Liza Rankin

Good afternoon.

The board meeting will be called to order in just a moment, and SPS TV will begin broadcasting.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Testing, testing.

Liza Rankin

For those of you joining by phone, please remain muted until we reach the testimony period and your name is called.

All right.

Good afternoon again.

This is President Rankin.

I am now calling the May 8th, 2024 regular board meeting to order at 418 p.m.

This meeting is being recorded.

We would like to acknowledge that we are on ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

Ms. Wilson-Jones, the roll call, please.

Director Cronenberg.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

DIRECTOR BRAKS?

PRESENT.

DIRECTOR CLARK?

Sarah Clark

PRESENT.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

AND IT LOOKS LIKE DIRECTOR HERSEY HAS NOT YET JOINED.

PRESENT.

Liza Rankin

DIRECTOR HERSEY WILL BE ARRIVING SHORTLY.

HE'S COMING FROM A WORK OBLIGATION.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

DIRECTOR MIZRAHI?

Joe Mizrahi

PRESENT.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

DIRECTOR SARJU?

PRESENT.

THANK YOU, VICE PRESIDENT SARJU.

SORRY.

DIRECTOR TOP?

HERE.

Liza Rankin

AND PRESIDENT RANKIN?

Thank you.

I will now turn it over to Superintendent Jones for his comments.

Brent Jones

Thank you, President Rankin, board members, and everyone in attendance tonight.

Your presence here is greatly appreciated as we come together to discuss the direction Seattle Public Schools is heading in.

How we deal with challenges, how we continually improve, that will be on the docket tonight.

And what's really great is Teacher Appreciation Week.

And as many of you know, this is a national appreciation for all the good things that our educators are doing to make sure our students are well served and that they thrive.

Their efforts extend far beyond the classroom, guiding students as mentors, role models, and pillars of support.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go pay honor to one of our teachers that's been in the district for 38 years, Mrs. Trudowski, and she actually served at Maple for 38 years.

She went there as a kindergartener herself, and she even taught students kids that were in her classrooms.

Teachers are the cornerstone of Seattle Public Schools.

Know that your work is seen, appreciated, and it's making a lasting impact on the lives of our students.

So I want to just put hands up to our teachers and thank you so much.

So last board meeting, we had some, our students come forward and talk about a graduation date matter.

And we've been working on that.

And I'd like for Mr. Howard to come up and just give us a quick update on what we've been doing to make sure we're honoring those students and the celebration that they're in.

So Mr. Howard, just very briefly, give us a quick update, please.

Ted Howard

Thank you, Dr. Jones, board members, President Rankin, At Dr. Jones' request, I've engaged with students, religious leaders, administrators, families, and teachers centered on impacted families about this year's graduation date and how we plan for the future.

I've shared my findings with Dr. Jones, and I want to thank the community for engaging SPS in a productive communication.

Thank you.

Brent Jones

Yes, so thank you.

So we're working on this graduation date, and we should have a resolution to that very soon.

Thank you so much.

So with that, I'm going to pass it back to you, President Rankin.

Liza Rankin

Thank you very much.

I will now turn it over to Director Cromperon, if you have comments today.

Luna Crone-Barón

Thank you.

I do.

So first things first, it's Teacher Appreciation Week.

And I want to really quickly shout out all my current teachers up at Nathan Hill High School.

Those being Mr. Jedediah Zutz, Coach, oh my gosh.

lost my train of thought, Ms. Diane Datola, Mr. Larry Ullman, Ms. Devorah Eisenberg, Ms. Audrey Delaney-Hanna, and Mr. Robert Feigl-Stickels, and of course, Coach Darby.

We love Coach Darby.

Another quick thing is that this week is AP tests week for all of our high schools.

And so to those students who, like me, are taking AP tests this week, good luck.

And also remember that a score on a standardized test does not reflect anything about the beautiful and incredible human being that you are.

Also, thank you to everyone who is here today for being here.

And really quick before I turn it back to President Rankin, I just want to talk about, you know, where our students are at in relationship to stuff going on in the world right now and the importance of schools as safe and uplifting places and so what I mean by that is as students currently we are living in a setting in the world, at a time in the world in which we see other youth, other young people across the country and across the world rising up and getting into good trouble for issues that matter to them and for the collective humanity of others and it's a really beautiful and empowering thing to see and it's also really hard and terrifying, frankly, when we see violent repression of students standing up for justice.

And I'm thinking about college campuses across the United States right now.

I know that this is really personal to me.

As my sister, who attends UCLA, has been on the front lines of some of these things.

Has had friends who are standing up as anti-war protesters have very violent responses by counter protesters and police.

have been very injured.

And it's hard.

It's hard to see stuff like this happen in the world, even though it's super empowering to see the power of other young people across the world.

And thus, I think that it is important that as Seattle Public Schools, we kind of you know reaffirm our values of firstly academic freedom and the freedom to express ideas and what we believe in freely and without retribution and further I think the really special things that the setting of a public school can provide that a lot of other areas cannot is an ability to you know break down barriers and build bridges and and start to heal our communities.

And I think that's really special.

And I just hope that we are all holding onto that as an SPS community, especially at this time when so much is going on in the world.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it back to President Rankin.

Thank you.

Liza Rankin

Thank you, Director.

Liza Rankin

We have now come to the board comments section of the agenda.

Following public testimony and our consent agenda, we will have two items that respond to the board's December 2023 resolution calling for a fiscal stabilization plan and initial planning for a system of well-resourced schools.

We will be moving to the tables for a conversation and presentation at that point.

And I imagine that that is going to be the bulk of our comments and conversation.

Do we have any liaison reports?

As far as board engagement is concerned, we are, as discussed at the last meeting, in the process of standing up our engagement as a board on the vision and values of the broader community that we represent for our students.

So hopefully next week, depending on timing, there will be opportunity for the board for us to hear from you and the entire Seattle community that has an interest in the success of our public schools and support of our students through a survey, through a couple of in-person sessions, and through some targeted outreach.

So as those are firmed up, we will make sure that information about that goes out.

But just to let you know what to be on the lookout for, and we are looking forward to hearing from our whole community as we develop our direction to the superintendent on behalf of our community for the district's next strategic plan all right we have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda but we are three minutes away from 430 do I need to vamp or can we OK.

Gina Topp

We have a lot of community engagement coming up.

But I still am trying to hold my monthly community engagement meetings.

The next one will be on June 8. I want to make sure that the board is invited, as well as the public knows that it will be happening on June 8 at 10 AM.

And it will be on the school district calendar.

Did that spend a little time?

Liza Rankin

A little bit.

You could have talked slower, but that's OK.

Liza Rankin

We're good?

OK.

I'm being notified by staff that it is OK to start at 428. So we will now go to public testimony.

Board procedure 1430BP provides the rules for testimony.

And I ask that speakers are respectful of these rules.

To summarize important parts of this procedure first testimony will be taken today from those individuals called from our public testimony list and if applicable the waiting list which are included on today's agenda posting on the school board website.

Only those who are called by name should unmute their phones or step forward to the podium and only one person should speak at a time.

Listed speakers may cede their time to another person when the listed speaker's name is called.

The total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for the combined number of speakers.

Time will not be restarted after the new speaker begins, and the new speaker will not be called on again later if they are on the testimony list or waiting list.

If you have time ceded to you and wish to retain your place later on the list, you may decline having time ceded to you.

That's tough to actually compete with.

The majority of the speaker's time should be spent on the topic that they have indicated they wish to speak about.

The board does expect the same standard of civility for those participating in public comment as we expect of ourselves.

As board president, I am charged with and will interrupt any speaker who fails to observe the standards required by board procedure 1430BP.

A speaker who does not or refuses to comply with the guidelines or who otherwise substantially disrupts the operation of the meeting may be asked to leave.

And we do have a very full list, so really don't want to cut people off, but appreciate the honoring of that two minutes so that we can hear from everybody and have adequate time for the rest of the business today.

Staff will now read off the testimony speakers.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

For those who are joining online to provide, or by phone to join, provide the phone testimony, please press star six and also unmute on your device when you hear your name called.

Also make sure that you are listening on the phone rather than SPS TV if you are providing remote testimony.

First speaker today is Gavin Horton.

Gavin Horton.

Gavin's going to be followed by Kai Longmeier and then Sabrina Burr.

Is Gavin in the room?

Gavin Horton

Oh.

Hello.

My name is Gavin Horton.

I am a senior at West Seattle High School, and I have been in the Chinese program there for the last four years.

And I wanted to talk about how recently my teacher, has been informed that she will be transferred to Denny High School.

And I wanted to basically talk about how it is important that she stay at West Seattle High School.

She is an integral part of the community there and she has done so many things for the program.

She's offered a community that I feel supported in.

I feel like I can be accepted in, I feel proud to be a part of.

It's very important to me and it's very close to my heart that she stay with us and it's also important to the community's heart as well.

We have started a petition which has gathered over around 475 signatures from students, former students, teachers, community members and parents.

And I wanted to just stress the importance that my teacher, Miss Yu, stay here at West Seattle High School and that she can continue her teaching and building of the program.

I have learned so much from that program.

I have built communities.

I have built ties with my friends.

I have had the opportunity to do so many things there.

I mean, we've had the Chinese consul from China visit us, and it has been a wonderful experience, and I would please hope that Ms. Yu could stay with us and continue.

I'm not going to be here next year.

I'm going off to college, but I know the kids here want her to stay.

the people of the future generation at West Seattle High School want her to stay.

I mean, she has high enrollment.

A lot of kids from Madison Middle School, our neighboring school, really are excited to join the program.

I've heard it from hundreds of kids that they want to just join the program and get engaged with the community.

Thank you so much.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Kai Longmore.

I'm going to swap out your mic real quick.

Kai Longmeier

Hi, everyone.

Good afternoon.

My name is Kai Longmeier.

I'm also a senior at West Seattle High School.

I joined the Chinese program in freshman year, and I graduated from the Chinese program last year after I took the AP Chinese test.

But Yulou Shi is...

vital to the Chinese program.

She is the reason we are the way we are today.

Our program is incredibly strong.

She is so passionate about this program.

She invites teachers to teach us musical instruments.

I was taught by a teacher who taught me guzheng, a Chinese instrument.

She also had teachers who taught us pipa.

She organizes these assemblies for the Chinese program.

She organized the AAPI assembly last year in May, and that helped the school students get so much interest in the Chinese program and our population of the, sorry, the Chinese program is growing in size and that is due to her.

Without her, we would not have the membership we do today.

We would not have the fun activities we do.

We do so many cooking activities, crafts, Chinese, just stuff to do with Chinese culture.

I went to Madison a couple weeks ago to help them with their class registration and there were so many students who wanted to join the Chinese program.

We actually have so many students that people can't join because there's just too many people who want to do it but not enough space.

And this is all due to Yu Laoshu's commitment to the program.

As Gavin was saying, two Chinese consulates visited us this year, the general consulate and the education consulate.

And this is not...

She did not ask them to come to our school.

They reached out to us because they saw the hard work she put into the program.

We have the strongest Chinese program in the state, at least in Seattle Public Schools.

And yeah, is sincerely just the driving force behind our Chinese program.

She inspires students to push this program even further.

We need her.

We need her so bad.

And the program's still pretty new.

We're only, I think, five years old.

It would take a pretty big toll on us to have her leave right when she's making it so strong.

She will help us become stronger.

And I am scared to see what would happen to her program if she was not with us anymore.

So.

Yeah, she's vital to the program.

I am very thankful for her.

All of us are, everyone in the West Seattle High School community.

So I very much hope that she can stay with West Seattle.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Sabrina Burr.

Sabrina will be followed by Ben Gettenstein and then Chris Jackins.

Sebrena Burr

My name is Sabrina Burr.

With a heavy heart this week, I take a family to a charter school and let them know I do not believe the Seattle Public Schools can keep their baby safe.

I see the rest of my time to holla.

Hala Mana'o

Thank you, Superintendent Jones and school board.

On Monday, when I signed up to testify, I was coming on behalf of our community of Rainier View to ask you for answers because an article in the Seattle Times shared that Chief Redmond would be reaching out to our community to share the news about the investigation and we hadn't heard.

We had emailed and never got a reply.

However, as of 5.30 yesterday, we finally received an email that family shared that we will have a substitute principal until the end of the year and that the Puget Sound ESD would be conducting investigation.

And to that, I have just a couple more questions.

How much experience does this person have doing these investigations?

Are there any personal relationships between the Educational Service District and Seattle Public Schools that might give the appearance of a conflict of interest or actually be a conflict of interest?

Were other options for investigation were considered and how was it determined that the Puget Sound Educational Service District would be best?

Was this about cost?

Is there more reason to believe that the Puget Sound ESD has the most expertise and least conflict of interest?

Finally, what will communication look like moving forward?

Who will be communicating with families and what should families expect?

Will it be in alignment with your policy 4129?

In the meantime, I'd like to share with you that our PTA is able to meet in our building for the for the first time in a long time, and we are using this time to create joyful events for our families, to bring people together at our school to celebrate learning in a way that supports our students and in ways that we hadn't been able to do previously.

We look forward to hearing about a system of well-resourced schools and wonder what that will look like for our community.

And as you recall hearing from parents earlier this year during a school board meeting and hearing their stories about neglect, we wonder will you partner with us as we work to create the safe and welcoming space that Rainier View children and schools like ours need.

We wonder what you expect in terms of engagement and communication.

Respectfully, Rainier View and Halamana on PTSA.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Ben Gittenstein.

Ben will be followed by Chris Jackins and then Samantha Fogg.

Ben Gitenstein

Hi, everybody.

Before I start, I just wanted to say thank you for the work that you're doing.

This is a heck of a job.

And so congratulations and good work to all of you.

My name is Ben Gittinstein.

I'm an SPS parent, a former candidate for the school board.

I am here to urge you to vote no on the superintendent's plan for a system of well-resourced schools.

To be blunt, this is a bad plan, intended to execute a flawed strategy built on incorrect assumptions, and you, as the school board directors, are the only people with the power to stop it.

The superintendent's proposal starts from the premise that the answer to our structural deficit is fewer larger schools.

Simply put, we cannot cut and consolidate our way out of a revenue problem.

The relentless decline in attendance is the root of our financial crisis.

Until we address that problem, we will just have to keep cutting.

Amplifying that problem, our state does not provide enough dollars per student to ensure every kid gets the education they need.

The problem is not about buildings.

It's not about formulas.

It is about community.

When every community considers their local public school the default option for their kids, our enrollment will grow and we will have the political will to force state legislators to fund education sufficiently.

The superintendent's plan does nothing to address these root causes.

It will fracture neighborhoods, deepen distrust of the district, and pit communities against each other.

What's worse, closing buildings will not save money.

When 80% of our operating expenses are from people, the only way closures save money is if you conduct mass layoffs.

Either that is the plan, and the superintendent should explain it, or there are no real cost savings to be had.

As directors, you are the only people who can stop this.

You can vote no and not accept this plan and ask the superintendent to go back to the drawing board.

Here's the good news.

There's a whole bunch of people who will support you when you stop this plan.

When I ran for the school board, I heard from parents across the city who love their neighborhood schools.

They will stand with you.

