We have a quorum.
Welcome to the December 19th 2018 Seattle School Board's legislative meeting.
As we begin the board would like to recognize and honor the first peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on the land of the coastal Salish tribes.
Roll call please.
Director Burke here Director DeWolf Here.
Director Geary.
Here.
Director Mack.
Here.
Director Patu.
Director Pinkham.
Present.
Director Harris.
Present and Director Patu will be joining us later.
She is at the signing ceremony for one of her very talented grandsons who is signing with Berkeley.
I don't know quite why we can't keep the Patu grandchildren in the Husky football game but such as it is.
Everyone would please stand if you so wish for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Tonight we have joining us the Martin Luther King Jr.
Elementary Choir.
Like to invite the directors to take a seat with me in the audience for this performance.
It's not on.
♪ Winter in the summer, winter in the winter ♪ Winter in the summer, winter in the winter ♪ Winter in the summer, winter in the winter ♪ Winter in the summer, winter in the winter ♪ Winter in the summer, winter in the winter We're playing by the door.
here.
You don't know what to do.
Tell me what the color, the color of your blue.
It's what you do.
You see the blue, the blue, the blue.
It's a high, high, high.
It's a low, low, low.
It's a high, high, high.
It's a low, low, low.
We sing the blues, the blues, the blues.
There's been no love, no hope, no goodness.
There's nothing, no, there's nothing.
There's nothing.
Jazz!
Play it, sing it, sing it.
Jazz!
Jazz!
Jazz!
Play it, sing it, sing it.
Everyone should know, that in New Orleans, there was a sound, just one time, all around the town.
There was a monkey, who was there at the party, there was a star that simply didn't shine.
Way back home at the sea.
Oh, Dad!
Dad!
Dad!
Say it, say it, say it, Dad!
Dad!
Dad!
Say it, say it, say it, Dad!
Thanks for watching!
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Thank you.
That was awesome sauce.
Outrageously good.
Can you tell us who you are how long you've taught why this program and then we're going to hand the mic throughout and you can tell us your first name and your grade.
I'm Jamal White I'm a vocal music teacher at Martin Luther King Jr.
Elementary School.
Thank you.
Our principal Dr. Thomas is here.
And this is my sixth year and I'm just I just love these students.
I'm just so honored to just you know be able to teach so and hear that.
Yes ma'am.
Yep.
Yeah.
OK so introduce yourselves first name and your grade and pass it on.
OK.
Thank you.
My name is Audie and I'm in fourth grade.
My name my name is Giselle and I'm in fourth grade.
Hi my name's Kalina and I'm in third grade.
My name is Jennifer and I'm in fourth grade.
My name is Michael and I'm in second grade.
My name is Amira and I'm in third grade.
My name is Alina and I'm in fourth grade.
My name is Jay Briana and I'm in third grade.
My name is Mayuri and I'm in third grade.
My name is Galila and I'm in fourth grade.
My name is Dominic and I am in third grade.
My name is Kaylani and my name is also my name.
My grade is in first grade.
My name is Lucy and I am in second grade.
Another round of applause.
Thank you all for honoring us with your music.
That was awesome sauce.
Have a great holiday and a great winter break.
Good job.
OK then Madam Superintendent the floor is yours.
All right.
That was awesome.
That was really great.
Enjoyable.
OK so I visited three international schools two weeks ago.
This is a Japanese class at McDonald's.
You'll notice I'm not raising my hand because I didn't know what was going on.
Where's the rest of them.
Oh here we go.
My tour guides from Hamilton International Middle School they shared their perspectives while we visited classrooms.
These were great great student leaders in that school.
On December 7th and 8th I launched the first superintendent student advisory board.
We have amazing kind smart students throughout our schools.
I just keep thinking if we are producing students as bright and as capable as these are we are doing pretty well.
They had a conversation with Ronald Boy about a district dress code.
Very smart very insightful very wise.
This young student is telling me about her science project.
These Maple students were so excited to tell me jokes they had a lot of them.
I think they were supposed to be reading but I was way more fun for that class period.
We shared a lot of funny stuff.
