School Board Meeting April 19th, 2017 Pt.2

Okay I will, okay I would now turn it over to Superintendent Nyland for his comments.

Nyland Wow thank you Ballard.

If I, let's see how would that work if I could play that well, I would play that well?

No I never played that well on my violin so wow that was really wonderful.

This evening I want to share some of the highlights of our strategic plan superintendent smart goals some of the hot topics some good news from around the district some information on where staff has been and some of the engagement opportunities that are coming up under our strategic plan.

And we have three goals excellence and equity systems and community engagement under excellence and equity.

We have, usually we talk about, we try not to talk about vaporware, we talk about things that are already done but I wanted to mention one, one of the goals that the board approved, goal number two was this idea of a learning management system or a 24-hour online system.

One of the challenges for Seattle is that it's really really really really really difficult to get people to come from where they are 99 locations around the city to this building.

So trying to figure out how to do asynchronous learning I think.

where you do it in your pajamas at 11 o'clock at night if that's the best time that it works for you.

So our team was very creative and they did something called a sprint which is how do you come up with a minimum viable product in a very very very very short period of time.

So in a few weeks they took some of our existing content and put it together in a 45 minute online course and they did it on an existing platform our Schoology platform.

So we're in the process now of vetting that to find out is this something that people would actually use.

So it turned out really really well it was kind of a budget driven decision and we didn't feel like we had the ability to spend as much money or time as we initially planned and so we did something very very quickly and now we'll be able to find out whether it really works or not before putting a lot of additional time and effort into it.

This month's African-American male advisory committee they've been working hard on some recommendations and I sat in on one of their last meetings and a lot of energy and excitement and enthusiasm there.

They're going to be taking some of those ideas out on the road to see how well they resonate in the community.

We have, I'm going to do a brain blank here, I'm not remembering what we call it, I guess it's right on the wall, school of distinction.

So we have school of distinction awards on the wall over here which is done by one of our agency, this is an outside agency that recognizes schools throughout the state of Washington.

Another group that recognizes schools recently announced the annual 2016 Washington achievement awards and they look at a number of categories, overall excellence, high progress, English language arts growth, math growth, extended graduation rate, ELL acquisition and closing the achievement gap.

And there will be a ceremony for them that's coming up here in just a few weeks.

23 out of our 99 schools were recognized.

Congratulations to McDonald, Sanislo, Genesee Hill, North Beach, Mercer, Wedgwood, Olympic Hills, Blaine K8, Danny, View Ridge, Loyal Heights, Bryant, Maple, Montlake, McGovern, Lawton, Alki, West Woodland, Thurgood Marshall, Whittier Co, John Sanford and Hay.

Many of them repeat winners.

So certainly proud of the work that we see in classrooms every day across the district and special recognition to those schools.

One of the other categories that we've recognized internally are who are our schools that are our positive outliers for closing opportunity gaps.

And one of those schools is West Seattle elementary school.

Always a delight to visit there and find out about their Husky pride.

And the incredible job they do of having after school programs for students and really connecting around the student interests and making those high relationship connections.

So with that I'd like to introduce Helen Young to come and talk a little bit about West Seattle and then invite West Seattle to share a few of their secret secrets with us.

Good evening directors and Dr. Blanford.

It is my pleasure to introduce to you principal McCowan Conyers and her fabulous team tonight.

Pam principal McCowan, Pam has been principal for this year she's new and she has been an elementary assistant principal at West Seattle for the past three years.

She is a super positive person and she models that consistently for her staff and her students.

And I would also like to recognize Vicki Sacco, Vicki she's here.

Vicki was the previous principal at West Seattle and because of her strong instructional leadership, vision casting and positive culture building West Seattle is well on its way to closing the gap.

So here is West Seattle.

So while my team is coming up here, I just want to thank you for having us here today.

It is such an honor to be here.

I also wanted to tell you that we brought you some gifts, very small gifts, but some gifts, nevertheless.

We brought you a CD of our 2016 production of The Lion King.

And we also put into your packet so you wouldn't have to take notes on our presentation a pamphlet that kind of encompasses everything we're going to talk about tonight.

So again thank you for allowing us to speak to you today.

I want to introduce my team right quick.

This is Laura Burmas our school counselor.

This is Amanda Poe.

She is a kindergarten teacher and she's also an administrative trainee.

This is Kyle Tunstall, he's our ELL teacher, he's also one of our CLT members.

Rich Garcia, he's our PCP teacher, he teaches chess and he also runs our chess tournaments all around the city giving our kids, creating all kinds of opportunities for our kids.

And also he's our master teacher with CLT.

Also this is Jeremy Smith, you guys heard of the be there rally how we kicked off the school year?

We blame him for that.

So that's our West Seattle team that we brought with us tonight.

And of course my name is Pam McCowan-Conyers I'm the principal, the proud principal of West Seattle elementary.

We have a quote up here, know from whence you came.

If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.

We know where we came from at West Seattle Elementary.

We know we were the West I'm sorry the worst performing school in Seattle Public Schools in 2010 when Vicki Sacco our then principal who is back there filming us and myself came on board as part of the school improvement grant.

And we know where we are now.

We're very proud.

We're one of the most progressive schools in West Seattle Elementary.

We have more students than we ever had.

Right now we have about 400 and we average about 440 students.

And back then we were like 353. So we know where we came from.

And these are some of the elements that took us to get there.

Who has a clicker?

OK.

OK, so Vicki and her.

wonderful vision led us when we were just starting out and I was just so grateful to be part of the administrative team then.

I came on actually six years ago as a school business officer and with the SIG grant and I had the pleasure of working with Vicki Sacco as she led the staff through the nine characteristics of high performing schools.

The McGrail study who talked to what talked about how high performing high poverty schools, what are the nine common characteristics of those schools?

The nine common characteristics were a clear and shared focus, high standards and expectations, effective school leadership, high levels of collaboration and communication, curriculum, instruction, assessment aligned with standards, frequent monitoring of teaching and learning, focused professional development, supportive learning environment, and high levels of community and parent involvement.

It's interesting because at the end of each year she would go back and lead us as a staff and we would survey how we were doing in each one of those domains.

I am proud to say that I think we are doing well in all of those domains but there are certain domains that we do more effectively than others and it's always a work in progress.

So now we are going to have Richie talk about the West Seattle difference.

So we were speaking as a team of like what were some of the changes that might be different because many schools they set high expectations.

They have those nine characteristics but they can't achieve or they struggle to achieve it to closing the achievement gap.

And I'll give you this perspective of a teacher, we talked about why do teachers stay out of school and why do we strive so hard?

And one of the biggest things that came up was the leadership.

I've taught in New York, this is my fifth year of teaching here in West Seattle and Vicki and Pam Their leadership set the culture.

A teacher can control the culture of a classroom but a teacher does not set the culture of the hallway, of lunchtime, before school, after school.

That is set through the leadership and they really set, they really started to change the culture of the school.

They set that culture where kids respond, so I'm just going to quickly go through the list and then we can have questions just to save time.

Part of setting that culture was kids responding to all adults.

Teachers taking ownership of all students, not only the students in your classroom.

Clear expectations for teachers and parents.

reaching out to staff for help or it's okay to say you struggle.

So that really distinguishes, it wasn't like admin, teacher, us versus them, it was we really came together as a team.

defining the culture so that when either a teacher or a parent chooses our school we have a defined culture to go I want to be a part of that culture.

Or maybe that's not my culture and I choose to go someplace else.

But really having a defined culture.

Then one of the things we talked about was our discipline data.

Vicki and Pam looked at the discipline data and looked at where are the biggest issues and then they responded to that data and some of the changes that we made at our school that are different maybe from other schools is that teachers take kids out to recess.

That was a huge change for us.

Having a staggered lunch.

Instruction tailored to our population, understanding your population so our population works a lot with structures, routines, Vicki always stressed bell to bell instruction and so those are some of the things that our students responded to.

A huge thing with Vicki Mann was diversity amongst not only amongst IA's classified staff but diversity amongst certificated staff in hiring.

Diversity amongst principals so the students see themselves in the leaders at the school.

Another thing another example was which we found huge was the difference between setting high expectations and actually executing high expectations because School you can tell anyone oh set high expectations, everyone tries to set high expectations but it's that execution of the high expectations where sometimes it becomes more difficult.

Having many teacher interns and we try to a lot of times grow our own teachers we use the STR program which has been great.

And then another facet has been teacher-driven extracurricular after-school activities which helps build relationships and student buy-in but what was huge with that with Vicki and Pam is that Like for example Vicky had a knitting club so it wasn't something that they came down and said teachers must do this and we're sitting back.

They were willing to also dedicate their own time, be part of that team and invited teachers to do that and it didn't grow from day one it started small and over the years it's grown and grown and become bigger and bigger.

Yes.

So we use the graphic of a bridge just because we are talking about closing a gap.

And our overarching themes were having this growth mindset and practices and I'll just put it all up there.

Sure and so you want me to do the first half?

Yeah.

So recognizing the growth, there's always room for growth.

I mean there's been no, this is the model we always use at West Seattle, it's always been a work in progress, development right?

Like oh this worked let's keep doing it.

That didn't work so well let's try something different.

clear expectations for students and for staff right?

There is an issue, let's talk about it, let's be upfront about it, let's all discuss it and get it out there.