I ran explicitly on a don't close schools platform.

In fact, I had the t-shirt.

85,000 people agreed with me.

Vote no.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Chris Jackins.

Chris will be followed by Samantha Fogg and then Diane Tao.

Chris Jackins

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. Thank you very much, Ben Gittenstein.

On the adoption of math instructional materials, three points.

Number one, I oppose this adoption.

It appears to be a discovery approach rather than direct instruction, and it does not include physical books.

Number two, part of the reason for selecting the curriculum is that a capital levy would fund it.

That is not a great academically-based reason.

Number three, the new curriculum is consistent with current curricula, but the current curricula has resulted in test results going down by 4.2%.

Please vote no.

On changes to the sign up process to speak at school board meetings, leaving a phone message to sign up is no longer allowed.

Requiring electronic sign up instead is prejudicial against those without direct electronic access.

On the Interfund loan from the capital fund and the use of capital fund interest earnings for instructional supplies, the amounts should be larger.

Instead of $35 million, the Interfund loan should be at least $50 million.

Instead of $2 million, the interest earnings amount should be at least $10 million.

On the state auditor I sent a detailed letter to the state auditor and other state authorities asking that they examine 11 specific topics of concern in Seattle Public Schools.

Copy was sent to you also.

On the superintendent's plan this action would formally start the process of closing schools.

That is a giant harmful mistake.

Please vote no.

Intruent action with a four relatively new board members could be grounds for a school board recall.

And please listen to teacher and use concerns.

And oh, a federal lawsuit against power schools filed this week by a Seattle parent.

Thank you very much.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Samantha Fogg.

Samantha Fogg

Seattle Council PTSA represents all of the PTSAs and PTAs in Seattle Public Schools with a mission to advocate to make every child's potential a reality.

Tonight, as we hear about proposals for a system of well-resourced schools, we are looking for the child to be centered, for everything to come back to in board parlance student outcomes.

We are looking for acknowledgement and recognition of the full breadth of our community of learners, including the complexity of our intersectional identities.

We understand that tonight what is being laid out is a vision and we honor the partnership between staff and board and know that this is not yet the mechanics.

We ask that terms be clearly defined tonight.

What does inclusion for every child mean and will there be any children excluded?

We understand that we are being asked to do hard things and we are looking for information about support, guidance, and partnership.

It is our hope that our families, particularly those who have been historically excluded from these conversations will be invited into conversation, not merely listened to, but truly with faith to partner, and that dual capacity framework be used for engagement.

We ask that our families not simply be seen as mechanisms for fundraising, but experts in how our system impacts our children.

We are your partners.

The hardest work and most impactful must be carried by adults who are in this system by choice, by profession.

Our children are the only ones in this system who have no choice but to be here.

We must prioritize student needs above adult comfort.

We must be led by those who must know this system, and we must acknowledge that those who most know this system are our families.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Diane Chow, and then after Diane will be Robert Cruikshank, and then Tyler Dupuis.

Diane Tiao

Hi, my name is Diane Tiao and I'm a classroom teacher at Wing Luke Elementary.

This is my 11th year as a classroom teacher and I love that I have a direct impact on my students every day.

I build relationships, collaborate, hold students accountable to each other and to their own learning, and I solve problems.

I have this huge impact on my students daily, but at the same time, I FEEL COMPLETELY HELPLESS IN THIS SYSTEM.

LIKE I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER ANY OF THE POLICIES THAT AFFECT ME EVERY DAY.

WHETHER IT'S THE CURRICULUM THE DISTRICT ADOPTS TO OUR BUDGET ALLOCATION OR EVEN TO SELECTING A NEW ADMINISTRATOR AT OUR SCHOOL, WE CAN EXPRESS OUR OPINIONS BUT WE ARE TOLD THE DISTRICT HAS THE FINAL SAY.

SO BASICALLY TOUGH LUCK.

It feels like this divide between the district and teachers is intentionally created because it seems easier to make hard decisions about budget cuts and lack of resources if schools are all treated with the same formula and each teacher and student is simply a number.

But educating students is deeply personal, and all of my colleagues know that not all schools are the same, which seems very obvious to say, but necessary nonetheless to say out loud.

There are more tough decisions to come, especially regarding school closures, and if you want to genuinely engage with school communities, then we need more.

If you work for the school district, you really should be required to volunteer in schools as part of the job.

not just go on occasional walkthroughs, so that you can better understand what you are working for.

We need more resources and staff in schools in real time.

When you decide to close schools, it's deeply personal to students, families, and teachers.

So it's critical that there is timely and transparent engagement with the school community.

We need multiple opportunities for meetings.

We need time to process and plan.

Meetings need to be at schools and not just at the district office to accommodate busy families and teachers.

Childcare should be provided to authentically engage.

Teachers need to be present in the decision making.

I hope that we don't end up as collateral and that we can genuinely work together on these looming issues as trusted partners.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Robert Cruikshank.

Robert will be followed by Tyler Dupuy and then Kelly Perletti.

Robert Cruickshank

Good afternoon.

My name is Robert Cruikshank.

I'm the parent of three kids in Seattle Public Schools.

The well-resourced schools plan as it exists so far has been put together with minimal public participation.

This plan needs to be the result of close collaboration with the families, students, and educators who are the heart of this district.

You can't just impose something on us, especially a radical, extreme, and frankly unacceptable plan to close at least 20 of our schools.

You don't have a mandate for the public to do that.

Let's look at the evidence.

So far, the district hasn't presented a financial analysis about the impact of closing schools.

When Chicago closed dozens of schools 11 years ago, they promised it would eliminate the district's deficit and provide more resources to remaining schools.

It didn't.

Their deficit actually grew.

There's no analysis so far that we've seen on the impact of student outcomes.

Again, in Chicago, they promised closing schools would improve student outcomes.

In reality, students whose schools closed scored worse on tests and had lower graduation rates than other students.

I haven't seen an analysis on the racial equity impact.

In San Antonio last year, an independent equity analysis concluded that, quote, closing schools does not make the district more equitable, end quote.

Researchers from the University of Chicago concluded that, quote, closing under-enrolled schools may seem like a viable solution to policymakers who seek to address fiscal deficits and declining enrollment.

But our findings show that closing schools cause large disruptions without clear benefits for students, end quote.

This could also be the first step in the mass privatization of our public schools.

State law gives charter schools the right of first refusal to rent or buy a closed public school, and I can't imagine the district plans to let 20 buildings sit gathering dust.

I hear a lot of talk about discomfort.

This plan as proposed dumps all the discomfort on our kids.

Proceeding with this plan as is requires no discomfort on the part of the board.

If anything, they're rolling the red carpet out for you and making it very easy to rubber stamp closing schools.

Let's do something different.

The city proposes alternatives for its comprehensive plan.

Sound Transit proposed alternatives about where they're gonna put rail lines and rail stations.

collaborate with families, students, and educators, and let's look at alternatives, all the options on the table with rigorous analysis, and come to an answer together to save our schools.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Next is Tyler DeBlee.

Following Tyler is Kelly Perletti.

Is Tyler in the room?

Going once, twice.

Tyler?

Did I hear that Tyler is here?

Okay, we'll go to the next speaker.

The next speaker is Kelly Perletti.

Kelly Perletti

OK.

So I'm Kelly Perletti, West Seattle High School CTE teacher.

And I'm here to talk about the Chinese program, but not just in our school, but across the district.

It's being cut back and is the only role in the World Language Department that is entirely across the district made up of teachers that are native speakers and staff of color.

I want to know why.

Also, on top of that, this is happening, this news is coming out during at the beginning of AAPI month.

And doubly, during teacher and staff appreciation week.

What?

So for me, that's just wild.

But I'm going to go ahead and cede the rest of my time to a student, Alistair Alsat, senior.

Go ahead.

Alistair Elfstad

Hi, guys.

My name is Alistair Elfstad.

I'm a senior, and I'm the co-president of West Seattle High School's Asian American Pacific Islander Club.

As a senior in high school, at the end of my year, honestly, I don't want to be here.

I don't want to be spending my time on a sunny day having to come in and defend my teacher who basically taught me for the past four years of my life what I love and what I want to do in college.

I've been lucky enough to find a culture that is not my own and that I love and that I want to continue to follow.

And it's very passionate to me or very important to me that I can see what has made me happy and made me feel full be passed on to future generations.

Miss U has fought so hard for my class, for my classmates, for my club, and she didn't have to.

She just came to work every single day, taught, drove home, and took care of her kids.

but she treated me like her kid.

So I'm gonna be here and I'm gonna stand for my teacher who has raised me for the past four years and who has helped me out through uncomfortable assemblies, speeches, performances towards kids when I was uncomfortable.

She has made me the man I am today and I am proud of that.

And I hope to see that for you future students long term.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Claire Abe.

After Claire will be Caitlin Collins.

Claire Abbe

Hi, my name is Claire Abbe and I'm a counselor at Cleveland High School.

I'm here today to remind the school board of Senate Bill 5030 that mandates districts to implement a comprehensive school counseling program that addresses students' academic career and social emotional development and aligns with the American School Counselor Association's national model.

Only school counselors have the training to implement this program and we are recommended to have a caseload of one to 250. Yet we do not even have a school counselor at every elementary or K-8 as schools are only given the FTE for .5 social worker or .5 counselor, and we desperately need both.

Please think of counselors and social workers as entities that work collaboratively together, just as general education and special education teachers must work together to serve multi-tiered students.

Counselors provide tier one, two, and some tier three services, Similar to gen ed teachers, and social workers provide more intensive tier two and three supports, similar to SPED teachers.

Gen ed nor SPED teachers can serve all students alone, yet counselors or social workers are expected to do it all alone and half time at that.

Additionally, at the high school level, many counselors are losing their FTE, or in their case, those are going above 400 students because the district is keeping 85% of the funds given from OSPI for Running Start administration that used to go to school buildings to pay for counselor FTE.

Counselors do more than 95% of the work but are only slated to receive about 15% of the funds next year.

This funding model needs to change if you're actually trying to create well-resourced schools and address the growing mental health and community violence concerns affecting all of our schools.

I would like to provide Cleveland as an example of a well-resourced school.

Our admin team prioritizes student mental health and uses levy funding, which allows our school to have three full-time counselors with 300 student caseloads and a full-time social worker in comparison to other high schools who may have over 400 students per counselor and a .5 social worker.

People often ask how Cleveland has such high graduation and post-secondary education rates and the highest financial aid completion rate every year in the district.

This is what a well-resourced school looks like because we prioritize mental health.

But not all schools have access to levy funding to make this happen.

Therefore, I would like to propose that the district returns 95% of the Running Start funds to buildings and collaborates with the Department of Education and Early Learning to figure out how to direct the $20 million in mental health funding that has already been approved to pay for more school counselors and social workers in every building.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Caitlin Collins.

Caitlin Collins.

After Caitlin will be Jennifer Hall, and then Jessica Pierce.

Caitlin Collins

Hi.

I am the co-chair of the Salmon Bay K-8 Parent Teacher Organization.

I'm a parent of two kids in Seattle schools.

I substitute teach in Seattle schools, and I'm a graduate of Seattle schools.

The Salmon Bay PTO is working with Altogether for Seattle Schools to share our concerns about maintaining options within Seattle Public Schools.

I want to address the current problems with enrollment and wait lists that Salmon Bay and other option schools and alternative programs are experiencing.

The district has not chosen to fully enroll Salmon Bay for next year, even though there are wait lists at every grade level and there's space in every grade except for fourth and fifth grades.

The district has also cut two full-time positions at Salmon Bay because the projected enrollment at Salmon Bay is less than the capacity, but if the district moved the wait list, the option schools would be fully enrolled at almost every grade level, and there'd be no need to cut staff.

The staffing cuts have forced Salmon Bay to create third, fourth combined classes for next year, which is not ideal, and to cut middle school enrichment classes.

Family and staff are confused and very upset by the lack of transparency around the wait list.

The district is facing a huge budget crisis and needs to focus on retaining families.

Ignoring or failing to move wait lists in a timely manner will cause the district to lose students and therefore lose funding.

We've heard from families that have already decided to leave SPS because they don't trust the district to move the Salmon Bay wait list.

It feels like the district is intentionally under enrolling option schools, but we don't understand why you do that when you're facing a budget and enrollment crisis.

My eighth grade daughter, Juliana, has thrived at Salmon Bay.

The K-8 model has allowed her to build strong relationships with students and staff.

Salmon Bay teachers integrate outdoor experiences, intellectual challenge, and creative options into the curriculum.

Many families in SBS see having option schools as crucial to serving students in such a large and diverse district.

We're part of a large group of parents that will advocate to ensure that families will continue to have choices in SBS.

In conclusion, I urge the district to move families off of option school wait lists, to work authentically with school communities, and to be more transparent about enrollment and budgeting decisions.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Jennifer Hall.

Jennifer Hall

Good evening, Superintendent and our school board.

Thank you for all your work.

My name is Jennifer Hall.

I'm a resource and inclusion teacher at West Seattle High School.

Forgive me, my computer crashed as I was writing notes for this, so I might ramble on a little bit.

But I want to tell you something about our amazing Chinese teacher.

Ms. Ying Yu and I want to stand in solidarity with the members of our West Seattle community, with our wonderful students, with uh...

and and with with misuse uh...

i've been on budget committee school-based once in a while we're always told when crunch time comes consider the positions don't think of the people considered just the positions well you can't consider just the positions when you have a chinese teacher who has built your chinese program from that ground up because That teacher has a name and her name is Ms. Yu.

Ms. Yu is one of the most inclusive teachers in our building.

As I said, I'm a resource teacher.

Ms. Yu has invited me for the three years that I have known her to come to her classroom for my students to be included.

My students love Ms. Yu.

Ms. Yu has been able to bring so many students into her program.

She started part-time, but because she is such a great teacher and so innovative, she has been able to build the program.

She was awarded a full-time contract.

And the assemblies that she has put on, the teachings that her students have gotten from her, and students who aren't even in her classes have gotten from her, have been great.

She has been an example for me, for other teachers, because of her wonderful spirit, her talent, her organizational skills.

Now, okay.

I'm all for seniority, but you've got to consider innovation, too.

Is this telling me I'm almost?

So there's got to be a way to keep all Chinese programs.

China is one of our largest trading partners still.

We need our full-time Chinese programs, and we need amazing teachers like Ms. Yu.

Visit our school.

Visit the program.

Talk to our students.

Listen to them now.

Listen to their parents who, even if they don't have students in Ms. Yu's class, they want them in Ms. Yu's class.

We need Ms. Yu, and we need our Chinese programs in all of our schools.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Jessica Pierce.

Jessica Pierce.

After Jessica will be Young and Longmire.

Jessica Pierce

If I have paperwork to leave it with.

Jessica Pierce

Okay, I absolutely hate microphones.

I could speak to you all day long but in front of a microphone it makes me really nervous so I'm just gonna read what I wrote.

So much of what is before you today in general is difficult.

We do not envy the difficult decisions you must make, but today we have something easy.

We want to help.

I love that there's a big West Side community here today.

That has sheer coincidence.

I am Jessica Pierce.

I'm part of the ownership team representing West Seattle Junction FC here today.

