK the main motion's been moved.
Do you want to move the amendment.
Oh please do.
Again, Greg Narver, Chief Legal Counsel.
I think you need to actually move the, actually offer the motion at this point, and then at that point the chair can recognize Director Geary to offer an amendment to that.
Yes, the motion has been moved and seconded.
It has?
It has.
All right, good.
We move quick.
Not necessarily correctly, but quickly.
Really fast, all right.
Director Geary please make your amendment madam.
I move that the school board approve amendment one to the board action report titled revisions to board policy 2022 electronic resources and use of the Internet and substitute board policy number 2022 is attached to the amendment.
To the extent the attached substitute policy conflicts with the information presented in the underlying board action report entitled revisions to board policy number 2022 electronic resources and use of the Internet.
The substitute policy shall control.
Immediate adoption is in the best interest of the district.
Director Burke.
Second.
Director Harris.
OK.
How are you going to document that.
Director Harris would you like to speak to your amendment or would Director Burke like to do that.
Who's up on first?
I will speak to my amendment and my amendment and we talked about this before.
The amendment originates out of my concern that we heard different responses.
We don't seem to have any type of unified response to the idea of a prohibition of cell phones K through 8 which was proposed.
In our discussions I did hear a lot of consensus around the good work done in schools that had gone through the process of creating a policy.
I believe it was Hamilton that had brought its community together engaged in discussion And I think that that is a process that when a school goes through it around devices there's a much better chance that you will end up with a device policy that fits the environment culturally because there could be very a lot of differences in how different people use personal electronic devices.
and that those are very unique to different communities and you should allow the communities to engage in that conversation.
In the alternative to just put a blanket prohibition from top down I think we invite school communities not implementing the policy because they believe it presents problems that are worse than violating the policy.
And I think for a lot of communities the conflict that could happen between students and teachers over these devices include you know creating a discipline problem or issue within the classroom has is far more grave and disturbing to those communities.
So I think this allows the communities to have conversations around what's appropriate for them.
The amendment itself.
talks about looking at factors of disruption educational benefit and the special needs I was and emergencies.
I was clear not to define special needs as anything tied to the law around IDEA or 504 because I think we need to recognize that students' families come with special needs that should be recognized in a building.
If a student is responsible for younger siblings, has parents that work a lot, there's a lot of reasons a student would be required to have a phone and be nimble.
So those should be special needs that are allowed.
One person during the break did come to me and say that the amendment itself does not require the idea of a process.
And so it would be my direction that in terms of the superintendent's procedures that discussion around a process that should be held in a school so that you don't end up with a top down.
policy would be good.
My final comment is that I believe the policy continues to have a review mechanism and that would allow schools and the board to once policies were implemented district wide then you could do the idea of lessons learned sharing information across buildings school buildings and then we might be in a position to come up with some consensus about what is best procedure and practice educationally.
So that was the motivation behind my amendment.
Sebastian our student representative from Lincoln High School please weigh in.
I really would like to agree with Director Geary because I think that there are some negative consequences to the top down approach on the regulation of electronics among other things and I think that like this example I attended Garfield High School last year and one of the things that happened is midway through the year the principal decided to impose a blanket ban on cell phones and electronic devices if they were not being used.
Like if they were not school property and there was it caused divisions between the students and the teachers it caused divisions even between the teachers and the administration when the teachers decided that they thought that the regulation that was imposed was unhealthy for the school and did not work for some of the people in their classes.
And I think that.
There is a major case for school by school discussions on use of electronics because like at Lincoln now with our one to one laptop policy it's a completely different ballgame and there are benefits and there are different challenges and I think that this not only applies the high school level but also to the middle school level where you're discussing and I think that At least in the beginning if there is the opportunity for schools to on an individual basis evaluate like how they are doing as a culture and what their situation is with respect to the use of electronics.
There is an opportunity for a very healthy dialogue and it can yield some results that will allow for a much more comprehensive and a much better educated district wide implementation of an electronics policy.
Thank you.
I did raise my hand.
I'm sorry.
I did.
I know I thank you so much for your very eloquent comments and for sticking around.
Normally the student tends to leave after.
So yes.
Thank you for staying with us.
I.
I appreciate how this amendment moves this issue forward gets us towards a district wide policy around a number of things around the use but also provides that engagement on the school level and that it know that it's a it's a building of a policy at the school level that you have the community buy in.
I think that is actually going to be really helpful to moving it forward so.
