School Board Meeting March 13, 2019 Part 1

Roll call please.

And Director Pinkham is home ill with a child and an ill child today.

Director Burke.

Present.

Director DeWolf.

Present.

Director Geary.

Present.

Director Mack.

Present.

Director Patu.

Here.

Director Harris.

Present.

Those that wish to stand please do.

Those that wish to sit please do.

Pledge of Allegiance.

I don't believe we have a student performance this evening and please appreciate that the student performances take a toll on the schools arranging for transportation.

Coaching rehearsals etc.

So understandable.

So Madam Superintendent the floor is yours.

Thank you Madam President.

I'm good to be here again with all of you.

I just want to start out with a little statement about an email we received recently from the Council on American Islamic Relations Washington.

pointing out that our communication to families regarding the upcoming state testing did not provide sufficient support or information for families and students who observe Ramadan.

I'd like to apologize for that misstep.

It was not our intention.

In fact we did meet with faith based organizations this past fall and as a result were very attentive to the needs of diverse religious practices when determining start of school dates and testing information.

The Washington state schedule testing window overlaps with Ramadan and we cannot adjust that schedule.

However we can and have provided accommodation recommendations to principals.

We recognize an important aspect of observing Ramadan is fasting.

And while we were not clear enough in our communications about accommodations we are not recommending students or families forego an important part of their faith practice.

Our expectation is that school leaders will work in partnership with families to make accommodations that best meet the unique needs of each school community and students observing Ramadan.

We have revised our communication supports to school leaders.

So I just want to make sure that that was publicly stated and I'll go into my usual types of remarks.

It's been I've been out to a lot of schools lately for the last few weeks.

I'm still on track to have visited all of our schools by the end of May.

So that's pretty exciting.

It's nice to get around and see things that are going on in classrooms.

These this P.E.

class at Sandpoint Elementary first were doing P.E.

like activities and then their teacher was teaching them different bones in the body and so they had this song about bones that they sang and it was super cute.

The new bone they were learning that day was phalanges.

I hope you all know.

Yeah there you go.

And so I told him you know I asked him what the funniest bone in their body was and then I had to say the humerus.

I was also interviewed by Livia or Vilia at Sandpoint.

She asked me about compromise.

They did a whole school video about compromise.

It was super cute.

They did school wide kinds of issues talking about what that meant.

This group was working on a CCC lesson very engaged in their lesson at Olympic View.

These two Olympic View students were independently practicing their vocabulary words so I was trying to interrupt them.

These center school musicians played a song while I visited called No More Heroes.

They were super talented and it was really really fun to watch them practice for an event they were having about a school wide art event.

No I did not.

And given that it's music appreciation or music month in schools it was a good a good thing to be in that classroom.

This science class at Cascade Parent Partnership quizzed me a bit about the Salish Sea.

So I have a quizzical look on my face.

This is Steven from Less Shy.

He and some of his peers are leading the equity team in their school.

Their first ask when they're visiting with adults is to listen more and talk less.

And I just think that's great advice for all of us to heed.

This Leschi student was showing me her coding lesson so they were coding in class and making great little activities for people to follow.

Some of the staff I've met Principal Roberts and Counselor Manzo led the lunch lunchroom and the Sandpoint theme song while I was there.

It has its own dance that goes with it was so very very cute.

I didn't know the dance but it's something I think we can all try to learn.

Principal Bean showed me around Olympic View and there was just a lot of learning going on there and so it's always nice to see school principals and their element and see the work they're doing with the teachers and the learning that's happening in their school.

Principal DeBell and her team shared Olympic Hills where I got to see the global reading challenge in action in their school.

And thank you to Seattle Public Libraries.

They also had the 100th day celebration while I was there.

They kindergartners created 100 day charts and they filled them up with different objects like Lucky Charms or jelly beans so that they had their number sense down and also were able to do a gallery walk around their classrooms.

I'm Dr. Casey enthusiastically gave me a tour of center school.

The art in that place is pretty amazing.

Principal Flow showed me around Ingram High School home of the Rams.

This is when they were in the state tournament so I even got to be on the morning announcements to cheer on the boys basketball team.

And if you look at that engaged bunch it's really an amazing amazing group there.

That's all of you.

Here we are diving into the strategic plan during our recent retreat.

Principal Gander and I toured around Cascade parent partnership.

This school serves our homeschool students for a class or two and many of them actually go full day.

And so it's an interesting parent partnership area.

I met Robin on her last day with Seattle Public Schools.

She has served 25 years and provided a lot of great service to staff and teachers in our district and so I was really pleased to see her on her last day.

She's very excited.

I met with all of the principals to start sharing our strategic plan.

They are very excited with the focus intentional focus on African-American males.

We had a lot of good conversation about it.