You've likely heard of Ballard FC, the current reigning champs of USL.

Stress on the word current.

We are part of the same pre-pro soccer organization along with the cities of Bellevue, Tacoma, Olympia, and several in Oregon.

Athletic organizations such as ours provide low-cost accessibility to athletic events in our communities with tickets, $15 or less, or free, thanks to our partnership with the West Seattle YMCA, who will be distributing free tickets, no questions asked, to our community.

Hyperlocal clubs such as these have proven worldwide in the beautiful game that we...

called soccer for decades.

They bring a deep sense of pride and cohesion to the community they represent.

The West Seattle community has been the best part of forming this club.

So much support and excitement has formed and will continue to form.

We look forward to becoming a staple in our community for fun and excitement.

The worst part has been working with the Seattle Public School Operations Department who take it upon themselves to ignore the joint use agreement and build rules that confide every document, that conflict with every document they have in front of them.

Even when we apply rational, solid interpretation of their own rules, they build a wall even taller thinking they can shut us down.

Nino Cantu Southwest Athletic Complex is named after the stellar custodian who took wonderful care of the stadium for many years.

He would have loved this very kind of event.

He would have been incredibly disappointed in SPS's management of this valuable resource.

Sharing in Nino's enthusiasm for full utilization of this facility to its fullest potential, SPS hinders our ability to operate effectively.

Mr. Griffin and Mr. Podesta have denied access to the scoreboard, lack of access to electricity.

They ask that it not be turned on for our events.

Sorry, I'm shaking.

Restrictions on merchandise sales, which we need to pay the hefty additional fees that total $42,000 for eight events.

This was sprung on us eight months into our nine month permit.

SPS assumes we will make $50,000 for each match and then get 5,000 of it for every game.

That would be a good problem to have because that would make SPS revenue and we could give that back through that 10%.

They've also added, this is duplicitous, they've also added no electricity, no Wi-Fi, no scoreboard, and no PA system, which also creates serious ADA issues and also violates the fire permit that we have been issued.

We have partnered with West Seattle Boosters, and a lot of their students are here today, as well as Chief South Athletic teams to make dramatic improvements to their current funding needs.

only to be shut down by SPS again, retracting previous approvals to allow them to sell concessions to our over 600 fans nightly.

Eighty percent of that revenue goes back to those booster clubs.

I'm going to skip because I know time is coming up.

Empower organizations like us to help solve your problem.

That is the best partnership SPS could possibly ask for, community members who want to help solve a massive deficit.

In stark comparison, we can attest that Ballard FC has been given very different accommodations without so much as an application to move to Memorial Stadium and has already been allowed to serve beer within the property lines on district property.

We seek your collaboration in finding equitable solutions to fair and inclusive access to all facilities for all stakeholders involved.

We asked the board, including our representative, Gina Topp, and our Superintendent Jones to end this tyranny of these two men carelessly working recklessly against the properties they are meant to serve.

Allow the community to enjoy the basic accommodations afforded in the $30,000 that SPS is charging and over $45,000 total that we will pay across the necessary permits to have these seven 90-minute games.

Seems ridiculous to take immediate action not to take immediate action on this one simple item.

Let us turn the lights on.

Let us have a scoreboard and let us make announcements to the fans and help the Seattle Public Schools students.

That's it.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is the next speaker.

Liza Rankin

Thank you.

As a reminder the light in front of you will turn yellow when you have I think 30 seconds left.

and then red, and you'll hear the sound when your two minutes is exhausted.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

And our timer starts to count up.

So once you see red, it does mean it's exhausted.

Ms Yu

OK.

Hi.

My name is and I'm a parent of a West Seattle high school student.

I've known Ms. Yu for three years now, initially through my daughter's enrollment for her Chinese class for two years.

Despite my daughter moving on, they've remained in touch.

And firstly, I want to emphasize Ms. Yu's dedication to the Chinese program at West Seattle High School.

Through my interactions with her, it's evident she's deeply passionate about it.

Ms. Yu spent a lot of time and effort into promoting the program within the community.

For instance, every year she arranges visits to Westside School and Manson Middle School, where her students showcase Chinese culture through activities like line dances, martial arts, and traditional music performances.

In addition, her assembly during AAPI Heritage Month last year was outstanding, and thanks to her efforts, enrollment in the Chinese program at West Seattle High School has surged dramatically.

What was once an ordinary language class has become the talk of the school.

In fact, for the academic year of 2023 to 2024, over 200 students attempted to enroll in Chinese Level 1, but only a small portion of them were able to get in.

Ms. Yu's dedication extends beyond promotion.

She genuinely cares about her students' success.

A year ago, my daughter and several other classmates expressed interest in taking the AP test.

Ms. Yu not only developed a plan with them, but also provided additional support during lunchtime, highlighting potential challenges and offering assistance.

Thanks to her, my daughter passed the Chinese AP test.

So in essence, Ms. Yu went beyond the conventional role of a teacher.

She has single-handedly transformed the Chinese program from one of a low enrollment to a highly sought-after offering.

Along the way, she has positively impacted numerous students, broadening their cultural horizons.

As a parent at West Seattle High School, I really hope she keeps teaching here because her presence is so vital for the Chinese program and the whole school community.

Thanks to Ms. Yu, our community is richer.

And for that, we're very grateful.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Cameron Moore.

Cameron Moore.

Following Cameron will be Ying Yu, and then Yuti Hawkins.

Cameron Moore

Hi, my name's Cameron Moore.

I'd like to thank all my peers from West Seattle High School.

I'm actually, I graduated last year, but up till then I was a student of Ms. Yu's.

She is a wonderful teacher.

Like, coming into high school, we, as a freshman, we had a different teacher, Ms. Jin.

And she was great, too.

But then we were like, oh, what are we going to do?

She's teaching middle school now.

Then we got Yu-La Xu in.

Or, sorry, Miss Yu.

We got Miss Yu in.

And she, like, immediately, the whole class was just, I mean...

Everyone loved her.

She has like a very fun and effective teaching style.

Let alone being a great teacher, she also pushes students to like get out of their comfort zones like many have said already with new foods, activities, games.

A personal story I have is, She invited me to do a dragon dance.

Initially, I said no.

But eventually, I started going to the practices.

And then we practiced and practiced and then performed at our school assembly.

And then we actually went and performed at a school near Arbor Heights called West Side K-8.

And we raised a bunch of money for the the Chinese program.

And then she's also very involved with the school, not just her students, but the whole school.

And the thing that I want to end on is I have a brother who graduated from Madison, and he'd see me coming home every day and gloating to my family about the cool Chinese characters and pronunciations.

And he was like, wow, I want to go learn Chinese at West Seattle.

And then so he applied.

Previous people have said only a very, very, most of the kids who wanted to take Chinese from the last graduating class in Madison weren't able to.

And my brother actually ended up not taking a language at all because he didn't get Chinese.

So I think we need to grow this West Seattle High School Chinese program.

And the absolute worst way to start that is getting rid of .

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is Ying Yu.

Ying Yu

Before my speech, can I pass some document to all the board members, please?

Thank you.

Ying Yu

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name's Ying Yu.

I am the Chinese teacher in Y Seattle High School.

This is my third year at SPS and my 16th year as a full-time high school teacher and verified by HR.

I built my Chinese program from the ground up, turning it into a very effective, successful program.

Three years ago, the program offered only four classes with 90 students.

By my effort, it has grown into a full-time program with 154 students plus 137 students on the waiting list.

I bring culture and social emotion learning into my class, even to the whole school.

Three years ago, I started a Lunar New Year celebration at our school, and it was so successful.

We've continued it annually since.

And starting two years ago, a private school paid my program to do a Lunar New Year celebration for them, which has become a tradition because of the success of our program.

We've also been invited to other neighborhood schools to do the dragon and lion dance performances for the students and the staff.

I started this program and I would like the opportunity to continue them.

We spread Asian cultures to different schools and the community.

Since last year, I hosted Asian American and Native Hawaii Pacific Islander Monks Assembly, which was a big hit.

Many students who are not in my program wanted to join my club or my class.

Some parents of students have emailed me that their kids have started feeling proud of being an Asian and finding their cultural identity.

This year in January, the Chinese Consul General in San Francisco visited me and my program during the Lunar New Year after they heard how successful my program is.

In April 26, the Education Council waited my program as well.

My program is the only Chinese program that the governor officials waited twice in the years throughout the state of Washington.

My Chinese program here at West Seattle is the most successful Chinese program in West Seattle Public Schools.

My students choose to learn Chinese not just because of the language but because of me as their teacher and my effort and the quality of the program I developed.

Also, my students have told me how much they learn from me and want me to continue teaching them here.

I strongly urge SPS to listen to community voices and the student voices when making the decision about the future of my program and my placement in SPS.

Our success here is the testament to the value we place on such inclusion.

Thank you for your attention.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

The next speaker is UT Hawkins.

UT will be followed by Steve Mahondro and then Matthew Van Duyen.

Is UT in the room?

Is UT Hawkins in the room?

Okay.

Uti Hawkins

Hello.

It's been a minute since I have been here to speak with you all.

I'm UT Hawkins.

I have been a teacher here and worked with many of you for 10 years within the district.

I was in union leadership, and now I'm a parent of a child in the school district.

And I had the opportunity to come to bring my daughter, to show her what it means to keep her education alive, to keep this topic of the quality of education and focus.

And I had a really long day at work working with our educators and with the system today.

And as I thought about what I would bring to this conversation, I really had to dig deep into finding the focus of this district anymore.

I want to feel the humanity within our space because I know the humans in this room.

I know the decisions they make and I know the thought that goes into many of these decisions.

And one of the things that concerns me as we are coming up upon not only the reorganization of a budget and of our system coming up, we have negotiations coming up for thousands of workers beyond SEA in this next iteration of bargaining.

My question to us as a community is where is our focus?

Because one of the things that I see and feel as I talk with educators, as I work with students, as I volunteer in my kids' classroom, because I have the privilege to do that, as I go to school as a parent and see the beauty in the educators within the systems at the school that I love, And I had to make a conscious decision to stay in this district in a really contentious time and trust my daughter will be taken care of here.

The thing that I find is really lacking is our ability to stop and talk to each other with full dignity and the focus of dignity.

Because when the workers in the buildings and the parents are not connected to this system, it means that everyone's dehumanized within this system right now.

And that's not the school system I want our vision to be.

And I hope that when I hear the vision coming up in this meeting, that what I see is myself and my fellow community and the educators within here and the workers who provide all the other services, that my child loves her small community school.

And I know it can't always be that way.

But what I don't know is how being one of the most informed people in my community, I'm not sure where we're going.

and that's just concerning.

So thank you for hearing me.

Did you wanna say hi?

Hello.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Thank you everyone.

The next speaker is Steve Mahondro.

After Steve will be Matthew Van Dwin.

Steve Mahondro

I wouldn't mind ceding my time to any students who want to speak that didn't get on the list, because I'm just a parent.

My kid isn't even...

Okay, I'll just read what I wrote.

My name is Steve Mohandro.

I'm speaking today in support of Ms. Yu.

I have two sons who are Chinese.

They were born in China.

One is currently a freshman at West Seattle, not in her class, could not make it in her class.

And the other one is in Madison and would love to be in her class in West Seattle next year, next fall.

As soon as they learned that West Seattle had a Mandarin class, my boys made plans to take it.

They're not alone.

As you heard, it's super popular.

And so the wait list, the possibility that they will even get in the class next year is very low, but we'll see.

It's amazing that so many kids at that school are interested in China and Mandarin.

My kids benefit from this cultural awareness and understanding among their classmates.

An overwhelmingly popular program like this doesn't just happen.

It takes a special teacher to inspire students and parents to get involved and to advocate for resources.

This program is successful because of Ms. Yu.

I have no doubt that the person who might replace her is also an excellent teacher.

I understand that budget challenges and seniority are at play.

But the Chinese program at our school is Ms. Yu.

It will be a tall order for anyone to replace her, and she really should have the chance to continue running this program at West Seattle, whether or not my kids can even get into her classes.

Thank you for your time.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Next is Matthew Van Duin.

SPEAKER_00

Hi.

My name is Matthew Van Dyne.

I am a history teacher at West Seattle High School.

You have heard many people speak in support of Miss Yu.

I hope at this point you are convinced of her brilliance.

I'm going to take a different tact.

I want to talk about the geopolitical importance of her class and also the global context.

In a previous life, I was an academic.

I have a PhD in history from UW.

I've been studying, researching, working in China for like, I don't know, almost two decades.

Currently, our governments are pushing themselves into a new Cold War.

I think that Miss Yu's class and the Chinese program in general in Seattle Public Schools is truly building bridges and cultural connections.

Just two weeks ago, Miss Yu brought consulate officials from the San Francisco consulate.

They came to my classroom.

They talked to my students.

They said they're providing money to bring 50,000 American high school students to China for study abroad programs.

I feel like it is embarrassing for us to cut the Chinese program in that context.

I don't understand.

So my question is just why.

Yeah.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

I want to do a check.

Is Tyler Dupuy in the room now?

Is Tyler here?

OK, we are going to go to the wait list then.

And Katie Belsada.

Katie, if you're online, if you could press star 6 to unmute.

Katie Belsada

Can you hear me?

Ellie Wilson-Jones

We can.

Katie Belsada

You can hear me?

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Yes, we can hear you.

Katie Belsada

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Um, I'll make my comments brief Seattle school board of directors.

Please show your work, make this budget assignment collaborative developed in partnership with the community.

It directly impacts and it serves your efforts should be laser focused on seeking adequate funding from the state.

The short-sighted solutions, including closing schools are only going to exacerbate the downward spiral and lead to further disinvestment in public schools and bifurcated and inequitable educational system.

Thank you.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

President Rankin that was the 20th speaker and concludes testimony.

Liza Rankin

Thank you.

Yeah we don't.

Thank you everyone for coming out and taking the time to think through and share your words and this is not the most convenient place to get to especially at the end of a school day and a work day.

So thank you for that.

Before we head into our next into our consent agenda and also if directors need a break before we go into the business items while we have a lot of you speaking to some things that we'll be discussing later.

I have some information that I found digging around in the board office that I wanted to share with everybody.

And something for us as a board before we go over there, to think about what we heard and also understand the things that we do and do not have control over.

And I want to thank especially folks who pointed out the feeling of separation between the district and out there, it is deliberate.

It is deliberate because it benefits some people.

And it is much easier to say, oh, that's because of the district than it is for us each to examine our own role and responsibility in any kind of difficult decision that may come.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to do a calling into us all on the critical juncture that we are at from our schools.

So here's something I wanted to read that I found.

I don't know if it exists electronically.

I didn't have the chance to look for it before.

But to put into context what we're talking about today, IT'S NOT NEW.

IT'S NOT NEW.

WHAT CAN BE NEW IS HOW WE DECIDE AS A WHOLE COMMUNITY TO ACTUALLY ADDRESS IT AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT TO CHANGE THE DIRECTORY OF OUR STUDENTS' LIVES AND OUR SCHOOL DISTRICT.

This was a study done.

The study team found that the Seattle Public Schools face urgent and fundamental problems, many of which can be traced to the failure of the school board and the superintendent to provide strong, consistent leadership.

