Test test test.
Welcome.
My traditional Cree name is Young Buffalo Leader and thank you for being here today at this February 26 2020 regular board meeting.
We live and go to school in a city that is the ancestral homeland to the Duwamish people the Muckleshoot Nation and the Suquamish Nation.
We acknowledge them as custodians of this land since time immemorial.
As guests and in many of our cases as settlers on this land we extend our deepest gratitude and respect to their ancestors and elders past present and future.
As we begin this meeting to this afternoon I would also like to welcome Ainara Singleton-Haso who is joining us on the diocese meeting from Nova High School one of the schools in my district so Ainara will have a chance to give comments later in the meeting and thank you so much for being here with us today.
So I'm going to ask Ms. Laughlin to do roll call please.
Director Hersey Director DeWolf Director Hampson Director Rankin Director Harris
Thank you.
And now it is my pleasure to welcome students from Ballard High School who will perform tonight.
And so I would like to invite directors to join me in the audience for this performance.
One, two, three, four.
Everybody all around the world, gotta tell you what I just heard.
There's gonna be a party all over the world.
I got a message on the radio But where it came from I don't really know And I heard these voices calling all over the world All over the world Everybody's got the word Everybody everywhere is gonna feel tonight Bye-bye Everybody walking down the street.
Everybody move to the beat.
It's gonna get hot down in the USA.
New York, Detroit, LA.
We're gonna take a trip across the sea.
Everybody come along with me.
We're gonna hit the night down in gay Paris.
All over the world.
Everybody's got the word.
Everybody everywhere is gonna feel.
From Rio, Hong Kong, Tokyo LA, New York, Amsterdam Monte Carlo, Chardonnay All over the world Everybody's got the world Everybody, everywhere is gonna feel tonight
Everybody all around the world Gotta tell you what I just heard Everybody walking down the street I know a place where we all can meet Everybody gonna have a good time Everybody from shore to the daylight All over the world
Oh, mother earth.
Apparently, there is no success nor joy for you nor I.
And now Cleo is to be granted Xanadu.
Would that I were a god, I would smite her.
Sister, sister, you are such a...
What's the expression I'm looking for?
You're a...
Evil woman.
Evil woman.
Evil woman.
Rolled in from another town.
Hit some gold, too hot to settle down.
But a fool and his money soon go separate ways.
You found a fool lying in a daze.
High, high woman, what you gonna do?
You destroyed all the virtues that the Lord gave you.
It's so good that you're feeling pain, but you better get your face on board the very next train.
Hey, hey, evil woman, evil woman.
You're an evil woman.
Evil woman.
I know what let's do.
What let's?
What let's use our muse powers and place a curse upon our sister that she falls in love with this mortal.
Hey, hey, hey.
What a glorious prank.
We shall do the curse, she shall fall in love, and by Zeus' decree, be put to death.
sirens, come join your mother and aunt in mean-spirited melody.
You're an evil woman.
Evil woman, how you done me wrong.
But now you're trying to wail a different song.
Ha ha.
Funny how you broke me up.
Ha ha.
Very nice to know that you ain't got no place left to go.
Hey, hey, hey.
Evil woman.
Evil woman.
Not a nice lady.
Evil woman.
Myopic mortal.
That is the greatest achievement any of you can hope for, to love someone else and to create art.
That is Xanadu.
That is Xanadu.
Goodbye, Father Seuss, and thank you for the greatest gift of all, for Xanadu.
A place where nobody dared to go.
The love that we came to know, they called it Xanadu.
The tears you've cried, they're really mine.
And now, open your eyes and see, what we have made is real.
We are in Xanadu.
It's all for you, your dreams come true.
And lights are dancing, and there you are, a shooting star.
An everlasting love, and you're here with me eternally.
Xanadu.
Xanadu, now we are here in Xanadu Xanadu, your neon lights will shine for you Xanadu The love, the echoes of long ago You needed the world to know We are in Senadoo The dream is mine The dream That came through a million years that lived on through all the tears, it came to Xanadu.
The dream that you do will lay all over you.
A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star.
An everlasting love and you're here with me eternally.
Santa do.
Santa do.
Now we are here in Santa do.
Santa do.
Santa do.
Now we are here in Santa do.
Now that I'm here, now that you're near In Xanadu Now that I'm here, now that you're near In Xanadu
Wow I am blown away.
Thank you so much for sharing your talents with us.
I was curious if you could introduce yourselves just name how long you've been at the district and then if you all could just introduce your first names and what grade you're in.
Does that sound cool.
I'll start over here.
Hi I'm Courtney Riley I'm the director of choirs at Ballard High School and the music director for this show and I have been in the district 13 years.
And I am Sean Riley and I am the director of theater at Ballard High School and 10 years in the district.
Claire 12th grade.
Lydia 10th grade.
Sophie 12th.
Megan 12th.
Lily 12th.
Liam 12th.
Sam 12th.
