January 31st 2018 regular board legislative session.
Welcome to our student representative from the center school Siobhan Kenny.
Ms. Kenny will have the opportunity to provide comments regarding her school later in the meeting.
Welcome aboard.
You are welcome to stay as long as you like to get the full rich experience.
Ms. Shek roll call please.
Director Burke.
Here.
Director DeWolf.
Present.
Director Geary.
Here.
Director Mack.
Here.
Director Patu.
Here.
Director Pinkham.
Present.
Director Harris.
Here.
Would all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Superintendent Larry Nyland for his remarks.
All right and we have a lot on the agenda tonight so I'm just going to cover the highlights and the longer version will be in the Friday MMO that we post on Friday.
It's career and technical education month and it's black history month and so we'll be celebrating those and posting information on the web.
Black History Month along with Martin Luther King Day and along with Black Lives Matter and African-American parent involvement day provide us lots of opportunity over the next several weeks to reinforce our eliminating the opportunity gap goal that the board has supported for the last four years.
So we want to continue to talk about how we can welcome and create a sense of belonging for each and every one of our students.
As I usually do I'll highlight a few of the items from our strategic plan.
Goal 1 is educational excellence and equity.
And we're privileged tonight to hear from Viewlands Elementary about some of the things that they've been doing to eliminate gaps.
So with that I'd like to introduce EDS Helen Young to introduce Viewlands school.
Or not.
We have a request to do the performance before this.
If we are flexible we'd be very grateful.
All right.
So without further ado.
We are privileged to hear from.
The Robert Eagle Staff middle school jazz band.
I take I invite the directors and Siobhan to take a seat in the audience.
Thank you.
Thank you.
¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¦ ¦ This is for me.
It's a good afternoon.
It's a good evening.
It's a good evening.
It's a good evening.
It's a good evening.
So I'm really excited for this play.
Three more songs.
You know, four by Miles Davis with Andrew Keaton on trumpet.
There's also two in Latin, too.
All the best, Andrew.
Thank you, Mark.
Sorry.
I was going to ask you why you're at America's Band, and you decided to go to school in Montgomery.
♪ ♪ Yeah.
♪ ♪ Well done.
We can do that one more time.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
you You.
A very traditional jazz band.
It's all happening the same day.
So this will be held up.
It's all happening the same day.
Ooh, ooh, ooh
That was rocking awesome.
Thank you very very much.
We usually pass the microphone around but we are on a short schedule tonight.
But I do have a couple of questions from you.
I heard from the voice behind us that you are indeed a product of Seattle Public Schools.
Can you tell us about that please?
So I started at Concord Elementary School in South Park then I went over to Denny Middle School then West Seattle High School for two years and then Chief South High School for the last two years so I'm a Seattle guy I love to be here and I'm glad I'm home serving these kids.
Y'all have done your parents and your school proud.
And thank you ever so much.
Do not stop playing when you're old.
You will regret it.
Don't do it.
It'll bring more richness to your life.
Thank you ever so much.
appreciate it.
Good job guys.
Thank you so much.
Thank you again that was incredible.
Great way to start the meeting.
With that I'll introduce Helen Young our EDS to introduce Viewlands Elementary.
Good evening.
I'd like to introduce to you Principal Amy Kleiner from Viewlands Elementary.
Principal Kleiner has been successfully working on our second pillar of our formula for success student focused collaboration as Viewlands is a strong learning organization for both adults and students.
So please welcome Principal Kleiner.
Thank you for having me tonight that's a really tough act to follow.
But I appreciate the opportunity to share with you our journey in implementation of MTSS at Viewlands Elementary over the past three and a half years.
As you know Viewlands is a title one school and about 40% of our students are eligible for free and reduced lunch.
When we started we began implementation in the 2014 2015 school year.
And one of the things that we wanted to do is make sure that this was not something that felt like an add on something new something different.
We know that MTSS really focuses on strong collaborative practices that are centered around student data.
So we started by planting some seeds and some existing structures within our building.
We developed an MTSS committee that could help just learn and grow the work together and we repurposed some of our staff meetings to become data meetings where we could collaboratively look at data together.
And so we started by just organizing the data that we had at the time which was MAP, MSP and in some cases our TC data.