Principal Goldberg showed me shared how McDonald is building out a social justice international K-5 program.
Principal Jones at John Stanford International.
This school actually has probably the best view of any school in the town in the city of Seattle.
But her team they are working very hard to create a more equitable system within their building.
Principal Manza at Hamilton shared his team's work on global competency and social emotional learning for students during the advisory program.
This is the librarian at John Stanford.
She had a good friend.
She knows a good friend of mine in Montana and it's continues to be such a small world as I travel around this great city.
I was so impressed with Principal Lamb's work at Van Asselt.
Her staff the staff at Van Asselt are focused on meeting the needs of each student and give a ton of their time to support all students.
Jada led this group around Cleveland High School.
She's the student in the red jacket.
What this Cleveland just has such a strong leadership team under Principal Brayland their focus on growing staff and creating a pipeline there has led to a very very diverse teaching staff.
I think there are lessons there that we can all learn from across the district.
Maple's success under this team.
This is the administration team there is really phenomenal.
Principal Sanchez credits the staff's devotion to strong ties for instruction.
Out in the community I spent a couple of weeks now getting out and sharing what I learned during the listening and learning tour and also speaking a little bit about the levees.
Jake Wittenberg and I talked on King 5 morning news one morning.
I give a shout out to the Rainier Avenue radio.
I got interviewed by Yvette there.
That was pretty phenomenal.
Brandi Kruse and I talked on Q 13. I met with Cairo radio host Dave Ross and Colleen O'Brien and what I've learned through all this is people are very interested in what Seattle Public Schools are up to but also that everyone in Seattle wants our students to be successful and that's just really always a good platform to be on.
Last, I was on a panel at GSBA New Voices in Leadership with Chief Best.
So I want to thank Louise there for the invite to that group.
It was a great turnout, probably about 300 people in the room talking about leadership and what, and it was great to have a conversation about education system there too.
So thank you.
OK and for those that are interested we are back to doing Friday memos and those will be posted on a regular basis.
They will be weekly.
They are not the three hundred and thirty two page Friday memos but they are a version that will keep you posted as to what we're up to what the superintendent is up to and we believe in that transparency.
So we are at board committee reports.
Who would like to go first.
Director Mack have at it.
Good evening.
I'll be brief.
Much of what we had in December on December 6 we have our last Ops Committee meeting.
Much of what's on our agenda tonight for introduction we'll be discussing later so I won't go into it.
There are several items there both.
Projects that are moving through the process of approval as well as the student assignment transition plan transportation boundaries.
We also had discussion around planning for community workforce agreement meeting sometime later.
It's not been scheduled yet.
Planning is ongoing and continued conversation around capacity management space available policy and procedures updates that That work continues to be ongoing and we are working on the annual work plan for next year for the committee.
The BEX BTA oversight committee meet met on Friday.
That was a really great meeting.
We have new members.
Since one month ago and the focus of this meeting was racial equity.
We had a training a really wonderful presentation and thought provoking great conversation.
Deborah Northern from our staff.
It was just it was it was a really productive way to spend our time and get focused on racial equity and how to how to ensure that that's being woven through the work that the committee is doing.
So I look forward to having other committees also take that that training and do that have that conversation.
Let's see also.
Oh we also at operations committee meeting talked about got more information on the information that's going out about our levies both the programs and operations levy as well as the BEX levy.
We heard that all of the schools have gotten the map that shows all the projects and I've been in a couple of schools this week and they had it posted so it was nice to see.
So the information is getting out there on our levies that will be on the ballot in February and the next meeting for operations will be January 10th.
I'll also go ahead and just move straight into legislative legislative.
Update we had the opportunity to meet with many of our Seattle delegation last week and a number of folks we hadn't seen in a while were there.
It was a really productive conversation around our legislative agenda and what might be happening this year what might not be happening and just want to say a big thank you to everyone who attended and and for working with us and look forward to the session starting the beginning of the new year.
Director Pinkham Audit and Finance.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.
Audit and Finance.
We had our last meeting on Monday December 10th.
We didn't have any bars anything to address but we are also always doing some very important work.