Gavin 11th.
Donovan 12th.
V 11th.
Lily Gray 12th.
Elsa 9th.
Lily 10th.
Tova 10th.
Samara 11th.
Ella, ninth.
Jillian, 11th.
Vivian, 12th.
Hope, 10th.
Lucy, 10th.
Maggie, 10th.
Scout, 11th.
Hadley, 11th.
Gabby, 10th.
John, 9th.
Erica, 10th.
Milo, 9th.
Kyle, 10th.
James, 11th.
Will, 10th.
And now invite board directors back to the dais.
What a great way to start our board meeting tonight.
I'm now going to turn it over to Superintendent Juneau for your comments.
Thank you everybody.
Going to start.
So before I launch into my comments and I just want to point out that policy 2200 report is provided to you in your documents today.
So that needs to come before the board or be provided to the board every year.
And now just to begin I want to invite Dr. Williams and her wonderful team or half the team to the podium to share their work thus far.
I'm going to for the board information I'm going to start bringing in our chiefs of staff.
different departments so that they can present the organization the work that they do so you can have a better understanding of what's going on within John Stanford.
And so we're starting tonight with Dr. Mia Williams and the Department of African-American Male Achievement.
We're really really proud to have this group with us and to share the good work that's happening.
Thanks.
Good afternoon.
Thank you so much.
It's an honor to be here.
We are here just for a quick moment to share our wonderful work at starting and launching the Office of African American Male Achievement.
I'm not going to say too much I'll say more later but if we can go to the next slide.
And can you play that and make it bigger please.
We're in a center by having black male voices in the space.
and how it affects my community.
I like to take advantage of the opportunities, and this is a great opportunity to be accepted in this program.
I can support my brothers and my school and my community and help them be successful and help myself.
I just want to show people my insight of a kid going from a majority black school to a majority white school into Ballard, and I just want to share my experience and just make the school environment better for everyone else and people to come after me.
I wanna prove that black people can also be respected like white people can too.
Because I wanna help other people and I wanna help other people that's like me.
And so on February 3rd, you guys can clap it up for those wonderful kings.
February 3rd, we had the honor of launching our first African-American Male Student Leadership Council.
We had about 65 young kings apply with lots of different things that they wanted to work on within our system to make it better.
That was just a few of them.
But if you have not looked on the website, you can read about what they had to say.
And we're excited to bring them forward to help us hold our system accountable to the work that we say that we're gonna do with our strategic plan and how to make it better so that a system is actually made to serve them the best way they can.
So I think the next slide shares our org chart, which is not so big yet.
But it's getting there, because it was just me.
And now I'm fortunate to have joined the team, Adam Hazlip, who's here with us tonight.
And Kevin Loyal who couldn't be with us tonight as he's celebrating his queen as she's taking the LSAT today so that we can give it up for supporting his wife.
But they'll be around and they're ready.
It's so wonderful because in August until like February it was Mia and so we're on our way we'll soon be adding some program coordinators for mentoring and also some family um, specialist to our team as well, so it will grow, but right now that's our, um, org chart.
So this is also on the website, but just wanted to talk about we're doing systems level work.
And it's not just technical fixes.
This is going to take a lot.
I always talk about weight comes on, but it doesn't go away overnight.
And so to change a system that has for decades not served our babies well, it's going to take a while to undo that and to make our system better.
So our practices that we're bringing to the table as we really elevate student voices and understand the experiences of African American males in our system, we will be focused on what is the culture like within our system, within buildings?
How are we affirming?
How are we creating identity work?
We're going to look at the conditions, meaning we're going to look at policies.
Different things that are creating barriers for learning.
We will also look at the competencies of the adults.
What do adults need to know to serve our babies best?
And then lastly, we are going to look at all the community connections.
We have wonderful partners, families, people that are doing amazing things.
But how do we align that work so we're serving each and one of our babies?
So our four C's as a system level.
Oh, and I want to go back to the competencies.
It's also about the culturally responsive workforce.
How do we get more black male teachers in classrooms?
And we have many different pathways, like the Academy of Rising Educators is allowing more black males or other people of color to become teachers.
And it's paid for, so we're excited about that.
And this is just, it wasn't all of the council, but it's just a picture of that.
And like I said, this work is not about me, it's all of our work, but it's about these babies and the ones that are in the audience.
As we're opening doors for our black males, we're opening doors for everybody else to make the best system for them.
So I just wanted to make sure we had that picture there.
Our first...
decision that happened with the Student Leadership Council was the logo in this last page here.
So that was the logo that was decided on.
And here is our first sweatshirt.
Eventually, we'll get them in bulk.
We haven't started ordering yet, but we will be selling them so we can raise money for the council.
but we were on Juno's journal, so we got four of them for now.
So we're pretty excited about that.
And I'm just going to let Adam say a couple words.
How do you follow Dr. Williams?
Good evening, everyone.