And we created some strong data protocols so we could be focused and really strategic about how could we allocate the limited intervention resources that we had strategically to the students with the greatest need.
And from that organically came a lot of conversation around equity as we would have staff say I can give up some support for my classroom because I see that this classroom or this grade level has a stronger need for support at this time.
We made sure that we continue to have data protocols and look at data over time for our students so that we could start looking at growth so that we could make mid-course corrections and look at what we needed to do moving forward.
As we moved into our second and third years of implementation and even into this year being our fourth year, we really wanted to look at deepening implementation so that we really solidified our assessment calendar, our common assessments, doing the same thing at the same time in the same way, and really expanding our work not just from literacy but into math and writing as well.
We took a lot of work, a strong look at the resources that we had within our building and even looking at our staff and our support staff and what are their strengths.
Some work better with intermediate, some with primary, some in math, reading, writing and really aligning their support with the students that they were strongest in working with as well.
That focused in their supports as well and provided more opportunity for them to collaborate for our ELL staff, our special education staff, our intervention staff to really collaborate with the grade level teams for the students that they were supporting.
We also knew that in our first year we were really focusing on tier 3 and the intervention that was that we were focusing on for students and we knew that we really needed to look more deeply around how we were supporting students within the classroom.
That intervention wasn't in place of but in addition to and how are we truly providing a double dose or a triple dose for our students.
And so our collaboration and our data meetings focus less about what intervention would look like and how we would support the students within the classroom.
So this would be an example from a kindergarten teacher for her students in the area of writing and how she would scaffold differentiate and look at growth for her students over the course of the school year.
As we're moving forward, what we're really focusing on this year and beyond is really sustainability and capacity building.
What we want to avoid is having only a few key people from our committee or from leadership that are able to guide those conversations and lead those conversations, those protocols and that data analysis and really looking at how we build strong academic supports and action plans for students.
So how can we build the capacity of our grade level teams knowing that strong core instruction is at the heart of this.
So as we move forward we're looking at how does that committee support our data meetings supporting the PLC work and the grade level collaboration that's happening especially on our Wednesday collaboration day.
So our committee is really designing the protocols looking at the benchmarks.
developing the action plans, bringing those to our data meetings where as a staff our committee can lead the staff in really implementing data protocols and action plans for focused students and then from there staff can take that back to their grade level teams, their grade level PLC's to talk about and use those protocols and do that action planning for all students.
It's a very brief snapshot of what we've learned over the course of the last three and a half years.
We've really developed quite a base of data and quite a lot of trends that we can now look at over time and really look at subgroups within our building.
And we have recognized that where we have had strong professional learning communities that have been focused on student learning that we are seeing a strong correlation in student growth especially when it comes to gap closing.
So it brought us back to where we knew when we started on this that what has been most important in this journey is the focus on high quality teaching and learning through a focus on strong core instruction for all students in every classroom every day.
in support of the formula for success.
So I thank you for the opportunity to briefly share.
There's a lot more to all of this and I'd like to personally invite each of you to come on out to Viewlands Elementary and see our phenomenal students our phenomenal staff and families in action.
Thank you.
Thank you for your great work and thanks for sharing that.
Identity safety has been one of the things that we've been working on for our students so that every student regardless of race ethnicity can come to school and feel welcomed and a sense of belonging.
One of our partnership programs with many many partners Seattle Housing Authority Seattle Public Library Somali family task force and maybe some others that I've left out.
I have put together a Somali alphabet book and it's been they found a publisher for it and they're going to make it available in our schools so that Somali children can see part of their culture reflected in in their schooling.
And I we have the opportunity to do a showcase on it Friday afternoon.
I think the mayor is sending proclamations as well.
So nice partnership effort that's underway.
We reported the paper reported earlier that we were named number three in the nation for student growth between grades 3 and 8 and by a Stanford study and reported in the New York Times.
We've been digging deeper into that information and we'll continue to do so.
And there's some interesting news in that study.
White students and black students made an average of five point well over five years of schooling they made an average of five point four years of growth almost one point one year per grade.
And our Latino Hispanic students made 5.9 years of growth and our Asian students made 6.5 years of growth.
So we'll continue to look at that data and learn from it and continue to work on our opportunity gaps.
Improving systems is our second goal and we're starting the rollout of laptops for teachers and certificated staff that the board approved recently.