Data-driven, every year we are looking at data and we keep looking at data to see like okay are we meeting the need in this area?

Are we not?

If we are not how should we change it?

If it was working we should continue doing things in that way.

Flexibility, this is huge and I thought this was perfect for me to speak to as an ELL teacher so You've got to be flexible, right?

People, you're going to meet different people, different personalities with adults and with students.

You've got to be willing to adapt.

You've got to be willing to change.

None of us has the one answer.

we're all kind of figuring it out together and I think as has been said one of the reasons we've had the success and we've maintained the success that we've had is Vicki and Pam were a really solid team.

It wasn't like well there's the assistant principal there's the principal.

It was a pretty seamless transition because of their shared leadership all the way through.

The people that are standing here represent people that all came on, did you come on the year of the Sig or the year after?

So most of us have been there the whole time and seen the school go through this process and we've chosen to stay.

As Rich said, there's a reason for that.

People that have stayed have bought into our school's vision, people that have chosen to leave haven't.

And that's okay.

But there is a shared vision that we all believe in.

Yeah and I think I'm going to address the relationship focus but I want to say that too when we say we are flexible in education we regularly get asked I want you to focus on one program, what did you do?

Because we want to take that program and replicate that program, what's the program?

And even with the grants that we've gotten hey look at our grant, look at our program this is what makes a difference but what we find makes a difference is relationships and flexibility and trust in one another.

and the willingness to grow to have that mindset like we are going to do whatever it takes.

And when you see our are the head of our PowerPoint you see the head of our brochure you see whatever it takes because that's our motto.

And that's what and that's how we come at it.

Everybody on the team goes out at full force.

And if you can't go out at full force we support each other because we're all just human beings.

And as far as whatever it takes to know the students and their families we recognize that our students are human beings.

And we approach them like that and we, in the brochure, I'm the brochure maker so I happen to be very oriented towards brochure and the writing.

But we have this whole child and community focus.

And I put that in there because after talking with our staff, this wasn't just our thinking, this was the thinking of all of our staff.

Because when we approach something as a team we go to everyone and say what do you guys think?

and we listen and we reflect and that reflects in how we talk about what we do as well.

We are whole child focused and we consider ourselves a community school.

We don't just focus on the kids we focus on the community, on their families and on our relationship with them.

Typically in schools in poverty people are in poverty because Because something went wrong, something isn't right right?

And sometimes that poverty isn't just about finances it's about not having community support or family support.

They may have already had a bad experience with school and so when I first met families in that initial interaction it was Oh I don't.

Yeah we don't come in for meetings.

Our kids don't do special education and no you're the counselor we're not talking to you.

But you take time and you build relationships and there's some examples in the brochure about our staffing.

We have a full time counselor a full time nurse a full time family service worker.

We are in the game too.

We're all educators and we're support people.

We have a philosophy and I think the philosophy is something that matters.

We recognize that one of the main problems with management of behaviors is relationships.

We recognize that and trauma and history sometimes get in the way of those relationships and we will do whatever it takes to get past that.

Our first year we implemented PBIS which sets those expectations and understanding for not just the kids but for all of us staff.

So we are all on the same page and in the last three years we've done something through it's called clear which is a trauma-informed practice which looks different than ruler and I applaud the district for promoting ruler I think it's great anything social-emotional learning I'm all for but I'm also for trauma-informed practice and I'm also for cultural awareness and understanding and we have a deficit of that in our district in West Seattle we don't.

West Seattle we pick up the pieces we are trauma-informed which means we provide a consistent predictable, high expectations, caring and a place where kids can trust us and parents can trust us and we trust them and when a parent says no thank you I don't want to be involved or gets angry we say join us.

Join our feet team, join our booster club, you've got talents we want you.

And it's a different way of looking at things and I think it's a philosophy not necessarily a bullet.

And the last part we wanted to talk about was moving forward because we are fully aware that we're never done until that gap is closed and stays closed.

So one thing that we're moving forward on is more professional development around cultural competencies.

We have a highly diverse school we want to improve in that area as soon as possible.

We have a we are looking at doing the creative schools approach to continue our autonomy flexibility and trust that we have in our building.

That's made a huge difference for all of us in our classrooms of speaking as a kindergarten teacher the autonomy that I'm given in the building to meet my kids needs.

I don't have to be on this page of this curriculum on this day.

I get to look at my students and see who they are as individuals and teach them to that level that they need at that moment on that day.

And again to keep an eye on the whole child with data and use that to inform our next steps.

And so my name is Jay Smith and actually I am the director of the community learning center housed at West Seattle Elementary through the West Seattle YMCA.

And one of the things that was really great for me at the beginning of the school year was of course we kicked it off with our be there rally.

So we literally ran, we literally rolled out the red carpet so that our students would have the opportunity to realize that they are the stars of their education.

And by doing that we were able to bring in community partners so that they would be invested in our students and that our students would be able to understand that the community loves them and that we value them.

And one of the really good or cool things for me was seeing these parents because this is my first year there and them feeling comfortable and saying I feel like you're going to take care of our kids and that's important.

One of the things that I'm thankful for with being a community partner is the shared and blended leadership.

Our principal has been more than willing to meet us and make sure that we are doing whatever it takes for every child.

Our community learning center has now been renamed as leaders in training.

because we want our kids to understand that they are leaders and that we can help them make that expectation and get them there.

A testament of our program for this year is actually we just won a nationwide competition with AMC and Fox.

I entered the competition for the hidden figures and because a lot of our kids were looking and deciding and saying we want to go to the movies but many of them don't have that opportunity.

So I reached out and made some contacts and the hidden figures competition with AMC and 21st Century Fox had over 10,000 submissions and out of 10 schools that they selected West Seattle Elementary was one of them so I'm thankful for that.

So we just want to thank you.

That was just a small glimpse into West Seattle Elementary.

I just want to close by saying you know at the last principals meeting Dr. Freiberg talked to us about you know families and what makes what what are the things that make kids want to do well and be successful in school.

And she hit the nail right on the head.

They want to do well for their families.

Everything we do from the be there rally on through throughout the school year.

is aimed at making kids proud of who they are and wanting to do well for their families.

Thank you so much for your attention today.

We appreciate it.

I would invite thank you for your presentation and invite the West Seattle team to come up and greet the boards and we've got a plaque for you.

Thank you.

th th

Wow you can see the great enthusiasm and a little tiny sample of the good work that they do.

Director Harris had the opportunity to visit the school with me on our last visit.

Actually she got more of a visit than I did because I locked my keys in the car and had to go stand outside waiting for AAA.

So thank you West Seattle.

So our second goal is improving systems and that's been a challenge for us with a $74 million shortfall caused by the legislative delay.

Thanks to their action the postponing the levy cliff our shortfall is now only $50 million.

And we are grateful for the 24 million that we got back.

Thank you to the board for the many many meetings that they've had.

Through restoration 1.0 and 2.0 we have restored that 24 million in levy cliff funds, 88% of those funds have gone back into either staffing or school-based activities.

$500,000 went back into lesson reductions at the central office that are still taking about a 4.7% reduction, bigger than the schools are.

I think I'll skip through most of the remainder of those remarks on the budget.

We are in a little bit of a hiatus while the legislature works largely behind closed doors and so we're readying a next campaign on talking about really the importance of our kids and the importance of an investment in education.

Trying to get beyond how little can we spend to satisfy It's not really satisfying McCleary but all of the budgets still leave us with a large gap for this year and for next year and come woefully short of meeting the McCleary responsibilities.

So we really appreciate everybody's coordinated efforts with regard to the levy cliff and we'll see if we can do that again in the next.

probably a month from now as they get closer to the real end.

They're supposed to end on the 23rd of April and nobody really expects that they will be able to do that.

School and family and community engagement is our third goal.

Ethnic studies has been of great interest in the community and with staff.

And so we do have an ethnic studies task force coming together and we are doing an inventory of some of the things that we're already doing.

Some of those are really exciting but not necessarily at scale throughout the entire district.

And so we look forward to working through that process as well.

The annual family surveys are out and so we value the input from our community and from our families and hope that we get a good response for that.

Some of our hot topics items.

Our open enrollment, our boundaries, our still short staffing all seem to come back around and somewhat the stories are all different but they are all related.

I've been to three PTA meetings recently, Stevens, Hamilton, You'll come back to me here in a minute but all of them make Franklin make different arguments around the same thing.

So even though we've restored 200 positions we have not restored 50 positions and there's some title I and SIG grants and other sources of funding that may have been lost.

So each one of those schools that I visited has a variation on if we could just steal a few students from a neighboring school we wouldn't be a teacher short.

And I certainly understand that and I applaud it and we would all do the same thing because we really want our school to be made whole if you will and at the same time we are facing a $50 million.

budget gap and it is challenging and it does have an impact throughout the system.

With that said I want to invite Michael Tolley to come up and talk briefly about center school.

I think quite a few of our public comment individuals are here to talk about center school and like many of the issues that come before the board there's kind of an early story and then there's things develop and the story changes a little bit.

I don't mean that in a bad way I just mean that it evolves as more information comes in.

Good evening Michael Tolley associate superintendent for teaching and learning.

So regarding schools in general we have an initial staffing and budget allocation that we roll out to schools based on projected student enrollment.