Extremely excited.
Superintendent Juneau, you asked me in my interview how would I deal with getting no's.
We have developed over 100 focus group questions, and Dr. Williams has told me no 100 times.
And so I want you to know when she says we're doing systems-level work, like we're being very intentional about the questions that we're going to ask our young kings because their feedback is most pertinent.
Thank you for allowing me the floor.
Everybody have a great evening.
And so once we do the focus groups and we're going to have five regional community meetings in each of the regions.
Once we get our findings in June we will have a big community meeting to share out our findings around how we can better support our students in that way that we would be intentional about our strategies.
We're not just doing solutionitis right and adults making decisions about what's best for our students.
So we're excited about that and hopeful.
So thank you all for supporting us.
I just want to thank Dr. Williams and her team.
They're doing great work.
We're really excited for what's coming up and just really pleased to have them a part of our larger team and as Dr. Williams said this is all of our work and so just looking forward to the continued partnership.
I also just want to start out by thanking the.
families and students who turned out for directors DeWolf and Hersey's community meeting.
A lot of heartfelt testimony given and I just want to thank everybody for speaking their truth during that meeting.
And please know that we are taking that issue very seriously.
We're working hard to set expectations and non negotiables for staff conduct as well as making system improvements.
So I just want to make that clear.
There's also been a lot of news about coronavirus and just want to provide an update that we continue to monitor and be in close communication with the public health of King County.
Our understanding is that the CDC will be issuing guidance to schools school districts very soon and so we'll continue to be in communication with families.
We're sending out a family letter today.
The Web site's been updated.
Some more information soon.
Transcripts.
There's been some emails that come in about the We had a technical issue with our vendor and so that prevented grades from going in on a timely manner.
But transcripts and so transcripts were delayed primarily for the seniors in our system.
But we have prioritized our seniors needs for college and applications and we anticipate that all transcripts will be completed by March 2nd.
Seattle promise.
There is an update there.
We had really great news.
We had one thousand seven hundred sixty applications for Seattle promise for next year.
As you know that is a city program that we partner with the Seattle colleges that allows free tuition for all to all Seattle colleges for our Seattle Public Schools seniors.
And so we had one thousand seven hundred sixty applications that's over half of our graduates.
And so that's a huge celebration compared to 400 who are currently enrolled in Seattle Promise.
And so that is big news for us and really great news for our seniors and our families as they continue their education.
As you know I always like to also ground us in our priorities as we start our meetings.
Just remember that these are 1920 focus goals and know that our teams are reviewing student outcomes and updating their work plans accordingly.
Also I want to remind us that the fourth priority inclusive and authentic engagement is woven throughout this work and I just want to again thank our Seattle Public School leaders and community members for working in partnership to support our students staff and families in this targeted work.
Since our last meeting I have visited several schools.
I attended Black Lives Matters at school whole school assemblies at Garfield and Northgate Elementary.
Students at both schools participated in the set in assemblies and were very they were very engaged audience members.
at Garfield's the students planned and led the assembly.
Director DeWolf was there as well and so I think it was pretty phenomenal showing our students are very very impressive leaders today and we just have to remember that we need to listen to them and keep coming back to their leadership.
I've also visited several of our highly capable cohort schools to learn more about how they provide students the services they need in and out of the cohort.
So thank you to principals Campbell and Goahagen for sharing your thoughts about how we can both integrate and improve our highly capable services across the system.
I appreciate your leadership in this work.
This picture is from Rising Star Elementary my second to last visit to the 13 focus schools.
Principal Lam and her team at Rising Star are busily working on third grade reading and safe welcoming environments.
This group of tutors is like part of the staff.
They have built relationships with each of their students as they read together throughout the week.
Each student has a one-to-one reading tutor that works closely with the teachers at Rising Star to ensure students are receiving high quality actionable feedback to improve their reading.
And while I was there I just recognized that students love coming to this space and sitting down with their tutors and and reading.
I was also at Garfield High School Northgate Robert Eagle staff and Decatur.
These young ELL readers are working throughout the classroom to build their reading skills.
The small group instruction is focused on vocabulary lessons.
Students are working on their oral fluency.
The other scholars are building their independent reading stamina.
They were all highly engaged and barely noticed the group of adults entering their space.
I've been visiting principal leadership networks or PLNs.
These leaders are using student data to determine their next coaching moves for their work with teachers.
They are laser focused on student outcomes particularly students furthest from educational justice.
The group in the bottom picture are our dual language school leaders.
And so thank you Director Ruby and Director Ebert for your leadership on this PLN work.
And then this is the adult leader the adult M.C.
at the North Great Northgate Black Lives Matter at school assembly.
He and the students did an amazing job giving a brief informative history of some of Martin Luther King Jr.' 's work and just want to thank Principal Fauntleroy for the invite.
That concludes my comments.
Thank you President DeWolf.
Thank you Superintendent Juneau.
