I'm told whistling is inelegant.
I'm Leslie Harris I'm the president of the Seattle School Board of Directors and we welcome you to the January 23rd regular legislative board meeting.
As we begin the meeting the board would like to acknowledge and honor the first peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on the land of the coastal Salish tribes.
We would also like to welcome Adam Billin from Center School who is joining us on the dais this evening.
Mr. Billin will have a chance to give comments later in the meeting.
Ms. Ramirez roll call please.
Director Burke is in Europe and not available.
Director DeWolf here.
Director Geary here.
Director Mack here.
Director Patu here.
Director Pinkham present.
Director Harris here.
Everyone would please stand if they so wish for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
This evening.
We are lucky enough to have the Pathfinder Middle School Choir performing like to invite the directors to take a seat in the audience for this performance please.
Enjoy.
I'm just going to move it up a bit.
OK.
Thank you.
There we go.
Hello my name is Parker.
I'm in seventh grade and this is the Pathfinder Middle School Choir.
We hope you enjoy the next songs we'll be singing for you today.
The first song we'll be singing for you is the.
The silence of the song.
Yay.
that brings the breaking dawn to spring the sun to rise.
Winter stillness, the dance of spring begins.
In summer's twilight, the autumn breeze blows in.
To every season, a feast and party on, summer together.
Before the gentle lullaby, can soothe us with its sound.
Before the finest symphony, can swell with those voices.
♪ With voices clear and strong ♪ ♪ Smoke to surround us ♪ ♪ The silence and the song ♪ ♪ All can surround us ♪ ♪ The silence ♪
Thank you.
My name is Victoria Rockwood and I'm the music teacher at Pathfinder K-8 and we are accompanied by the fabulous Alison Kramer on piano.
We have one more piece for you today and that is Peter Piper.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers, a pack of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers, a pack of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
Peter Piper picked a pickle, Peter Piper picked a pickle.
Peter Piper picked a pickle, Peter Piper picked a pickle.
Peter Piper picked a pickle, Peter Piper picked a pickle.
Thank you all for gifting us with your talents.
I am a Pathfinder alumni because my daughter went all nine years and I know that your principal David Dockendorf if he was feeling better would be down here in the cheap seats as well.
And I'm sure he's very proud of you.
And hi David I know you're watching on channel 26. I'd like to pass the microphone around your name your grade and what you're thinking about as far as high school and beyond.
My name is Dylan Ice.
I'm in sixth grade and I don't know where I'm going to go for high school.
I haven't decided yet.
Hi my name is Cleomy Parker I'm in sixth grade and I don't really know where I'm going to go to high school.
My name is Evan.
I'm in sixth grade and I don't know where I'm going to go to high school either.
Clearly Pathfinder is not the best school for like high school.
Wait.
Yes it is.
Yes it is.
Victoria.
OK yeah we are.
Yeah.
Most of us are in sixth grade.
Yeah.
Hi I'm Miette.
I am in sixth grade and I don't know where I'm going to school.
Hi my name's Ivo.
I'm in sixth grade and I don't either.
Hi my name is Parker.
I'm in seventh grade and maybe I might go to Nova.
I don't know.
But you know.
Yay.
I'm not sure.
So yay.
Hi my name is Addison.
I'm in sixth grade.
I don't know where I'm going to go to high school but I do know that I'm going to go to college.
Hello my name is Ben.
I am in sixth grade and I don't know where I'm going for high school.
My name is Henry Peters and like most people I have no idea of where I'm going for high school.
Thank you all.
Now how long have you been teaching with Seattle Public Schools and how long at Pathfinder.
This is my fifth year both in Seattle Public Schools and at Pathfinder.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Superintendent Denise Juneau the floor is yours.
Thank you.
I'm going to be out here tonight because it is board appreciation board recognition month and by proclamation of Governor Jay Inslee January is school board recognition month.
It's a great.
What's that.
No money.
It's a great time to recognize our elected community members who selflessly give their time and energy in support of ensuring our public schools are high quality and high performing for Seattle's young people.
School board members are charged with making decisions that are often quite difficult or require sifting through tremendous amounts of information.
They also carry the responsibility of developing a vision that will guide Seattle Public Schools for years to come.
A responsibility that none of them take lightly.
This month we are encouraging members of the community to thank a school board member thank them for volunteering their time.
and for playing a critical civic role that helps strengthen public education and in effect our democratic society.
I would personally like to acknowledge and thank each of our school board members for their hard work and dedication to the city and to this school district.
Thank you to District 1 school board member Scott Pinkham who believes that student family and community culture and identity should be honored and lifted up as a strategy to support students academically.
To District 2 school board member and Vice President Rick Burke whose passion for career and technical education helps our students build sturdy bridges from school to a fulfilling career.