Now projected student enrollment is of course based on trend data and so when we think about center school in particular the trend data has shown a tendency for reduced enrollment over time.

And of course that resulted in a significantly lower projection of students for the 17-18 school year.

That has also then resulted in a reduction in the amount of staff that is allocated to the school.

In the center school specific case we have a 2.5 teacher staff reduction for next year.

That's a combination of a 1.5 teacher reduction due to the WSS system, the weight of staffing standards.

But also one FTE or one teacher position that was based on one time dollars.

So that combination is two and a half teacher positions.

That's unfortunate and we know that for a small high school like center school that has a significant impact on what the school can actually do in terms of allocating staff to teach the various courses there and we understand that and we feel that.

The good news though is that the current administration and staff at the school did a tremendous job of outreach into our eighth graders and they actually have an enrollment of the ninth grade class that is double what was originally projected.

As a result of course we are going through a process now to verify that those students will truly plan to attend center school in the fall and if that's also true we have a spring staffing adjustment that takes place typically late May June that we can anticipate that they will receive additional staffing through that process.

But that's where we are currently with with center school and all of our schools is that we do the initial projection we allocate staff then after open enrollment we take a look at where students are and then we have to make an adjustment in the spring.

Thank you.

Just a few highlights on good news and then maybe end with a video on the Hall of Fame.

Coming up next week is administrative assistance professional day and we've got several items planned for that and certainly want to thank and commend all the people that have such an important role in keeping schools operating and keeping the district moving in the right direction.

We've had a lot of comments with regard to when will we have a calendar for this coming year?

And the answer is at least two parts.

One is we have a very detailed prototypical calendar that has been agreed to in our collective bargaining agreement with SEA.

We will be publishing that information on our website.

It tells us how to figure out the first day of school, it tells us when our breaks are, and then we will be turning that into an actual calendar and bringing it forward for board approval.

The piece that we probably don't have in fine fine fine tooth detail just yet is our early release days and some of the other finer details with regard to the calendar.

But we know that we have a lot of parents that are eager to get that information.

Danny which is one of our positive outliers got really good press coverage for spring break school so I suppose that's one of their secrets to success is having kids that really really really want to be there even during spring break.

The Naramore art show is underway which displays a lot of our student artwork at Seattle art museum.

And then I think I'll close with the Hall of Fame.

So interestingly enough for whatever 130, 140 years of Seattle history we have never had an athletic Hall of Fame.

So thanks to Eric McCurdy and some of our community organizers we now have beginnings of a Hall of Fame.

I had the opportunity to be there and it was wow as an old history teacher I was just in my element.

They went back and identified key athletes from each of our last decades and then put that together in a very powerful way.

So I'll invite Flip Herndon associate superintendent for facilities and operations to come up and make a comment or two.

Flip was also there as was some of our board members so exciting times.

Good evening Flip Herndon associate superintendent for facilities and operations.

Yes this is a culmination of a few years of planning and work and really an opportunity to help recognize the long and proud history of student participation and athletics that we have in Seattle Public Schools.

Many of our students go on to do even more work after school in the arena of athletics and so this was just the first inaugural class and in it you'll see there's a representation for each of the high schools that have existed at some point in Seattle Public Schools.

Broadway, Lincoln, Queen Anne.

everybody was represented and then each year we will continue to add additional student athletes from the past and it was well represented, well attended and I thought a very good event.

So with that I will leave you with the video.

Rows of medals represent an inspirational Seattle School District class.

A class all into itself.

A class that spans a century of generations, but linked by an irrepressible spirit to achieve.

This is the inaugural class of the Seattle School District's Athletic Hall of Fame.

It's 138 years of history with exceptional student-athletes academically and athletically in Seattle.

Anytime you're inducted into a Hall of Fame or something like that, I think it humbles you.

Greg Lewis was a standout athlete at Engram High in the 1980s.

He went on to the University of Washington and then to the NFL.

Yet he credits his time at Engram as laying the foundation for his understanding of teamwork and diversity.

I was very intentional about getting to know people outside of my neighborhood, learning different people, different cultures, that sort of thing.

So I think just having all of us have to come together on the sports field, because we were all so different, gave us an opportunity to be real successful.

His was one of 22 stories heard throughout this induction ceremony at the Washington Athletic Club.

22 honorees, many of whom became household names, like the late Ron Santo, Baseball Hall of Famer with the Chicago Cubs.

He graduated from Franklin High in 1958. His son, Jeff Santo, held back tears.

Being an athlete took him a long way, a great journey he's had.

And I'm proud to be a son.

Thank you.

It's really nice to be recognized and for my kids to be able to see that, yes, I was the bomb back then.

Rhonda Smith dominated girls basketball at Franklin High before graduating in 91. She too became a Husky and played professional ball for nearly a decade.

But that was after the landmark 1972 Title IX Federal Education Amendment that equalized athletic opportunity for female athletes.

Champion swimmer Lynn Colella broke through pre-Title IX barriers at Nathan Hale in the late 1960s.

She earned a silver medal in the Olympics the very year Title IX was implemented.

Maybe what I did helped because somebody noticed that a girl could be an athlete and that maybe we deserve to have some scholarships and be able to compete against other schools like the boys.

Title IX opened the door for female athletes to reach extraordinary heights.

Garfield High's Joyce Walker rocketed into the record books.

Basketball All-American, Olympic gold medalist, state scoring champ, but most important to her, state championship winning coach and mentor to hundreds of student athletes.

Athletics are a part of just growing.

They teach you how to win, how to lose with some grace.

They teach you how to value the people that are teaching you.

They teach you how to understand that life is never going to be the way you want it to, but how will you show up the next day when you don't get what you want?

This inaugural class is indeed very special, not just because of this most recent crop of Seattle student-athletes, but for someone who walked these very halls at the Washington Athletic Club a century ago, someone whose legacy of athletic achievement and leadership dates all the way back to 1908. William Jennings Coyle graduated in 1908 from what was then Broadway High School in Seattle.

He dominated in football, track, basketball, and baseball.

He was a war hero in the First World War and became Washington's lieutenant governor in the early to mid-1920s.

With our shine shoes and our jackets, you know, dressed formally, looking sharp, we were with him when we'd come down to the WAC for lunch.

William Lohman represented his grandfather at the ceremony and recalls how popular his grandpop remained.

Just having people come up to him on the city of Seattle streets and talk to him about playing football, playing basketball, running track.

22 inductees in all, each with a huge story to accompany an even larger impact on athletics and life, like Rainier Beach grad Nate Robinson, whom many thought was too small to make it in the NBA.

For me, I had a great foundation in my family.

You know, every day they always told me that I could, and I would, over and over.

And it was just, you know, pretty cool to have that, you know, when you go home.

And Dr. Charles Mitchell, Garfield class of 1959 and NFL veteran, he'll tell you it's not just athletics.

My family

encouraged us academically to get grades, all my brothers and sisters and all of them.

So I feel that I had the best in all worlds.

Jenny Crawford, Rainier Beach grad, international track star, and now school teacher, had one of the evening's most important messages.

I feel like every athlete, especially professional athletes, has a responsibility to be a mentor, to inspire the generation that's coming up.

Because one day, a young Seattle student-athlete will wear one of these.

All right so a brief taste of what they put together.

Our 1908 athlete up there they also said was as far as we know until somebody else makes the claim the only University of Washington or national quarterback to go undefeated for three years.

I'm not sure who they played in whatever that would be 1910 1911 1912. And many of the athletes talked about how the other athletes inspired them to do great things because they broke barriers and they showed it could be done.

So it was truly an awesome event and thanks to the Washington Athletic Club to help sponsor that and make that possible as well.

With that I have one closing announcement.

John Sirquay I would like to invite John to the podium and he's going to read a notice of the public employees relation commission with regard to one of the recent decisions that they made.

Good evening Dr. Nyland and school directors John Cerqui deputy general counsel.

I've been asked to read a notice to the school board.

It's this notice here.

The notice was issued by the public employment relation commission after a hearing examiner found that the district staff had committed two interference violations.

PERC requires that the notice be read into the record at a public meeting and that's why I'm here tonight.

I'll provide a short background and then I'll read the notice into the record.

The Seattle Education Association represents our teachers, paraprofessionals and office professionals.

They allege that the district staff committed 18 different unfair labor practice violations.

The three main areas are interference, did we dispersuade or try to not allow our representative employees to get union representation?

Did we discriminate against employees?

Did we retaliate against them for engaging union representation?

And then did we dominate the union?

Kind of an unusual charge but we put a central office put a restriction on a UNISERV rep on how they could visit the school and they found that that was an unfair practice so did we dominate the union by putting restrictions on a person's ability to attend?

school.

After a two-day hearing PERC issued the following findings, two of the five interference allegations were substantiated.

PERC found that two emails sent by the building principal violated state law because the emails could reasonably be perceived by represented employees to mean that an employee should refrain from conversations with the union.

And that type of communication is not allowed.

All 12 of the discrimination allegations were not substantiated and the one domination charge was not substantiated.

I will now read the notice into the record.

Case 1 2 7 7 3 8 dash U dash 15 Decision 12672-EDUC public employment relations commission notice to employees.

State law gives you the right to form join or assist an employer organization union bargain collectively with your employer through a union chosen by a majority of employees.