Now I would like to invite board directors to share any work they are doing within their committees or liaison work that they would like to report at this time.
And just to hopefully kind of help think about the frame for for this portion.
One of the things I'm curious about is just any emerging issues that are coming up in your committees or the work ahead of you or any lingering questions that were particularly meaningful or important that came up during those discussions.
So would anybody like to go first.
Director Hampson.
I am the chair of the Audit and Finance Committee.
I thought might as well share that committee work first since it tends to be perceived as the driest but I still maintain that it is the most important.
No offense to my fellow committee members.
So we had our our first Audit and Finance Committee meeting of the year on what day was it February 10th.
And most of what we discussed is presented here this evening in the form of board action reports a.k.a. bars that are here as intro.
A few of those did not pass through committee.
The McDonald and Stanford International PTA grants did not which were over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars which is why they were presented at committee those didn't make it through committee.
And then another item was pulled a Bureau of Justice grant which will require some further consideration before it comes back but it was approved through committee.
Then we did speak probably most importantly about our work plan for the year meaning what policies are we going to be taking a look at.
this coming year at revising whether it's because of state law or because of practices or because they're not in alignment with our strategic plan or don't represent the kind of value based budgeting that I believe is consistent with the strategic plan.
So we we worked through quite a few of those items and I'm happy to discuss any of those items with anyone who likes to get into that level of detail about how we do the work of budgeting at central office as well as how that money flows down into the buildings.
And I've spent a lot of time with the purple book and the gold book which are both available online on our Web site.
And if I am actually very grateful to staff in both in the chief financial officers office and to our board office staff for providing me hard copies of our policies and of those working documents because it really facilitates conversations with constituents.
So I'm now toting these if I come to meetings with you all you'll expect to expect to see binders in my hands and I'll be forcing you to look at the policies that we're talking about because I want to do this work with you all.
So I think that that's kind of the bulk of it is what we're planning for getting through some of the bars and the work that we had that was backlogged and then planning for things coming up.
We are going to be doing some work on policy 6 1 1 4. There are some small clarifications around language with respect to what is a grant versus what's a pass through versus what's a fiscal sponsorship.
But there are some other pieces of that that we'll be looking at this year related to funding that comes from parent organizations.
So that's probably going to be one of the most — the policy pieces of work of greatest interest.
Unless I missed anything that is really critical.
DIRECTOR RANKIN.
Quick question.
Do we have a place on our work calendar yet for policy and procedure for the weighted staffing standards.
We have that as something that is part of the work plan.
Yeah.
Thank you.
DIRECTOR DEWOLF.
Okay.
Thank you Director Hampson.
Director Rankin or Director Burke Director Rankin.
Thank you.
So I am the chair of the curriculum and instruction policy committee and we had our first meeting which yeah we had snow eliminated our what would have been a first one.
So we had a lot of just some kind of regular Business items some are going to come before the board today as bars.
Probably the kind of hot hotter items that we're talking about right now are 24 credits and what that's going to look like talking about aligning our policies and practice to the new state requirements.
And I had the opportunity to meet with Carrie Campbell today and talk with her about getting information out to families district wide just explaining making sure that people have the information they need for for your high schoolers to make sure that they're enrolled in the correct classes and get get the credits they need to graduate with these new requirements.
So look for that.
We had also an ethnic studies update which is a standing item happens every month and we are talking about our work plan for the for the committee.
So directors Rivera-Smith and Hersey and I made our own lists of priorities things we want to look at and compiled them and I met with staff today to look over where they overlap.
A lot of the things that we want to look at.
There's questions about if if it's actually the policy work or the implementation.
So we're going to start some of those discussions of just having conversations and getting some information from staff particularly about recess and restraint and isolation and hopefully getting more more information about what we're doing to make sure that policies that we have in place are being practiced equitably and across the district and then see if there is any needed correction action by the board for any of that.
So that's exciting to dig into and start to do the work that we're that we're here to do examining policy and practice and move forward.
And yeah.
DIRECTOR DEWOLF.
Thank you Director Rankin.
Sounds like Director Hampson has — I just wanted to for the sake of clarity.
Policy 6 0 1 0 is where that WSS work would flow from in terms of the school funding model.
DIRECTOR DEWOLF Okay.
Director Hersey.
I'm filling in for Director Mack for the Ops Committee so please forgive me but I am not going to give as robust a report as Director Mack would I can never fill her shoes.
But I will give you a brief overview over some of the things we've been talking about over the past few weeks.
Recently we've reviewed the transportation service standards and we're also working through a number of schematic designs for many new buildings.
This has added an additional slate of meetings to our workload.
So if you're interested in coming to see I believe we just had our last one on Northgate Elementary.
They're quite interesting.
It's amazing to see all of the thought that goes into these projects.
So if you are interested in attending one of those meetings especially if your school is one of the ones that's getting rebuilt please reach out to us.