And then I want to thank the board for two workshop sessions that we've had recently one with regard to reviewing progress on the district goals and the other one in regard to budget which is our SMART goal that ties into the strategic plan goal number two.
And then our third goal is school family and community engagement.
I think several of our board members were at the district options fair here a week ago and that was an awesome event.
Sob Seed Seattle Alliance of black school educators also had an event on that same day and we were well represented by staff and lots of community members great partnership piece.
Seattle Housing Authority is another one of our partners and we've specifically zeroed in on attendance as one of the goals since the Seattle Housing Authority knows where those parents and students live.
6,000 of them.
And so they did a lot of work with us and one of our markers was the importance of the first 20 days of school.
And we saw a 24 percent I don't know quite how to say that increase in attendance decrease in non-attendance whatever.
It was good.
We had lots more kids in school so we appreciate that.
Topics of interest.
Open enrollment begins on February 5th and runs through February 16th.
Appreciate the board work.
There's a lot on the agenda tonight and that's all in our ability to do open enrollment.
So important decisions tonight that will let families know what they need to know so that they can make choices for the next year.
School bus strike.
We saw that.
We've been notified by that of.
First student and not a lot we can say about that.
That's an issue between first student and Teamsters we contract for our bus services and we continue to be hopeful that first student and Teamsters will be able to work that out and continue continue service.
So we'll we'll see where we go with that.
Yeah I think that's in the interest of time.
There's lots more information in there.
There's a lot of information at the back table in regard to upcoming community events and some of the events that staff have been at in the community.
But I know that we have a lot on the agenda tonight so I will stop.
Thank you Superintendent Nyland.
Siobhan Kenny you're next up.
Little bit of background for Siobhan.
She has attended Seattle Public Schools including Arbor Heights Denny International and now the center school where she is a junior.
An active member of both model United Nations and associated student body at the center school.
Siobhan is exploring a future career in global health.
She enjoys the diversity of the Seattle Public Schools but is concerned about how budget shortfalls affect programs.
Assertive and interested in how the school board works to support schools.
Siobhan is looking forward to tonight's meeting.
Take it away with your remarks please.
Thank you.
So, I'm representing the status quo.
So, the fourth thing you'll see...
Okay so before coming to this meeting I talked to multiple students at the center school and asked them about some of the concerns they had and some things that they would like to be brought up.
So one major thing is that the center school is a really small school.
We are a school of about 300 and we are really interested in diversity.
Right now at the moment since the center is so small we are not that diverse and the center school is really interested in increasing that diversity specifically when Talking to middle schools about their high school careers and what high schools are interested in the center school would really like to have more representation.
We'd really like specifically more representation within lower income more diverse schools so we can have those.
We think that people from every school from every district are should have the opportunity to come to center especially since it's a choice school you can have a very likelihood of getting in.
Some other things that center is really interested in is since we're very small we have low funding and we've really struggled with funding and one of the side effects of having low funding is that we really struggle with Medical care center only has a nurse coming like once a week, normal high schools have a nurse every single day.
We also have the teen health clinic come once a month so generally that means if you need birth control you only have access to the teen health center once a month or you have to go all the way to Ballard to get to go to their teen health center or bus all the way to your own neighborhood school.
So centers really interested in being able to get a nurse the whole entire week or even if we could having our own teen health clinic so we could have access to those things because those are key parts of keeping safe and having medical care every day.
Another thing that centers really interested in is working to improve and decrease racism.
We've had small effects of that but centers also really interested in making sure and eliminating racism within the whole of Seattle Public Schools.
So basically our last thing is that we're also interested in increasing our amount of AP classes.
Center only has a couple of AP classes and as a college prep school we would really love to be able to have more AP classes especially since at center you're only allowed to take AP classes as a junior and a senior.
So we'd really like to have access to those as underclassmen and just an increased amount.
Thank you.
OK time check.
We have for 50. It is time for the consent agenda.
We have now reached the consent agenda portion of tonight's agenda.
May I have a motion for the consent agenda please.
I move.
Sorry.
I move the approval of the consent agenda.
Do we have a second for approval of the consent agenda.
Second.
Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.
Do directors have any items they would like to see removed off the consent agenda.
Going once going twice going three times.
Those in favor of the consent agenda please signify by saying aye.