Refrain from any or all of these activities except you may be required to make payments to a union or charity under a lawful union security provision.

The Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission conducted a legal proceeding and ruled that Seattle school district committed an unfair labor practice and ordered us to post this notice to employees.

We unlawfully sent an email to union building representatives at Chief Sealth International High School on June 24, 2015 and an email to an employee slash union building representative at Chief Sealth International High School on September 5, 2015 that could reasonably be perceived as discouraging union activity or as a threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit associated with protected union activity.

to remedy or unfair labor practices.

We will respect the rights of our employees to engage in protected union activities.

We will not send emails that discourage employees or union building representatives from engaging in protected union activities.

We will not in any other manner interfere with restrain or coerce our employees in the exercise of their collective bargaining rights under the laws of the state of Washington.

This was signed and then will be dated and it's posted and applicable bulletin boards and all of our school locations.

The last point I wanted to mention is training, HR, labor relations and our exec directors will develop a training to educate our building leaders about the rights of represented employees to have union representation.

Dr. Nyland I'll turn the meeting back over to you.

Nyland.

Thank you very much.

That concludes my remarks.

Thank you.

So again I'd like to welcome Ms. Bradshaw.

Sarita is a junior and has been active at center school since her freshman year.

She plans and participates in class and school activities as a member of the school's student Senate and along with another student represents students on the center's building leadership team.

This year she has taken a lead in the model United Nations attending both local and national conferences as a head delegate.

In that role she supports model United Nations delegates in preparing for conferences and overseeing logistics.

I will now turn it over to Ms. Bradshaw for her remarks.

I can't tell if this is on, okay.

So thank you, thank you for having me and also just in advance thank you for having all of the other center school students who are here and I keep on seeing them file in which makes me really happy.

So I have a couple of bad news things to say and a couple of good news things to say and generally people start with the bad news so I'm going to do that as well.

So since our establishment in 2001 the center schools mission has been to empower and inspire students to positively impact our world.

And in my three years at center it's completely done that for me and I've seen it do it for all of the students around me.

But this mission is definitely made harder to accomplish given some specific issues that have been discussed by the student Senate in conjunction with the student body.

And the most glaring and all-encompassing of these issues is a lack of funding and I know you all have heard a lot about funding already, it's already been spoken about a little bit at this meeting so I just want to highlight some of the specific instances that it affects our schools.

At our largest center is 300 students but generally the student body is smaller than that so it ranges in size from 220 to 270 students and I believe that the small size is one of our greatest attributes because it fosters a really strong sense of community and it allows students to form close bonds with their teachers and with their peers.

which helps them to further their education and also creates a really strong community.

But our small size also means that we don't have the same resources as larger schools like Roosevelt or Franklin which I understand because we are smaller so we don't have as many resources but It just it means that we don't for example have a permanent mental health or drug counselor for students in our school that need it.

And for example like this is our first year having a college counselor part-time her name is Linda she's really lovely and she's at the school approximately two days each week and she's already made a really really deep impact on the students at our school because she's played a really big role in helping juniors and seniors and even sophomores and freshmen plan their lives post high school.

because prior to her working with us students generally just sort of had to figure out the whole college post-graduation thing on their own.

So she's really impacted our school in a positive way and I think that seeing the impact she's had in just working with us two days each week really proves that you know having her and other counselors like a mental health or drug counselor for even two days a week could have a really really positive impact on our school.

Also we are an art school, we are an art and college prep school but many of our students wish that we had a greater array of performing arts programs such as music but we do not have the funds to provide these programs.

And this is really hard for students who would benefit from them because we are able to provide a really really large array of visual arts programs, we have film, photography, sculpture, drawing and painting and they are all really strong fun programs but they are not ideal for students who don't really have a visual art mindset.

And I think it would be really beneficial for our school to provide more performing arts programs for students who would thrive in them so they aren't stuck taking a class that sort of brings them down instead of bringing them up.

I think it would also like specifically with the music program for example and I'm thinking about music because of that really wonderful performance we saw from Ballard but you know for a music program for example it would draw more students to our school who who are musicians and would also help the students already at our school sort of develop a more musical mindset for example.

And it also and I'm not going to talk about this very much because it was already talked about but we do feel budget cuts really really deeply because we have a small size.

So for us it means the loss of several of our really beloved teachers since we already have such a small staff it's really hard.

And this year as it was talked about we experienced a really painful budget cut.

due to our low projected enrollment.

And the cuts are bad enough that some people were scared the center might close next year and we just didn't know what was going to happen.

And that happened in you know a really stressful time of year already because once you get to that like past the halfway point of the school year you're super overwhelmed and there's so much going on.

So for center you know a budget cut just sort of increased all of those anxiety levels because we just didn't know what was going to happen.

And I guess like.

My point in saying all of this and I know that you all are already aware of this so this is not at all like a, it's a little bit of a criticism but it's just a lot of students at center feel like there must be some sort of problem with the budgeting system if a budget cut could affect our school this deeply.

But we were lucky enough to get some really promising new enrollment numbers which was really exciting and we don't know what kind of effect they will have on our school for next year but right now everybody is really hoping that they will be able to return our school to what it is currently or at least something close to that.

Yeah so that's good.

And the low projected enrollment numbers were especially discouraging given the amount of effort that the student Senate put into recruitment so we got a lot of help from administration and parents but student Senate were the ones who really put on these three open houses that had a really great turnout if I do say so myself.

We had nearly 100 people for two of them and if you think about that our schools like about 300 people so that's like a third of our school size at one open house which was really exciting.

The school was really packed so it's a little bit hard to navigate but I just went to the entire student Senate and it really felt like our enrollment numbers would go up next year so it was discouraging to see low projected enrollment.

And in response to those original enrollment numbers even though they have gone up we talked about it in Senate and we decided that we'd really like more help from the school board and from the school district and sort of like representing our school because we don't get a whole lot of school representation from the like from administrative positions and this is I think primarily we'd like more representation because Center really does have the ability to provide a school environment that lots of other schools can't provide.

So you know some students end up attending schools that they aren't happy with because they don't know about alternatives and Center is one of those alternatives.

And I think that by spreading information about Center on a larger scale it would, I mean it would help Center but it would also help students in the district who are going to a school that they don't enjoy and that they aren't thriving in.

Because you know some of the benefits that our school has is that like I mentioned before we have a really small size, we have a really really strong community and I think that people, or a lot of people I know thrive in a strong community more than they do in a weak one.

So everybody at our school knows each other, so the seniors know the freshmen and vice versa.

And student Senate especially made a commitment to community this year like that was one of our goals for the years we were going to increase community even more so at the beginning of the school year we put on a really really successful center field day and it was an entire day it happened in I think late September maybe early October and it focused on team building on grade to grade levels and school wide levels and everybody loved it and student Senate had a lot of fun putting it on.

And I think it was really successful in increasing community in our school.

And this year we've also created a specific committee within our Senate and the goal is to once again increase community in the school.

So that's a recent thing, we started it just a couple of weeks ago so we're interested to see where that's going to go but I have high hopes.

and I am very sure that these efforts will continue next year.

But within our already small but larger community we've had a whole lot of successes in a school on a smaller level so I am the head delegate of Model United Nations so I'm going to talk about that but Model UN if you don't know is a program that allows students to work with their debate schools and develop like an educated and diplomatic view of the world through engaging in a model United Nations I guess as the name suggests.

So in November we attended the Pacific model United Nations conference and we were recognized with an award for the best large delegation which was really really exciting for our school.

And then in March we attended the national high school model United Nations conference in New York which was really fun and we got to, we were the only school from Washington and we got to meet students from all around the world because it's an international conference which was really cool.

Furthermore, of our two performing arts programs, we have poetry and we have drama, our poetry program in particular has produced a whole lot of really incredible poets, including Emrys Foster who in 2016 was a youth poet laureate laureate finalist and was actually awarded with the position of youth poet laureate ambassador which was really exciting for them and was really exciting for everyone.

Within our film program we've won a whole lot of awards, we have a lot of students who really like film.

So we've won awards at Nifty and the same goes for our I guess more like hands-on artists so our painters.

So at Naramore last year one of our current seniors Theo Whitney won best in show and we had several other awards given out so we were all really proud of him.

And though there are lots of arguments surrounding standardized testing our school does test well which I think is worth mentioning.

So last year 97% of our juniors and 85% of our sophomores received a three or higher on the SBAC.

Again I'm almost done because I know that we are running a little bit behind schedule but I just wanted to thank you all again for having us all here because it's really an honor to have you listen to us because I think that well I hope that by listening we will be able to create some good solutions.

And I'd just like to finish off by saying that I feel like I've talked a lot about like center specific achievements but at its core centers really succeeded in achieving its mission which is even though I already stated it to empower and inspire students to positively impact our world.

And I just know that I'm not alone when I say that like I really think that attending center has had like the most profound impact on me out of anything I've done in my life.

And I really believe that the students who attend my school alongside me are going to change the world one day and they are going to positively impact our world.

And maybe that day will be today and maybe it will be tomorrow, maybe it will be in like 70 years or something but I just know I'm not going to be surprised when like in a news story there is something about a center alumni doing something really cool for the world.

So thank you.

Thank you very much Ms. Bradshaw.