I and I also feel that the the rest of this in spite of the language that's being changed is really important because we need to be we need to be ensuring that we're educating our students around appropriate online behavior how to interact on social and these are things that we need to be doing because it it's impacting our students and and it you know It goes into safety issues.
So I really feel strongly that it's important to move this forward and I feel like this amendment is very helpful to splitting the challenge around the engagement that needs to be done on a school by school basis.
Director Harris please.
Before I begin I had a question.
I guess it would be a point of clarification.
Are we only speaking to the amendment or can we also speak to the full piece.
Open it all up darling.
Right on.
OK.
So a piece of this conversation that I think is really poignant and timely at this phase is thinking about the use of cell phones especially for communities of color especially for the African-American community.
There was an incident this that was brought up actually during public testimony where a video was shared.
I won't go into the details of what that video was but it really it really challenged me to think about when we are looking at policies like this and understanding that cell phones are not just devices for learning but they're also devices for accountability.
especially when there are instances of force used against black and brown people.
And so for me I'm thinking about this not from a perspective of how is this affecting learning but rather are we taking a useful tool of accountability away from our students.
And I know that you know when videos are being shared context can be lost but it is also on the flip side an opportunity for us to really look at our policy and reevaluate and look at instances in their own sections and thinking about are we actually potentially especially for our black students making them less safe by removing a camera from their pocket.
And that is a piece of the discussion that we have not had yet.
And I think that it deserves space in this conversation.
Other comments questions concerns.
Director Burke please.
I want to I want to acknowledge the process that this BAR came through to get here and thank my colleagues in the community for helping it get to where it is.
I think Director Hersey has brought up another another dimension another layer of why the work that we do of getting these issues out into the public you know we We talked earlier about public engagement and Director DeWolf you said we had failed and this is another case whether we failed or whether we succeeded by getting something out so that we could discuss it.
It's it's hard to it's hard to really say what is perfect.
But the the intent of bringing forward something that provides a mechanism for schools to operationalize or to to do something to scale was what was behind it.
The earlier discussions in curriculum instruction policy committee meeting or the policy committee.
included outreach to ITAC.
And so I was actually a little bit surprised when I saw the feedback that ITAC had not been consulted on this because of the fact that there was previously outreach but the mechanism of that outreach was not well articulated.
So bring it to the fold.
Having the conversation around it building the amendment on top of it I think provides a level of.
individualized community engagement but also the opportunity to to be really thoughtful about what is the place for electronics or you know are they a disruptive element or are they a supporting element.
And I recognize that this is not necessarily going to make the procedure work easy for the superintendent because we're kind of putting these different elements on it around You know we want to we don't want to impact disproportionate discipline.
We want to consider the you know the ramifications to student safety.
The testimony that we heard today around you know informal use of accommodations.
So the should this pass the procedure is going to be really important to address that and provide some some guidance for schools as they develop their individual procedures.
Director DeWolf please.
Thanks President Harris to Director Hersey's comment.
Thank you.
That's a really great finer point to this and so I'm curious to Director Geary given that for example that specific example was not within the classroom.
Do you get a sense that particularly on page three of the revised.
Policy it says make allowances for emergencies or special needs.
Do you think that that both Director Hersey and Gary does that get to.
I don't see anything in the policy that actually prohibit.
I mean the way I've done it that will be a discussion that it won't have a pro if a community doesn't want a prohibition or doesn't I could see a community not wanting to remove a valuable piece of property.
and force classrooms to take responsibility for those pieces of property that I could see a community like that's we paid good money.
My student that's his phone.
He's going to keep it with him.
He's not going to trust somebody else to take it because what happens if he comes the end of the day and it's gone.
Who's accountable then.
Because in the policy it says that Seattle Public Schools won't be held responsible.
So I could see a community coming at it that way.
I was definitely looking at it from the lens not of the recording device for safety but from the setting.
I would like us to minimize setting up disciplinary situations period.
I am concerned that if buildings don't go through these this discussion though what you end up is individual teachers creating their classroom policies that haven't been vetted in a larger context haven't been put through the community eye haven't had the benefit of hearing somebody else's perspective.
And then you have conflicts that are there are being escalated into power struggles within the classroom because there is no clear discussion or guidelines for that building on what to do.
These can be disruptive.
And we have to figure out a way to give our buildings our teachers tools or at least the opportunity for them to come up with some guidelines.
I don't think at this point it can be top down from us but I really would mandate I would like to mandate that conversation in every building because it's it's one that just puts a lot of power struggle into our schools.