To District 3 school board member Jill Geary who places special education and high quality inclusive learning experiences for all students at the forefront of her decision making.
to District 4 school board member Eden Mack whose passion for public policy and capital governance helps to create spaces that are supportive of student learning to District 5 school board member and member at large Zachary DeWolf who advocates that students voices and their lived experiences should be central to our work.
The District 6 school board member and President Leslie Harris who is passionate about authentic community engagement and conversation even when that conversation is difficult.
And finally to District 7 school board member Betty Patu whose longstanding commitment to Seattle Public Schools both as an employee and as a board member serves to ensure the education system benefits all families and our community for generations to come.
I am grateful that these dedicated individuals have committed their wisdom and time away from loved ones friends and family to make sure Seattle Public Schools is well governed and that we are continually improving for students for families and for staff.
I hope those watching tonight and that supporters in the audience help me in celebrating our board directors and thanking them for their service.
I would now like to read the governor's proclamation and officially recognize school board recognition month.
State of Washington proclamation whereas the mission of Washington's public school system is to assure that all students achieve at high levels and possess the knowledge and skills to be responsible citizens of a democratic society who enjoy productive and satisfying lives.
And whereas Washington's two hundred ninety five locally elected school boards and nine elected educational service district boards are the core of the public education governance governance system in our state and whereas the districts and region they lead serve more than one million students have a combined annual budget of over 15 billion dollars and employ approximately one hundred and twenty thousand people.
And whereas school directors play a crucial role in promoting student learning and achievement by creating a vision establishing policies and budgets and setting clear standards of accountability for all involved.
And whereas school directors are directly accountable to the citizens in their districts and their regions.
serving as a vital link between members of the community and their schools and whereas school directors and educational service districts provide a passionate voice of advocacy for public schools and the welfare of schoolchildren and whereas it is appropriate to recognize school directors as outstanding volunteers and champions for public education.
Now therefore he John Inslee governor of the state of Washington does hereby proclaim January 29 2019 as school board recognition month in Washington and encourages all people in our state to join me in this special observance.
Thank you school board members so much for the service you provide to this city.
I appreciate it.
Madam President there's just a couple more things for the third year in a row Seattle Education Association and many of our educators will be engaged in a week of focus to advance racial equity and positive outcomes for our students.
Educators have been thoughtfully preparing for Black Lives Matter in school week February 4th through 8th and I bring this up now because it'll be happening before your next meeting.
The ethnic studies work group has provided educator developed lessons and hundreds of educators have attended workshops over this past year.
I would like just to personally thank the SEA the Center for Racial Equity and staff for their leadership and honor the commitment of our educators.
And while that week helps reaffirm our collective commitment to justice educational excellence and opportunity for every student.
This work must be a daily practice.
That is why our draft strategic plan is intentionally focused on students furthest from educational justice.
We must focus our energies on ensuring that students we have historically underserved have the supports and the resources they need to thrive.
So thank you to everyone that has provided feedback so far.
It's been very helpful and I look forward to learning more at the next two meetings.
I would also just like to announce that we have a new chief operating officer and invite him to the lectern to introduce himself Fred Podesta.
Good afternoon directors.
I'm happy to be here.
I couldn't be more excited and more.
proud of being appointed to this position as COO for Seattle Public Schools.
I have a long history in local government with city government and Metro when there was such a thing as a as a separate entity and have had consulting engagements with.
public sector agencies at all levels of government.
But I've always felt that nothing no entity no enterprise can have more lasting impacts to a community than the local public school district and Seattle Public Schools is poised to do great things and I am just overjoyed at an opportunity to be a part of it and I'm looking forward to meeting you all and working with all you and thank you so much for this opportunity.
Thank you.
And then finally this is the time and place for your annual Native American education update.
So I'd like to call forward Gail Morris to make that presentation.
Can you hear me.
OK.
Hello.
I'm Gail Morris I'm the Native American education manager.
I'm Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations from the west coast of Vancouver Island.
How's it band.
And I will let my new hire introduce herself.
My name is Lauren.
I am recently the new hire to the Native American education program and I work as a reentry intervention student specialist.
And I'll be focusing on high school dropout prevention.
A lot of what I'll do to help prevent that is to align the students with supports and services that they have at the schools or even outside the schools as well as help be an advocate for them as someone that is also of their culture that to be a support to them and whether that be you know starting clubs or things that's another thing that I want to be a big part of.
Advocating for them is is having a system of support of people that understand the importance of culture and where you come from.
Thank you.
All right.
This is my annual Native American education board update.
Right here you'll see our successes.
We started off the year with the I am Native video which met with great success out in the community and tribes.
I'm currently working with the Muckleshoot tribe on career fair and we're going to use this film as an opening for the many tribal schools and other local education agencies that will be there.
It's pretty exciting.
Other successes that we've had is the ongoing high school and summer credit retrieval program our two week summer school literacy and culture class which was really great.
We had it up at Meany and we partnered with Miller Community Center and they were really excited to have us there.