I'm sure the meeting dates are going to be posted but if you want a speedy reply you could reach out to Director Mack myself or Director Rankin for those dates.
We highly encourage you to attend if you're interested.
We're also really focusing on as we move forward with our conversations around you know the schematic designs potential boundary changes we're trying to really be more proactive about beginning those conversations.
So I know that Director Mack Rankin and I have had several conversations around doing joint community meetings as an operations committee to share with folks outside of the John Stanford Center out in community what's going on.
And so if you want to come to one of those meetings we're going to have them posted and scheduled very soon and we would love to have you.
I think this is going to be a cool opportunity to rethink the way that we do community meetings in terms of making sure that folks are aware of what is actually going on in committee so that we could be more.
I don't know what the appropriate word is more reticent of community voice in that in this process.
I'm going to go ahead and also give the legislative liaison updates following a couple of bills very closely.
H bill 813 and Senate bill 6282. One deals with health insurance benefits for our bus drivers.
The other deals with highly capable transition plans.
There are also several bills that are moving through the legislature that I personally am very excited about.
But one thing that we need to keep in mind is that many of these do not come with funding.
We as a school district are operating at a deficit in so many ways already and while many of the bills that are coming through session right now are really inspiring and they are the right thing to do there's a difference between being the right thing to do and also being able to afford that.
So we are very much so looking forward to continuing to work with our legislative delegation from the various areas of the city to rethink the way that we are presenting legislation so that we can do the right thing and also not break the bank at the same time.
Please stay tuned.
And that is it for ops and legislative business.
DIRECTOR DEWOLF Are there any other reports.
Go ahead.
DIRECTOR RANKIN I forgot to mention with regard to curriculum and instruction.
I had some interest from students from the NAACP Youth Council on committee work and particularly curriculum instruction.
So I'm hoping to see students join us at a committee meeting at some point.
I let them know sort of basic basic structure and background of what the policy is that drive leads our committee.
And so I'm really excited about that potential to get some more student centered voice into our work.
DIRECTOR DEWOLF.
We're going to be way more organized next time I promise.
I just forgot to mention that we changed the time of the audit and finance committee meetings to 730 a.m.
So there is now one meeting that is a one more meeting that meeting that is a morning meeting rather than an evening meeting.
My hope with that is that it'll support staff some staff anyway in terms of their schedules but also that possibly more committee members might be able to attend and please do.
Director Hersey.
Just a quick point.
I'm really excited about working closely with the NAACP Youth Council on especially issues that are coming through CNI and I'm wondering if we could reduce another barrier by going to one of their standard meetings.
Just making sure that the three of us put that on our radar just so that we can make sure that we get as many of their voices as possible.
I would definitely endorse and I think it would be really great to be creative and you know where those meetings are at and with enough notice too.
I mean if it's at a location that is more in community or suits them that that's great.
OK.
Director Rivera-Smith.
I am working.
Hello.
I can hear you.
So I am not a chair of a committee but I have pleasure of serving as the head start liaison for our board.
So that means I get to go to monthly meetings with Director Heather Brown who leads the early learning department.
And I had that meeting actually this morning.
So it's it's fresh in my head and it's it's really some just some great work they're doing there.
And I know that as a K-12 institution You know that's where our efforts and our a lot of our dollars are going well all of our dollars are going but early learning is I think you can't argue how vital that is to getting students prepared for kindergarten and beyond.
So the work they're doing there is great.
They have some.
kind of a trifecta of programs going on this preschool program.
So Seattle preschool program Seattle preschool program plus which is an inclusive one including children with developmental disabilities head start which is the federal program and then developmental preschool.
So they are working to bring to make those all more inclusive right now.
Those are kind of all three separate organizations but all under the umbrella.
They call it what braided funding to get funding from the federal government from the state from the city all putting that together to make these programs happen.
But they would like to make them you know to grow them make them more inclusive.
Well before I forget Director Harris will be happy to hear that the boring class is back.
The SPP plus you were worried about that being cut you'd heard it was cut and it wasn't cut it was just delayed because of getting students tested to get it staffed.
But it's it's there now.
So it's back.
So I want to let you know that.
Yes.
But there's a lot of work going on there.
They are in the process of planning for next year with increased inclusion opportunities.
They're designing and developing a head start plus net for next year and that will be a head start with more inclusive again spots for children with IEPs.
They're planning with community partners to ensure a strong kindergarten transition.
Head Start is beginning the process for their yearly assessments.
There are so many assessments and overviews, oversights that go on for the federal grant that they get for that.
It's partnering with capital and facilities to support the preschool through third grade pathways for new construction sites and building improvements and they're working on strong collaboration with curriculum instruction for the P3 reading goal.
So definitely lots of things happening there.
I will be my duty and honor to fill you in as we go through.
There's going to be big binders in our office back there for everybody to get all read up on.
I know.
It's good stuff.
No it is.
It's really exciting and I'm so happy to be working with Heather with working along with them to learn and help.