While board members appear to be dedicated, concerned individuals, their inability to act as a unified whole has paralyzed the district's decision-making process.

The superintendent has contributed to this problem by allowing board members to supersede his authority as the district's chief administrative employee.

The study notes that the superintendent has made some progress towards more effective organization and planning.

However, the lack of a clear vision has created or exacerbated problems that have undermined the district's considerable strengths and resources.

Educational initiatives are not fully successful because the district does not have an effective system for district level management and support of schools.

District finances are extremely precarious because the district failed to reduce costs to match declining enrollment over the past 10 years.

Employee morale has suffered from the lack of clear-cut educational goals and the continual organizational changes adopted by the board in the past five years.

Public confidence in Seattle Public Schools has also been eroded by the board's changing goals and priorities.

The difference in academic performance among racial and ethnic groups, also known as disproportionality, continues to be a problem, even though the district has made reduction of disproportionality one of its primary objectives.

Would anybody like to guess what year this is from?

Anybody?

It's from 1990. OK.

This is a report that was, I was 12. This is a report that was commissioned by the 1989 legislature at the request of Representative Gary Locke from Seattle.

It was intended to provide an independent look at the school district's operation, budget management, governance, and relationship with the community.

It's thick of recommendations, many of which are the exact same recommendations that were again provided to the board in 2018 under an evaluation that the board paid for at that time for a consulting firm called Moss Adams.

And in that time, no superintendent has been in Seattle Public Schools for longer than four and a half years.

I HAVE A 12-YEAR-OLD NOW, AND WHEN MY GRANDKIDS, IF I HAVE THEM, ARE 12, I DESPERATELY DO NOT WANT THIS TO BE THE SAME STORY WE ARE TELLING, OKAY?

SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS FACE URGENT AND FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS.

THE CENTRAL MESSAGE OF THIS REPORT IS THAT GIVEN THE DEMONSTRATABLE STRENGTHS AND RESOURCES OF THE DISTRICT AND COMMUNITY, IT IS POSSIBLE TO DEAL EFFECTIVELY WITH THESE PROBLEMS.

It goes on.

The district has not effectively managed enrollment decline is one of the findings in 1990. The district's fund balance is now dangerously low, primarily because in recent years costs have not been reduced at the same rate enrollment has declined.

Remember, again, this is 1990. Over the past 10 years, the number of students in Seattle schools has fallen by 18% from an average annual enrollment of 46,242 in 1980 to 1981 to 39,087 in 1989, 1990. The district's financial situation has deteriorated to the point that its available fund balance is near zero.

This has robbed the district of a crucial margin of security and flexibility to deal with contingencies.

The primary reason costs have not fallen with enrollment is failure and reluctance on the part of the school board and superintendent to reduce costs and operations as enrollment has declined.

Another contributing factor is unwillingness to close schools.

Seattle spends 15% more per pupil on instruction than does the average Washington district.

The finding provides focus to the questions of whether Seattle spends enough for instruction and if it spends it in the right areas.

Among other recommendations also received in 2018 are that the board should completely restructure its operations if it is to provide vision, direction, and leadership to Seattle schools.

This means establishing a policy framework.

ensuring the effectiveness of plans, goals, and expectations, selecting a competent chief executive, ensuring an efficiently functioning top management team, and providing overall direction, monitoring, and accountability for principal instruction and non-instructional management areas.

One other thing.

This is from 2006. As the past few months have shown, the process of closing schools can be controversial and emotional.

We realize that closing schools today will not immediately result in a more successful school district.

However, closing schools helps put the district on the path to increased success.

With fewer buildings to maintain, in conjunction with other reforms currently underway, we have additional resources that will enable us to better serve all students.

The recommendations to close buildings are not made just so we can close them but are made because we do not have the means to support partially filled buildings.

Keeping all of our buildings open is a luxury we cannot afford and continuing to educate students in buildings that do not have sufficient resources to do the job right is damaging to students and our community.

SO I JUST WANT TO, WE'RE NOT THE FIRST TO DEAL WITH THIS, BUT WHEN I LOOKED AT THE OUTCOMES OF THESE DIFFERENT ACTIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS WERE NOT FOLLOWED.

THEY WERE ACTUALLY BACKED OFF ON.

WE HAD INFORMATION ABOUT how to best serve students in current constraints.

There are also recommendations in here that the legislature increase funding, and that's 100% something that needs to happen.

But what I see from here is that fear made people pull back and not implement the things that were recommended.

And we are seeing the same recommendations that came at a high cost to be provided come again and again.

And I'm not making a judgment on people that came before us.

We don't know why decisions were or weren't made at the time.

What I do know is that we today up here in this room are responsible right now.

So I want to dispel any notion that anybody is up here for any reason other than to figure out how we best serve our students.

That's something that everybody in this room agrees on.

We want to do the best that we can for our kids.

There was a comment made about comfort.

This is anything but comfortable.

And we actually do need adults to be willing to be uncomfortable so that we can keep our kids the center of our focus and that we can take on the hard things so that they can have it better than we did and they can have it better going forward.

And addressing things about secondary, you may not see that on here, but when we have a disproportionate amount of resources going to keep buildings open that are half full, that does actually mean that there is more funding going away from secondary schools.

And that doesn't mean that that's just that we have a fixed amount of budget.

And what we are in control of is how we decide to spend it.

Our charge to the superintendent was we need a plan to best support our students education and remain fiscally solvent because we can wish and hope for the legislature to come through with more funding.

Back from 1990, it was identified that even if the board and district did implement all of these recommendations, funding would still not be sufficient.

That hasn't changed.

I would like to dispel any notion that if we just ask better, suddenly all of the money's gonna come and solve our problems.

We actually cannot ask well and with any kind of credibility if we don't do all of the things that we do have in our power to show that we are serious about meeting the needs of our kids within the costs that we have.

That will actually give us a stronger better argument when we all together continue to go to Olympia like we did with the state's largest increase in special education funding in 2023, when we all go together and say, look, here is what we have done.

And what we need now is this funding for these reasons to support our students.

And we cannot do that part unless you step up and help us.

Right now, we don't have a whole lot to stand on when we have 29 schools with under 300 kids.

THAT'S THE CHARGE OF THE LEGISLATURE, AND GETTING STATE FUNDING IS VERY SPECIFIC ABOUT EFFICIENCY, WHICH UNFORTUNATELY MEANS THAT THEY DON'T CARE HOW MANY SCHOOLS WE HAVE.

IT'S JUST ABOUT THE STUDENTS, AND IT'S UP TO US TO FIGURE OUT HOW BEST TO SERVE THE STUDENTS WITHIN THE RESOURCES THAT WE HAVE.

I'M NOT, YOU KNOW, I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING RECOMMENDATIONS AND WANTED TO HOPEFULLY GIVE SOME CONTEXT AND JUST THIS MAY BE NEW FOR US TODAY, BUT THIS IS NOT NEW.

AND INSTEAD OF LETTING IT PIT US AGAINST EACH OTHER AND ENGAGE IN PRETENDING ABOUT WHAT THE DISTRICT IS OR ISN'T DOING, WHAT THE UNION, WHAT THE PARENTS, WHAT WHOEVER ELSE IS OR ISN'T DOING, REMEMBER THAT WE'RE ALL HERE TODAY BECAUSE WE CARE SO MUCH ABOUT PUBLIC EDUCATION FOR ALL KIDS IN SEATTLE, AND WE'RE GOING TO DISAGREE, BUT KNOW THAT THERE'S NO OTHER REASON THAT ANYBODY HAS HERE TO BRING FORWARD ANY KIND OF PROPOSAL OTHER THAN TO HOW DO WE BEST SERVE KIDS.

SO YEAH, LITTLE HISTORY LESSON.

Again, thank you.

Let's take a 10-minute break.

Those of you who would like to are more than welcome to stay for the rest of the exciting business items that this room does tend to clear out after this moment in time.

And please continue to have this conversation with us and be part of this.

Liza Rankin

If directors and the superintendent can return to the dais, that would be appreciated.

And for those of you in the room still, please feel free to join us.

Liza Rankin

If you have conversations you want to continue, please take those out into the lobby so that we can get on with the business part of our meeting.

Here it comes.

That's okay.

I'm like the worst person to have to do time management.

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

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

Michelle Sarju

I move for the approval of the consent agenda.

Liza Rankin

I second.

I am going to remove the meeting minutes, the first one, so that Director Clark doesn't have to vote on minutes that she wasn't here for.

So we'll do that separately.

Is there anything else that anyone would like to remove from the consent agenda?

All right.

May have a revised motion for the consent agenda as amended please.

Michelle Sarju

I move for approval of the revised consent agenda as stands.

I never know what that means.

Never know how to do that.

Excuse me one moment.

Liza Rankin

Oh.

I second.

Approval of the consent agenda as amended has been moved by Vice President Sarju and seconded by Director Briggs.

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

Brandon Hersey

Aye.

Liza Rankin

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Abstentions?

The consent agenda has passed unanimously.

Now for the, let's see, yeah, do I need a motion?

Yeah, can I have a motion for the item that was pulled from the consent agenda, please?

Number one, minutes.

Oh, I move approval of

Michelle Sarju

I move for the approval of the meeting minutes from the April 18th 2024 board special meeting and April 25th 2024 regular board meeting.

Liza Rankin

I SECOND.

THANK YOU.

AND AGAIN, THIS WAS JUST TO ALLOW DIRECTORS WHO WERE NOT PRESENT AT THE MEETINGS TO ABSTAIN FROM APPROVAL IF THEY WISH FROM MEETINGS THEY WERE NOT PRESENT AT.

IF THERE ARE NO OTHER QUESTIONS, I WILL ASK FOR A ROLL CALL.

Michelle Sarju

OH, SORRY.

ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

VICE PRESIDENT SARJU.

Michelle Sarju

PRESENT.

I MEAN I. DIRECTOR TOP.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Director Briggs aye Director Clark I got that as an abstention Director Hersey aye Director Mizrahi President Rankin?

Aye.

This motion is passed with a vote of six yes and one abstention.

Liza Rankin

Thank you.

We will now move to action items on today's agenda.

We will take the first item here and then after that we'll move to the tables for the second item.

This is Approval of Board Resolution 2023-24-8, authorizing an inter-fund loan to the Seattle Public Schools General Fund from its capital fund, authorizing an amendment to the repayment plan of the economic stabilization account, and authorizing the use of capital fund interest earnings for instructional supplies, equipment, or capital outlay purposes.

May I please have a motion for this item?

Michelle Sarju

I move for the approval of Board Resolution 2023-24-8.

I second.

Liza Rankin

And I see we have staff at the dais ready to present.

Kurt Buttleman

I'm happy to provide some content and background on this if you'd like.

Liza Rankin

All right, yeah.

Kurt Buttleman

So all three of the items being proposed in this board action report were discussed at length during the budget development process and are all essential to producing the budget that's technically balanced for 24-25 while preventing further reductions to student services and programs.

This is being proposed today and not as a part of the package on July 2nd due to the fact that the Interfund loan must be approved and transacted by June 30th of 2024 per the RCW.

The amendment to the repayment plan and the utilization of capital fund interests are also being presented at this time since they were discussed during the budget development process and are complementary to the loan as additional one-time solutions to help balance the fiscal year 24-25 budget.

As we prepare the detailed materials for the budget hearing currently scheduled for June 10th, we'll calculate the exact amount of the Interfund loan and we'll share that as part of the final budget proposal.

It is very important to note we do not anticipate negative impacts to the capital program as a result of this short-term transfer.

As a reminder, the loan is only for a period of two years and will need to be returned to the capital fund with interest by June 30th of 2026. Full repayment of this loan will be factored into budget proposals brought forward this coming fall for 2526. And Dr. Jones will be sharing more on this later as he begins discussions about how to stabilize the system going forward on the next agenda item.

We have worked with the Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction and will continue to work with them, the Puget Sound ESD and King County Treasurer's Office as appropriate to implement these measures upon receipt of the board's direction and approval.

I'm happy to entertain any questions.

Liza Rankin

Do we have questions from directors?

Liza Rankin

All right.

For the record, I will ask for the motion again to be read.

I think I stole your thunder, Michelle.

I read the whole thing off the thing and then, yeah.

You already read it?

No, go ahead.

Okay.

Michelle Sarju

If you're confused, so are we.

I move that the board approve board resolution 2023-24-8, authorizing an inter-fund loan to the Seattle Public Schools General Fund from its capital fund.

authorizing an amendment to the repayment plan of the economic stabilization account, and authorizing the use of capital fund interest earnings for instructional supplies, equipment, or capital outlay.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Evan Briggs

I second the motion.

Liza Rankin

This item has been moved by Vice President Sarju and seconded by Director Briggs.

We have heard from Dr. Buttleman.

If there are no further questions, it looks like there are none.

I believe we now call for the vote.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Director Hersey?

Brandon Hersey

Aye.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Director Mizrahi?

Aye.

Joe Mizrahi

Aye.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Vice President Sarju?

Aye.

Sarah Clark

Aye.

Aye.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Aye.

Director Topp?

Sarah Clark

Aye.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Director Briggs?

Liza Rankin

Aye.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Director Clark?

Aye.

President Rankin?

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Liza Rankin

Thank you.

Now, I think we are going, am I right, Ms. Wilson-Jones?

We're moving now?

All right.

Let us move to the table for the next item.

Directors, please take your microphones with you.

All right, it's kind of funny to be at the table.

Do we need to start with the motion?

Okay.

Yeah, yes please.

So typically we come here for a work session where we're not voting.

There's nothing legal about voting there versus voting here.

That's just typically what we do, but because there's more of a presentation and we can see it much better here than on that screen, we're down here, but this still is an action item.

So before we start, we need the motion.

Michelle Sarju

I move that the school board acknowledge receipt of the superintendent's plan for a system of well-resourced schools, which has been prepared in response to the board's prior direction in resolution number 2023-2024-7.

and direct the superintendent to present preliminary recommendations with supporting analysis.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Liza Rankin

I second.

approval of this item has been moved by director sarju and seconded vice president sarju and seconded by director briggs superintendent jones please proceed thank you president rankin and board members uh...

this is a uh...

really important time that crossroads that we are uh...

embarking on right now and

Brent Jones

presenting this with honoring the mighty mission that we have, staying wedded to an admirable mission, and really trying to bring stabilization and sustainability to our system as we go forward.

And so I'm offering an idea and a set of principles embedded in a plan as we go forward with a system of well-resourced schools.

This is a vision for how we're getting ready for 2030 and 2030 would be the end of our next strategic plan.

So we need to do things now in order to prepare ourselves to complete the task of having a tremendous vision for student outcomes ultimately in 2030. And so next slide please.

I want to talk about the past and future paths.

We will talk about a well-resourced school vision, the contours of that.

We'll give some insight around the design of a system of well-resourced schools and what went into that.

And then we'll conclude on the work plan.

What's next?

What are the next steps?

Next slide, please.

So I wanna just, I wanna start with just talking about, go to the next slide please.

I want to start with talking about where we are in the timeline.

We've had several work sessions to talk about the budget, and we've had seven work sessions.