Principal Talbert showed me around Orca K-8 and this is Miss Merritt who is about to be 80 probably this week.

She stays young by teaching kindergarten students.

She's the most sought after kindergarten teacher in the school.

Parents love her students love her and she's just really there and that keeps her young.

The focus on equity was very obvious obvious as Principal Clater showed me around Leschi.

Principal Talbot is so proud of the Lowell programs.

They have interesting student body.

Their school has a 50 percent turnover in students since the first day this year.

Her team's working hard to build strong connections with students and families who are many of who are living in transition and so I think she's a great leader placed in that school trying to really build the system out.

Our future — oh let's see where did it go.

Oh community.

Our future teachers from the Seattle teacher residency program.

And I was really fortunate to run into them during my visit at Olympic Hills.

They were practicing learning about conferencing student conferencing with students.

Very powerful learning and then they were stepping out of that classroom to actually go practice.

conferencing and so again you know this is just a great partnership we have growing and helping us to develop a more diverse teaching force.

And so just really glad to see them in action.

Councilmember Gonzalez and Johnson stopped by for a visit about our city partnership through FEPP and just I want to thank them for their commitment to Seattle Public School students and learning about our processes as it works its way through the city council process now.

I held a second family meeting at Licton Springs K-8.

We discussed data in their school climate data academic data and also had a conversation about what it means to be native focused and just want to thank Director Pinkham for joining at that meeting.

Mayor Durkin Dr. Sheila Edwards Lange Principal Howard and Caleb who is a Garfield student to my left in that picture.

We answered questions about Seattle Promise at one of their community meetings and so again thankful for the partnership that we have and the great things that can happen and the promising opportunities for our students.

This is another gander at what a great smart brilliant group coming together.

This is our first offsite work session at Garfield and where we're learning about the BEX V next steps.

I visited with our partners from Seattle Housing Authority.

We're tackling the issue of chronic absenteeism with them and working really closely in partnership with them and so this is just an example of one of the things when we can build it it can actually really move the dial on important things like absenteeism.

And then I also spoke at the team read luncheon which is another great Seattle Public School partner doing great work.

If you haven't been to a team read site yet you should attend because it is this program where young elementary students are paired with a high school student who then you know develops into a mentorship type of relationship but it's all steeped in learning and reading and it's really cool stuff.

And so just want to thank team read for their partnership as well.

And Madam President that's it.

OK.

Thank you very much.

Quick question for you on the Seattle Promise visits.

Did the concept of FEPP funds going to charter schools come up.

And if so what came up.

Yes that question has been asked several times and I think it was Director Mack or Director Geary at Director Geary at one of the FEPP levy oversight committee meetings made a direct question a direct question about it.

And the answer is yes.

Charter schools will be not not the Seattle Promise.

So right now the Seattle Promise is designated particularly for just Seattle Public School graduates.

But the K-12 funding can be granted out to charter schools.

Thank you.

OK we have reached the point of our agenda for board committee reports.

Who would like to go first.

Director Geary.

Thank you so much.

Sure.

So one of the committees of course is the strategic plan steering committee.

And as anybody who's looked at the agenda can see we have that up for introduction tonight.

So I just wanted and we saw the slide of us the board working on.

The strategic plan.

So I wanted to thank everybody here for the work that they've put into it recently and taking my calls and sharing your thoughts so that we can put together a strategic plan that everybody feels.

You know I'm sure everybody has the perfect strategic plan but this is the one that hopefully will reflect the input to the point where you feel it's a good direction that we as a board united can can put our district on its way.

I apologize for being a little flat.

I have a bit of a headache.

I'm into the legislative committee I'm going to leave that to Director Mack because she has some input on that.

And then in terms of curriculum and instruction we'll be meeting on the 19th.

I went over the agenda in our last board meeting so I won't do that again but it is posted.

Certainly I've been getting a lot of emails about.

the science curriculum adoption.

And so I'm sure there will be some discussion about that as well as the online learning policies.

And so I ask all of you to the extent that you would like me to keep your concerns in mind at the committee meeting please share those with me and then I can fairly raise them to our staff at that time.

And then we had a quarterly meeting that a new practice that we're doing which is the curriculum and instruction and operations committee chairs and chiefs are going to be meeting so that we can do a better job of coordinating those issues that intersect between our two different groups.

And even in that discussion we realized that perhaps student services should join us from time to time.

I'm sure they'd appreciate being brought in on that as well but hope.

Our hope being that we can coordinate things in terms of programming and enrollment so that as those issues come up we don't discover that there have been concerns that have been siloed but rather an opportunity to share them for better planning in the long run.

And of course if Director Mack has anything more on that she can share at the time.

So that's it for now.

Director Mack.

Good evening.

I have four different roles to cover I think so legislative rep Director Geary and I share that role.