Those opposed nay.
The consent agenda has passed.
OK.
We have 40 minutes until public testimony which means it's time for board comments.
Who would like to go first?
Director Geary please.
Geary Good evening everybody.
I want to thank of course the Robert Eagle Staff middle school band for coming and playing for those who weren't here just a little bit ago.
It was fabulous when yet another one of our middle schools coming.
And if you close your eyes you just can't believe the quality of the musical music that's being produced and the quality of the musical education from one of our own Seattle Public Schools alums teaching the course.
So Mr. Aguilera deserves a huge round of applause from all of the Robert Eagle Staff families.
Thank you to our student representative for coming and sharing your thoughts about education.
It's always good to hear from our students and you're welcome to come anytime and talk to us about your concerns.
Not just tonight.
I have appreciated very much the presence of the center school students coming year after year.
And so it's good to see you still coming.
And you know must know that our board deeply supports your school.
and wants to make sure that you continue to get your voice out there to encourage families to come because it is a great environment.
I know you've recently suffered a loss and so my condolences go out to all of you at the loss of your teacher and I know that that's hard in a community especially as one so small and close as yours.
I'll let other board members have their opportunity to say their things.
The one thing that I wanted to share tonight and I'll save comments around other issues because we do have some rather important issues coming up tonight.
So I'll save some comments for those.
But what I did want to talk about is this just this week.
Director Mack and I had an opportunity to join the Washington State School Directors Association along with WASBO and WASA the organizations around our business officers and our superintendents in Olympia for several days of lobbying on behalf of schools.
And so I wanted to share a little bit about what we did the first day listening to speakers talk about the issues that education is facing and the intersection with the legislature and the laws that are being passed and talking about how we would organize with the other school directors from our area to and around the state to meet with our legislators and talk to them about those issues.
And it's a great opportunity for us to see and collaborate with regional directors around these issues that really do face us all.
But even more than that because these are agendas that are voted on statewide it is a place where we can finally come together and you As we all know there feels like there's a lot of dissension and that regardless that the political parties are so divisive at this point that we don't find common ground.
But this is an opportunity where coming from red counties or blue counties or however you want to couch it that we do come around to advocate for our students.
So some of the issues we focused on three areas.
One where McCleary fixes going and talking about our need for additional funding for special education services for our kids throughout the state.
Making sure that we are fixing how we are allocating salary to our teachers and our support staff so that we have not only sufficient money but that we have the incentives and the appropriate funds to acknowledge that experience matters and that we should be able to pay for it as a state.
And then also asking them to take a look at our ability to raise our own money through levies and giving us that flexibility.
which acknowledges that Seattle has special expenses, costs due to the size of our district and the diversity, the fact that we have some institutions that people come to particularly for children with special needs and high needs and so we need to make sure that our Legislature is recognizing that and allowing us to raise the money that our population wants to provide the kind of education we see as appropriate for our kids.
And that's another thing that we all came around.
We finally have a capital budget passed which we're all very very happy about.
But we all realized we need to let them know that in spite of it being one of larger budgets percentage wise if they want us to fulfill their mandate and what you want for smaller class sizes we will need additional money in terms of capital because to de-link the way they have separated the idea of capital from basic education really doesn't make sense in terms of.
what we're going to do in terms of reducing class sizes because we need more space.
If they give us money for teachers that isn't going to do us a lot of good if they don't have the space for an additional classroom.
And finally the other big issue with the dean linking of graduation from state tests and we heard from other districts about how this just causes chaos for families.
We designed curriculum around a year end test for graduation only to find out that it's been waived that it has been changed.
And this has just caused disruption in many school districts trying to plan for it only to find that it falls out.
And so the general message was that these statewide tests are meant for district accountability not to be punitive towards students and that we should leave those kinds of decisions around graduation efforts to the superintendent of public instruction to work with districts and come up with them.
So Director Mack may have more but it was a pleasure to visit our and speak with our local legislative delegation around these issues.
And we continue to be the representatives.
We are still in session.
And so if you have special comments you want to direct to either of us to pass on to our legislative representatives and senators please let us know.
Thanks.
Thank you Director Geary and thank you for working so hard in our legislative outreach both statewide citywide and federally.