This is the eighth out of 11 around really starting with the premise that we need to balance our budget, we need to be stable, we need to bring stabilization, we need to bring sustainability to our budgets, and really look at the context of How do we get to reconcile our structural deficit?

And in a few slides from now, I'll talk about how we started down the budget path.

Then we looked at our opportunity to actually do system improvement.

But right now, we're at May 8th, and this is the time that we had slotted to listen to the recommendations around a system of well-resourced schools.

Next slide, please.

So a little bit of history.

In January 2023, in a budget work session, we identified school consolidation as a potential fiscal stabilization strategy, one of many.

Later in April 23, the board adopted a fiscal stabilization resolution, and we tagged that as funding our future.

That's when we started the idea of a multi-year budget balancing process.

The board adopted in July 2023 a budget that closed $131 million gap.

Two years ago, we had $131 million gap.

This year, we have $105 million gap.

But right after we did that piece, congruently with that piece, we had a well-resourced school community engagement session or several sessions.

where we asked the community about how are we using our building spaces?

What are we doing with programs?

What type of services would you all want to see in a system of well-resourced schools?

At the time we were doing that, we were going down the path of trying to balance the budget And we really kind of pivoted a bit and said, this isn't just a budget exercise.

This is about educational vision.

How do we look at whole system design?

How do we do a work plan that gets us to not only a balanced budget, but to have a stronger, more stable, sustainable system?

So in December 2023, with direction from the board, we worked on the second piece of the fiscal stabilization, excuse me, the second piece through a board resolution to say, here are the other tools that you, superintendent, need to go out and seek if these are feasible to help us balance the budget.

And so on September 23, superintendent and staff, we developed a proposal funding our future part two.

This is the second year of a budget balancing process.

And we identified the strategies to close $105 million gap.

So we will submit that process, that proposal to you later on at the beginning of the summer.

And this will be the second year where we have actually brought to balance $236 million.

And so that's a big deal for us.

I want to applaud school leaders, staff, educators, the board for really digging in.

And this is a pretty big achievement.

And my idea and my ideal state is in May 25, we will achieve fiscal stability.

And that's going to take a few things.

And I'll talk about that in the next couple of slides.

Next slide, please.

So as we think about this path to a sustainable future, we are just now ending our Seattle Excellence Strategic Plan.

That strategic plan ends in 24. We're going to start our next strategic plan sometime in September of 25. In the meantime, we need to be making sure we're taking the requisite steps for sustainability.

We're calling this year zero.

This is a year in between our current strategic plan and our next strategic plan.

And as you see these five areas of focus, governance, funding, staffing, programs and services, operations, these together are what we need to be focusing on for this interim year before the next strategic plan comes forward.

So this is the pre-work.

And as you look at the different boxes here as in governance, the board is going to be going out and doing your engagement this month and next month around what are the new goals and guardrails that are going to lead into our next strategic plan.

We have a full board now.

We have stable leadership.

We have the next part of our SOFG, student outcome focused governance, implementation and we're working on policy discipline.

At the same time, as I was just mentioning, we've been working on fiscal stabilization.

We've been looking at how do we do this not only on a year-to-year but a multi-year budget.

We need desperately to make sure that our levies pass.

We don't want to take those for granted.

We've passed our levies almost at eighty percent approval ratings but it's good until it's not so we want to make sure that we secure that.

We we've heard testimony today.

We've heard, uh, we've heard it a million times.

We have to have our legislature come through.

So we need to make sure that we have a legislative push, a coordinated legislative push so that we can fully fund education in a way that we need a Seattle public schools and not just Seattle public schools, but this is our, our other districts are, uh, similarly faced with these challenges.

And we also need to be making sure we're looking at a strategic philanthropic request.

There's so much wealth in this city.

There's a push that we need to make in saying, here are the things that we need to really sustain the innovation going forward.

One of the more exciting pieces here as we look at coming up with a new model for staffing, to be able to have predictable school allocations, to have a new weighted staffing standard.

Imagine schools that have standardized allocations of staffing.

Every elementary school, for example, could have a music, PE, and art teacher.

Not combinations, you have one, two, or one or two of them, but to have all three.

This is an opportunity for us to really consolidate our efforts so that we can be more efficient, so we can have the right adults in buildings doing the services and programs that our students need and deserve.

As we look at programs and services, special education, English language learners, ML, as we call it here at Seattle Public School, highly capable, mental health, we need to take a moment to really dig in and say, How effective are we at delivering those programs?

What can we do right now to take an evaluative position and say, are we providing enough support to our buildings?

Are we providing enough support to our educators?

Are we providing enough just resource overall?

We can look at that in this year of stability, in this year zero.

As we look at operations, transportation efficiency, we know that we have too many buses, and we need to make sure that we try to run that more efficiently.

We need to look at safety.

Safety is a mandate.

Frankly, it's an unfunded mandate.

It's something that our students deserve.

Our community is demanding that we have an ecosystem of safety.

This is our opportunity to look at that during this period of sustainability.

And artificial intelligence, that's something that's ubiquitous.

It's in our mix right now.

We need to be able to take hold of that, have a framework for how we're going to manage that throughout our system.

And what we're going to talk about a lot today, no doubt, is school consolidation and site closures.

I want to really impress upon the board and whoever's watching, we need to do all these things.

So this isn't just one piece of the puzzle talking about school consolidation, site closure, or budget, but these together will get us ready for the next strategic plan.

Next slide, please.

So let me preface this by saying our schools are great.

but we can be even better.

And one of the things that we need to do is we must get to stability so that we can be effective.

And so we are at a decision point right now.

We can maintain the current system of schools.

We can continue operating 105 schools, including 29 schools with fewer than 300 students.

If we go down the same path that we've been doing over the last several years, We'll be in a position where we reduce school staffing, increase class size, perhaps have to be eliminating preschool programs or extracurricular activities.

We would be continuing the reduction of central office staff.

We may have to pause curriculum adoptions and have reductions in operational staff.

And we really don't want to go here either, but we may be forced into looking at renegotiating labor contracts.

So on the other side, we can look at a transition to a system of well-resourced schools.

This was where we can facilitate the expansion of elementary educational strategies.

Sometimes we have a six-school strategy or a 13-school strategy.

If we have more resource concentrated in fewer number of schools, it will be easier or less cumbersome to perhaps do the strategic implementation.

We can have all schools providing equitable and consistent mix of services to more students.

We can have consistent, stable, and comprehensive school staffing.

We can have space for special education, intensive services, and pre-K in every building.

And then to have a stable and balanced both district budget and school budgets would probably be really beneficial to our schools.

We may be able to mitigate the need to do the October staffing shuffle.

That's been completely disruptive to our schools.

If we can figure out a way to mitigate that, I think it would be advantageous.

Next slide, please.

So these are what I could, I say this is a, a sample of benefits for well-resourced schools.

And from left to right, we're looking at these are real schools, these are real allocations in our districts, one from 515 students all the way across to 165 students.

And the left side of the chart says multiple teachers per grade level.

stable support staff, inclusive learning, social emotional learning support, art, music, and PE.

So if you look at these cells here, you can see what a 515 student allocation looks like relative to a 468, relative to a 230, relative to a 217, relative to 165. We believe that somewhere in that 468, uh...

number that's where we can have adequate staffing an adequate allocation of staff so use as you see this we really want to have stability in terms of staffing we want to have stability in terms of budget we want to have stability in terms of the student experience that they can have the comprehensive level of support that they need and deserve.

So this was just an example of what it would look like in real time.

And as we think about moving to a system of well-resourced schools, we can have this expectation of all of our schools.

That would be, I think that would be ideal.

Next slide, please.

So the vision for where we're going, next slide, is based on our instructional philosophy.

Our instructional philosophy 0010, this is one of our flagship policies.

And as we think about this policy, it's our guide for how we do our work.

This talks about high academic expectations, effective culturally responsive teaching and outcomes, multiple pathways to success.

Identification of student needs, assets, barriers, and strengths.

Serving students with disabilities as general education students first.

And really having schools that have joyful, safe, secure, and supportive environments.

This is the guidepost for us moving through our design for a system of well-resourced schools.

Next slide, please.

So as we talk about well-resourced schools, we did engagement.

We asked our community to reimagine what a well-resourced school would look like, to have a vision that was shaped in, to have a vision that's grounded in values and aspirations of our community, to really look at what programs and services and resources that student needs to succeed, excuse me, and really have a guide prefacing our next strategic plan.

We want to make sure that our resource allocation and our strategic planning is aligned with what our community has spoken to us about.

And so as you go to the next slide, these are the themes from our students.

As we asked almost 530 students for their feedback, they gave us this information, and this information was powerful.

We talked about facilities and learning spaces, academic and extracurricular activities, and support services and resources.

And under facilities and learning spaces, they talked about having outstanding libraries, great facilities, for athletic and arts programs, safe and secure campuses, welcome and open spaces.

As we look at the academic and extracurricular box, they talked about having well-funded programs.

They talked about having after school enrichment and clubs, highly effective caring educators, reflecting the diversity of students.

relevant and challenging curriculum, including STEM and advanced courses, tutoring and other academic supports.

And as we look at the box around support services and resources, full-time staff in key positions, such as librarians, counselors, and nurses.

They talked about having access to mental health services, highly responsive services, and mitigating all forms of bullying, harassment, and racism addressed effectively at the school.

If you go to the next slide, this is what our adults told us.

And so our adults had similar questions.

And as they look at facilities and learning spaces, they talked about having neighborhood locations.

They talked about safety and security.

And you're going to be seeing a lot of similarities with what the students said and what the adults said.

interior spaces that are designed for for learning uh...

artwork centering student diversity and as you look at the academic and extracurricular they talk about dedicated and skilled educators arts and music programs physical PE and athletics high quality instruction and diversity related uh...

in curriculum and instruction And going to the last box on here, support services and resources, full-time staff in key support positions, basic student needs, mental health, special education and advanced learning, multilingual learner services, and transportation services.

So if you look at these as a roll-up, if we go to the next slide, This is how we interpret the thematic analysis of where our staff, excuse me, our community and our students told us.

As we look at multiple teachers per grade level, stable support staff, inclusive learning for every student, social emotional learning support, having art, music, and PE teachers, Again, that concept of stable operational budgets, safe, healthy, and beautiful schools and grounds, and a real connection to the community.

And so this is the vision for a well-resourced school, and to have a collection of schools that have these characteristics would be a system of well-resourced schools.

Next slide, please.

So I wanna pause here and ask the board, what resonates with you?

What are you still curious about?

This is an opportunity for you to share kind of openly around what resonates with you?

Let's start with that.

And what are you still curious about?

Liza Rankin

Directors?

Director Briggs?

Evan Briggs

I really love the idea of pre-K in every building.

We talked about this, but it seems like a great way to create sort of, well, new pathways for enrollment, really.

Having kids coming in in pre-K, then naturally just segueing into kindergarten, and that seems like a great deal for everyone.

So that really resonates.

I like that a lot.

Liza Rankin

Director Hersey.

Brandon Hersey

Yeah, if it's not too much trouble, could we go back to the matrix slide where it talks about the differentials between number of students per school?

That one right there, thank you.

This one really stuck out to me for a number of reasons.

First, it really paints the picture of the difference between maintaining a school that has fewer students versus maintaining a more appropriately sized school.

Two things come to mind.

The first one is if we look over in the column of 515 students, many folks will look at that column and will still say, wow, that's still not enough, right?

And I think what is critical here is that By achieving this bigger number, we then get to a place to where we can begin advocating in a more real stance to get these numbers even higher.

Because the ideal would be to have an assistant principal there all the time, a librarian, and God forbid, a nurse there every day of the week.

This also opens up opportunities to partner with public health entities to potentially provide all sorts of different types of services.

But at the level that we are operating now, where we have several schools that are below 300 students, it's much harder to go from having no AP to a full AP or having a nurse in the building five days a week from going in one day a week.

So I say that to say, By moving to or trying to solve all those problems in the way that we are now, we are still not where I think our educational community would want us to be.

But this gets us to a much more concise and clear place to then build off of.

And I think that that will increase the experience for every student.

The other thing that came to mind here is that, now it's escaping me.

It'll probably come back at some point.

But I did just want to really highlight the fact that in our current status quo, there are far too many students who are living in the last three or rather learning in the last three columns of this space that we could do something drastic in terms of improving their educational experience.

Liza Rankin

And Director Hersey, if you think of the other thing, let me know.

We'll come back to you.

But connected to that, those last three columns, also a sort of hidden cost or something that's more difficult to quantify is the 0.5 counselor or the 0.5 art teacher is likely a 0.5 at another school.

and 2.5s is a lot more work than one.

And the amount of capacity that we are asking of educators who are getting to know two different whole communities of students, travel time, the different challenges, even just having different sets of colleagues in the two buildings adds a lot of value.

a capacity toll on the adults in our system that we expect to be their whole selves to serve students.

And so we can't quantify that, but that's just the same as kids don't come in tidy, perfect packages of 24, 30 kids.

You know.

adults don't come in .2, .6, they're whole people and they're valued members of their school communities and they, you know, so that's just something else to think about is it's absolutely the students are doing with less, they're being served less and the adults are spread much more.

because of how we kind of have this patchwork of trying to create a whole position or provide a lower number based on a lower number of students.

Liza Rankin

Director Hersey.

Brandon Hersey

It indeed came back.

So the thing that I am looking at here and what I would be thinking as a parent of a child that is at a smaller school is like, oh, well, they're just going to close my school because it's small.

And I know for a fact that that's not the case.

Could you articulate to me the difference between...

chart like this that says okay if a school is under this amount we can't provide these services in potential thought process that goes into ensuring that just because a school is currently small doesn't necessarily mean that that that school is in danger of consolidation or closure, what it means is that these are right size schools, right?

Because there could be very well a situation to where we have a smaller school that has the capacity for more students that may be a better fit for a specific neighborhood or community than one of the schools that is already operating at a larger size.

Could you tell me if that thinking is accurate and in alignment with how y'all are considering the process?

Brent Jones

Yes, I don't think that's accurate how we're considering the process.

And I believe these, even when you get to 515 schools, this is not a large school.

This is frankly a midsize school.

And so to be able to provide the amount of service and have perhaps even a multi-year allocation for our schools, we would need to make sure that they were at least big enough that we could provide a full suite of services and programs.

And so we are looking at the schools that are very small as potential for being consolidated into other schools.

And so let me be very clear with that.

Liza Rankin

Director Clark.

Sarah Clark

Oh all right.

We can stay on this slide too.

So first I just wanted to say that I know that this is a very emotional topic.

The idea of needing to close schools and I think this plan has been extremely well thought out and One thing that jumped out to me was actually the level of consensus that I'm seeing between what's proposed here on the screen under the 468 students column and the feedback that was received from both students and parents.

What I see here is that we're prioritizing libraries, arts programming, music programs, physical education, athletics.

student support services, mental health services, high quality instruction, and like the playgrounds and facilities, and as well-groomed campuses, and that's, eight eight of the items on each list as well as what's listed up on the screen.

And so I I'm just really pleased to see that that feedback was taken from the community and put into this plan and that we actually have more alignment than misalignment.

Thank you.