So you are welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting or at the very least you can stay for the public testimony and you can add some comments afterwards along with directors if you so choose.

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

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move we approve the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

Okay approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

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

Seeing none all those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

The consent agenda has passed.

Right.

So now we have reached the public testimony part of the evening.

We are running a little bit late but we still give everybody their two minutes.

So I just want to remind everybody of the rules.

They are up on the screen and I would just ask that speakers be respectful of these rules.

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

I would also like to note that each speaker has two minutes speaking time when the two minutes have ended.

Please conclude your remarks.

Either Ms. Shek or Ms. Ritchie will read off the testimony speakers names.

First up for public testimony we have Anna Smith followed by Chris Jackins and Roxanne Dunaway.

Good afternoon or evening.

My name is Anna Smith and I am also a junior at the center school.

Sarita that was fantastic I love you.

Firstly I would like to commend the school board for the positive contributions they have made for my and many others educational careers.

And I'm very grateful for the opportunity to share with you the opinions of me and my schoolmates.

I find it vastly important to address and to elaborate on the aforementioned issue of severe lack of funding.

Specifically towards mental health counseling.

As it stands now the center school only receives the service of a mental health counselor once a month.

We split our resources with Ballard high school but those resources are only accessible to center students if they travel all the way to Ballard.

and with most students finding it incredibly intimidating to walk into a completely different high school to request mental health services most are reluctant to do so.

It's been shown that schools who provide mental health care and help for their students see a measurable increase in academic success and a sharp decrease in absences and skipped classes.

For a large portion of the center student body for whom mental health illnesses such as anxiety and depression negatively impact many aspects of daily life.

The opportunity to receive readily available mental health help would be greatly utilized and supremely appreciated.

I realize that the school board may not have any direct power to grant funding to this specific cause but any sort of advocacy or any effort to mitigate the situation would be strongly applauded.

Thank you so much for your time and I hope you take this into consideration.

Thank you.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124. On policy 3121 on attendance and on the waiver of school days for Dearborn Park, Sacagawea and John Muir.

Two points number one the report on policy 3121 states quote consistent attendance is essential for students to achieve academic excellence unquote.

If this is true why does the district propose to waive lost school days rather than make them up?

Number two, along with the financial costs of making up the school days did the district consider whether the state would provide extra funding for making up these days?

On policy 4200 visitors to schools the report states that there are no changes in policy with the proposed revisions.

But the change in language from school property to district property seems like a possible change in policy.

On the value engineering report for Lincoln, the report discusses deleting the proposed open two-story commons and using the space for classrooms.

What is the status of this recommendation?

On policy 2015 instructional materials, two points.

Number one, the district is proceeding with a process to select new middle school math textbooks.

I would like to see the board adopt a resolution to let the instructional materials committee know whether the committee is in tune with what the board would approve.

Number two for example should a math book provide a substantial reference section.

The board could also give some feedback on specific currently available texts.

Thank you.

Peters Thank you.

Hello do I need to push a button?

No.

OK.

My name is Roxanne Dunaway and I'm speaking on behalf of the center school.

Last spring many representatives from the center school spoke to you in the wake of budget cuts that were an existential threat.

You assured us there was no intentional effort to send center school into a death spiral and that you valued our existence and want us to continue and thrive.

We have been hardened to hear more and more evidence of this beneficent attitude toward over toward us over the last year.

Of course we have also been devastated by further cuts.

Even before last year's cuts we didn't have the budget to provide all the classes and services we are mandated to provide.

Then the parents came up with 40% of the funds for an art teacher so that our so that we didn't have to choose between being an arts focused school and a college prep school.

We did this not only for the benefit of currently enrolled students but also because the center school must be both to continue to attract families.

This parent effort is not sustainable.

Next year's cuts further threaten our existence.

We have no fat to cut.

Next year's budget cuts into bone.

As you know when we cannot offer the courses upperclassmen want and need they go to running start.

Then we lose their funding which worsens a vicious cycle.

Some might ask why should the center school be helped if it is not sustainable?

It is sustainable.

We simply need full enrollment and a little help to get back to that mark.

Our higher enrollment numbers might seem surprising for next fall in light of our difficulties but they needn't seem surprising.

We formed a recruitment and retention committee last fall and we have held more and larger open houses sent letters and invitations to middle schools I've spoken at gatherings, gone to public and private schools and we have seen clearly that center school is not well known in the district.

If people knew we existed we would have our full enrollment of 300. That's all we need.

The district can help in this regard.

Some people might believe it is inefficient to have small high schools such as ours but it is not.

Please conclude your remarks.

Okay.

Please help us do the things that we need to do.

We can take it from there.

Thank you.

We need full access to all our funding.

Thank you.

Remind speakers that you can always send us your full statement if you feel that you got cut off or there's something more that you wanted to tell us you can always email it to us afterwards.

Thank you.

Next up we have Christine Cornell followed by Lori Utterback and Isabelle Dunaway.

Hello I'm Christine and I'm a junior at the center school as well.

As you've heard from other speakers today the center school is an amazing community.

The students that go here want to be here and have all taken responsibility for their education by choosing a school other than the one they were assigned to.

And I know for me making that choice was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I've made amazing friends and established incredible relationships with the awesome teachers here.

Right now we are sinking in a downward spiral.

Last year we spoke to you about this showing how with less funding we are forced to have fewer teachers which in turn means we will be less able to provide classes.

With fewer classes we will draw fewer students and this will lead to less funding and therefore the loss of more teachers.

We need teachers to have this thriving supportive learning community continue.

Last year our fear was that we would start to gravitate toward that spiral but now we are here again which just proves the inescapability of this cycle.

We need your help to reverse this downward course that can only end in the dissolution of our school.

Arts education is of vital importance for some kids who cannot learn and excel through traditional teaching methods.

Although larger schools might be easier to maintain the likelihood of students falling through the cracks in the system is just too great.

At larger schools those who need accommodations or even just help have to find, have to be incredibly proactive in finding and asking for the assistance they need.

At center the resources are much more accessible.

For me because of the personalized education the center school offers I'm able to be confident in standing up for what I need whereas a larger school I think I would be much less likely to have the courage to develop those skills.

Larger schools are already over enrolled.

It wouldn't make sense to lose a high school just when you need them the most.

In summary there are so many students in this district that need the personalized alternative learning that the center school provides.

But we are stuck in a catch 22 that you have the power to help us out of.

Please give us the funding we need.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Lori Utterback and I've been a parent in Seattle Public Schools for 13 years with five more to go.

And I appreciate the opportunity to speak today as a parent and also as an advocate for arts education as part of our public school curriculum.

And in Seattle we are very fortunate to have a school board and a governor who believe in and value learning through the arts.

Which is vital for giving students work and life skills for today's global society such as creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking.

And every year our governor proclaims May as arts education month.

Recognizing and celebrating the positive impact that the arts have on our students schools and communities.

And so today I ask you as our school board to join the governor in this important acknowledgement of the benefits of arts education for every student by making a school board resolution designating May as arts education month recognizing and supporting the value of this celebration on behalf of the students families and educators of Seattle Public Schools.

I have emailed you more information just before this meeting and so I hope you will consider it.

And now I'd like to say a few words about the center school.

When we were looking for a high school for our daughter we considered private school and toured many of them.

But my daughter was adamant she wanted to go to center.

She's been there for four years very successfully.

This fall she's on her way to St. Olaf College.

Your support and assistance is crucial to the center school now more than ever.

Our community needs this school and this is Seattle.

This is the kind of city that should be willing to support and retain an arts focused college prep public high school.

Tacoma has won.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Isabel Dunaway and I am a junior at the center school.

When advocating for the center school on the topic of budget and enrollment I have heard over and over that because of per capita funding system or teacher to student ratios small schools like center are inefficient.

I disagree.

I believe that while in the short-term it may be easier to assign students to enormous schools like Ballard and Garfield it is in reality actually far less efficient.

I know everyone here cares deeply about education and would love to see a school that actually supports all types of learners in reaching their full academic potential.

That is what our small inefficient school is doing.

Upwards of 21% of our students have an IEP or 504 including myself for diagnosed dyslexia and ADHD.

And many more struggle with undiagnosed learning differences.

In spite of this the center school boasts some of the highest test scores in the district as well as an impressive grade point average and graduation rate.

Because of our incredible community and supportive teachers the students like myself who would easily fall through the cracks at a traditional high school don't have to compete for the help they need and are able to become driven successful students and passionate engaged community members like these wonderful people here today.

The center school has so much to offer current and future high school students if it gets the funding it so desperately needs.

Even a small budget cut has a devastating effect on a small school like ours.

With the cuts we are facing it would be very difficult to offer a rounded college prep curriculum and arts education we pride ourselves on.

sadly making us a less viable choice for future incoming freshmen.

We can't afford to lose prospective students and the per capita funding that comes along with them.

It would throw the center school into a downward spiral making us more and more difficult and costly to save.

Intervene now.

Please support the unparalleled value the center school has had in the education of so many students.

Our value is worth the funding it would take to save us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have David Daniel followed by John Chapman and Kelsey Creed.

Hello my name is David Daniel I am a junior 11th grader at the center school and I'm here to primarily focus on something that I feel very passionately about which is the arts integration full arts integration at the center school meaning dance, music, visual arts, all kinds of arts that can be integrated at the center school.