We covered the.
Annual hiring report and the annual financial report and it doesn't have some lively conversation around the annual financial report when we're looking at the carry overs from year to year.
And when we have some money that we didn't all spend in this previous year and how it carries over.
And Director Mack had some good questions and discussion that it'd be nice to have a little bit more information on to what items were being carried over what did we.
able to cover this year and what items are going forward for next year.
So and they agreed to bring us back that information so we can have more clarity on each carrier from the various budgets.
As I said it wasn't much of a meeting but a lot of discussion.
I will have more to share early on in this meeting about some completed audits.
So that's really basically what's happened in the A&F arena.
I don't want to minimize budget but we are working on the budget.
That was another thing we had working sessions on for budgets as well and we'll continue to do that and have hopefully a budget we can agree upon in the coming months.
Director DeWolf standing in for C&I curriculum and instruction.
Thank you President Harris.
At this month's curriculum and instruction committee meeting we talked about arts funding which we'll chat about today as part of our action items.
We also did a little bit of discussion around some minor policy work for policy 2 0 2 4 and 2 4 2 0. And then also started some light conversations just informationally around Superintendent Procedure 2015 as well as policies 2015 which is adoption materials and A02.00 which is performance management and research with which we've heard last year and it's coming back to us a bit more refined.
And then finally we heard a really exciting update on the progress of our ethnic studies.
And there's an event on January 12th from 3 p.m.
to 6 p.m.
at El Centro de la Raza.
I think it's an informational event to get feedback and just begin the community design process of this work.
And it's called learning the truth to better the youth.
It's an SPS ethnic studies event.
Certainly I think a really exciting inclusive curriculum that many folks in our community could greatly benefit from.
And that's all I have.
Director Burke.
I'll bookend that with a looking forward.
The next curriculum instruction policy meeting is January 15th.
Key items on that there are two action board action reports coming forward one for yearbook renewal yearbook provider renewal and approval of course catalog new courses that are being approved for the subsequent years.
We will be touching on standing agenda items will include instruction materials update update on the science adoption and how that's progressing and what that's going to look like in terms of piloting and also on since time immemorial.
We will be talking about the as Director DeWolf mentioned the some of the standing work policy 2015 on instructional materials adoptions.
This is just a heads up to directors that staff will be reaching out to you for two by twos to talk about that policy.
Three by threes three by threes one by ones whatever the whatever the mapping works out to individual meetings to help understand if there's any concerns with that before it comes back forward to the committee.
And then there's community engagement taking place right now around policy 2022 electronic resources and use of the Internet.
And this is specifically around the use of personal electronic devices and what schools are doing now.
What are the the pros and cons of that so that we can build it into policy.
There's also an update on advanced learning and the work that's done and being done in the advanced learning and the advanced learning task force.
And then finally one of my personal favorites the CTE annual plan is coming forward with an update from talking about the progress on that and some of our strategies and some of the work on those programs.
Can you elaborate on the community engagement for personal electronic devices please.
Yeah there's the avenues for that are the information technology advisory committee reaching out to principals.
Reaching out to teachers through a survey.
And then I believe the plan is also to just bring it to the student advisory panel.
So I think four different channels of feedback to understand the impact of that.
OK.
Whoever's shepherding that if they could send that information out in a separate send to the directors would be much appreciated.
And probably we want to discuss at some point whether parents and others would be included in that engagement.
Hot topic as it were.
We met in executive committee and we had two of our executive committee meeting members out of town and Director Mack was kind enough to sit in at executive committee.
We have a standard agenda where we review the next legislative meetings and put things on the consent calendar ask lots of questions etc.
And we were supposed to have an executive committee meeting today but we didn't get it noticed properly and we take that very very seriously.
So we will be revisiting that board goals and work sessions early on in the next year and our executive committee member at large Director DeWolf will be joining us and welcome aboard.
You will learn so much you will have a headache and you will find out about all the different levers and the wonderful unintended consequences.
It was not a particularly.
It's the word I want to say striking meeting.
But one of the things that we did do is we took a snapshot of field trips not scientific but we are starting to broach the equity issues about what.