Liza Rankin

Director Tom?

Gina Topp

Yeah, I will build off maybe that a little bit at the end here.

So I appreciate, I was almost gonna start telling Dr. Jones how many times you said stability in your remarks.

I appreciate the emphasis on stability here, stability in staffing, multi-year allocations, stability in budgets, stability in offering, stability in the services we provide our students, I think leads to more stability in the outcomes we should be expecting.

And it allows, I think, us as a district to tell the story of what you as a SBS student will receive, should, and expect, and what parents and students should expect from the district.

It provides that clarity.

And I think to your point here, it looked at the well-resourced school engagement and it tried to address many of the things that were brought up in that engagement.

And what I'm excited about is this next step in the process.

We did the engagement, you came back with a plan and we're going back out for engagement to hear from folks to see if we got this right or wrong and where we should move forward.

So I appreciate that, thank you.

Evan Briggs

Yeah, Director Briggs.

I'm wondering if we have like a similar matrix, I mean, obviously not right now, but where we could understand how this would impact staffing and resources at our secondary schools.

Because I see this as like, you know, this is all for at the elementary school level and What will it look like?

How will that translate and how will it roll up to middle and high schools?

Will they have extra staff as a result of this?

And yeah, how should we think about that?

Brent Jones

So our enrollment challenge right now is at the elementary school space, and that would, in theory, travel with us all the way through middle school and high school.

And Fred easily explains this much better than I do, but I think Fred can address that more specifically.

Fred Podesta

Maybe I have it.

There we go.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Jones.

We do have the biggest gap and we have a little bit of information later that will talk about the capacity versus enrollment gap in K-5 versus the other levels.

This thinking would really lead to is changes perhaps to attendance areas for middle schools as if we reshape the elementary school level, the attendance areas that are part of the feeder pattern for middle schools will need to change as a result.

And Dr. Jones is right.

Depending on how our enrollment goes, it may ripple through the system, but it just isn't as pronounced because With a couple of exceptions at the high school level, we really don't have this range of large to small in middle schools and high schools.

They're kind of in a comfortable range where they have that kind of base funding that they need.

So the issue is most acute here.

Liza Rankin

I think there may have been slight, correct me if I'm wrong, I think what Director Briggs is asking about is that, so we've already, buildings have already set their budgets for next year.

This is one more year.

So I believe what she was asking about was in terms of weighted staffing standards.

If we're making adjustments based on If adjustments are made for staffing at the elementary level based on more students being in fewer places, is there, and this might be an unknown because it would require whatever work is going to happen for a different WSS, but would there be potential for the benefit of reallocating resources at the elementary level to also increase capacity at the secondary level because we're using resources more efficiently, or is that what you're asking?

Fred Podesta

No, that's absolutely true.

Evan Briggs

Thank you, that is what I was asking.

And where I was coming from with that was that I think a lot of the student feedback that we got was from older students, is that correct?

So I was just trying to match that to this information and just looking for what is the thing that we're doing here at the elementary school level that's going to help provide the well-resourced school environments to the middle and high school students as well.

Fred Podesta

You'll...

Remember, as part of proposing a balanced budget for 24-25, we increased student allocation at the secondary level to balance the budget.

And so this is happening now, where some flexibility we do have now at the secondary level is helping to subsidize these excess costs at the elementary level.

And one additional point since we have the slide up I'll make is our spending per student at schools with enrollment of 200 or fewer is about 15% per student higher than our spending across the elementary school average.

And that schools that are enrolled with 400 students or more, it's about 10% below the average across the whole system.

So what the matrix shows is what students get.

And the other side of this is We're spending a lot more with the low-enrollment schools to deliver fewer services, and that's why, and we'll talk more about this later, but that's why I think this is really important.

I think that's why we're spending time on this slide, that there's really a lot here.

Liza Rankin

Director Sarju, Vice President Sarju.

Michelle Sarju

Thank you.

I'm not gonna repeat what Director Clark said, but I wanna emphasize the point around the fact that our district asked our students what they thought would be, in this case, sort of an ideal plan.

And they said almost exactly the same thing as the adults.

And I know a lot of the students have left, but we don't really give our young people enough credit.

They said it, right?

Full-time teacher and art, music and PE.

What we know is that that formula actually provides a well-rounded education that actually prepares them for what comes next.

Not making, you know, providing an environment where our teachers are not spending time a significant amount of time in their car in this city because it is getting harder and harder to drive around.

These are people too with children, many of them, and they deserve not to have their time split, be forced to have their time split.

I don't think we can expect academic excellence in teaching if we're literally stretching our teachers out.

This is not, someone, I think it was Director Clark, this is not an easy conversation to have, but if we focus, center our focus on the students, we're actually focusing on our teachers, right?

Because when we have enough students in the building, we actually can provide teachers with reliability and stability in teaching.

And so while we may not agree with this idea and notion of closing schools, which I will just say, this is probably my fourth or fifth as a parent in the district for 38 years, this is not new.

And every single time, the difficulty is the same.

And what I want for our students, because our students have said what they want in need is I want full-time teachers in art, music, and PE in addition to the three R's.

What, does anybody remember what the three R's?

I don't actually think it's three R's.

Yeah, arithmetic starts with an A.

But anyway, that's where I get confused, right?

In addition to that, because we're trying to prepare this next generation for what's to come.

And if we're short changing them and their teachers, what we're doing is actually leaving them behind.

And so as we prepare to make these really difficult decisions, I want us to keep our focus on what our students said they need, because they're actually pretty smart.

Because they said what the adults said.

So something's going on there.

I mean, that's just not happenstance.

And so as we move into this, the rhetoric can get really ugly, can get mean, and we lose, we are actually shifting our focus.

by doing that.

We're actually not paying attention to what the students and actually the teachers are saying to us.

Liza Rankin

Director Hersey.

Brandon Hersey

Thank you.

One thing that came to mind as we're going through this, and this is a request, so I'm not expecting an answer or responsiveness to this immediately.

Given that we have two goals right now around third grade reading and seventh grade math, I can imagine that we are focusing or rather that our choice to focus on elementary schools can be incredibly disruptive to those two goals specifically.

So what I would like to see, and I'm asking y'all to think about as y'all continue to make presentations, is one, the students who are impacted by these decisions be broken out while we are doing progress monitoring so that we can see if there's any additional resource or support that they need either on the front end or the back end of the process.

It also would be very interesting to me to see once you have a proposal, so to say, breaking those students out and seeing where they are in comparison to the rest of the district so that we can probably be more proactive in providing reading and math supports in those buildings both before and after a potential transition the second thing is taking a look at those students in longevity afterward right so that we can really be sure that A, we are benefiting them in some way academically in relation to our goals, but B, so that we can know really clearly if they are being impacted in a negative way, that we will be able to support them in ways that are both sustainable, but then also positively impactful.

Just to paint that picture, because I know that was a lot of word salad because I process as I talk.

I want to make sure that we are taking a look both proactively and after the fact of any student or rather as a cohort that is impacted by their school being closed.

It would be a benefit to see how they are doing now so that in the event that we need to provide them more resources both on the front end and the back end, we can do that so that we can at least know the impact on our students of making a transition of this scale.

Don't need a response to that now, but just to give you some foreshadowing, I will be asking questions to that effect moving forward.

Brent Jones

I do want to react to you.

That is an appropriate and heavy lift, but it is very appropriate.

And one of the things that we want to do during the transition is allocate $3 to $5 million for mitigation in that regard to make sure that we fill the gaps from a staffing perspective.

And if we're finding opportunities to support students through that process, we want to be able to direct those resources on behalf of those students as well.

So I think that's an appropriate thing to do.

We haven't done that.

holistically before, but now I think this is our golden opportunity to do that.

Thank you.

Liza Rankin

Director Mizrahi.

Joe Mizrahi

Yeah, I'm glad we're hanging out on this slide, because this is the most important one to me as well.

And I just wanted to point out, in addition to what everyone else has been talking about, this third row here on special education inclusion, that as it stands right now, if you are a family that has a child with special education needs and you happen to live in an attendance area with a smaller school, you may not be getting the services and the funding that you need to properly do special education inclusion.

which, to do right, is a resource-intensive program.

And so I'm very happy to see that as we move to larger schools, we're going to have more resources for that inclusion and to do it right.

Liza Rankin

I'LL ADD TO THAT SOMETIMES THAT STUDENT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THE OPTION OF ATTENDING THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL UNDER THE CURRENT STRUCTURE.

THEY ARE SENT TO A DIFFERENT SCHOOL AS A MATTER OF HOW THE PROGRAMMING IS PROVIDED.

I guess not a wondering but an add on to what Director Hersey was saying about movement is we do have schools every year, almost every year that close and students move to an interim location when there's a building change.

And so I wonder what we probably already know about that process and how to mitigate it.

Again, don't need that right now but just

Brent Jones

I'm going to put Fred on the spot.

I would like him to maybe characterize what that's like, our experience with that, and given what President Hersey just said, I think there's some muscle memory on how we've done that in the past.

Liza Rankin

The difference would be we have to support multiple communities coming together in one building as opposed to one school community moving coming back.

Fred Podesta

We typically have multiple schools under construction every year and have interim sites, so...

we've learned a lot about how to mitigate the results of moving to a new building.

I think this will, again, restructure school communities, so we'll need to be more attentive to that, but I do think since we do have that history, that would help us think about the analysis that Director Hersey brought up.

So what have been those impacts as students move to an interim site and then the whole community picks up and moves to a new site and we do boundary adjustments and make other changes too.

So this is at a different scale and there's some differences but there's also some similarities.

I think we have some history here and some learning we can do based on our past experience.

Liza Rankin

it's at a different scale on the district level, but not on the student level.

Closing two schools is gonna impact the students in those schools the same as closing 90 schools would impact the students in those schools.

Fred Podesta

It's at a different level.

I think in the case of consolidations, you're bringing a new community together where now we do this all at once.

So there's a lot of overlap and there's some new things we'll need to think about and we'll leverage what we've learned as our district has grown and changed in other ways to figure that out.

But your point, on the implementation side, the technical part of this, I'm pretty confident we can do.

Liza Rankin

Any more questions before we move on?

All right, Dr. Jones.

Brent Jones

Thank you.

Can you go to slide 17, please?

So as we talk about designing a system that supports equitable access and programs and services, we're driven really in our design by policy 2200. And this policy talks about supporting district-wide academic goals, placing programs and services equitably, making physical space resources that are allocated so that they're also being met equitably.

We want to ensure our financial resources and we're analyzing current and future fiscal impacts.

And so you should be able to see this in what we're trying to put together in terms of this well-resourced schools plan.

And so this is our, what I'd say, our operational authority that we're using to go forward.

And if you go on to the next slide, please.

These are our guiding principles, and so this is what we'd like to go out and ask community, did we get this right?

This is what we've based our efforts on, policy and then these guiding principles, talking about inclusive learning, special education and inclusive services, multilingual, advanced learning, neighborhood schools, the building condition and learning environment, scale our system for projected enrollment.

We looked at utilizing building capacity, service area capacity, resources allocated equitably throughout the system, and having an equitable regional distribution throughout our schools through our city.

So this is what our set of guiding principles are.

This is where we're going to ask the community, did we get it right?

We believe we did, but we're very open and flexible to making sure that we get that proper feedback as we go forward.

And so guiding principles, when we have our design team meetings, when we start talking about what are we doing and what's our North Star, we use this to push us forward.

All right, next slide, please.

So when we look at a transition to a system of well-resourced elementary schools, right now we have approximately 23,000 K-5 students in our 23-24 school year, currently served in more than 70 sites.

Our current site utilization is approximately 65%.

When we look at a transition to a well-resourced school system for 25-26, K-5 students would be accommodated in approximately 50 sites, evenly distributed with 10 per region, give or take.

projected site utilization would be 85%, and that's comparable to middle and high schools.

So this is a very, I wanna highlight this slide, it's saying a lot, and this is kind of the math rationale for why we do this.

But I wanna pause here, see if there's any questions about this slide, if it's clear.

Liza Rankin

Director Hersey.

Brandon Hersey

Can you define site utilization?

Fred Podesta

That's the enrollment relative to the capacity at the building.

So we're using about two thirds of the capacity of the schools that serve K through five students right now.

So our buildings are about a third empty.

And we want to always have some capacity and some elbow room.

So we're not trying to get to 100%.

And again, this is also another reason that we're focused on elementary schools.

That's where that gap is the biggest.

Brandon Hersey

So continuing on that line of questioning, just to put it in plain speak, we're at about 70 elementary schools.

And we're looking to impact, whether by consolidation or closure, 20. OK.

That's correct.

Lit.

What I would like to know is that as we get down the process and we have identified those 20, in relation to our strategic plan, it would be good to know some demographic data about who those children are, what are their backgrounds, where they come from, how many receive special education services.

Again, I know that y'all are probably already thinking about this, but I just want to make it very clear and foreshadow the questions that I'm going to have.

get a really clear picture at the onset of the students that are going to be potentially impacted absolutely and if the board says proceed on with this we will provide those type of sure data and analysis one other additional thing i see that it says 10 per region do you mean that by like district or what do you mean by region Your respective regions.

Cool.

Yes.

Yeah.

So my region is huge and is continuing to grow as the South is where people can afford to buy homes.

Do we feel right?

Do we feel as though this like around 10 number is going to future proof us for the changes in how our communities are acquiring housing?

Brent Jones

Based on our enrollment projections, yes.

Brandon Hersey

Okay.

Bet.

That's all I need to know.

Thank you.

Brent Jones

And I said that with a lot of confidence.

However, things do change.

And so we want to make sure that I'm sharing with the board that we are flexible and we want to make sure that we double and triple check our work as we go forward.

And so as our modeling is right now, yes.

But I think that's a worthy question for us to explore further.

Brandon Hersey

I have one more question.

I'm so sorry.

So another thing that strikes me as curious is given that say we have a smaller school that has a high population of students who are furthest away from educational justice.

This kind of gets to the question that I had earlier.

If we are going to be, or our goal is to be as least disruptive on those students' educational experiences as possible, does that mean that we would look at closing a school or consolidating a school that currently has a higher number of students, but a disproportionately low number of students furthest away from educational justice?

You don't need to answer that.

But that is the thinking that I am having in terms of how are we looking more holistically at these decisions, right?

That, yeah, I'm going to leave it at that.

But just so you know kind of where my head's at.

Brent Jones

Well, I was just saying that I was listening, getting guidance from some of our labor partners in the Red Shirts, and one of the things they asked me was about the veracity of your racial equity analysis.

And there was a request, almost a demand, to make sure that that's robust and seen.

There's some transparency on that.

And so that would be an element of it as we go forward.

Liza Rankin

And a couple of things to add to that in addition to the school population I think building condition matters a lot as a factor there too.

Like where do we have students especially students furthest from educational justice in buildings that are not what they deserve.

Brandon Hersey

I could not agree more.

And that is like, really, I want to track it back to that question I asked earlier.

It's not just an exercise of looking at what schools have this amount of students, right?

It's got to be, and I know that it will be, a more complex...

approach to finding the balance between so many things, geography, number of students, number of students furthest from educational justice, building condition, and the like, right?