And I believe you are going back to D.C.
in March for the conference of great city schools so she can reach out to our congressional delegation as well.
And it's our hope we can find somebody else on the dais to join you.
Tag team and cross training.
Next director that would like to speak.
That would be Director Mack.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Thank you Director Geary for giving all of that information about the last couple of days.
It was a full two days and because I'm the wonk I actually want to mention a few of the bill numbers and actual details of some of the bills that we were talking about.
One of the things I'm super excited about is the S.B.
65 31 which is a bill aimed at improving the school construction assistance program formulas.
This is something that our district and Senator Peterson one of our delegation in Seattle has been working on for many many years.
And it got a hearing yesterday and we testified.
Thank you to JoLynn Berge for stepping in and giving great testimony on that.
And I do want to give a shout out to Senator Frock for his work on the capital budget.
That is such a it's a big win that that's been passed and we can move forward.
We still need a lot more buildings to meet class size and manage capacity but but we're moving in the right direction.
And.
You already mentioned the fixes to the.
The 22 42 the quote McCleary funding plan which hopefully we'll get some.
Movement on getting a salary allocation model reinstated so that that exists for us to help.
Structure salaries.
And.
I want to let everybody know that I have scheduled my community meetings out through April.
They're not posted yet but the next one will be February 24th.
One to three at the Magnolia library.
The rest of them will be as well.
They'll get posted online.
I'll let you know.
And I also again really appreciate all of the comments and emails that come.
It helps inform us and I spent a good portion of my Saturday trying to respond to everyone and it took a lot of time to do that.
I'm not sure I actually managed to get out to everyone but I'm definitely taking making an effort to make sure that we respond.
And so thank you.
Director DeWolf.
Thank you President Harris.
I just want to give a couple of bits of gratitude here just want to thank the teachers principals and students at Bailey, Gatzert, Dearborn, Van Asselt, South Shore particularly the preschool programs was really grateful to go and visit those last week with director Geary.
Also wanted to give a big thanks and shout out to principal Howard and the students from student leadership at Garfield High School was really grateful to go out and visit the high school last week and get a tour.
And then also thanks to the parents from Thurgood Marshall as well as Principal May for a really meaningful and deep dive discussion and looking forward to more of those in the future.
Also I know that the breakfast after the bell passed out of the Senate today so I'm just kind of.
flagging that that's certainly a conversation want to keep having internally here about how we're going to make sure that we're working with our legislative partners in ensuring that the implementation is done well and that there's funding set aside and can actually make that successful.
And also just want to let folks know that I do have a full time job but I do keep my iPad open and so I do see all of your emails and particularly thinking about the parents who have sent in emails about the superintendent search and so know that I've heard you particularly about the concerns around our community engagement and the feeling of an accelerated timeline.
And then lastly just want to say hello to Jet and who's a student at Daniel Bagley Elementary as well as his teacher Miss Stackhouse and the librarian Mrs. Roach.
Jet sent a letter to the school board handwritten letter and was curious about more sci fi books.
So I just want to say hopefully you're not listening to this part Jet which is there's a surprise coming.
Be on the lookout in the next couple of weeks we'll have some good news about that.
But more importantly I would say particularly for the folks that do have students in our schools.
I do love reading handwritten letters and we do have a box where we have those in the school board office so please send those.
That's a really I would say creative way to get in touch with us.
And I appreciate the time it takes to send that and find the mailbox and get a stamp and make a case.
So I appreciate that.
And I'm hoping that this is a pitch that's heard well and I will see more of those.
Thank you so much.
Next up would be Director Burke.
Thank you as well in advance everyone who's come out and is joining us online or on TV and my comments I'll keep brief as well.
Thank you Siobhan for coming.
It's great to hear the student perspective.
I might have mentioned it before but my first ever public graduation speech was given at center school and I was terrified.
absolutely terrified.
It came out OK.
They didn't they didn't boo me off stage or anything.
So it's a it's a really cool school with a super cool environment.
So I learned a lot about it just.
Participating in that process so thanks for bringing it to us as well.
Other thank yous.
I want to put a word of thanks in conjunction with a word of apology to the John Stanford International School community.
We had a scheduled meeting where I was going to visit their PTA meeting that I just completely forgot about.
Full candor here completely forgot about it drove straight home and read about it in my email the next day.