We have our Native American Youth Leadership Academy.
The acronym is NALA.
It's where our native students meet with other native students at different in different districts in the Puyallup tribe in their community center.
We have about 12 to 16 kids who attend regularly.
So they really like that and they get to meet other native youth.
It's like my at home.
Challenges ongoing every year collecting 506 forms.
We probably could easily have about 1500 506 forms right now we're about 600. It goes up every year but it I feel like we could do more in terms of collecting them.
It's really hard.
When it goes out in to the first day packets and when they get back to the school if the schools are actually sending it back to us we're not sure we check every time we're at the schools identify native students or as I like to call decolonizing the data.
I'd like to give recognition to Abigail Echo Hawk Echo Hawk on that term and making the invisible visible.
Our students don't oftentimes feel like they're They don't feel safe in schools or they don't feel like they're recognized as Native.
And we really want to be able to give professional development around that especially in the arts.
That's a place where I think all districts fail in creating identity safety for Native students.
We do not have enough Title 6 staff to meet the academic needs of all of our Native American and Alaska Native students who need academic academic assistance and advocacy.
I feel like the more we're out there the more work we have.
We have a lot of great allies.
We're still working towards accomplices but I feel like we are reaching a lot of our students and we're making some gains in that area.
But we you know it's always on the.
highest needs.
And so we're trying to balance that out with students that are doing great.
We can't forget the students because we know that more than half of our students are doing exceptionally well in Seattle Public Schools.
So we want to be able to balance that.
So that's that's one of the challenges is being able to do that.
The since time and memorial.
So this year we are giving professional development to high school students and I just want to share some of the books that we are giving away.
One thing that we don't have is a lot of high school teachers attending our PD.
While we are able to provide substitutes and pay for that we still are not having a high turnout of high school teachers and I I don't know how to reach out.
I don't know how to get them there.
Some of the books that we give them is do all Indians live in teepees.
This is about stereotyping.
Another book that we give out for high school teachers is Nation to Nation.
This is a book on treaties between the United States and American Indian nations.
This is a really great book for teachers high school teachers to use and American Indians American presidents and this actually has the timeline of.
what is what happened since colonization.
So how's like you know the relocation of Indians allotment assimilation in your reorganization termination and finally tribal self-determination.
These are great books for teachers.
Can we please get high school teachers to the trainings.
They're great books.
So far this year we've had two trainings for high school one in October and one just last week Shannon Shannon Brown and I facilitate that we'll have one more but we would like to finish out the year is creating trainers in the schools because there's such a high turnover of staff.
We want to have one person in in the high schools and middle schools who can train new teachers coming in who can't always make it to I guess our trainings so that somehow we can get them in the training.
I don't know if it's advertisement.
I'm not sure.
Native American student support.
These are some of the services we provide after school programs at Highland Park Elementary and Sandpoint Elementary.
We also have a Native American library at Meany.
It's it's up.
You can go on to the SPS website and if you scroll down we're underneath Cascadia and it says Native American Education Library.
If you just type in whatever kind of book you want to read let's say The Bolt Decision type in The Bolt Decision it'll bring up anywhere from four to seven books on The Bolt Decision or Uncle Billy Frank Junior.
So it's really cool.
We're not completely done but.
It's open for teachers to get books if they want to.
We're really excited about that.
It's it's taken a year.
We also have our Shikachi classrooms at Chief Sealth and Denny International Middle School.
We've had that.
This is our third year at Chief Sealth.
Is this our fourth year.
No this is our third year.
And then next Thursday will be our grand opening of the Nathan Hale School and Jane Adams Middle School.
And so we have our teachers and our IA's in place and it's really exciting.
We're excited to open up that where we have a temporary place right now.
It's a small room but once Lincoln opens up next year and we start assigning students there they'll free up some rooms at Nathan Hale.
So that's really exciting.
Native American family meetings this year Superintendent Juneau had a listening session at the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation on November 15th.
We'll be having another one at Graham Hill Elementary Monday night January 28th at Graham Hill.
I think I just said that but the principal there is Dina Russo who is a pretty good friend of mine and she's also Haida and Filipino.
Parent Advisory Committee or PAC for short.
This is our parent group.
They meet the second Thursday of every month at Meany in room 46. This is our high school students graduating four years.
Those numbers look definitely.
Pretty pretty good compared to recent years.
I'm looking at the two lines there the Fed 7 line and the any line.
We've been in the low 50s to mid 50s and now we're in the high 60s to 70.8.
I do believe that's a direct result of consulting teachers in our classrooms and keeping an eye on those students running students down getting them to school and offering high school credit retrieval we pay for that.
So we have a lot of fifth year students as well.
This is the students suspended or expelled grade 6 to 12. Those if you look at the Native American NE and you see that that's that comes down significantly and that's what I mean by decolonizing the data.
The Fed 7 is only self identifying Native Americans and the NE is in the two or more races and Hispanic and Native.