So being a small size school we can't take financial blows as easily as some of the larger schools in the Seattle school district.

We simply don't have the student body to fall back on.

This means that when a budget is when our budget is dropped by even a little bit we lose a substantial part of our community.

We are supposed to be an arts integration schools with focus an arts integration school with a focus on arts development and yet we don't even have a funding for a basic level music or dance class.

Even with the organizations that surround us we could partner with such as Cornish, Seattle Symphony, KEXP, the Pacific Northwest Ballet and Mopop.

We still don't have the funding to create a music or dance class.

By creating an environment where students feel open and encouraged to express themselves through any way possible we create an outlet for students to be immersed in the Seattle community and create connections with organizations and businesses.

But in achieving this goal we are finding ways to invest our funds responsibly.

We started a new physical education class this year and a new pottery class and we hope to create even more classes next year.

But most importantly we must have a positive outlook on the future for our school and our students.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

John Chapman, Kelsey Creel.

Good evening my name is Kelsey Creel I'm a junior at the center school.

With a maximum of 300 students and 23 educators and staff we are a tiny but extraordinary school.

But due to some hefty budget cuts our school is in danger of losing necessary programs and staff.

My claim here today is that the center school is an essential educational institution that deserves district support.

Our students are some of the most socially and politically aware teenagers I have ever met.

And in times such as these the best thing a person can be is educated and informed.

One of the reasons we are so aware is because of our senior humanities teacher.

In our class we approach sensitive necessary topics such as race, social justice and politics in a blunt and honest way unlike any other school I have ever attended.

And our student body has fostered a culture of activism and awareness.

But what makes our school so special is our instructional staff.

It's impossible for me to tell you about all 23 members of our amazing faculty but I'd like to highlight two in particular that are slated to be displaced next year due to budget cuts.

First one of our newest additions to the school since fall of 2016. She is one of two general education math teachers.

She was 15 years of teaching experience a master's degree in math education.

She says the center school is a place for students to be free to be themselves while achieving academic success.

Another example of our hardworking and passionate teachers is our only chemistry and AP environmental science instructor.

He has 10 years of teaching experience and four years at center, two master's degrees.

I've known him to be one of the most knowledgeable people in his field.

So please consider funding my little school.

We may be small but we are passionate, we are smart and we are worthy.

Thank you.

Eric Blumhagen and Caroline Burns will be after.

Hi my name is Eric Blumhagen and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight.

I wasn't really planning on being here but then I kept looking at the waitlist and frankly I'm baffled.

Many schools that are begging for more enrollment to head off teacher cuts have waitlists including center school.

There are six students that say they want to go to center school and enrollment is saying well hold on let's see if we have space.

Think about that for a second.

This is happening across the district too.

At Whitman, at West Seattle high, at Robert Eagle staff.

In fact, six of the nine high schools with waitlists have lower projected enrollment this coming year than last year.

Center, Cleveland, Franklin, Ingram, Hale, West Seattle.

Many of the students on waitlists would actually relieve pressure at the three overcrowded schools, high schools, Garfield, Ballard and Roosevelt.

For example, moving the Ingram waitlist would move HCC students out of Garfield and Gen Ed students out of Ballard, making room for students that actually want to be at those schools.

Why shouldn't we have the students be at the schools that they want to when we can move the waitlist we have the capacity to do it.

Also entering freshmen need full class schedules to graduate with 24 credits.

Last year with fewer students many Garfield students didn't have full schedules in the fall.

We are actively harming those students by having Garfield overcrowded.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true of Roosevelt and Ballard.

So here's what I'd like.

I'd like to see the district rapidly move waitlists in schools with extra capacity.

I'd like to see the district post enrollment data for the schools online.

We know what the waitlists are but we don't know what school enrollment is so I don't know what center schools promising enrollment looks like.

And I ask that the school board holds a work session on waitlists.

Thank you very much.

Peters Thank you.

Burmese and I'm going to be speaking for the center school funding.

And more about the community and what it's given me.

So I didn't know what to expect going into ninth grade.

I was coming from middle school experience filled with anxiety and depression.

If I was able if I if I wasn't able to get through eighth grade what about ninth tenth eleventh and twelfth.

I knew that going to South my home school wasn't my wasn't going to work.

And I was looking for a place that would support me emotionally yet still push me to climb academically.

I needed a school where I could connect with my teachers, where they could understand me, I needed center.

It was my life raft.

And now after a year and a half at center I know that it's not just me but many others in the space as well.

Whether the kids who are bullied and felt like they never had a person to talk to and now they have personal relationships with all the staff or the ASB members who wouldn't feel accepted at other schools to share their ideas and now center is their place.

The community at center is small making it so our teachers aren't just that but motivators, mentors and advocates.

Everyone's IEP or 504 requirements are able to be met and everyone feels heard.

I feel confident that I am now that I'm welcome at center and that I'm succeeding and I believe that we need to give everyone that chance.

I'm asking you to continue funding and give us less budget cuts to let these connections with staff continue.

I'm not the only student with a mental disorder and Seattle Public Schools needs to be a place that provides assistance and choices to people who need it.

I wouldn't be in school today without the center school and I don't know what I do without it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If there are no further speakers then we will move on to the director comments.

Director Harris.

Try and keep it short tonight.

Thank you to the center school folks before you leave.

Y'all are awesome.

I wanted my daughter to go to center school but she had other ideas.

I believe very strongly in alternative education.

I believe very strongly in arts education.

I also know that we have an insane budget deficit but please know that we hear you.

Please know that the folks sitting at the side of the room hear you as well and you have our attention.

No promises because we can't make those promises.

Our friends in Olympia are at $61.5 million in fines for McCleary at $100,000 a day that the state Supreme Court has ordered.

Now I was sitting up here fantasizing thinking that maybe the governor should suggest that the $61.5 million should go into an arts education budget for the state.

It's a fantasy.

But you know you know your legislators emails you know the governor's email you know the superintendent of public instruction email.

So while you're emailing us and please continue to do so email them as well.

Tell them what this is like.

This doesn't work for you.

And moreover it doesn't work for the students coming behind you.

The Ballard chamber symphony orchestra that was just so beautiful.

And again my other fantasy every student all 53000 of them would have music education every day.

And our math scores would go up exponentially.

To administrative professionals thank you thank you thank you we can't do it without you.

You don't get enough credit.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And and step up and ask for that credit.

Step up and say hey my fingerprints are on this and I'm part of the team.

And if you don't get the respect stand up and ask for it please.

Because we're supposed to be part of the same team.

To our friends our major labor partners SEA pass and local 609 the executive committee will start hosting you all on a regular basis at the executive committee meetings so that we can hear from you.

and build even better bridges than we already have.

To SEA and the WEA representative assembly that met all Easter weekend in Spokane I look forward to seeing your resolutions including especially the one about the inappropriateness of testing our really young students.

There's there's work to be done.

collaborative work and I look forward to seeing what you all cared enough to go to Spokane and to fight like hack for.

West Seattle Elementary could not be prouder of them.

This is my neighborhood formerly known as High Point Elementary.

Another fantasy is to add back the name High Point because this district didn't ask that community whether they wanted to change the name of the school.

So that might be kind of a fun goal to have in the near future especially since they're doing such a great job.

My next community meeting I hope is May 20 at the West Seattle library at 3 p.m.

Get a little rowdy we give you treats.

I'm not completely sure because the electronic sign on didn't give me the confirmation but keep an eye on the board page.

And that's on the front screen of the school district's web page.

Again it's an honor to serve.

It's a pleasure to serve with these great people up here on the dais.

Thank you.

So welcome to all of our students from the center school and Serena Bradshaw thank you for your comments.

I do remember some of you from last year specifically actually some of you are on my Facebook webpage so it's good to see you again.

And I agree Serena that you should look to us to do more because One of the legal requirements with regard to gifted students is that we look for kids who are creatively gifted as well.

And we spend a lot of time focusing on academically gifted and promoting those programs within our district.

And we don't do nearly.

a good enough job in terms of our creatives and it should start in elementary school and it should start, it should continue on through middle school so that your doors are bursting with students.

I mean that is really the way it is, you think of art schools in other cities and how they are renowned, they have great reputations.

And why don't we know?

Why doesn't our entire city know that the center school is our art school and we don't have kids clamoring to get there and we are not building out these robust programs?

So it is a marketing piece that needs to start early and we can do that.

That is part of our job.

So thank you for bringing that up that is good but also congratulations to your student Senate.

and getting out there and doing that job and bringing the kids in.

And that just shows us that if you can do it with your limited resources and your busy schedules we can we can support you in that.

So that's awesome and thank you for that work.

I also want to, she's no longer here but thank Madison Williams who advocated on behalf of herself and all of our students with disabilities in terms of forging forward with a great program with Highline where she could go and participate in the kind of college career that she envisioned for herself.

And I'm going to tell you it's a long way from when I was a special ed advocate and I heard about our transition services being provided to students in the Northgate food mall, food court.

So it was super touching to me to think that she had done that work and that we were responsive.

Again, you students can come forward and it's our job to make sure that we move forward in the way that makes you proud of yourselves and proud of your fellow students.

So thank you for working not only on your own behalf but on behalf of all of our students.