Update on that is I actually I took notes so we we have a conference call every Friday with staff to get a kind of update on where things are at and what we're doing.

We are close to cut off another cut off in the legislative session so that bills are starting to die.

There are some things that are still alive and we continue to advocate on various things including special education funding and raising the levy authority.

The we're watching some other bills including the teacher retention or teacher workforce diversity bill 1139. I think that's made it through and is still alive.

There's an ethnic studies bill which would create a task force at OSPI level I believe it is.

And that's still alive.

It started in the Senate made it through the Senate and it's been referred to the Ed Committee.

And then there's a couple.

And actually I think we did sign in pro on that at one point.

And then there's some de-linking graduation bills that are still alive that we're just monitoring to see what's going to be happening with them.

And the school construction and assistance program bill I believe made it all the way through the Senate.

But I'm not sure if it even has a hearing in the House yet.

That's 58 53 and we testified at length on that bill.

And we're because WSSDA WSSDA WOSBO had to cancel their day on the hill because of the snow.

I'm sorry.

WSSDA Washington State School Directors Association.

That's us school board directors and then WSSDA which is the superintendent association and then WOSBO which is the business officials so the CFOs of each of the districts.

organization.

Those three organizations have a day on the Hill it got canceled because of the snow.

And so we are rescheduling for a number of different days and they're not on the same day because we couldn't coordinate that much.

So we're planning to go down next Thursday on the 21st.

We haven't actually set up our meetings yet.

We're in the process of doing that but I believe Director Geary and Director DeWolf will be joining me and I'm hoping that.

There will be perhaps some other senior staff that can join us as well from Seattle schools.

So we're hopeful that there will be some movement in the legislature to provide some more funding.

And we continue to advocate on that.

There's no new news on the FEPP the family education preschool promise the city's levy oversight committee since last go round.

We have we have another meeting next week I believe it is.

Ops committee is happening tomorrow and is a packed agenda.

Very exciting.

We have a bunch of board action reports coming through related to various construction of a number of schools that are in process.

Very exciting that those projects are moving forward.

We're also going to be having some robust policy discussion around H13 which is our capacity management policy.

and the facilities master plan policy we continue working on those policies and to improve the process and communication and as as Director Geary mentioned we we had this meeting and much of our conversation was kind of around the overlap of these issues between curriculum and learning and operations and how can we how can we keep that all in mind as we're working on improving these policies.

And let's see what else there's also special attention items on our grant funds.

Oh and actually the most fun is going to be the budget review.

So capital budget conversation of what's actually on next year's capital budget.

And we are we'll be providing input and then that'll come to the full board.

in one of the budget work sessions later some updates on things that happened because of the snow around construction.

Some of our projects may have a little delays and we're going to get an update on that as well as an update on the transportation issues and kind of what we're doing.

around those.

So it's going to be exciting meeting tomorrow.

Very much looking forward to it.

The BEX BTA oversight committee also met this past week on Friday.

Director Geary and I are also members of that together and their agenda.

Yes the BEX and BTA.

It is an acronym.

BEX BTA.

BEX is the building excellence levy.

BTA is the buildings technology and academics or athletics.

I'm not sure I think it's gotten used interchangeably.

Both of those levies and their major capital projects.

This oversight committee is tasked with.

providing oversight and recommendations around the implementation of the levies.

They don't they don't do the planning of the levies they do the kind of implementation going forward and kind of watching as projects move forward.

Citizens with lots of expertise around architecture and construction management and.

It is a really great committee.

Lots of great expertise and robust conversations.

All of the meeting minutes etc. are online and.

This past meeting was they got to have the update of the the draft capital levy implementation plan that we discussed in work session last week as well.

And also.

had some other conversations around project statuses etc.

And you know they always talk about the budget what's going on and one of the interesting things that came up in conversation that I think they'll be talking about further was they were asking the question of why the implementation plan is not a formally approved board plan.

And so it was really kind of an interesting conversation on whether or not it should be a board approved document or not.

And I think they were interested in potentially having that conversation and weighing in with a recommendation at some point.

So that's a TBD conversation but lots of smart people in that room and lots of great input.

And they provide really good oversight on our projects going forward.

So.

I think that's it.

Thank you.

Any other committee or liaison input.

Executive committee continues to roll along.

We continue to be updated by staff.

We continue to fashion the agenda and move forward.

They're nothing particularly sexy in the last couple of ones more administrative and ministerial.

At this point I'd like to welcome Rachel Anderson from Garfield High School.

Rachel is a junior.

She is the ASB secretary of the class of 2020. She's involved with unified sports at Garfield.

She's in the National Honor Society and on the student board for Crossout Cancer and Water First International.

In her spare time she enjoys running.

And in the future she hopes to go into the nonprofit sector or hopes to study medicine.

The floor is yours.