And that's it.
And I just wanted to share that with you the books and the training.
And then I had an email that came to me from Chandra.
She asked me to read it tonight here at the school board meeting.
Seattle Public Schools Board of Directors Superintendent Juneau senior and key staff.
In 2015 the Washington legislator passed Bill 5 4 3 3 Senate Bill 5 4 3 3 requiring the inclusion of tribal sovereignty curriculum in all schools.
The use of the curriculum has been endorsed by all 29 federally recognized tribes.
Despite great efforts by staff who are primarily charged with supporting Native students the curriculum is still not being taught in Seattle Public Schools with even a modicum of consistency nor has it been formally adopted by the Seattle Public Schools board.
It was great to see ethnic studies adopted into SPS last year with so much support from this board and staff.
At the same time many of us in the Native community were left wondering.
How did we get to a place where the accurate history of our first peoples in this state is mandated but not adopted by the same district which is now patting itself on the back for its progressive stance on ethnic studies ethnic studies is not the same discipline as black or American Indian studies as I'm sure you know.
It's not history or government for that matter.
Certainly the 577 federally recognized tribes in this country for whom we have entire bodies of law, Washington State has incorporated tribal law into their bar exam.
and governmental divisions offices services and processes for consultation are evidence for the notion of a K-12 education program which is fully inclusive First Nations.
The battle for Seattle in 1856 was the final push to remove Native peoples from the local area.
Eleven years later Seattle Public Schools was formed.
Prior to that time the Duwamish Suquamish and other Lushootseed speakers have history that goes back more than 8000 years.
That's eight thousand years of environmental cultural human history that we don't even bother to discuss in our classrooms while we focus on the most recent one hundred and sixty three years.
Seattle Council PTSA recently held a cultural appropriation and since time immemorial introduction training for PTSA members.
It was hard to hear from so many different corners of the district how little was known about either but especially about STI since time immemorial.
It's hard as a member of the Title 6 Parent Advisory Committee to meet high school history teachers who have been in the district for 20 years but have never even heard of the curriculum.
It's hard to walk teacher after teacher through the maze of Schoology to get to the native education resource page.
It needs to be a top of page front of mind top of pile curriculum link.
The time has come for us to focus more authentically and with great attention to justice.
We agree on this.
No we need to act in kind.
Please do not let another season pass without taking this important step.
Correct your procedural gaps and bring Seattle Public Schools up to par in honoring the full history of this indigenous land we all call home adopt since time immemorial curriculum.
Sincerely Chandra Hampson title 6 parent advisory vice president SC PTSA president.
She asked me to read that for her because she couldn't be here.
I wasn't sure.
No no that's fine.
We all just looked at each other.
Could you please provide me the names of the books again please.
Yes.
I have a bunch of them upstairs that we ordered American Indians American presidents a history nation to nation treaties between the United States and American Indian nations.
Do all Indians live in teepees.
Thank you.
And please provide me again your name.
I it came so fast that I didn't hear it.
I can.
OK.
Can you spell your last name for me.
It's F-O-N-O-I M-O-A-N-A.
Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Thank you Gail.
Thanks.
OK.
We have reached the point of our agenda for board committee reports.
Who would like to go first.
Director Mack.
Good evening.
We had our last operations committee meeting the day after the last board meeting.
It was a packed agenda.
Lots was discussed.
We have a number of things tonight.
There's a good presentation and I really appreciate staff's work around policy H13 capacity management.
They're doing a lot of work to try to get the timeline organized to help move that work forward.
Our next meeting is on the 7th.
Couple weeks from now we haven't actually set the agenda yet we'll be meeting to do that this week and I want to welcome Mr. Fred Podesta.
Super excited to have him here and be my staff liaison for the committee work.
So short and sweet tonight on operations.
Brief update on the oversight committee liaison work for the family education preschool on promise I got that right.
Right.
The new FEB levy.
I was appointed to be that liaison recently and I'm jumping right into the work.
We have a meeting going on Thursday and then there's a work session that will be happening here.
So super excited about being engaged with that and stay tuned.
Next up Director Pinkham Audit and Finance.
Thank you.
Audit and Finance had our last meeting on January 14th and welcome Director Geary to our new committee and Director Mack continue as chair.
The last agenda just more informational was information only and included information about the Bright Mountain Academy.
That's providing services for our students and that they achieved the no non-public agency status.
So they actually increase the number of students they're serving.
So we're going to have to.
increase the contract to over two hundred fifty K with that one.
We looked at the WSS funding and how that may impact our budget and what changes we may have to make and you can see from our budget meeting that we had on the Wednesday the 16th we discussed that at the meeting there.
We also discussed impacts of Seattle's new minimum wage which is now at sixteen dollars per hour as of January 1st and how that would impact our budget coming up.
Projected costs increased costs including benefits is about two hundred twenty three thousand dollars.