So mortal apologies.
And thank you to the crew at McDonald Elementary for co-hosting a second follow up meeting and inviting the John Stanford folks.
This was last week.
And again nobody ran me out of town.
So.
Had to bring treats next time.
Forever in my debt.
Their debt.
Somebody's debt.
I want to put a public notice to the community as well.
We had one of the things we passed on the consent agenda with with no no real drama because none was needed was the school calendar for 2018 19. And I think that's something that just in terms of public disclosure it's really great for folks to recognize that that is the approved school calendar for 2018 19 if you're looking at planning or anything like that.
It's just a public note there.
One other hot topic which isn't really on our meeting roster for today is the science work that's taking place at high school.
And it's clearly in our hot topic queue.
The existing graduation requirement or current currently we offer the two year science graduation requirement under the 24 credit mandate there are three credits or three years of high school.
And so the district is doing work to adjust our high school offerings to be able to accommodate that and also to enable students and prepare them better for the comprehensive science assessment that's coming up.
So there's some concern around what that looks like what work has been done and what that implementation is going to be like.
We had a lively community meeting at Ballard High School last Thursday where I think Principal Kevin Wynkoop and the staff presented a really great collection of questions concerns.
that hold us to a high bar.
And so I really want to appreciate that.
This morning myself and Director Geary and President Harris had the opportunity to meet with Mary Margaret Welch and the science team.
And a lot of the educators that have been working on that effort to better understand the scope of that work.
And so I think from my perspective as as director or chair of curriculum instruction I think it was super informative.
This topic around high school science will be coming to the curriculum instruction committee next week for a little bit more formal conversation in the public view.
In closing I have a two community meetings scheduled February 17th 1 to 3 p.m.
at Green Lake library and March 17th 10 to 12 a.m.
at Greenwood library.
Hope you can join.
Director Patu please.
Good evening and thank you for all of you who are here today or tonight.
Appreciate the opportunity to actually to just to be here and be able to share with you some of the comments or what is that we have in order for us to be able to move forward and just want to say thank you to our student representative who's here today.
We appreciate having you here and it's always great to hear from our students.
And I want to say thank you to the Eagle Staff middle school jazz band.
They were amazing.
It's amazing when as a board director you sit here and you listen to all the different talent that our students come through here in the district and we get a chance to actually hear the different or see the different talents on a regular basis and it's amazing what our schools are doing for our kids in terms of music.
You know we've heard so many wonderful bands come through here and really would like to continue to see that happening in our schools.
This this week has actually this month actually I decided that I'm going to try to visit or hopefully this school year visit all my 23 schools.
It's really hard as a board director to try to visit as many schools as you can.
But my goal this year is actually to hopefully to go to every one of my 23 schools.
So if any of the schools are actually listening who are my schools probably sitting there.
Yeah whatever.
But it's a goal.
I really believe that I can do that this year and try to really make time as a board director to go into schools that I've never have actually spent a lot of time and be able to just to observe and see what I can do to be as a board director to better or to support whatever is going on in our schools in the southeast.
So that is a big goal and hopefully that I can come back at the end of the year and said I did it.
I actually visit all 23 of my schools.
I want to thank you to all of those who actually community and parents who attended my last community meeting and we had quite a very innovating discussion on boundaries and what the parents really wanted to see happening in terms of the various schools that their students are actually going into.
I think it's always great when we have many parents to come to our meetings and that's the reason why we have these community meetings.
If you're not here at the board meeting at least you get a chance to come and tell us directly what is it that we're missing or what is it that we need to hear.
So I appreciate all the parents and the communities who actually came last Saturday and really tell and or discuss what is it that they would like to see happening in terms of their students and their schools.
I also wanted to say that my next meeting will actually be on the 24th of this month.
I usually have my meeting on the last Saturday of the month and I have it at Rock and Tour which is a restaurant down there on Seward Park.
They make pretty good food so.
Good breakfast.
So if you don't have anything to do on a Saturday I would love to see you there.
And usually we have a very good discussion in terms of things that we'd like to see moving forward.
So I really want to say thank you for all of you who continue to support us and hopefully this is going to be a great year.
Director Pinkham.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.
Thank you and good evening.
Excuse my voice I'm a bit under the weather.