DIRECTOR DEWOLF.
Thank you Director Rivera-Smith.
Really really appreciate that.
So Director Harris.
DIRECTOR HARRIS.
I have oversight.
Viewlands we saw a lot of what they call the massing of how we will take this BEX V project on a very awkward lot but an extraordinarily exciting potential lot because it's up by Carkeek Park and it is truly one of the coolest things to watch all these great engineering and architect minds and our extraordinarily capable staff COO Podesta Richard Best and watch this intellectual energy bouncing across the room and leveraging up great ideas for children green building and places where you want your children to be educated.
It it matters greatly sunlight heat whether or not it's a green building how we get there from here.
There was rich and thoughtful discussion and I didn't know that architects and engineers could have such great senses of humor.
I was thrilled to see that.
Thank you Director Harris.
All right.
So again I would like to welcome Ainara Singleton-Hasso.
Ainara is a sophomore at Nova High School and is on track to graduate a year early and will be working toward a nursing degree after graduation as I understand.
And what we hear is you're very passionate about all things science music art design and supporting your communities.
So I'll let you take it away.
Thanks for being here.
OK, thank you.
OK, so thank you guys for your time.
And I'm going to read the speech.
Okay as a military child from African and Mexican Native American heritage I've been afforded a unique perspective.
I have attended schools all over the country and it was not until I transferred to NOVA did I become more knowledgeable about myself as a person and my race.
Studies done by Stanford and San Francisco State showed data that colleges and high schools that provide ethnic studies have increased graduation rates.
of students of color compared to schools teaching primarily Eurocentric perspectives.
Mexican and African-American students have a dropout rate significantly higher than white students.
Ethnic studies has been proven to close this gap and with 42 percent of the King County population being minorities the Seattle School District has a responsibility to provide these students with ethnic studies options.
Who else should the future of our communities learn from than the school district that provides their education?
I should not have to wait until my sophomore year of high school to learn that my African ancestors were rulers of well-organized empires and kingdoms, not a group of people who needed European involvement to survive, or that algebra and chemistry have large roots and developments in the Middle East.
At NOVA, I've been able to take classes that are more inclusive with a wide range of cultures represented.
Ethnic studies has helped me look at the world from a new perspective.
I'm more inquisitive and critical of what I've learned in the past.
Before I was being taught only a Eurocentric curriculum, I was not being educated in histories of POC or even other viewpoints of U.S. history.
My algebra, chemistry, and history classes at NOVA have changed my viewpoint of common events, inventions, and basic knowledge, knowledge that are perceived to be cohesive comprehensive because that's all I was being taught.
A Stanford study that shows ethnic studies have increased the grade point average and credit earned by students because they were more engaged in exercising critical thinking skills.
You have the opportunity to continue to provide Seattle students insight and pride in the history of their ancestors to grow their interest in education and to look forward.
to a future of higher learning and education.
I want my peers to be as eager to learning as I am at NOVA.
I ask you to nourish the minds of our youth with ethnic studies and continue to make Seattle a progressive and inclusive city.
Thank you.
Well thank you Ainara.
If you're not a nurse I hope you are a leader or something else in our community.
Thank you so much for sharing your words.
I wanted to open it up to if directors had questions for Ainara and just to remind you too you are more than welcome and please stay up here as long as you'd like tonight.
You're our student representative tonight so you can stay through the whole thing if you'd like through 8 or 8 30 or 9 p.m.
However is. comfortable and what makes sense for your schedule but please know you have a seat at the table tonight with us.
So with that I'll open it up to directors.
Director Hampson.
Hi thank you so much for being here for lending your voice and lifting others voices.
I would love to hear a little bit about your experience at Nova your top two things that you love about Nova things that maybe are not so great but are improving or getting or maybe on the decline and then some things that you think really need work or lifting up or highlighting.
It's a.
a school that I worry about because it's small and doesn't have access to the full spectrum of opportunities that bigger high schools have.
And I'm curious about how we highlight that and provide and elevate the good work that's happening there and support the school better.
That's a great question.
I feel like with NOVA, the experience is a lot more personal.
You guys were talking about how it was like one-on-one tutoring.
Because of the smaller class sizes, we have more opportunity to ask more questions and can have a more comfortable environment where you're not like around 30 people asking a question that you're like is this a dumb question because then it's very uncomfortable and that's not the best situation and just teachers with feedback are insane.
They're really great about it.
Our math teacher we were like we had a big discussion about how we want to do more problems on the board because we're confused about what's happening.
So he would he went through the next day when we had class again he went through and he's like so we're to do a problem.
from this problem set.
So you guys like have a start and just have that area of just being able to be comfortable and just having access to more personal education and just taking feedback and instilling it immediately or instilling it towards you so that you can be in a better learning environment.
Things we can improve.
We talked about this earlier in class.
Recruitment we were working hard but it's like making adjustments for our schedules.