We also looked at the governor's budget proposal which is usually he's the one that comes out here.
Here are my good aspirations.
So we'll see how that works out and looking at the impacts of.
The per pupil inflator what they may do with our levy.
Those are different things still to be determined.
We also informed about a new policy HB 2242 requirement audit findings for our enrichment restrictions with our levy.
The legislator said we must come up with a new policy for 2019 20 and we're still waiting to see what WSSDA has to put out for their draft version of that and then we'll respond accordingly.
We also discussed possibly adding to our next on finance meeting which is Monday February 11th to make sure we discuss schools and the funding that may get from private resources so we can help the schools out and ourselves be more accountable to what funding is getting to our schools and hopefully that will help us create more equitable schools around the district.
And that is my report for Audit and Finance.
And definitely yes we do have the budget we're still working on and our next meeting was postponed or was going to be rescheduled.
Correct.
Are you talking about the budget session.
Yeah.
Budget work session.
Yes that's correct.
Yeah.
No news presently.
Yes.
No no.
Director Geary our new chair of curriculum and instruction.
And be patient because I will be doing updates on the strategic plan steering committee as well as our legislative so.
That's because you're our utility player.
Thank you so much.
All right.
OK.
Curriculum instruction tonight we're going to be approved introducing approval of new courses.
So it's an opportunity if anybody has any input on that it's really just the courses that will be added not necessarily provided but it expands our course catalog and what the potential of offerings are in the Seattle Public Schools.
What is ultimately offered however needs to be determined on a school by school basis.
Our next curriculum and instruction committee meeting will be February 12th 430 to 630 p.m.
here.
We'll be reviewing a variety of policies including parent and student rights and administration of surveys analysis or evaluations.
I know there's been some discussion about that in the greater public so that will be one of the topics.
AO2 performance management management 2015 selection and adoption of instructional materials.
I would like to say that if we don't have an update on since time immemorial that might be a good thing for us to add either other either under our adoption of instructional materials discussion or if need be add that to our agenda to get an update on where we are with that.
2022 electronic resources and use of the Internet.
And then we do have a standing report on ethnic studies and perhaps it is time to get one as well on STI so that we can be sure to shepherd that forward as is necessary.
Director Mack and I will hopefully be holding regular maybe quarterly meetings with Chiefs DeBacker and Podesta to discuss the different issues where there's an intersection between what we are offering in our schools and how we are structuring our schools.
I think that this is a tension that we feel from time to time in terms of.
you know one piece is going forward and another piece is maybe not being addressed in that.
And so we would hope to coordinate all of those discussions so they make sense in how we're moving forward.
So that's my report for curriculum and instruction.
Next we go on to the strategic plan steering committee.
Today was the last day to provide comments via online access.
So we needed to close that off because it will take some time.
to gather up that information and provide it in a way that it can be properly collated and then presented to the board and the steering committee.
If we continue to take in that information then we won't be able to do the proper analysis of it to digest it and then review it.
But should you like to provide more input there are two more meetings Friday January 25th up northeast Seattle.
3120 Northeast 125th Street.
That's from 430 to 6 and then Monday there will be a Native American community focus and I didn't put the address but it is on line and I believe that will be at Graham Hill as Gail Morris discussed.
We'll then be having a work board work session on January 30th to go over the input and look at it.
Now it's really important that everybody remembers that to date the strategic plan is a draft and we're hearing from a lot of people.
This is the time to provide us your input so that we can make sure that it is addressing the different concerns that are being raised but hopefully maintaining a focus on the group that we as a strategic.
As the steering committee believe that if we focus on the group of African-American males in this work across all the different areas we will be creating the processes the approaches that will reach the families that can then be used to reach any student within our district when you pick the most vulnerable.
group of students and you make good access for them you are going to be a lot closer to providing good access for everyone.
We have many marginalized communities in our school district.
We see that through their performance.
It's very important that we work out strategies that work.
And if we continue to not be focused in this work we can only expect to continue to get the same kinds of outcomes.
So we are trying something very hard and very brave and we hope to see something different.
If you continue to do the same thing with the same priorities and the same focus on everyone and expect different outcomes that seems futile at best.
So that I do but we hear you and we hear people talking about the sacrifice or the difficulty in what has been proposed.
And we ask that you take a moment to embrace the difficult task ahead of us to really make a difference for some of our students farthest from just as farthest from educational opportunity.
And that's my steering committee or my strategic plan report.
Now on to the legislative.
Eden Mack and I are doing the legislative work the session legislative session has begun.
Staff has already been to Olympia on several days testifying on a variety of bills.
Bills are coming out fast and furious.
We look at those as they're posted.
and analyze whether or not they're going to have an impact on Seattle Public Schools send the individual bills to the staff within the building that work on that within that area for their analysis and comment make a determination whether it's important for us as a district to go and testify and provide information to the legislators.
So we are doing that on a continuing basis at this point.
And then.