Tell us about yourself.

Tell us about your school.

Tell us about your academic career.

What works for you.

What doesn't work for you and what we as board members should know.

Great well thank you so much for having me.

I'm Rachel.

I'm a junior at Garfield.

You said I participate in unified sports which is where students in the general education program get to participate in sports with kids in the individualized education program.

And it's a really cool opportunity for.

us to develop friendships when we usually can't since we don't have that many classes together.

One thing about unified sports is that we don't get funding from Garfield so this season is our soccer season but we don't have a coach so I don't know if we're going to be able to participate which is a big bummer because this is a really cool opportunity for a lot of students at our school.

For things I want to see at Garfield I would say increased access to technology is really important.

It's a really big part of our society and it's growing in importance.

But a lot of students at our school don't have access to that at home and it's required in school.

So I think a one to one ratio of iPads or laptops to students would be that would be great.

Another thing I've noticed is that I take a lot of AP classes at Garfield.

But even in the classes that I do take that are not AP the education that we receive does not often does not include all backgrounds.

It's quite Eurocentric and a lot of narratives are left out.

And it's crucial that.

in a society that is as diverse as ours and in a school that is as diverse as Garfield that we learn about each other's backgrounds and not just someone that looks like me.

Another thing that is pretty important is that school is really stressful.

Especially for people applying to colleges if that's the path they choose to take.

And I think it's important that we have more conversation centered around mental health and dealing with the stress of school because a lot of people have other things going on in their life other than school as well.

And it could be really hard.

I am not a part of music at my school though I wish I did.

I quit the saxophone after eighth grade but we don't have a band teacher right now.

And at Garfield music is really important.

We have a really rich history of music.

We had Quincy Jones attend our school.

Jimi Hendrix etc.

And I think it's really important aspect in our school and a lot of students that are interested in pursuing music don't have a mentor or guide right now.

Speaking on education I'm going to go back to lack of.

diverse education.

We have a lack of diversity in teachers.

We have very few teachers of color and I can name probably two black teachers and in a school as diverse as Garfield it's important that our staff also reflects the diversity of our student body.

Yeah I'm doing my best to speak on this topic because obviously it doesn't affect me as much as a white person but Garfield is a very diverse school and we need representation.

One of our ethnic or our only ethnic studies teacher Mr. Hagopian he worked on a book called Teaching for Black Lives and I think it's a really awesome book.

I think every educator in the district should be required to read it.

I would just give give that advice because it's very important.

What else do I want to talk about.

I'm in the AP environmental science class which I absolutely love.

It's my favorite class I'm taking this year and I think it would be really cool if the district came up with more environmental related policies.

I don't know how exactly you would do that but I think more funding for composting.

This is kind of a reach but solar panels renewable energy.

I think that would be really cool.

What else.

Yeah those are just a few things that I thought I would mention and I can't really think of anything else at this time.

So if you have any questions I would love to answer them.

This board always has questions.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you President Harris.

My question is how did you get into.

Or an interest in environmental obviously environmental science and.

What ideas do you have for us to encourage other students to get involved as well.

Yeah.

Well I actually didn't know that much about environmental science until some of my friends who were upperclassmen last year took the class and said they absolutely loved it.

So I decided I wanted to take it.

And I've learned so much.

I would really encourage any other student to take it, even if they aren't thinking of going into a career related to environmental science.

I think it's really important for us all to be educated on climate change, on how we can treat our world better.

I don't know how we would, I would encourage other students other than that, I think if we want to, see our world last longer than the end of this century.

I think it's important that everyone takes the class and starts adjusting their own actions.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Other directors have questions.

Director Burke.

I just wanted to say thanks for joining us.

I really appreciate your perspective.

It's.

It's always amazing to have student voice here at this level on this day.

And then we also get to talk about it.

And I just wanted to echo some of the things you said and highlight that the district is working on some of those around the environmental and we can't even credit the amazing people here I think other than Director Patu the board previous to us enacted a green resolution for all of our building projects.

So every building project that we do all of the ones that will be on BEX V will include energy saving things using natural light using natural heat recovery systems and energy efficiency and including a path to net zero which we generally can't fund but we try to build it into the building infrastructure that includes solar.

So it's really cool and I appreciate you bring that to the surface.

Yeah that's great.

Director Geary.

Thank you so much for coming.

It was nice that you started with your participation in unified it's something that is really near and dear to me.

It's my understanding there should be some money for coaches.

So I will see what I can do about that for you.

Do you know if anybody has contacted athletics for assistance with money for a coach.

You know I'm not the president of the club but I'll have to check in.

I know we are.

I believe we have.

We have been looking for a coach.

Because it's two issues one finding a coach and then getting the funds and it's not much but it's a it's a stipend.

So we'll see what we can do to help out with that.