What's the best way to make sure prospective parents and students have time and comfortability to learn more about NOVA and the environment because there are great things about NOVA that you have to spend more time there to understand.
So we're we're looking at making allowing shadows and students for intraday staying for longer.
So they have more of an experience in NOVA.
Because I feel like you can go to NOVA for like a class period, and then you come back and you're like, that was great, but I don't know what's happening.
Because we do a lot of long-term inquiry projects.
So you could come in right in the middle when we're doing presentations, and it's a confusing but really interesting process.
Something we can work on.
That's the real question.
Something we can work on.
I think that just working towards being the best that we can that they can for our students.
They're really really proactive and if you were gone for like two days someone will come up to you and be like is everything OK.
How are you doing to check in and see how you're doing.
And because of that smaller environment it's more personal.
You know everyone.
Everyone knows you.
So when you're gone people notice people pay attention people ask how you're doing.
When we did open house which was a really great experience we did open house and a bunch of students came in.
Our teacher was like I'm going to buy everyone I'll buy you guys food because you're staying after school and doing all these things.
And his first question was do you guys have any food allergies.
Like what.
I don't want to buy food that no one can eat said I want to make sure that everyone's OK.
And then on the way back home.
He gave us his phone number during class and he was like he texts almost everyone from that group.
Have you made it home safely.
In just that personal environment of that someone cares so much that they take time out of their own day in the middle of the night to be like you've made it home safely right.
It's just a weird but amazing experience that we get only at NOVA.
And I would say going to a graduation is probably the most powerful and emotional experience I've had.
So just even going to a graduation you would see all the great great things about NOVA as well.
Are there any other questions from directors.
Yes Director Harris.
DIRECTOR HARRIS Not a question but a suggestion for you your colleagues and your community.
Can you all put together a speakers bureau or a mentorship when someone's got questions about NOVA.
Here let me walk you through it.
Here let me embrace you and show you some of this extraordinarily enveloping and I dare say no pun intended love that emanates from that school.
And also maybe some one on one with the folks that answer the phones.
here when folks are calling up I've always made snarky jokes about I want to hire a secret shopper for folks that call up downtown and say well I have a kid that needs to go to what school.
And bring the folks that answer the phone.
Yeah I think we should get the more information in the morning.
I work in the office from 8 to 8 45 before school starts.
I work in the office and I get parents who call asking questions being like hey.
There's two dimensional on paper.
Yeah.
There's walking through the doors of that community and it's very different.
An idea.
Yeah.
Director Rankin.
This is more of an observation.
This is a comment not a question but an observation based on what you were saying of I'm just thinking about how we can support your school in in growing but not that it becomes like any other school.
And that's that tricky balance I think of how how do we grow and sustain without losing the thing that makes your school so special.
So that's something that I'm thinking about and I'm also really struck by I guess wondering how how we in our bigger more in our bigger comprehensive high schools I feel that every student should have that same sense of belonging and that people care about them and all of all of the things that you're talking about.
So I guess that's just sort of an out loud wondering of how do we protect the specialness and smallness of your school and still supported and growing.
And then how can we for our bigger comprehensive high schools bring that level of care and trust and connection no matter how big the high school is.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
I think for me personally it's the students and the faculty because Nova is such a small school.
It's your choice to come to Nova and most of the time you aren't forced by your parents you're going to Nova because you chose to go to Nova.
So there is that.
rate of just being like I chose to go here because this is the school I want to go to.
We have people who live far away who make commutes to go to Nova.
That's how much they care about it.
But it's also just the staff members care so much about the students and put so much time into adjusting classwork to make it to make it better for students who don't learn the same way.
So.
My favorite example is Melissa.
Melissa was like let's have a panel discussion in front of the class and let's do that.
But if you're uncomfortable and aren't ready for that I want you to just write an article about what you did research on and just put it on our school website so you're still getting feedback and still speaking your voice out into the world and having people talk to you about it or if people are intrigued you can tell them more about it.
So it's just like teachers try really hard to make you the best the best student they can in the way that you learn.
And I would I would add a plug for a really great video that I recently saw I think from Brita it's it's called an intro to Nova.
So I know if you're interested you can probably Google intro to Nova and you will easily find that it's a Vimeo video and it's really well done.
And I would encourage folks to to check that out.
I'm not sure if it's on our website but I can I have the link here I can I can send it around to board directors.
Yeah.
We're really thankful for Britta.
Britta is a partner of one of our teachers and she took the time out of her day to like come in and be like I want to interview the kids I want people to know as much as they can about NOVA without having to like go really far.
And just the school participation and student participation in that like right now I'm working with my friend in a language arts class to basically comprehensive things that are confusing for people like competencies at NOVA and just we're very social justice driven and making a sheet of all of these things on the website.