On February 11th 2019 I believe Director Mack and I will be attending the day on the hill with WASDA and another a number of other educational organizations to meet together with other board directors to bring the concerns that Washington schools are facing directly to our legislators and give them an opportunity to ask us questions.
And those conclude my reports.
Any other liaison work you want to report out on folks.
We did have an executive committee meeting last week.
It was robust.
It was rowdy and we will not be meeting from 3 to 5 in the future on Thursdays because of work schedules it will be more like 8 to 10 on those Thursdays.
So keep an eye on the calendar and I'll say it again I'll say it probably till my Last day here on the dais our employers who put up with our crazy need to be thanked because it's not necessarily easy on our employers time.
for us to be engaging in this passionate work and interruptions etc.
And thank you to the staff for rearranging the timing of those meetings.
It's very very much appreciated and we'll take it from there and if it doesn't work well we'll change it again because we're flexible and nimble.
Some of the things we talked about were the board goals.
We talked about our race and equity training and choosing from the menu of those trainings.
We talked about community engagement.
We talked about the fact that if you think the school district is broke the school board is even broker.
We don't have very much money with which to have our professional development.
our conferences and to be able to sponsor gatherings in the community and as the librarians this evening will tell us as the assistant principals will tell us there is no more nickels in the couch cushions.
So when you speak with your legislators please let them know that we could use some funding for all these fabulous mandates because we're as strong as our training we're as strong as our collaboration and we're not spending your money unwisely.
In fact we're just cheap as heck.
So there's that.
We will have a board retreat on March 2nd.
First two hours will be intra board communication And the next two hours will be board and staff communication and I need you to do the visual of walking that fabulous tight wire between doing your constituency service work representing the folks that voted you the folks that bother you at the banana aisle and the grocery store because they're good and irritated and angry at the school district because we're not doing what they believe we need to do.
for their children and their students or their taxes went up or they don't understand why we just ran two levies one being the Seattle families education preschool and promise partnership the FEPP levy and on February 12th we'll be running our operations and our BEX V levy.
And then at the same time we have to stay in the quote unquote governance 30,000 foot roll to let the professionals to do their jobs.
And there's a lot of crossover and it's a dance and it is a tight wire act.
And I am beyond pleased to tell you that everybody in this building everybody in this room has got the class and the elegance to speak up when they feel folks are are breaching that rule.
Now how do you write protocols and policies and procedures and standard operating procedures and how do you.
try hard to bring the heart to the work that we do every day without becoming some kind of faceless bureaucrat.
We're still working on that.
We get better every day.
We call each other out.
We try hard to have a sense of humor and we have good honest and thoughtful conversations and you're welcome to join us and we'll feed you and we're a good time.
On that note we're moving to student comments.
Adam Billen from the center school is 11th grade.
He's attended Seattle Public Schools since kindergarten and has gone to Orca K through 8 for nine years.
He chose a center school because he was seeking a smaller tightly knit community similar to Orca in which he could become fully involved and invested.
He takes full advantage of the opportunities available at TCS serving in leadership roles such as head delegate for MUN.
You're going to need to explain what that is for us if you would please sir and chief officer for the Associated Student Body ASB.
Right now he's in the thick of finalizing center field day a school wide community building day and preparing to attend a three day MUN conference starting tomorrow.
All righty.
in Vancouver Canada.
Mr. Billen tell us about yourself.
Tell us about your school.
Tell us what you like.
Tell us what we need to fix.
Money provided of course funded mandates only and welcome.
Thank you.
So hi I'm Adam.
I'm a junior at the center school like you said.
First of all to explain MUN it is model United Nations and it's a club where we represent countries and committees in the United Nations and do research and create sort of condensed research papers and then try to reach solutions with a bunch of other high schoolers.
This conference will be about 1500 I think.
All working to solve the world's problems basically.
So yeah.
TCS is a really small community.
We're less than 250 students which provides a lot of really great opportunities.
We get super involved clubs like ASB and MUN.
Our ASB runs all of our open houses.
We had one last week and we also run center field day which is the event that was discussed which will be in about two weeks.
It's all school.
We've got a big community meeting in the morning and then activities with our whole school to build community and then workshops in the afternoon.
We have a bunch of other clubs too.
We have SAGA which is our sexuality and gender alliance the racial justice alliance and JUCRU which is.
Yeah I think it's self-explanatory.
Some other advantages of that super small community is we have super involved teachers.
So I know all of my teachers personally even ones that I don't have for classes.
They're all looking out for me.
Even teachers that I have never had for a class for all three years of high school have come up to me and talked to me in the hallways.
It's a really really good community and I think that everyone feels really welcome there.
Everyone knows each other since it's so small.
I can name pretty much anyone that I walk by in the hallway, even a lot of the freshmen.
And we have a really big emphasis on social justice.
And I think the fact that we're so small lends itself to conversations that are generally hard when you're with people that you don't know as well.