OK great.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Ideas for college and preparation for college and do you feel well prepared for college and given yesterday's news with respect to the rich folks cheating.

Where are you at on that journey.

Right.

So I'm a junior this year.

I actually just got back from college tours in California.

Yes I'm really excited about that.

I toured the Claremont colleges and absolutely fell in love with them.

So that's my my goal.

I do feel pretty well prepared for college based on the classes that I've taken.

Yeah I.

Terrific.

You should know that you are invited to stay until the bidder end.

You are also invited to ask questions when the rest of the board members do when action items and introduction items are presented and also to provide feedback to public testimony.

So consider yourself anointed.

So we have reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.

May I have a motion for said content consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

Do any directors have any items that they wish to remove from the consent agenda.

Seeing none.

All those in favor of passing the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

Seeing none.

OK.

We are moving through it.

We have a time check now of 40 minutes before public comments start.

So this is the time that board directors get to reflect to the community and to the world at large on Channel 26. Who would like to go first.

Director DeWolf.

I'd be happy to President Harris because I want to read a poem.

I just want to forewarn you it's from one of our students at Leschi so if we have a few more extra minutes I want to be able to just elevate their poem so.

We have extra minutes doesn't mean I know I will read very fast I will read very fast.

Thank you kind sir.

So just first as a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Nation of Rocky Bow Montana I do want to recognize that we are on stolen indigenous land.

I am honored to live work and serve here in the Coast Salish territories in the city of Chief Sealth who was a descendant of the Suquamish the Muckleshoot and the Duwamish.

In addition to Superintendent Juneau's remarks what I hope to acknowledge at least here publicly is the supreme mistake our district made.

I want to reassure you we have heard the feedback about our communications and lack of cultural awareness as it pertains to our students who observe Ramadan.

While the testing window is prescribed by the state we apologize for the ways our communications asked you to more or less abandon your faith traditions and customs in your most holy on your most holy and important holiday.

So we will do better and apologize for the harm given and felt by by our actions.

I also wanted to just elevate something.

Each year we get a new committee assignment and I'm really grateful I get to sit on the Ops Committee not only just to get to bear witness to what we know is the wonkiest wonk that ever wonked around policy but also just to share in the governance with my colleague Director Mack.

We are excited to continue having our conversations about our workforce and the pursuit of values and ideals prescribed by community workforce agreement and our first CWA work session is on April 3rd and we really look forward to that.

Also just wanted to thank the Seattle World School advocates for a really great conversation about the effective and meaningful education model that they have at Seattle World School.

And then also just really real a ton of gratitude to our SPS family here for being able to deliver on our on our one of our board goals and promises for having our first in community work session at District 5's own Garfield High School last week.

I recognize whether it's sound or anything else that we may have felt we would like to improve upon.

Please let us know your feedback as we want to be better for our next time.

But just so you know we really we're really excited to have that board goal and to be able to deliver on that promise and look forward to those meetings again in the future.

I was grateful to visit Principal Mark Perry today at Nova High School.

Spent a lot of time just again I love Nova but also just going to tour and hear more about the school and we'll just continue to advocate for him and Nova High School's 24 to 1 model that seems really effective and hope we can find ways to address and support that.

And finally this last weekend actually it's not finally that's a lie.

I'm sorry I have like five more comments here but I held a joint community meeting with Director Burke this weekend at the Fremont library which is my first time at the Fremont library gorgeous place and was left feeling fairly concerned about some of the ongoing issues at Washington Middle School and our amplify science adoption process.

So I will be somewhat troubling to me actually so I'll be tracking those very closely as we move forward with those processes.

And just to reiterate what Director Mack already said we're visiting state legislature next week and we'll relentlessly and aggressively make our case for either lifting the levy cap or providing the gap between what our students need and deserve and what the state provides.

It's about a 60 million dollar gap that the state is leaving to us to pay for.

And then just grateful for a conversation that Director Burke and I were able to have with our friends commissioners Bowman and Calkins at the port to talk about students internships and apprenticeships and hopefully we'll have some more conversations in the future about that.

And then this Friday I'm actually going to be visiting Principal Howard at Garfield High School so I'll probably see you again.

Always enjoy going out to visit him and having a tour there.

I actually got through this pretty quickly.

President Harris I only have two more.

So the other thing the other thing I was going to say is in my day job I work in youth and young adult homelessness and one of the things that we are constantly exploring are the ways that both the systems that have been created in our country.

in our communities and even for my example we're working on a youth homelessness campaign and often these institutions and these campaigns and these ideas come from a place of deep deep really white supremacy and the ways that it can show up in work culture and so I'm really excited because I know we have a March 30th board retreat a racial equity retreat.

and hope we can explore some of the things that we've been exploring at my day job which is just how white supremacy actually integrates itself into work culture and some of the ways that that shows up is perfectionism.