It looks like in one school vis-a-vis another school.
It's a start.
We're taking these issues about equity and funding and opportunity very very seriously.
And many thanks to the folks that are putting that information together because it is difficult to find.
And it's frankly quite stunning.
I believe that's in the exec will be either in the executive committee agenda or with the meeting minutes attached because again we believe in transparency but it is a first step.
OK.
So we have no student comments this evening and we move on to business action items.
The consent agenda.
May I have a motion.
I move approval of the consent agenda.
Second.
Are there any items on the consent agenda that folks would like to have removed at this time.
Seeing none.
Those in favor of passing the consent agenda please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
OK.
And here we are way ahead of schedule.
It is 4 50 public testimony starts at 5 30. Mr. General Counsel.
Is it possible for us to we can do board reports but we're still going to have a big piece of time here.
Is it possible to go to intro items prior to.
Board testimony as opposed to action.
Oh we lost our podium and our mic.
Good evening Noel Treat Chief Legal Counsel.
Yes you do have the authority to modify your agenda to move the order of items around.
I'd recommend that you do a motion to do that and move items prior to public testimony.
OK terrific.
Well let's move in to.
Board member reports and feedback and let's make sure we keep them cogent short sweet and yummy.
Who would like to go first.
Director Burke you're up.
I will go very short and sweet because shortly after our last meeting and yummy I can't do cogent and yummy because shortly after our last meeting I got on an airplane and left and just got back yesterday.
So I just wanted to mention share gratitude that my colleagues helped keep things going from the board point of view while while I was out.
So I appreciate that and thank you especially to Director DeWolf for chairing C&I and subbing and for Director Geary for joining as well to complete the quorum.
But I think it bears notice that you called in from South Africa at 430 in the morning for our work session on the budget.
They were cogent and juicy.
So I did call in for the budget and board goals conversation.
So I just wanted to let the public know that I will be scheduling my next community meeting in January and that is all.
That was short and sweet.
Director Geary.
Mine too will be very short and sweet.
Since our last meeting I've had the opportunity to once again visit the innovative schools in Tacoma and then yesterday went and visited TAF in Federal Way.
TAF It's a Holly and I'm just so impressed at the opportunity to visit these high schools that are very different than your comprehensive high school not Not shockingly so not strangely so but in ways that are really focused on creating relationships and engagement for students who have perhaps been historically underserved within their communities.
And so I think both of those communities I think the students that took the time to tour with us and talk about their programs And I just invite people to learn more about what high school could look like and be open to the idea that we can do more that is student centric in the delivery of education.
And in doing that I think that we will keep kids engaged longer.
And so to the extent that we've started a student advisory board and are welcoming those voices I just really feel like it's it's a change.
It's a game changer for us in terms of seeing outcomes change for our students.
So again I invite everybody to take the opportunity to visit those schools when it arises.
And other than that I'm just going to say I spent a significant amount of time down in California at my first born's graduation from UC Berkeley.
He was a graduate from Ingram High School's international baccalaureate program and twice exceptional.
And like many of the parents that we hear from who get very frustrated with Seattle Public Schools around all the things and inconveniences and the moving around and The changing of the program.
I have to say that my son received a fantastic education from Seattle Public Schools.
It allowed him to graduate from Berkeley in three and a half years in computer science.
And so I'm going to thank Seattle Public Schools for what it contributed for my son's success.
So.
Keep breathing.
I know sometimes we are frustrating.
I know sometimes the pathway is not clear or even straight or easy.
But if you hang in there with your students and you grab every opportunity you can for them it can work.
It can work.
Just keep breathing.
Tell them to keep breathing and keep moving forward.
But I was so proud I just my heart burst.
So that was how I've spent my time.
Thank you.
Oh and just one more thing.
As we approach the winter break I hope everybody takes that opportunity to spend time with their family enjoy the time off from schools reconnecting with the people that you love eating really yummy food and being warm and cozy.
So have a wonderful break and we'll see you in the new year.
Director Patu proud grandmother and why can't we get some of your grandchildren as Huskies.