But when you're with a group of people that you've known for three years and you know all of them by name and you've had conversations with all of them, it makes that a lot easier.
So there are a lot of things that are really valuable about that small school.
But we also lack funding often because of the fact that we're so small.
So we have a lower diversity of classes.
We often struggle to figure out which classes to cut and which to keep as I'm sure many schools do.
And as much as that small community is valuable we often have students that struggle figuring out whether or not to stay at our school because so many classes are not available to them that would be available at other schools.
But nonetheless we have amazing teachers and they lead amazing classes and we have been able to scrap together AP classes that have been really successful that I've attended and we have incredible math and science teachers and award winning arts programs.
So we do our best with the funding that we have but we're lacking funding for very important things which another student Mara will talk more about a little bit later.
So we struggle as a small school but we also struggle confidently and we do our best with the resources that we have.
But without more funding there's a lot of stuff that we're missing.
So if anyone has any questions about the school or about anything that I said that would be welcome.
Director DeWolf please.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
My question is actually about you.
You described Model UN.
So I'm curious what do you feel about your Seattle Public Schools experience prepares you or encourages you or interests you in something like the Model UN.
For sure.
Yeah I would say that there definitely is a stark contrast between the students going to MUN conferences that are from public schools and ones that go to private schools.
And it can be a point of contention.
But I think the fact that we go to public schools and we're publicly funded and we're working with a larger district with more students that can interact.
on a more frequent basis basically rather than an isolated private school private school community.
We get the chance to have to have that sort of diversity of opinions and that really lends itself to MUN given that it's the whole world.
And so not being in a sort of smaller private school community gives us the chance to to do that and sort of be the scrappy underdogs that still manage to win awards.
Yeah.
Well I hope that we've we can cut that clip to really make sure that we are bragging about our public schools.
So thank you for sharing that.
What's next for you if you know or what are you thinking about.
Yeah.
College.
So through MUN I've kind of developed a passion for international affairs and international politics so I hope to go somewhere in D.C.
or New York where I can do that and study international affairs.
So trying to figure out college right now I would say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Other questions from my colleagues please.
Director Patu.
What makes your school special.
Yeah I think that the size is probably the biggest thing and the community that that fosters especially the fact that because we're in downtown Seattle no one is known to our school.
So we have people from pretty much all over the city.
I'm from South Seattle I have friends from West Seattle Magnolia Queen Anne people coming from very far south.
We have people from all over the place and I think that means we get.
A lot more of a diverse pool than I would have gotten if I had gone to Garfield or Franklin which are my local schools.
So I think that makes us really unique.
Yeah.
OK.
Please feel free to stay as long as you like.
And when we ask questions of staff you are welcome to join in with us.
OK.
Thank you.
OK.
The performances and the student participation are probably one of the best parts of these meetings and and it grounds you as to why we're here.
We are now at the consent portion of tonight's agenda.
May I have a motion for the consent agenda please.
I move approval of the consent agenda.
I second the motion.
OK.
Do any directors have items they would like to remove from the consent agenda.
Seeing none.
All those in favor of the consent agenda signify please by saying aye.
Aye.
OK.
We have 15 minutes for board comments prior to public testimony starting at 530. Who would like to go first.
Director DeWolf.
Thank you President Harris.
Let me just fix this here.
First as a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Nation of Rockyville Montana I first want to also recognize that we are on stolen indigenous land.
I'm honored to live work and serve in the Coast Salish territories in the city of Chief Sealth who was a descendant of the Suquamish the Muckleshoot and the Duwamish.
First thing really really excited.
We continue to work on and really just dive into the conversation around workforce agreements again really grateful for the endorsement by Washington State Superintendent Reykdal and we'll look forward to introducing a BAR at least through the operations committee in the next couple of weeks we'll have some information on that.
As well as really looking forward to one of the things we'll be mentioning here in our introduction items tonight around the board goals.
One of the really exciting things that I know in 2017 was really excited to talk about on the campaign trail was thinking about how do we move and make our meetings more accessible.
So I'm really excited for one of our board goals about moving a couple of our work sessions out into the community to make sure that we're making those more accessible to folks.
The next thing this Friday I'm grateful for directors Geary and director and President Harris for volunteering for the annual point in time count which is an annual observational count of the people experiencing homelessness here in King County.
So grateful for you for coming out to join us.
It is a huge effort.
We have about 700 volunteers across King County counting all over every city here in King County to understand the crisis right at our doorsteps.
Next also just wanted to say I know we have a little bit of a timing issue but just for folks to make sure that we're at least being transparent we are introducing a Black Lives Matter week of action resolution and we'll and we'll have some more information for folks in the coming days and we'll be introducing that for intro and action at our February 6th board meeting.
I know the timing is a little bit off but still want to make sure we recognize that important week that we were so excited to make a resolution for last year.
And then the last thing I just want to say was really touched.