The Ballard Chamber Orchestra, beautiful, Tchaikovsky, lovely, couldn't have picked a better piece it was just so inspiring.

Congratulations to all of our schools of distinction.

Congratulations to West Seattle and their focus on culture.

I think it's something that we talk about a lot here that we need to continue to work on changing the cultures within our schools on the ground level.

And so West Seattle has embraced that and is showing that that is truly the way to success so we all have to keep that in mind.

I want to encourage everybody on that note to you know if you are interested in the ethnic studies task force April 21 is the deadline go on our webpage sign up be heard.

Thank you to Flip Herndon and Eric McCurdy for their work on the athletic Hall of Fame.

That was lovely to see a six minute video of these great Seattle public school alum and how proud they are of themselves and the work that they and what they learned here in Seattle before taking it on to great levels.

My next meeting will be Saturday April 22 from 11 to 1 at the university branch library and I should continue with my Thursday morning coffee meetings I can't do them every Thursday because sometimes things come up at 730 in the morning but tomorrow I should be there from 730 to 9 and check on my Facebook page for other Thursdays because I usually post about 7 o'clock whether or not I'm going to hold it.

Thank you.

Peters

I want to echo the comments that have been made.

Thank everyone for coming.

I'll start by reiterating the Ballard high school chamber orchestra was extremely moving and reminded me if you play a musical instrument don't stop.

I stopped in high school and if I played any of that it would empty the room instead of actually making people smile.

So it's an amazing talent and I really want to make sure that we are encouraging our students to continue in that rather than putting barriers that make it hard to continue that.

Madison Williams and her story was inspirational, her advocacy has paved the way for others.

We talk about partnerships, we talk about replicating success, and hearing that we've increased the number of students that are being served by the Bridges Achieve program, it's really inspirational.

The West Seattle elementary presentation this is a I think I love hearing our schools that are succeeding and having them come before the board and share what they feel it is that makes their machine tick.

Because here on the board we can say these simple words replicate success.

But to replicate it we have to define it, we have to personalize it, we have to identify the elements that apply in each situation and so it's really really valuable to hear these stories from the people that are actually having to implement, having to serve the students and the challenges that they face.

And so I actually have a question for the West Seattle team that I'm hoping the teaching and learning staff could take on.

When we have people present to us I'd like for them to also be able to share what sort of support they got from central office in doing that work that really helped them move And what support they wanted to get that they didn't?

What are we doing really well?

And what are areas that we can improve?

Because I think finding what is our core essence of how we can help schools transform in that way is really powerful.

You know they talked about being nimble and adapting to situations and we have to do that as well.

To the center school team is Bradshaw and her colleagues.

You all are amazing.

I had my first exposure to center school last year as part of their graduation ceremony and I was I was I was really moved at the level of community and culture that was there.

And I was able to tour visit the facility and it's super super unique.

So I just want to say that for Seattle where this kind of lumbering institution that has our silos our challenges our procedures and what you have the advantage that you have as a as a school is you're more nimble and I think that you're doing everything right in this case.

You're bringing your points of pain to us in a really concise and eloquent way.

Your testimony is absolutely on point.

And you're rolling up your sleeves and saying you know what if we can get our enrollment up we can help solve our own problems we can be a part of this.

And I just love that.

The idea that the work that you're doing to help support that enrollment I think it does indicate that it's it's a it's a marketing situation so.

More specificity, more clarity on how the district can help.

Maintaining that connection, communicating with your education director on how, what are the specific dates, events, and then the other side of that how the district can communicate to center school leadership around what are the important communication dates or events.

Regarding the public testimony around our waitlist, I've seen some, it's a point that concerns me as well, it's definitely new information and I look forward to learning more around what we're doing around that.

When we have schools that are over capacity and others that have waitlists that by load leveling we can get more certainty for families and better scheduling for our high schools it sounds like a win-win situation.

I want to mention I had a wonderful opportunity yesterday I stopped in on Anna Box on the math adoption committee.

This was meeting two of umpteen I'm not sure exactly how many they have so this is their second meeting and they are digging into what are their criteria.

for selecting instructional materials they haven't actually looked at materials yet but I had the opportunity to talk to some of the members of the committee and share a little bit of some of the conversations that we've had as a board around our budget challenges and how important the work that they're doing is as an element of MTSS that MTSS includes a core instructional component and then also tiered interventions and the work that they are doing is absolutely critical to help establish that core.

So it was a really valuable meeting to just kind of see what's going on and I'm enthusiastic to see the work they do.

In closing I have a community meeting set up for this Saturday April 22, noon to 2 o'clock at the Fremont public library and I hope folks will join.

Peters Dr. Blanford

Thank you.

I was absent when we did roll call but I am indeed here.

When I walked in the door the string section was just starting up from the Ballard orchestra and I wasn't sure if I was walking into the auditorium, I wasn't sure if I was down at the symphony hall it was pretty impressive.

what our students were able to do, the Ballard Chamber Orchestra and it just took me away.

It was a pretty awesome experience.

I also want to congratulate Ms. Bradshaw, your speech It took me back as well to my days on student council and I wanted to congratulate you for thinking beyond what's going on at your individual school and thinking about the model UN as you were talking I was thinking she might be headed to the real UN at some point in the not too distant future.

And I think that would be a wonderful addition to a fairly dysfunctional group of folks so my hope is that you aspire to something like that and change the world maybe tomorrow or the next day.

I also wanted to appreciate all of the schools of distinction.

It's a highlight in the school year in my mind when a number of our schools and Seattle Public Schools received that type of recognition and I know that that is in large measure the hard work of numerous school staff as well as the leadership of the schools and the community, the broader community of the schools.

I think West Seattle was, their presentation was as clear an example as we would see of the importance of strong leadership and actually closing gaps and moving all students forward.

One of the highlights of my year last year was when I got to go to West Seattle and celebrate with the kids and the staff there and have a little bit of conversation with the two administrators and hearing the lessons, the things that they were talking about and they reflected today.

on the nine standards of high-performing schools and I know that that's a foundational document that can move schools forward and so I was glad to hear them reference that as one of the drivers of their improvement over time.

And my hope is that other schools will adopt a theoretical framework that allows them to move forward that references what other schools have done to close their gaps.

Because I think that's one way to move forward at an accelerated rate.

I also wanted to thank the folks who came to testify from center school and particularly to appreciate the fact that your presentations were nuanced in the sense that you recognize that we are facing a huge budget challenge and it is not focused solely on your school it is focused on all the schools in the district but you also highlighted in my mind some of the unique challenges that the center school and other small schools face.

I think that is an ongoing challenge that we face how to adequately fund our small schools who may be more detrimentally impacted when we have these budget challenges and so it's important to hear that.

And for us as board members to reflect on that and hopefully if there is the potential if there is a space for us to make some tweaks to our funding formulas that allow schools like the center school to continue to do the critical work that they do with a population of students that are not going to be successful in our comprehensive high schools then that is something that we definitely need to take on.

Blanford.

And continuing my congratulations I wanted to thank Eric McCurdy and assistant superintendent Herndon for a great presentation and I'm sure a fabulous event.

I was unable to attend I had it on my schedule but other events kept me from attending.

But I also wanted to recognize the media operations center which put together that fabulous video which made it very clear to those of us who weren't in attendance what transpired that day.

I've had a number of community members come up to me and tell me that they were there that day and it was a fabulous event and so I wanted to appreciate all that were involved in it.

And then finally I am continuing to struggle to find a place to hold a community meeting.

I've reached out to the three libraries in my district unsuccessfully and have reached out to a few of the surrounding libraries and have not had any success so I'm not going to be able to hold a meeting in April.

But I will redouble my efforts to try to find a place at a library or somewhere else early in the month of May and so as others have indicated stay tuned to the website we will get those posted as soon as possible and hopefully we will have a full turnout for the May meeting.

Thank you.

Director Patu.

I too would like to say thank you to our student rep from Sutter school Ms. Bradshaw and also your colleagues from Sutter school for sharing with us your amazing story of how that particular school have actually changed your life and made quite a difference.

And I believe that it's an education that should continue on.

I always believe that when there is a school that actually provide opportunities for kids who actually cannot survive in a regular school but when they have a special school that they go to and something strikes in them that they can do anything they want to as long as there is someone there to give them that hope.

So I really believe that center school actually is one of those education system that we believe that kids can survive and be able to excel in many ways and I also believe that the arts is one way to open up a lot of our students who normally does not do well in various areas.

So I want to say thank you to the Ballard high school chamber orchestra for such an amazing performance.

They were so good I almost fell asleep.

It was relaxing.

But I mean just to hear these young people perform the way they did it was almost like you're in an actual as Director Blanford said you know it's like a professional orchestra that actually that you were listening to but just want to say you know congratulations Ballard for such a wonderful job and the work that you're doing with those students.

Congratulations to all the schools who are 2016 Washington State school of distinction well-deserved.

We know that it takes a lot of work to be able to be a part of that and continue the good work that you're doing.

And congratulations to also the West Seattle elementary school and I Thank you so much to principal McCall and her team for sharing with us such inspiring presentation on the success that they are actually providing and moving their school forward to close the achievement gap.

This is something that we as a district are working on and as we see some of these schools actually moving forward and really making it happen I think it's wonderful and it's inspiring for all of us who continue on to work on trying to close achievement gap for Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you Madison for sharing your story about the success.