This always sense of urgency defensiveness quantity over quality paternalism fear of open conflict and more and so I know that those are in all of our workplace cultures and hope we can explore those on our March 30th time.

So now we've made it to the final final end.

I only took six minutes President Harris.

Just take 30 seconds more.

So this is a poem by Rudy Bradford at Leschi Elementary and it's just called Let Me Be Me and I just like to elevate the students who write in our schools and give them an opportunity to have their their work in the record.

So excited to do that today for Rudy excuse me Ruby from Leschi Elementary.

It's called Let Me Be Me.

Let me be me again.

Let me be the happy girl I used to be.

Let me fly free in the wind like a red bird.

I don't want to hear your mean words.

I am never me to me.

Let me be that sparkling star I was.

Let me be the gem who was truly loved when I had a choice of what to wear or an option of how to do my hair.

I have never been beautiful to me.

Let me be the imperfect mess I was before.

Let me be the girl who doesn't want more.

But you won't.

You won't let me be me.

And I surely don't feel free.

I have never been me to me.

Thank you Ruby for your words and also this really great book that we put out through the program of Seattle Arts and Cultures called Writers in the Schools.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who's next.

Director Burke.

I will follow up and since Director DeWolf and I have spent a little bit of time at a couple of events recently it shortens my comments.

Thank you for for teeing those up.

So I want to start by mentioning the board retreat that we had with board and senior staff on March 2nd.

And we talked about different elements of board and staff collaboration and board and board collaboration and then also the strategic plan.

And so I think the feedback that I got from my colleagues and from staff was that's a pretty good start.

But there's more work to do.

So figuring out how we move forward.

Build trust reinforce trust work on common goals.

I think there was a lot of positivity there and I think we found some some specific things to work on that work is going to be carried forward in the executive committee under policy 16 20 for the next few months.

So I will keep people updated either in my board comments or you know through the work of the committee.

So thank you for that to everybody who participated board and staff alike.

It was like I said a great start to work that needs to happen.

Director DeWolf mentioned our work session at Garfield.

I'm also proud that we were able to take that to the community and thanks to Garfield for hosting.

We had a meeting this week.

Myself and Director Geary with the Fair Start folks.

They're an amazing organization.

We met with Diane DeBacker and some of the SPS CTE team.

F-A-R-E S-T-A-R-T fair like the food.

So they're there.

They've been providing highly successful programs for our opportunity youth.

And we were talking about you know there are two or two of our schools now as we were talking about what what their how their programs are working.

What is what do CTE partnerships look like.

Really really exciting conversation there.

Just an announcement about Lincoln High School website got updated and I know this is really this is something that's on people's mind.

There's a countdown timer on there now hundred and seventy four days 15 hours 54 minutes to opening.

So thanks to the DOTS team as well for putting that together.

Another side comment but the very important one for you math fans.

Those of you who are watching the calendar know that tomorrow is March 14th that's 3.14 that's Pi Day.

So I encourage people to eat a pie and do some math.

Make a pie eat a pie.

All of those things you know it ties together the culinary the math and you know it is my kind of day.

I just love it.

I had the pleasure of joining the Licton Springs community Monday this week at their PTO meeting because unfortunately I was out of town when Superintendent Juneau and Director Pinkham visited.

So I wanted to stop by and and hear some of the concerns and learn how how their community is forming around that so that I appreciate them hosting me.

And then the community meeting that was at the Lincoln Library sorry the Fremont Library will be at the Lincoln Library soon I hope.

But essentially four topics came up.

One of them was around science and the science adoption.

One was around Washington Middle School.

We had comments around the budget had a good discussion around that and then the enrollment projections.

More conversation than we could fit in the time available but I'm always grateful when people are willing to take part of their Saturday to come out and talk.

It it's it's hugely insightful.

My next community meeting is not yet booked but I'll try to get a couple of months blocked out by next week.

Next up Director Mack.

I was curious to know because I was excited about Pi Day tomorrow.

How far you can recite it.

I think my daughter can go up to 10 digits.

I can do three point one four one five nine to six so you can do three more than I can.

OK.

Anyway Pi Day is very exciting.

Every couple of years you lose a decimal.

I have been remiss and not planned any community meetings.

It's been really really busy and I haven't managed to do that I've had some personal home challenges that have kind of gotten in the way so I apologize for not doing that I might.

I will look into that.

I really appreciate you coming today and talking about Garfield and the things you brought up.

I was not aware that there hasn't been a band teacher at Garfield and that to me is deeply problematic because the most important thing in our schools is having educators and having our schools complete.

So I'm curious to know why that's.

the way it is so thanks for bringing that up as well as the environmental focus that you talked about.