Go Dawgs.
What up.
Well, today has been a really exciting day.
First of all I actually had a chance to visit Dearborn Park and I was very impressed with all the work that's going on.
And I mean it's amazing when you walk through all these classes and kids are at tests.
I asked one told one of the teachers this is really amazing.
You know when you walk through a class and every child is engaging in learning which is a wonderful thing.
Today was also exciting because my grandson actually signed with Cal and we've been celebrating all day and that's the reason why I was late.
We ratted you out.
So it's been an amazing week and I'm just trying to calm down and Because it's been celebrating all week and I was hoping that he would sign up for UW but you know how that goes.
So.
So I'm actually very happy to be here today and I just want to say congratulations to Oren for the hard work and being able to to finally sign up for the school that he wanted to go to.
Thank you Betty.
OK.
Who's up next.
Director Pinkham.
Since we're sharing family stories.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ and Tascalao.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Thank you to the MLK Elementary Choir.
Thank you for the music.
Wish they could stay here and kind of like hum in the background while we're doing this and help set the mood.
My next community meeting won't be until January as well.
So I have been contacted by some people in community asking when my office hours were but certainly I don't have office hours but I'll let you know when my next community meeting is so watch for it to be announced either at the next meeting or online when I get it scheduled.
So my daughter is back from the Institute of American Indian Arts where she took five classes where that's too many credits but she's trying to graduate in four years she had some credits to make up and she looked at her report card today.
All A's.
And I said where's the A pluses.
She said I don't give A pluses.
So she was happy to do that because the previous quarter she didn't get a good grade and she was really sad and I think that was kind of motivate her.
OK I got it.
Can't let that happen again.
So yeah she got straight A's this past quarter so back on the president's list.
And then also got a shout out to my other daughter Joanne.
She was with North of War Athletics in a basketball tournament this weekend down at Muckleshoot their Muckleshoot Salmon Jam.
They had two levels one for I think seven eight year olds and then actually another level for eighth and ninth graders.
She played with eighth and ninth graders and they took second place and made it to the championship game and lost.
Which is OK because it was a team from Lapwai my hometown reservation that won the championship game.
So kind of teetering on which team I was cheering for but I was ultimately cheering for my daughter's team but they lost.
But she's got a nice jacket and stuff to go along with it.
So encourage other people that may be interested in native warrior athletics.
They do have basketball practice Tuesdays and Thursdays out at Robert Eagle Staff gym and on Sundays at Bitter Lake Community Center.
So come out and join us.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.
Next up director DeWolf please.
Thank you President Harris.
First as a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Nation of Rocky Bay Montana I want to 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 is a descendant of the Suquamish Muckleshoot and Duwamish.
Really had a haven't had a lot of out in the district visits this last couple of weeks but we're really excited to continue working on the community workforce community workforce agreements which has now been endorsed by our Washington State Superintendent Chris Reykdal.
Also looking forward to refining our board goals as a preview had some really great developments around community engagement and hope we'll get to officially move some of our work sessions out into the community.
And also thanks to the Alliance for Education for supporting our most vulnerable students at each school with a two million dollar right now needs fund.
I'm really excited to see how that supports our students with those needs.
And finally I wanted to just call something in for our own internal analysis here at John Sanford Center for Educational Excellence.
Our American education system has genealogy we can trace back to racism.
And for all of our great intentional work to address and be an anti-racist organization we sometimes fall short and continue to hurt and cause distrust with our staff of color.
We must do a better job listening to our employees who so bravely share their stories of microaggressions to blatant racism.
For all staff at Seattle Public Schools be on alert.
We will not tolerate intolerance.
We will not accept a staff that doesn't work every day to examine their privilege implicit bias and unconscious racism.
It is 2018 and I believe in you to work towards a more just and racially inclusive district.
I hope we'll we'll own a new mantra acknowledge reconcile and restore.
That's all I have.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Director Mack.
Good evening again.
I got to have my community meeting last week and a pretty good turnout I think eight or nine folks came.
Folks brought a number of different issues around school safety behavioral health special ed boundaries pathways questions including you know when is the community engagement going to start for some of the boundaries that.