Because we have some really big schools that are really terrible conditions.

condition, and we have some really small schools that are great, but may not necessarily be the perfect place for a new school community to be formed, right?

So I just want to reassure folks that are listening and who might be shaking in their boots thinking, like, my kid's school only has 125 kids in it.

That doesn't necessarily mean that your educational experience is going to be the one that changes, right?

Liza Rankin

Well, it might mean they grow.

Brandon Hersey

Or it might mean they grow, right?

But it doesn't necessarily mean that your school is going to be the one that is going to be consolidated or closed.

Liza Rankin

Two things related to this.

So in that report that I read from earlier, the amount of site utilization that they were talking about the district needed to address, they were already at 80% utilization talking about, hey, you all need to consolidate your resources and use closer to 95. And I'm just saying that to say that...

We still kind of have, even in this plan, a lot of breathing room.

And I know that in the past, when enrollment has gone up and down, looking at the number of buildings that have opened and closed is not necessarily an indicator of what the students were, because we have had a lot of portables.

A lot of portables.

And because we have had an enrollment decline and also the board has directed the capital or the superintendent to direct the capital team to try to minimize temporary classrooms and focus on whole buildings.

So there's all kinds of factors.

I don't know in 1990 if they were talking about portables or what, but just to sort of say that like 65% is...

is very inefficient.

They were looking at 80% as inefficient.

And I appreciate that we're not aiming for stuff to the gills because we don't want to be in a place where we're starting to add back a bunch of portables and stuff.

And this does give us space to have some flexibility and room to grow.

Oh, the other thing I wanted to say is that Mayor Harrell called me yesterday, day before yesterday, and said that, you know, as they're working on their comprehensive plan, you know, the community being engaged with on the comprehensive plan is the people that are the citizens and residents of Seattle.

That is also our community as the Seattle School Board.

And so he has...

said that I can say this publicly, that he wants to be supportive in any way that he can as he hears from the city side what people want and we hear from our engagement what the top priorities are specifically for our children.

Let's collaborate.

Education is ours.

We govern the school district.

The city belongs to the mayor and city council, but we're serving the same people and families.

So he has indicated a willingness to get together and see where our needs and gaps align.

And he really wants to help us navigate this.

And that also goes towards where are students now versus where do we think they will be.

in the future, because we have to make the best decisions that we can for the students we have today.

But we also have to think about what's going to come.

Because growth is expected to return.

A lot of that depends on things we can't control, like housing affordability and whatnot.

But assuming that more children do grow up in Seattle again, we're going to need to expand back into those spaces.

And what's the best way that we can serve our whole community with spaces that may not be instructional sites and maintain them in the portfolio of schools, but that are maybe different temporary use.

Anyway, and they, of course, have been looking into all kinds of Housing and whatnot so we have that that support.

I think it would be Really beneficial, and I don't know if it's happened before but really beneficial to ask or invite the mayor and City Council to have some kind of a meeting with us about We're serving the same people.

What are you hearing?

Here's what we're hearing.

Here's support that we need to serve the students of the city and how can how can we help not only provide the education that our whole community expects for its children, but how can we be part of the future of the city of Seattle that lots of people want to live in?

Brandon Hersey

Just to that point, Council Member Morales and I have been talking about this for years, but you know, pandemic, there used to be an intercommittee between city council folks and school board directors, I believe back in either the 80s or the 90s.

And there's a big interest in revitalizing that.

And I think that we're at a critical point to where that might make a lot of sense.

Fred Podesta

If I could touch on your subject reportable, if we could, could we go back one slide?

And consider the building condition and learning environment is really important to us.

And this also touches a little bit on some of the points Director Hersey was making about when we get to the next stage of implementation or further design, at this level, we're really starting with somewhat of a clean sheet of paper in what's the best way to serve 23,000 students, not making any assumptions about our current system.

So a different way of saying that is we're not looking for 20 schools to close.

We're looking for 50-some schools to keep open because we think that scale is the way to invest.

And so it's not which...

which buildings will meet all these criteria the best and position those students for success so they get all the services that are in that matrix.

And the portables are not part of our vision, and how that is not something in just one move that will resolve, but the whole building needs to meet the safety requirements, the fresh air requirements, and a learning environment that we heard from both students and adults that they want.

So yes, eliminating the 300 portable classrooms that we're using now is a very important goal built into this.

Liza Rankin

Director Taub.

Gina Topp

So I'm going to put Dr. Jones on the spot a little bit.

So you and I were having a conversation.

Because this is a difficult, school closures or the idea of school closures is clearly a very difficult conversation.

And before this meeting, you and I were sitting, just having conversations.

And you said, you know, this was not My first, my ideal choice, my staff brought me here and I realized that this is my recommendation.

What led you to that?

Brent Jones

I appreciate that and I think that's appropriate to put me on the spot around my commitment to this.

We have to be efficient so that we can be effective.

We must have stability and sustainability so we can do all the great things that we're doing.

I believe if we do not have a solid foundation going forward in terms of resources so that our brilliant teachers and school leaders can do what they do, It's hard for us to be considering ourselves an excellent organization.

And so as I looked at the budget situation, as I looked at our resource allocation, I'm convinced that bringing us to a smaller footprint is going to allow us to do more things.

And so I was trying to make a mix.

I was trying to make a nexus between a direct line to student outcomes from school consolidation and what i what i believe strongly is if we shore up our foundation we have much more opportunity to be excellent and so that's where that's where i got convinced i knew how difficult this was going to be for how difficult it is going to be for our community and weighing the the the cost of change and the sense of loss that people are going to have I think it's our duty to really bring our system into stability.

And that's where I'm leaning heavily on bringing us into the next strategic plan that we can be focused on innovation and not trying to fix things.

And so that's how I was convinced.

Liza Rankin

One of the recommendations in the 2006 plan that I read from was that there be like a five-year process of capacity so that, I mean, honestly, I think when I first became a member of the school board right before COVID, I saw the writing on the wall of enrollment trends and I assumed that would be like the big issue of my time on the board and then COVID happened and that was the very big issue and now I get to do this too but the recommendations in that report from that time I think are really wise and some policy considerations that we should think about once we're kind of over the hump is how could we provide a framework for the future board directors and superintendents to not have to like suddenly reckon with this huge mismatch but to put into future planning maybe it's part of our uh...

uh...

financial guardrail about future you know budget forecasting how can we bring into that also uh...

kind of policy guidance to the district about every certain number of years looking looking very specifically at enrollment trends and instead of waiting until the problem is so big it can't be avoided, maybe making it into a little bit more of a cadence, if you will, to just be a little bit more flexible around capacity.

And I think it could be woven in with when there's when there's a building that's going to be rebuilt, you know, instead of, depending on what enrollment looks like, in the future, instead of going to an interim location, maybe that's the point at which a school is consolidated.

I don't know.

Just thinking of ways to make it less of this, like...

hammer and more of just kind of a general practice because the number of children and families and people in Seattle is going to continue to flood.

I mean, there were 100,000 kids in Seattle Public Schools in the 60s after baby boom.

And then there were 40,000 after Boeing laid everybody off.

So, you know, that's just something that's always going to be part of being part of a public system.

So I wonder if we can provide some support for future us's to kind of make that part of a deliberate practice that happens periodically.

I don't know.

Brent Jones

And I just want to add to your previous point about working with the mayor and really embodying this concept of One Seattle.

I think to to partner with them, looking at the comp plan and those type of things will also drive kind of the policy decisions that are going to be forthcoming.

So I think we need to leverage that partnership as much as we can.

And I know the mayor is willing and I'm so pleased that he called you.

So thank you.

Liza Rankin

Director Mizrahi.

Joe Mizrahi

Thank you.

I'm going to have to transition to Teams because I'm catching a flight, which I changed to a red-eye because of how important this conversation is.

Liza Rankin

He moved his flight, so he was definitely here.

Joe Mizrahi

I know.

I'll be cursing about this tomorrow morning.

But no, I know you're getting to the timeline and implementation.

I just wanted to say, because it's going to be easier for me to say this in person than on the Teams, that I think that how this transition happens is as important as what happens.

And I think that when I think about this as a parent, I know the concerns are going to be, you know, are my kids going to be able to stay with their friends?

What's going to happen to their teachers?

What's going to happen to the other union staff, the support staff in the workplace?

What's going to happen to the administrators?

And thinking about how we justly transition and how we make sure that we're really listening to not just the concerns people have about if it happens and, you know, whether or not they want to see their school closed, but what are the real concerns that they have and how do we do our utmost to address those issues and make this as comfortable a transition as possible?

Brent Jones

One of the pieces that we have, we're working on a team of providing educator supports, and principals will be involved with that, but that's really gonna be important during that transition.

What we don't have figured out as well is how do we specifically understand what family needs are as they transition.

We know what the technical needs are, I think, but in terms of just transitional things that we're not thinking about, and so we need to dive in a little deeper around doing some needs assessment and analysis as we go, and not just one time, but formatively.

Over and over and so that's a piece that we're mindful of and we need to continue to work on to make sure We're relevant.

We don't want to just provide supports that are Important breaking news.

Liza Rankin

Apparently there are cars being towed on 3rd Avenue So we don't want you to have to do so and it not by us So if you've got a car there, I'm so sorry We can all come out and lay across it, I don't know.

But just, yeah.

Brent Jones

So anyway, point made.

Liza Rankin

Sorry to interrupt there, that felt urgent.

Liza Rankin

Director breaks.

Evan Briggs

Okay, sorry, I'm a little hung up on this.

When we say a system of well-resourced schools, we're talking about all schools in our district, right?

Or is that correct?

Brent Jones

Ultimately, but this effort is starting with elementary.

Evan Briggs

Right, okay.

Brent Jones

Yes.

Evan Briggs

Okay.

Yes, I think what I'm trying to do is understand the larger vision for the full system, the full system.

And I realize that what we're addressing the elementary schools right now, But I think that maybe if I ask it this way, it will make more sense.

Or maybe not.

We'll see.

Do we think that our middle and high schools are already well resourced by the standards that we have called from the community?

Are we?

No.

Okay.

So that was, I guess, that was the question I was trying to ask earlier.

So this is focused on...

We're focused on elementary schools, and I totally get why, clear on that.

But what I'm not clear on is then, like, at what point does this trickle down or up to, yeah, no, no, no, trickle up, shoot up into the other schools, creating the entire system?

Is that, does that...

Brent Jones

Makes sense.

It makes a lot of sense.

And I would project that our strategic plan will have a lot of those elements in it.

And again, this effort is bringing stability, bringing sustainability.

And then if we really want to...

start focusing on that secondary level.

I think that would be guidance that you all would probably provide to me around.

Now let's start looking at those two entities, middle school and high school.

Liza Rankin

And we'll also, we're having just so much fun, we'll have this current smaller number of elementary students are presumably not gonna suddenly be added to, and they're gonna move, like right now our middle and high schools are not as under capacity, but we will probably have to talk as a community in the next strategic plan about do we project that this smaller number of students, like there are fewer students in K-5 now than were in the K-5 classes that are now in secondary, so like will we have to talk about what will we have to talk about?

But to Dr. Jones's point, our board engagement for the next strategic plan is really about bringing our community's vision for all of its students through which we provide direction.

And I think that will, like some of the specific staffing is hard to know because that may change as we have the ability to allocate things in different ways based on community priorities.

and such.

Evan Briggs

Would you say it's accurate then that this is sort of like phase one of establishing a system of well-resourced schools?

In that sense, our first step is to get to stability, which we have to do by consolidating our schools at the elementary level.

And then once we've achieved stability, we can move on to the next step of of creating a system of well-resourced schools?

Is that, would you say that's an accurate way of understanding it?

Brent Jones

Yeah, I think the bigger, even the bigger picture is we needed to fix a few things, aka our budget.

And then we need to go into sustainability, phase one.

Our next phase will be innovation.

So fix, sustain, and then innovate.

And if we get that stable foundation, then I think we can spend our time doing the things that are going to be about performance and growth and development in that way.

But it's really, we had to fix the budget, the deficit.

We had to fix the number, the staffing, all those things.

And so that next step, I would love for us to be in a place where we've reconciled all the challenges and now we're just leveraging that opportunity, and we're at our best.

And so, yes.

Sustainability is the intent right now.

Evan Briggs

Okay, great, thank you for that.

And I think where I was going, where I'm going in my head with it is around communicating and messaging and how we talk about this because I feel like there's the potential for somebody to just think that this is our system of well-resourced schools, like this is it.

We're gonna consolidate these elementary schools and then that's our system instead of understanding that This is a multi-phased situation.

And so I just want to be really careful about how we communicate around this and how we message it, because we really want everyone to catch the vision for what we're doing big picture here.

Brent Jones

If there's a way that we can say that, that we're not saying it, we're very close to this at this point.

We're open to some feedback to make that clear as the objective.

It's the theory of action that we really want to be able to speak to.

It's not just a simple one slice.

This is phase one of many things that we're trying to do.

So we'll endeavor to work on that and bring that clarity forward.

Bev, you good with that?

Okay.

Fred Podesta

Could I add one point, Dr. Jones, that we've talked a little bit about the inefficiencies that we have in the elementary system are what's subsidized by secondary schools.

So we will have more work to do, but I don't think the strategy is as likely to be about consolidation at those levels as it is here, because just there's so many schools at this level and We're hoping that this creates returns that can be reinvested across the whole system to help us with those later phases.

So that's not ironclad.

We'll have to see how enrollment goes.

But I think when we're talking about secondary, it'll look different than the strategies that we're using here.

Evan Briggs

Understood.

Thanks for that clarification.

I understand that and I think it's still a really good idea for us to think about painting a picture of what then that does look like because it's not consolidation but it's something else and it's part of this development of a system of well-resourced schools and a system of well, our plan, your plan for the system of well-resourced schools goes beyond consolidation at the elementary school level.

It also includes these other things is I think what I'm trying to get at.

Sarah Clark

Director Clark.

Um, just on that same thread, um, on slide number five, I believe where we, um, where you outline kind of the, the history of how we got to where we are.

Um, and, and a little bit about where we're going into 2025. Um, to me, all of that looks like this looks like phase one, right?

Um, So this might be a good place to build onto phase two and phase three.

Brent Jones

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

So if we may just jump to 24 for a second, please.

I'm gonna wanna speak to this again.

This is in the front of the slides and then kind of the back end of the slides.

We wanna also tell this as the story.

And so, Director Briggs, as we're thinking about what this, progression is, what phases these are.

If we can speak to the budgeting process that we went through, and then this process, which includes consolidation, and then that second process, or that third process, rather, of looking at our secondary level, I want to be able to speak to this in a way that it's really clear.

And so I just wanted to jump to that real quickly.

But if we can go back to now slide 21, please.

Oh, you already beat me to it.

Right on it.

Fred, will you speak to this?

This is a technical slide, but it's really around some of the legal requirements and some of the other requirements as we go forward.

These are really the meat and potatoes of what we're gonna do next.

Fred, if you would articulate on this, please.

Fred Podesta

Sure, thank you.

As we think about approaching this work, we really see three major phases.

And we're kind of well into what's labeled here as planning.

And it really has been mostly about kind of vision and guiding principles, defining what a well-resourced school is.