Last week was really grateful to be invited by Principal May to come out to the third grade Marshall community.
The students the educators the staff and even parents invited me out to their annual MLK observance assembly.
I was deeply deeply inspired by their awareness and appreciation at the school and the and the students truly clearly possessed in their knowledge a lot about Martin Luther King Jr. but also a lot of the teachings and we're really able to talk about that and just really such sweet and inspiring ways.
So thank you for the Thurgood Marshall community for inviting me but also just reminding me how really awesome our public schools are and particularly our students are just do a really great job of learning and being appreciative of the histories that brought them here.
So.
I will be out at Stevens Elementary next week to visit Principal Fitch and yeah that's all I have to say.
Next up Director Pinkham.
Good evening and welcome.
I was thinking how I should start this board comments and I think one one do is go Edgar Edgar Edgar.
Congratulations to Edgar Martinez Seattle Mariner making the Hall of Fame.
And congratulations to his philanthropy work that he has done for decades for schoolchildren in this area.
Yes thank you Edgar Martinez and your family.
I finally was able to get on the library and try to hopefully got my community meeting so I'm actually going to start out.
I still have to get affirmed but I have plans for a community meeting actually this Saturday January 26 from 1030 to noon at Northgate library.
So it's still tentative until I get a confirmation from Northgate library.
But that was open and I took it so waiting for the confirmation on that.
So kind of a short notice but.
to people out there.
Watch the website.
I'll share it with our office staff so that it gets up once it's confirmed.
Thank you to Pathfinder Choir sharing your songs and your teacher.
It's just amazing to see students involved with music in their education and it will take them far.
Thank you Adam.
We're here sharing your thoughts and perspectives from center school and having that small community and feeling like you're part of the whole community versus on the side at these larger schools and.
As we look at the size of schools and what's going on there hopefully we can encourage students to build their own communities.
You know even though the University of Washington for instance is huge but we can still build community for our students at all our schools and help them persist through their education.
Gail Morris thank you for your presentation.
Just the struggles that we have with our native students and native education in general.
And since time immemorial getting that adopted you know we are working with C&I to make sure that our policy allows us to adopt something that's online or isn't.
We have to go through a bid process and stuff like that.
So that's we are working towards that.
You know it wasn't mandated that we involve tribal sovereignty and stuff in the educations but we got to make sure our policies are aligned with that as well so we are moving towards that.
And I was actually invited to speak at a dance class actually today at the University of Washington by Juliet McMains.
It was a cross cultural dance and she was bringing back.
She stayed away from powwow dance and those dances for a while because she didn't know enough.
She and she was afraid to go there.
And she actually invited some of our students to go and teach and she was in line to have the students go there.
But when the students saw her curriculum they balked because unfortunately they felt that there'd be their defending like yes powwow dance is OK.
And so I was called in and kind of filled in and you know there are people that want to know such things and hopefully they'll respect that there's some things that can be shared and some things that won't.
And so I had to share that with the class you know there's some things that I can share some things that I won't share.
And if you truly want to know hopefully go to the source or find someone that knows and don't rely upon what you see in the media.
Unfortunately that gets to our stereotypes and can make our students feel marginalized like that's all they see me as someone with to be a true real native I have to live in a teepee I have to wear buckskin I have to have feathers.
No we are contemporary people.
We are here and will continue to be here.
And we are very diverse nations across this continent.
They believe they mentioned over well over 500 federally recognized tribes and tribes that aren't federally recognized and there's still people are practicing their cultural traditions in ways but we are contemporary people as well.
So just.
Want to make sure we acknowledge that and as we look at Adopted Since Time Immemorial that we include the contemporary experience of our children and youth as well.
Other announcements UW Winter Powwow this weekend and Hub Ballroom this Saturday grand entries at 1 p.m.
and 7 p.m.
Also saw the Duwamish Longhouse celebrating their 10th anniversary this Saturday as well from 10 a.m.
to 5 p.m.
The Urban Native Education Alliance continues their Tuesdays and Thursday meetings at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School Licton Springs.
from 6 a.m.
to 8 p.m.
and this week they have elders from Lakota Nation coming in Matthew Warbonnet and Finette Blackbear just to talk to our students about traditional relationships and how we communicated with amongst our tribes and different nations and being respectful.
In this time and age when we see what happened over this weekend and in Washington D.C.
was one of our native elders Nathan.
Phillips thank you Dr. DeWolf and the encounter that happened there.
So when people don't know enough to act respectful that they rely upon their stereotypes and misconceptions that hurts us.
So we're hoping that our students learn to do that.
How do we deal with that.
You know how do we when we reach that kind of situation.
What's the best way to react.
So encourage other students if they can come out there.
Come out to Robert Eagle Staff Middle School on Tuesday and Thursday and learn with us and.
Lift us all up.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.
OK let's take a five minute break.
You can stretch and we'll be back for 530 for public testimony on the button.
Thank you.