I wanted to tell you a couple policies because as he said I'm a policy wonk but there's a couple other policies that you can look up that we have 6810 is natural resource policy and then 6890 is around state environmental policy so.

But continue focusing.

We also have projects around solar panels that are going on and I don't know the details off the top so I can't share that but and our composting program is incredibly robust.

Just wanted to share that with you and glad you have that focus.

And if you don't end up at Claremont Western Washington I know has a incredibly Yep.

So I've been getting lots of emails around the enrollment projections in the budget and I just want to let folks know that I'm concerned and it'll be part of our conversation in Ops tomorrow around our policy H13 and enrollment projections and things like that to try to get some.

better understanding around the numbers and I think that's all I have today.

I. You next up director Patu.

Thank you.

Just wanted actually lately I've been really working on every year.

I say to myself I want to do more schools every year.

It's kind of hard when you're trying to sit down and really schedule the right time and how many schools can you actually visit per day.

And.

Doing my calculation I figure that two schools per day would probably be the best thing to do one in the morning one in the afternoon and hopefully that schedule will continue on until the end of the school year.

I know that that's a goal but we always get sidetracked in terms of the goal that we started.

But I'm hoping that I can actually visit more school than I do every on a year to year basis.

So.

Looking forward to visiting schools that actually I have not had the chance to visit.

I know sometimes when you ask people the board director visit your school lately and I know I've heard people say no we don't even know how she looks like.

So hopefully that's not the case in terms of the schools that I actually have.

So I'm hoping that this year will be a better year for me to actually to be able to visit two schools per week, no per day, hopefully.

Since I have the most schools in our district I'm hoping that I can continue my list on a year to year basis and hopefully I can actually say I finally finished all my school.

So working on that and get my schedule together is one of my priorities for this year that I might be able to visit schools that I have not been able to visit on a regular basis.

This year has been a as I.

look upon age-wise, I don't know whether I'm slowing down or maybe because as you get older, your age kind of slow you down sometimes.

Because usually, I've always felt myself as being a very ongoing on track kind of a person.

But as days go by, I kept looking at my clock and looking at my days and I kept thinking to myself, gee, I really need to watch it because as age climb up on you, your mindset kinds of change and you kind of your pace kind of slow.

In other words, It's okay to be old, but you need to do a lot of activities in order for you to keep going on so that way your mind is not saying that you're too old to move forward.

For those of you who are actually about around my age, it's okay.

We're still going strong.

A lot of exercise really helps, because I do that every morning.

I make sure that I go and do my exercise to get my mind all well and open.

So like they said, it's OK to be able to forget sometimes.

But when you get to be my age, you want to continue on to do everything you can to keep yourself healthy and also make sure that your mind is clear and ready to go.

And so that's been...

kind of exciting thing every day I kind of look at what's going on for this week what's going on for this month and really keeping track of everything that needs to be done.

My hope is to try to visit as many of my Southeast school this year as possible and be able to actually come back here and say yeah I actually visit more schools than what I planned to.

So if I have not visit any of the South some of the Southeast schools.

Please don't be don't be surprised because I'm actually got my schedule going and hopefully that I'll be able to visit each one of my schools before the year is over.

So I am looking forward to that and really excited to hopefully to see all the wonderful things that every school is doing and be able to be a part of whatever is happening out there in the southeast.

So thank you — part of this fabulous board.

So thank you to all the staff who are doing a great job of actually educating our kids continue on the good work.

And I always say job well done.

Thank you.

Director Geary.

I've been quite busy had a great meeting this Tuesday so my meetings are generally I try to hold a meeting every Tuesday morning at Zoka on Blakely in Northeast Seattle.

It's posted on my Facebook account and then I would post if I wasn't going to make it for whatever reason.

This week we had a whole quite a large group of kids from Roosevelt High School coming to talk about the importance of computer science in our schools and of course have to agree.

We are feeling the pressure of course of the cuts and our budget restrictions.

And this is the time of year where we get a lot of feedback because the schools are making very hard decisions.

So they came to advocate for their school and I appreciate that.

And so we had a discussion about all the different things that we are trying to manage in terms of our budget.

But it was great to see them come out and it would be nice to be able to reward them for their efforts.

But that isn't always possible.

Also speaking of which met with the had the opportunity to sit in with the librarians who were meeting to talk about the different Aspects of their job that they're feeling pinched both in the fact that.

Materials are not.

Equitably or equally distributed.

And you'll see that tonight on our.

Action plans because we'll be voting in new libraries for several of our schools which are funded through capital.

when we open a new school but we don't have the luxury of using our capital funding to supplement or to update libraries over time.

And that creates inequities because libraries have become overdate since the time that schools were opened originally and many of the materials in them of course have also not changed with the times in round.

around reflecting the diversity of the populations and though I know our librarians work very very hard to supplement their materials.