We put off till next year wanting to kind of start getting engaged and thinking about those things early.
What I really enjoyed about that and I hope folks know that they're welcome to come.
You don't have to be in my district to come to my community meeting is that we are all talking together and sharing you know the challenges that we're bringing forward and listening to each other and it's it's really helpful to me to hear that.
So please please do feel welcome my next meeting is January 12th at 11 o'clock at the Magnolia Public Library.
I really do appreciate hearing and being able to listen and really hear that the lived experience and how that folds into the decision making that we do here.
I wanted to mention a couple of things that you've you've already gotten on your calendars or sent out in e-mails that there's an admissions school fair plan for January 19th which it's at Mercer Middle School.
It's all day 10 to 2. That's a place to go learn about what are the options exist in the district.
And a big happy holidays to everyone.
We're going on break here and I hope it'll be restful and pleasant.
And I also know that this time of year is challenging for a lot of folks.
I want to acknowledge that and that the you know continuing to be kind.
To yourself and to others during this time is important and I hope you enjoy your your break and looking forward to the comments tonight and the conversations we have around the packed agenda we have.
OK I'm not last but hopefully not least.
My next community meetings are December 21st.
That's this Saturday 3 to 5 at the Southwest library 33 and a third percent chance of getting lasagna.
The next one will be January 19th at the Delridge library.
Couple of shout outs if I might.
A shout out to Brent Jones and his team for the new background For the speakers podium which is policy 0 1 0. I think that it's really going to pop beautifully behind our speakers and how appropriate that is.
Thank you very much.
I hope at some point we will have a billboard size formula for success as well.
And I'm going to keep whining until we get it.
Last Sunday the West Seattle collaboration of interested parents community members and PTSA's met together at the High Point library to talk about race and equity and needs in the area.
It was facilitated brilliantly.
Most of our schools were represented.
three hours a great deal of sharing.
And this is a group that is organically come together to talk about what our needs are and the fact that we're more powerful when we speak in a group and we get to as.
Director DeWolf put it when we get to check our privilege and explain how it's different from school to school and different backgrounds.
It was really healthy and.
And it follows along some of the goals that I have.
We don't have it set up yet and there's some concern about oh I know costs walking into a new year.
Forty five million dollar deficit.
Can't say that enough.
Forty five million dollar deficit.
And that's if the levies pass on February 12th.
Want to have organized interview training.
on a weekend invite all of the all schools and parents so that as we move into hiring season for both principals and teachers and I appreciate that we need collaboration with the SEA as well are very valued and trusted partners so that folks that are working for a living can come together we can get the training we can be on the same page.
We know what questions to ask what questions not to ask.
This is one of those ways to implement our transparency and our community engagement.
Is it is it frustrating probably for staff saying oh my lord what does Harris want to do out there.
Well perhaps so but we're more than happy to be the pilot program.
And again I'm going to whine till we get it.
And it's a good thing if we make the circle bigger we'll make better decisions.
Yesterday as Director Geary mentioned we went out to the technology access foundation at Sahali High School in Federal Way met with Trish DeZico several folks in this building know her.
And I hope respect her as much as I do.
They are doing amazing things and we're looking at new models as well.
We should because we would not be leaders if we were satisfied with the status quo.
So stay tuned on that.
Also went to Louisa Boren K-8 met with their PTSA and I'm more than pleased to tell you that their PTSA spent.
Hour and a half on questions took advantage of the fact that I was there just to get an endorsement for our Ops levy and our BEX V levy.
But they did in fact endorse and they endorsed unanimously and I'm very proud of that fact.
Other than that I want to take the segue from Director Mack This I'm wearing a Santa hat to have a little levity here but the holidays are extremely difficult for a lot of folks away from family without resources.
Depression is real.
Be sensitive to that.
Bring folks into your home.
And if you don't have a place to go for Christmas dinner you can join my crazy family and you get good food and cheap entertainment.
On that note let's take a 10 minute break.
Come back here at 520 and then we'll move into an intro item before public testimony starts on the dot at 530. Thank you.