I think it's wonderful when we have students that are actually in need and yet have the opportunity to share with us their success because I always believe that it doesn't make any difference what What is it that is in the way of making kids not successful whether their kids are actually in a special situation.

But when there's always an opportunity that provides every student no matter what kind of student it is a chance to be successful at whatever is it that they pursue for their future.

So thank you so much for sharing that inspiring story that you have for us today in terms of continuing on the college and deciding to do what you want to do with your life.

A lot of luck and you know and really continue on the good work.

Also wanted to say that I am a little concerned about the waitlist.

I didn't realize that we are not moving our waitlist forward.

This is like the third time I've heard this from various community people and maybe that's something that we need to look into and find out why that is happening and we hope that that we are not holding on to a waitlist that we should be moving it forward so schools that were a lot of our students decide to go to will be able to have that opportunity.

And I wanted to say it's been a great spring break.

I had a wonderful relaxing week which is something you haven't done in years.

So I hope all of you enjoyed your spring break as I sure did.

Thank you.

Peters Dr. Pinkham.

Toskalot and Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ good evening and thank you.

First of all Serena thank you for your comments and all the students from center school that we do need to see that we are not shortchanging these schools that we have and particularly those for the arts where that is a talent we have and our students out there And if they want to pursue those how can we best support those students?

And thank you for acknowledging yes we are in a tough spot with the budget crisis and how we are going to fix those needs and being here and sharing your voice allows us to hear that yes this is important to students, they do want this.

And we'll do our best what we can as other directors said up here we can't make any promises right now but yes we are hearing you and we'll take everything you have to share into consideration.

So again Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ thank you for coming and sharing your perspectives.

And thank you definitely to the Bridges program and Madison for coming and sharing her story and I think it's moving when students you know come and share what their experience is and whatever means that they can do it that they're able to spread that word and spread the feelings of the impact that their education has on themselves and what they can do with it even though they may have what we may consider limitations but to them it's their life you know it's how they live it's what they They have been given and they are making the most of it and whatever we can do to support them I definitely appreciate it so thank you to the Bridges program for the work that they are doing.

To the Ballard high school chamber orchestra fantastic good job keep up that work that you are doing and to their orchestra leader.

West Seattle elementary school congratulations on being a positive outlier school and what you're doing and you're moving forward but I also like that you pointed out that there's still more that you can do.

That you're not satisfied with where you're at right now you know that there is room for continued growth and that you'll continue to grow.

And you know thank you for that and congratulations to all our schools of distinction.

You know 23 schools I think is a very good mark.

You know when can we get all 90 plus?

Is that a possibility?

I hope it is one day that we can continue to strive for that.

In regards to athletic Hall of Fame thank you for sharing that and knowing that we do have that talent and acknowledging them so that kind of brought me to think about okay we got athletic Hall of Fame what can we do for the arts Hall of Fame?

Is that the next thing that we need to establish here or just any kind of Hall of Fame to recognize all of our students?

You know because there's many talents out there not just athletics academics the arts as well as one way we can acknowledge who has gone through our Seattle Public Schools and have done great things.

I did also want to actually start out just by welcoming people back from spring break.

The time off and getting back to the swing of things and knowing that those people around the walls you kept working.

There wasn't a spring break off for you so thank you for keeping our school district running.

I'd be also remissed if I didn't pause and take time and break about something for I have to actually call my dad and say dad watch this online because happy birthday.

From your favorite son.

And also since I did that I also wish happy birthday to my father-in-law and sister-in-law as well.

I unfortunately wasn't able to join the group last night as we were looking at the goals but I did have the opportunity to have a guest speaker at the University of Washington Dr. Terrell Strayhorn who is looking at the miseducation of our students in particular students of color are minoritized or marginalized students and what we need to do to help make them feel like they belong.

Belonging is one of his big research items right now.

He has a book out college students sense of belonging but he knows that it doesn't start there.

We've got to let our students know they belong K through 12 head start you know all along that they belong here and we need to make our schools reflect.

who they are or that they feel that hey I can go to the school and see myself there.

I see a teacher that looks like me.

I see an administrator that looks like me.

I see myself in the books that I read that you're teaching me from.

I get the opportunity to study about who I where my heritage came from.

I learned for instance for me who are some of the more famous American Indians?

Is that in the books?

Am I being taught for it?

And that gets into the ethnic studies courses that yes there are some things I think we can do now to encourage our teachers that say hey Maybe empower the students, give them that assignment.

Maybe, well go find out, yes I don't know that right now, the teachers need to accept that.

I don't know who maybe some of the famous African-American teachers are or the famous Mexican-American mathematicians are.

Allow your students to go explore that, give them that chance.

I do that in my, at the University of Washington, I don't know everything and giving the students the opportunity to go out there and find out and share that information I think enriches everyone.

So I just want to thank Dr. Strayhorn for what he's shared with our students and just some of the points he's asked our students to do is to stay present, to be yourself, pay attention, take risks but he also caveat that take wise risks.

and to wear authenticity.

Be authentic.

So if we encourage that in our students and that we can know them ourselves we know them by their name know them where they came from that will help eliminate that opportunity yet.

My next community meeting will be Saturday April 29 at 10 o'clock at Broadview library.

I've been able to fortunately get that reservation system on the library to work for me and I appreciate everyone that's here tonight.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you.

Before I conclude with my remarks I just wanted to ask our guest Rita Bradshaw if she wanted to add any comments at this point.

Well I actually have to head out soon because I have homework but I felt like this was more important in this case than homework.

But I just wanted to thank everybody from center who came and I know that most of them have left by now but that really meant a lot.

And I wanted to thank the board for listening to us and for doing everything that you've done not just with regards to center but with regards to all of the schools and organizations that talked today and everything else.

So thank you very much.

Thank you again for joining us.

Good luck with your homework.

If you need a note we will sign one for you.

Okay well everybody has said a lot of wonderful thank you's for so much of what we saw tonight beginning with the Ballard high school chamber orchestra.

I'll only add to that that I'm always amazed by the breadth of talent in this district, musical talent, artistic talent and of course athletic talent that we saw earlier.

But when we have our musicians come before us it really is just amazing the quality of the performance.

Let's see, I had the opportunity to visit a library earlier this month as part of a library, national library week a month.

And it was over at John Hay elementary school and I was there for a meeting but I had a chance to take a look around and I just want to give a shout out to librarians for all the creativity that they have that they bring to this task.

Just the decorations they put in there, the way they organize books and I want to also encourage students not to forget to go to your libraries that you are not going to find everything online.

You really do need to go and take a look at the resources that are in your libraries and also take advantage of the knowledge and the creativity of librarians.

I also would like to encourage everybody to go to the Naramore art show at Seattle art museum and see fantastic work by students.

And which now brings me over to the center school students so yes this is two years in a row you've had to come to us to make the case for your school and thank you so much for coming tonight you were very eloquent and you know you really made a really strong case for why An alternative smaller environment is something that's absolutely crucial for some students and in a way it's not that different from what the West Seattle elementary team was telling us.

That it's all about relationships, it's all about being in an environment where you feel you're known, where you feel that you can fulfill your needs and you have the resources to do it.

So you're not asking for anything different from any other student in this district and for that you know I feel that we really can be thankful for you bringing your message.

What seems to me is the problem is first of all I want to say that I want to congratulate the center school community and under your new leadership for your outreach this year and the increase in your enrollment and the enthusiasm and I think that's paid off.

I understand you have a really large incoming freshman class you know this next year.

So I think the problem we have is with timing.

I think we've had some budget cuts that affected your staffing but we're going to have some adjustments in a couple months.

The problem is between now and then what do these teachers do?

Do they stick around or do they go and find a full-time position somewhere and I think that's the problem that center school is in right now.

And so I'm opening my question to Michael Tully and whoever else on staff can help answer this.

What can we do for the school so we can retain its staff so we don't have this boomerang effect where teachers leave and then maybe try and come back or maybe they can't come back maybe they found a different position.

I think that's the problem that's the risk that center school is facing right now.

And I don't and I don't understand why the timing is off in that and what we can do to mitigate against that kind of effect.

So if you could get back to us and explain to us what we can do to help not just center school but any school that's in this situation where they're only temporarily losing positions but that will change in a couple months.

So let's see I covered a lot of my notes right there.

I will also have a community meeting coming up on Saturday April 29th.

I was able to reserve at the Ballard library meeting room.

So again I'll be from 10 until noon and I welcome anybody to come and join me.

And that might be most of my list.

You know I really appreciated what Director Pinkham shared with us about the professor at UW and it reminded me of there was an op ed in the New York Times on April 16th called a teacher's real value.

And it was a ninth grade teacher in New York.

He's he's African-American and he talked about the importance of teachers being able to represent the students or teachers who look like the students they're teaching.

and how that makes a difference.

I think that sounds similar to what the professor was saying at UW and I know as a district we are trying to do more in terms of recruiting teachers of color and having a more diverse group of educators to represent the diversity of our district and again it comes back to relationships, it comes back to understanding everybody and making everybody feel welcome and everybody feel at home in their school.

So in a way that's been a theme for tonight.

With that the board will take a break for 15 minutes and we'll reconvene at gosh it looks like five past seven.

Thank you everybody.