It's it's not an expense we can expect them to take on or some of our schools to take on individually.

So the librarians care about that deeply and so it was an honor to sit with them and hear them talk about it.

And one of the things that in that meeting it dawned on me as as I was thinking about our strategic plan and part of our strategic plan is creating warm, welcoming environments.

And the reality is that in our elementary schools, the library is the place where parents have to feel welcome.

They have to have a relationship with that librarian because many of the meetings that parents organize and hold in schools after hours or during the day that are parent focused are in the libraries.

And we have heard over time that there are people who don't find going into our schools necessarily always to be a warm welcoming because they can go into what feels like a power structure within the parents within a school.

And it's hard to feel like you can break into that if you're a new parent to a school.

And so the importance of it of knowing a librarian and having that space be a space that you're comfortable in and a member of the staff that you will interact with year after year as opposed to your own teachers changing your child's teachers changing year after year.

It dawned on me that it's really important that we look at our libraries as that warm welcoming place for parent engagement in our schools.

And so to the extent that we we want to create those environments we have to keep that in mind and we have to support our librarians in that work.

I throw it out.

I know that we have budget constraints but I want us to be at least honest about what we're asking in terms of our strategic plan and how we actually hope to make that go forward.

As Director Burke mentioned we met with the members of the hospitality industry and Fair Start.

And also had sort of a moment of enlightenment in that context and we talked about it a little bit but I want to raise it here for our public and that I don't know if we have seamlessly integrated are the transition plans that are required in special education.

and the offerings that we give through CTE and that if the people who are running those team meetings are as well versed as they should be in our career connected learning offerings and whether we are making sure that as we develop career connected learning offerings that they have place for our students with special needs.

And so those are two things that should be aligning and working seamlessly together.

So it is it is a place where I suspect there may be some siloing going on not at anybody's fault because I know everybody's working hard in each of their individual realms but that we need to make sure that we're developing those two areas out and that families when they're having their transition meetings for their students as they progress through our system that they inquire about what the opportunities are through our career connected learning because it's it's important that we get our students there.

And having read the newspaper today that we know that our legislature is both focused on career connected learning and also wants to increase special education funding but with some tie to improved outcomes.

It's very impressive the outcomes when students do participate in our career connected learning in our academies their outcomes and if we can get more of our students with special needs into those pathways I think we'll see the kind of success that our legislators want in terms of accountability for the money they give us.

I'm going to go back to the unified and my hope that within our budget and perhaps it's through mitigation but I do recall saying at some point in the past that if we are not including funding for unified athletics just as we would for Title IX around female athletics I'm not sure I can support a budget that doesn't support our kids with special needs and their opportunities to participate.

So I made that statement before and I need to follow up in terms of our budget finding that space within our budget because as I said that's that's very important to me.

Had the opportunity to attend the SPS athletic hall of fame.

I didn't see a slide for that.

I forgot that.

And that was lovely.

It's an annual event that's been going on I think now for three or four years where we get people from Seattle who have made their mark in athletics.

And this year it was Mr. Inslee I don't know Mr. Inslee's first name but he was one of our Fred Fred Frank.

Jay Inslee's father was one of our athletic directors and so he was honored at the Hall of Fame along with many others and so you can go online and take a look at that.

But it's it's a lovely event that brings together people.

It's just a historic event.

It's at the Washington Athletic Club and just generations of people coming together that have participated in athletics and it's really a nice event.

We continue to hear from people who are very much interested in our science adoption and I know being the head of the curriculum instruction committee we are very concerned about that and that we will do everything we can.

It is a process.

Adoptions are a process.

They are governed by our policy.

We will do the best to make sure that that policy is implemented faithfully.

And that each of the curriculums that we are looking at are being given a fair assessment with regard to one another and then listen to our staff in terms of their feedback.

And then did also hear from music staff and of course because of cuts, we're seeing that in music as well.

And one of the suggestions that was made that I think would be worth exploring a little bit more fully is to the extent that.

Our higher schools our middle schools and our high schools have to cut back on their music staff should those staff want to develop pipelines by creating opportunities in our elementary schools I think that that is something that we should look at so if they can take and go into our elementary schools and do some instruction around the kinds of instruments that they specialize in.

So if you have a wind instructor at middle school who has the ability within the FTE count to go and provide that kind of instruction so that you don't have percussionists instructing wind students with wind instruments or students with string instruments.

So I think with budget cuts if we're going to make equitable offerings throughout our school district throughout our schools throughout the pathways we need to be more creative about how our adults are delivering instruction and there perhaps may need to be more flexibility in where they're delivering that instruction so that we can serve all of our kids.

So those are my comments.

Thank you.

That happy note I'm taking chairs privilege.

We are.

Having a break and we will start 530 on the dot for testimony and my comments will come after public testimony.

Thank you.