If you're confused we have these things that explain these things in extreme detail because sometimes when you're on the phone with someone and you're just like trying to get a quick answer out of them because you need to go because you're in the car you're doing other things.
that there's another place to go with longer, more extensive answers, which we're working on right now.
And then to go with that is going to be a glossary of a bunch of statements and words that are commonly asked at NOVA in having short definitions and then having hyperlinks to the longer, more comprehensive definitions.
That's great.
Well thank you Ainara.
I want to make sure that we can.
We have obviously public comment in 15 minutes so I want to backtrack a little bit.
I had a great reminder from Director Harris that I need to do our executive committee update and there's not much.
I'll just kind of give you the spirit of what we talked about.
So today you'll actually be seeing our introduction item number one I believe is the adoption of the 2020 board goals and objectives.
So we had a great long conversation about that.
And one of the other conversations we had was about both our the structure of these of these legislative meetings and just to open up the conversation is there anything that we had feedback around or other ways to improve these meetings.
And so I think those conversations will be ongoing and some of them will be embedded within the 2020 board goals but I think overall the The idea and the hope was to gather information and ideas from board directors on how do we improve these meetings how do we improve work sessions how do we decide what's a work session and so really trying to tighten up kind of the administrative technical side of our board work.
So you'll be seeing those board goals today.
We also talked about the.
conferences that are coming up and one that we will all all seven and I do apologize.
I meant to mention this that director Mack couldn't be here tonight.
She's she's feeling sick so she's not here but all of us have agreed and are attending the Kozbach conference in April and I cannot remember.
It is the council.
Schools educating boys of color.
Thank you.
So we are all attending that conference in April as a board and that follows one of our board goals which again you'll see a moment later on in the evening when we talk about our board goals for introduction items.
So before we get to the public comment we have now reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.
So may I have a motion for the consent agenda.
I move approval of the consent agenda.
I second the motion.
Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.
Do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda.
Yes I do.
I'd like to remove the minutes of the January 22nd legislative meeting to add an amendment that I sent out this afternoon and directors have Paper copies here and on page 7 1 2 3rd full paragraph down there is an underline.
I move approval of the consent agenda as amended.
Second.
All right.
All those in favor.
Excuse me.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed.
Okay.
So the item is moved from the consent agenda.
We do have time before public comment.
Can we do you want can we just jump right into the consent agenda.
It works for me.
Okay.
So the consent agenda item is the January 22nd regular board meeting minutes.
Page 7.
Page 7. So.
First the third full paragraph Director Rivera Smith answered questions from Director Hersey about community engagement.
This refers to the amendment that did not pass on the TAF.
Before we before we get there I want to make sure we have a motion to approve the minutes and then a second and then share your.
Amendment.
Updates.
Yes.
OK.
So we just need to.
I move the approval of the minutes from January 15th 2020. Second.
I move an amendment.
Yep.
To the minutes of January 22nd page 7.
Thank you.
Third full paragraph.
Do folks on the dais see that section.
Cool.
Just trying to walk it through as quickly as possible.
Yes I appreciate that Director Harris.
Give folks the heads up.
Director Rivera-Smith.
answered questions from Director Hersey about community engagement.
This was referring to the amendment that was brought to the TAF initiative.
Director Harris commented that as a virtually part time volunteer board of directors other than our individual efforts board members have no capacity or assistance to engage in community engagement and is something we need to fix.
DIRECTOR DEWOLF.
Okay.
Do directors have comments or questions about this revision to the January.
There was a second.
We need a second.
Director Rivera-Smith.
So are there any questions or comments on the January 22nd board meeting minutes revision that Director Harris just described.
The only thing I would elevate here Director Harris is if you have to me personally looking through a lot of our minutes particularly for our legislative board meeting minutes they don't always go into this level of detail.
So I think particularly one of the conversations we've kind of teed up to have in the executive committee and I think it's policy for 1 4 4 0 which is about our minutes.
I know that this is something that we could easily think about how do we identify the process by which we add more specificity to our our minutes.
So we don't actually have that process in place now but I don't see any concern with changing this.
And that process under parliamentary procedure as I understand it is doing exactly what I'm trying to do here.
to elevate an extraordinarily important point that we are doing extraordinarily important work without the benefit of bandwidth of staff and it needs to be elevated.
And agree and I'm not disagreeing.
I'm just saying we need to have a process identified for which which specific quotes go in which specificity we add.
So it's not about anything towards the content of your your things.
I'm just.
I respectfully disagree.
Parliamentary procedure allows for this and.
Not disagreeing.
There you go.
I think it's 1 4 4 0. So now if there's any more directors comments or questions.
All right.
So I'm going to ask for Ms. Shek for the roll call.
Director Hampson aye Director Harris aye Director Hersey aye Director Rankin aye Director Rivera-Smith aye Director DeWolf aye.
This motion is passed unanimously.
Thank you.
Thank you.
OK so it is nine minutes to public comment.
Do folks want a break before we get into public comment.
OK we will take recess for nine minutes.