I think Director Sarju has been very clear that you really need to define what this is at the beginning of this conversation.

So we have spent a lot of time.

That's what led to kind of the list of design principles, had us thinking about that matrix, about what's the difference between enrollments and how we allocate resources and, you know, what does that look like?

And then, again, factoring in our expected enrollment over the next ten years, we really wanted at this stage people to just get to, if we had no schools, no elementary schools, what would that design for a system of well-resourced schools look like?

I think we had consensus internally among staff that what we wouldn't do is open up 73 schools to serve 23,000 students.

That's not how we would design that system.

We wouldn't design a system where some schools have less than 150 students and some schools have more than 500 students and have way different resource profiles.

That's not the way this system should be.

So that's kind of we're at the tail end of that and then goes to recommendations.

And so there'll be some engagement about, so did we hear you right when we talked about what the community wants in a school?

And when we translate that into how we'll make it operational at an individual school, does that picture resonate?

And then what didn't we consider that we need to?

Because we're really at the technical phases.

What's our vision?

We want to validate that with the community.

and spend some time explaining this, because it's very complex, and then bring back a preliminary recommendation to the board that really get, that then kicks off actually taking action.

So the board process, as Dr. Jones alluded to, is...

spelled out in great detail both in state law and SPS board policy in terms of what is the requirement to close an educational site so if we do come back next month with that recommendation then there's a period of board required period of 30 day review there's a series of site based hearings that would occur for each site that we might close and Those need to occur by law, by state law.

A final decision needs to be made within 90 days of such a hearing.

We would complete all those hearings, come back, Dr. Jones would come back to the board with a final recommendation, which then also calls for a 14-day public review session and a final hearing.

a comprehensive hearing of the whole plan and then that's when a board action would come to say whatever that final recommendation looks like, the board would deliberate and take action on it.

And if we stick to this timeline, the goal is to have that all completed in the fall of this year so students, families, staff all have about a year to make the transition to the new system.

And this is at the high level.

There can be flex in the boundaries between these phases.

We think the earlier we get to a final decision, I think it's important to understand what families and students need to make transitions and that we give them as much time as possible.

So that's kind of the dynamic that we'll be working, how much time do we spend on the front end and how much does that eat in the time on the back end.

So this is really, at this step, we're really at the conceptual level.

Does this, at the high level, does a system of about this many schools spread geographically make some sense?

We're asking.

you know, for the board's concurrence on that.

And then the actual recommendation will come back in a matter of weeks.

And then there's another opportunity for engagement.

A final decision is made.

And then we make the transitions.

We outline new attendance areas.

We adjust buildings as necessary and set up all the supports of families and school leaders and everyone who's going to need to enroll in the new system.

Brent Jones

questions about.

All right, next slide, please.

Bev, can you speak to these next steps, please?

Bev Redmond

Thank you.

Good evening to the board and to the community.

As was mentioned, communication, communication, communication is going to be essential in any phase.

And thank you already to the community, our students, our families, our staff who've already shown up with their voices.

through Well-Resourced Schools Phase 1. We want to keep that going.

During the remainder of this month coming up, we will have community information sessions from, I would say, give us a week or two to reset, and then we will be putting out that list of meetings that you can come to.

We will also offer it in hybrid form.

It's also important to note that it's not just for our families, but we have to communicate, clarify information for our staff.

As much as we love coming into these spaces, not everyone is watching the board meeting.

We have to go into the buildings, we have to come in to see our families so that we can clarify a lot of what was heard here and making sure that we're the first source and the most accurate source of information.

So looking for that information to come out, we'll start communicating a recap of this meeting even tomorrow.

and offering those dates and beginning to get people to RSVP so we can gauge numbers and make sure that we have the appropriate space for you to come into and to have conversation.

A part of that conversation will also be, as was mentioned, checking and confirming our work on those guiding principles.

So information and input.

Then, of course, you do also see that the board, I believe President Rankin already mentioned, that the board is going to be out and engaging on the vision and values to set us up for the new strategic plan and all of this helps the superintendent validate that vision and get very crisp on the vision for a system of well-resourced schools.

We will be back before you around that June timeframe to bring that preliminary recommendation.

And of course, this is that recommendation date is subject to board guidance and some board flexibility as you are listening to this information today.

So look for us very, very soon.

Again, starting tomorrow to communicate to our families, our staff, where they can pick up a community information session, where they can get additional information clarified, and then give us that input on those guiding principles.

Brent Jones

All right, thank you, Bev.

If you can go to slide 25, please.

So we are wrapping now, and what we'll need, and this is directed at everyone uh...

we need champions to share the good news in our transformation story uh...

we need us that we need to help we need help to close the gap in basic education funding we know that's part of this is necessary for us to be able to be successful long term we need help with our uh...

philanthropic community around innovation, infrastructure, even helping us pay for strategic planning and our third party support for helping to validate our work as we go along.

We need help in securing our levies and we also need help for supporting our unfunded mandates that are tremendously important, but there's not funding attached to them around social-emotional learning, safety, digital access, et cetera.

And so this is kind of the charge that if we want to push this out to the community around things that they can do to support us going forward.

And I think these would be relevant even if we weren't talking about funding school consolidations in the way that we are.

So this is about it.

And next slide, please.

Thank you.

I appreciate your attentiveness and your questions, your insights.

And I'm going to let President Rankin kind of close us out around any demands or questions or direction that you want to give to us.

We stand very open to receive those.

Liza Rankin

Well, I think mostly what I would say is when you go back out to the community with more details regionally about what this might actually look like before you bring us the recommendations is that it's important to I think the whole board that We're trying to govern and lead our district in a way that's moving us away from what a lot of people are used to, which is the reactive stance.

The Seattle community is very used to having something dropped on them and then being forced to react as opposed to seeing the steps.

So I know some folks were expecting like, oh, just tell us the list already.

They just wanted to see the list.

We directed the superintendent in December to bring us the plan of the scope of, how we could be financially viable and still serve students going into the future.

We didn't ask him, tell us what schools you think we should close.

We asked for the plan.

And so we have the scope of what the recommendations of the plan are going to be.

We all are in this all the time, and some of us for a very long time, and like to look through all the documents and all of the whatever.

When engagement is happening between now and the actual recommendations, I guess my direction or encouragement is as much, even if it feels like, oh, people already know this, they probably don't.

I mean, I think there are some people in our community that...

wanted to know just what's happening right now.

Some people who said, why are we even talking about this now?

Can't we delay it another year?

And then there are people who probably have no idea this conversation is happening at all.

So I guess I would just appreciate the acknowledgment that even though we have board meetings in public, this is not our way of communicating with the public.

We have stuff that we have to do, and we do it in public so people have access to it.

But I appreciate the specification that there is deliberate communication going out.

with every communication and engaging communities, the assumption should be they have no idea what happened in this room.

Because ultimately, for me, part of a system of well-resourced schools, and I think for our board and with the governance framework we're trying to adopt, is for everybody to stop micromanaging down and actually empower from the bottom up.

So part of our governance is to not just say, yeah, bring us a plan and we'll tell you if we like it or not and probably we won't like it and then you have to go try again and everybody's going to be mad.

We're trying to say, hey, here are our expectations on behalf of the community.

bring us something operational within those expectations, the more we can do that and stay focused on our job of representing the vision and values of our entire community and let staff do the things that we, you know, we don't get paid, they do.

So we should have them do the job that they're hired to do.

And our job is to say whether or not they met our expectations our directive, we have to give that directive very clearly to do that.

And I think that part of what that means is that the more clear about expectations we are from here, and the more clearly we communicate that out, I'm hopeful that we can actually empower our system of schools to have more have less uncertainty and more autonomy at the building level knowing what's expected and what they have access to and then our teachers can focus on being with our kids and teaching not on Is that person who I rely on every day going to be here next year?

Are kids going to have art next year?

Not sure.

Don't know.

Am I going to have to do that?

Don't know.

Is somebody going to come in and totally change the focus?

Don't know.

Haven't had ELA curriculum since 1998 from middle school.

So...

While we're thinking about making this transition, the positive side is what can we do to empower building leaders and teachers to navigate with their communities.

Not everybody waiting for what's going to happen to us next, but how are we going to come together around our students and be stronger?

Who do we let know if something's not going right?

I really want us to take the stress of just, I think, uncertainty is very stressful always.

And we're sort of in a constant state of uncertainty all the time with the way the budget cycle goes with how lean we are.

So anyway, sorry.

So information is important.

And also the validation of the plan is important.

I know the enrollment projections.

I know the 10-year forecast.

I know the city density.

Most people do not, nor should they have to.

So the more we can show our work, doesn't mean take apart everything all the way back to every step.

But here's our recommendation, and here's why this is our recommendation.

I think is very, very important for that implementation part.

And when you bring us back a plan with actual schools for, not to speak for everybody, for me to feel comfortable saying, yes, I accept this, let's move forward, I want to be assured that You know, people might not like it.

That's not the question, right?

The question isn't, do you like that we have to do this?

The question is, here's our recommendation.

Based on the reality of where things are, does this make sense to you?

Did we miss something?

And what support do you need going forward?

And thank you also for, I think, a communication to families tomorrow and a communication to our staff so that they're not only hearing about it if they're also a parent.

I think sometimes we sort of assume that, oh, staff's going to hear about it from such and such.

And they don't necessarily.

And that's not OK.

I'm sorry.

That was so rambly.

I'm really, really sorry.

It's the end of a long meeting.

So we have to vote now.

Oh, Director Chao.

Gina Topp

realize that we have to vote, but I want to make clear, we are just voting on the acknowledgement of the receipt of this information and directing then the superintendent to come back and present preliminary recommendations.

We are not approving this plan.

Liza Rankin

I think I need to...

Yes, you will...

Yeah.

This is really sort of a...

In the past, there has been situations where there's a work session, things are discussed, it kind of seems like people are on board, superintendent and staff go and work on something and come back and bring it for a boat and the board says, what do you mean, we don't like this?

Right?

Yeah.

So we're voting for the clarity.

And there's nothing binding that happens in terms of, well, what's binding actually is legally the vote of the board is a binding direction to the superintendent.

So it's really just formal recognition that we understand what's being presented and are authorizing the superintendent and his staff to continue and put in the work to bring us the next step in the process.

All right.

Okay, great.

Yes, please.

Michelle Sarju

I'm gonna repeat the motion for the record.

I move that the school board acknowledge receipt of the superintendent's plan for a system of well-resourced schools, which has been prepared in response to the board's prior direction in resolution number 202324-7.

and direct the superintendent to present preliminary recommendations with supporting analysis.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Liza Rankin

Yes, this item was properly moved and seconded.

That was a reminder, so we don't have to second.

If there are no further questions, or sorry, I mean, are there any further questions or comments?

Brent Jones

President Rankin.

When do you want this plan?

That would be the question as well.

Liza Rankin

When it's on the timeline.

Brent Jones

Yes, but given the considerations of all the things, I just wanted to make sure you all were deliberate in the date that you're setting.

Brandon Hersey

Is there any way to get engagement on what families would want to see?

In terms of timeline, the only consideration that I have for that, and let me tell you why, is that we oftentimes, especially toward the end of the year, get flack for, like, presenting new big things and folks are very rightfully so ready for summer.

So I would like to know during the engagement sessions, if it's possible to ask a question, when would be the ideal time for students and families to know the plan, um, so that they can adequately engage.

That would be of interest to me, not saying that we need to do that.

That's just my two cents.

Liza Rankin

Um, So I think, well, I mean, some people wanted to see a plan today.

I think some people wanted us to wait forever.

But given that, well, OK.

Can you do the work and produce the supporting analysis that we are expecting within the time.

I think it would be best to get this.

We don't want to wait.

We don't want to say, oh yeah, we're planning on this and then drag it out for, even though to be very, very clear, nothing's changing this fall.

Nothing's changing this fall.

But I also know that there's a lot, you know, any decision that we push out means less time later for, other engagement work.

Gina Topp

I mean I think we set a timeline and I think we should try to stick to the timeline unless there is through the engagement process a massive outcry that this is happening too fast.

Liza Rankin

I think I will say it sounds like we have we expect a recommendation in June unless you provide information that says that's not possible.

Brent Jones

If we are clear-eyed and bring a feasibility back that says we cannot do the depth of engagement that what I heard you all expecting, then I will ask for an extension perhaps or for you all to consider an extension.

But otherwise, we're going to plan for sometime in June.

Liza Rankin

And I think it's important that, again, engagement doesn't mean...

What do you think about this?

It means being really honest and clear and transparent about this is what we're grappling with.

Here are the recommendations.

You will be impacted, and we want to hear from you about that.

But, I mean, just like with during COVID, open schools now.

Never open schools.

Like, we're not going to...

There's going to be...

Yeah.

But I think the best that we can do as a system is just be really clear and give people the opportunity to bring up things that maybe we missed or maybe you missed to strengthen your recommendations.

But I think we as a board want to know that anything being brought to us has been honoring engagement and understanding of our community.

Brent Jones

We share that.

And in fact, we need engagement.

That drove kind of the ideation of this.

And so it's not just to check the box by any stretch of the imagination.

We glean so much information from engagement that it's necessary for us to do our work.

I mean, we can't do this in isolation without the insight, wisdom, knowledge of both internal and external folks to the district.

So it's really important for us to do that.

And so we value it.

And I think it's an essential piece of what we do.

And I don't think it's complete without that.

And so it's tremendously important.

So we will be honest around if we've gotten enough insight from community.

But right now we're planning on June.

Liza Rankin

Okay.

And then there's still, and anybody who may be listening, please be on the lookout for the opportunities where staff is coming to your region to engage.

When the preliminary recommendation comes to us, it would be preferable for that not to be the first time that someone is saying, oh, wait, you didn't think about this.

which, I mean, I know that could happen.

But just putting out there that the opportunity to engage before those recommendations come to us is in the coming weeks.

And then also that there's still some state required legal requirements about the change in the use of a building.

So it's always an iterative process.

And then we do have to make, we do have to take final action, which does not happen until November.

No, no, no.

All right, and then the board engagements is focused on, we're talking about what goes into a school to make it well-resourced.

Our engagement is focused at the vision and values level of it's well-resourced to meet our goals for students.

And so it's our job to set those goals.

Anyway, so lots of engagement opportunities.

Ms. Wilson-Jones, the roll call, please.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Director Mizrahi.

I think Director Mizrahi is with us remotely.

Evan Briggs

Poor guy.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

With your permission, President Rankin, I'm going to move to the next person, but I will check back.

Liza Rankin

He just texted me that he was going through security and what his vote is, but I don't know if that's an official, if that's acceptable for me to say his vote via text.

it's in text so it would be publicly requestable he says I was going through security I vote yes I'm here I just can't turn my mic on so we can circle back to Greg if the vote gets tight and see if that's the final answer Vice President Sarju

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Director Top?

Gina Topp

Aye.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

Director Briggs?

Aye.

Director Clark?

Aye.

Director Hersey?

Brandon Hersey

Aye.

Ellie Wilson-Jones

President Rankin?

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Liza Rankin

There being no further business before the board, this meeting stands adjourned at 7.45 PM.