Director DeWolf.
Thank you President Harris and I think to that to that point too is the concern that comes up for me and particularly about any of these things where we add an additional layer of whether it's discipline to not further criminalize students because obviously both parents and teachers and school leaders have an implicit bias.
And punishment and discipline tends to be disproportionate on our black and brown students.
And so yeah definitely.
Yeah.
Thanks for bringing that up.
Perhaps superintendent procedure could talk about things like restorative justice minimizing conflict what community engagement should look like to provide instruction to the schools as because we're requiring that they go through a process.
I think it'd be appropriate for superintendent procedure to give outlines as to how to do that in a good way.
Director Mack and then Director Hersey.
Director Hersey I really appreciate how you framed the issue that you still see with this because it is you know when you're in a situation where you need to be able to hold people to account and the best way to do that is to actually do it with a camera.
Many apologies Scott.
Yes.
Can you hear me better now.
Maybe.
OK great.
And I. I hope that the way that this amendment is written can provide for the thoughtful conversations in the schools and in the superintendent procedures going forward that it doesn't.
This is not a prohibition on.
It's not saying that we're prohibiting personal devices across the district.
That's what I said before but this does not do that.
This is actually allowing for that conversation that the kind of mirror image to what you brought up is what happened at Hamilton last year where it was a student who videoed a teacher in his instruction time took it out of context posted it to uber conservative.
alt-right and in it you know and then there was there were death threats and that you know the whole thing blew up in a really just challenging manner.
So it's you know it's a challenging issue but I really respect the fact that we don't want to reduce students access to accountability and you know something that helps them feel safe.
So I you know I support that and I hope that this amendment actually helps address that and that those those conversations can happen.
as these policies get worked out and we continue to to do the work.
Director Hersey.
Yes I suppose.
Thank you for all of that.
And so I suppose my follow up question would be so say we're in a school community and the community decides that we're going to adopt away for the day.
Right.
Students choose not to bring their cell phones to school because whether it's away for the day in a backpack they choose not to bring it because they don't want to deal with it or even have the potential because they're building has decided that this is the policy that we're going to enact.
Then that tool for them is still not present.
Am I missing something?
Nope.
I don't think you're missing something.
I think I think it really really frightens me if we are in situations where students are so unsafe that they need to be filming things at school like this that that is a really — is that the environment that we are in?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes it is.
And it's a shame because.
Not everything gets to us and not everything gets on video.
And so we should be appreciative when those opportunities present themselves to review and to be thoughtful about this process because the alternative is a student getting hurt.
And I don't know if this specific issue and the disruption that it might be causing in the classroom is enough to weigh against the potential for a student getting hurt or anyone getting hurt and us not having a tool or some device that would make our students especially those furthest away from educational justice feel safer in their environment because so many of our black and brown students right now for a myriad of reasons do not feel safe in their learning environment.
And that's a reality that we really need to that we really need to accept.
Director DeWolf.
Thanks President Harris.
And maybe you could answer this too Sebastian.
I'm under the impression that some schools Lincoln and Roosevelt have little almost those shoe I think there were shoes but in classrooms you stick it in and that's where your electronic device goes for the class and then you leave with it.
So just as an example of I'm not sure how it is at Lincoln if that's something you're experiencing but I was under the impression that some the way it works potentially is teachers have a place where you put it for the class but not necessarily that's you know gone out of your hands for your entire school day.
And that's a teacher by teacher thing and then it becomes OK if different teachers have different policies that allows for that power struggle that Director Hersey was talking about in terms of there's a teacher who is implementing a policy that that was because of that.
And what this amendment is trying to advocate for is a school wide conversation and we're not sure how to have that.
I would like to wrap this up or did you have something else to say Director Burke.
I just want to acknowledge that what Director Hersey brought up is is precisely the challenge that that has to be taken on at a school administrative level of what is creating that safe environment for students.
And is there a disruption risk.
Is there a student safety risk.
I think that's what I what I heard loud and clear from the feedback is that's not something that we can call from the dais here and that it is school by school.
I want to acknowledge that we need to be strong in creating culture of culture of accountability so that our students feel safe reporting and don't feel like they need video.
The video is a great thing to have to help build that.
But also for us to have you know we have video systems in many of our schools and maybe that's a way to tie in as well.
I have no idea what that works.
You know if that's a viable thing and that's why school by school conversations can be so powerful.
OK.
My comments last but hopefully not least.