I want to give first shout out to the Robert Eagle Staff middle school jazz band.
Thank you for your excellent performance and to John Englard their band director.
He was probably the calmest band director I ever saw.
He just seemed pretty set back and and got in there when he needed to.
And otherwise he let the students kind of take it on themselves.
And again students congratulations.
You did a fantastic job.
Also thank you to Principal Kinnear for coming up here and talking about Williams High Elementary and the progress that you're making.
Again we want to make sure all of our schools see what other schools are doing that's being successful and pass it on.
So that Seattle School District will keep on moving forward.
I'm going to keep my comments really short too so you don't have to listen to this nasal sound too long.
But my next community meeting will be on February 24th Saturday.
I believe it's at Northgate one o'clock if it changes or if I got it wrong.
I'm sure you'll see it in the updates for the minutes as we come along.
And as I said I really don't have much to say right now and I'll add reserve more comments after I listen to again looking at this turnout tonight.
I know there's a lot of important decisions to be made tonight with HCC and high school boundaries.
So again Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.
Thank you all.
Leslie Harris director 6 West Seattle and South Park.
Again it is my pleasure and honor to serve and to serve with these extraordinary folks on the dais and throughout the room.
The room.
We are truly a team.
Capital T. And we have been working very very hard.
We are walking up to controversial issues.
And we are embracing them and we are listening to each other and we are treating each other with extreme respect.
Conflict does not have to be a bad thing.
It can in fact be constructive.
And I want to thank my West Seattle South Park community for our last extraordinarily rowdy board community meeting at West Seattle library.
at which Amendment 4 was born out of this evening.
One of the comments that was made that is particularly searing for me is.
Leslie you represent District 6. How could you.
I do indeed represent District 6. But I was voted on.
by the entire city.
It's an awkward situation that we have where we have representational duties to our district but we also have representational duties to the whole and it's a delicate balance.
And I try my best to walk that fine line and to the extent that I don't I invite you to give me feedback.
And I believe I'm about 250 emails presently on that feedback.
And and it's a good thing.
And I appreciate the passion because after all we are messing with your lives and we are messing with your students lives.
Everybody on this dais and around the wall takes that very seriously.
And.
And please appreciate that folks are working hard to do the best we can for the most and with the sensitivity to the competing interests and the lack of human and financial capital.
My next community meeting is February 17th Saturday.
High Point library and I've come down to three of three on the lasagna.
So now you're guaranteed lasagna.
Bring your extra freezer boxes in the event that we have some leftover.
It's not going in my freezer this time it's going on with you.
The science conversation that we had this morning was indeed rich and impressive.
And it says to me yet again that we need to do a better job of communicating early and often and richly.
And I'm very pleased to say that a communications position has been funded for teaching and learning and we hope to hire that in March and that I think will help us get our message out consistently early and often.
We are not perfect at community engagement but we are trying hard and we hope to be better.
All of the thank you's that have been named before I'm not going to repeat them but I am going to restate my fantasy music every student every day.
And then you don't worry about your math scores and we need to get.
Either rich people to design a grant or get somebody to do a grant and pull that correlation out because I believe it to be true and the literature says so.
With extreme respect and a little pushback to my colleague director DeWolf.
The superintendent search is not in fact an expedited cycle but this is a cycle that is nationwide in terms of getting a new superintendent hired during the hiring cycle nationwide.
We have heard a great deal of feedback that there wasn't enough community engagement in terms of the qualities that we are looking for for a superintendent.
We heard you.
We heard you loud and clear.
We will redouble our efforts.
for March when we come down to semi-finalists.
Hiring the one of two employees that this board has the superintendent and the internal auditor.
We take extremely seriously and we absolutely want to hear from you about your beliefs and your desires in the next leader who we hope to take us 10 15 years and beyond.
That will leverage off of an extraordinary foundation by the good folks in this room including but not limited to and with much appreciation Superintendent Nyland.
We have 10 minutes before public testimony.
We'll take a break.
Excuse me.
Director DeWolf take it away.
This isn't any certainly a comment there but appreciate the clarification.
In my haste I just wanted to mention one thing from the superintendent's comments that when we're talking about the New York Times article one of the things I heard of the native pack which is the families who native families who are part of the Seattle school district.
If we're not counted then we sometimes feel like we don't count.
And in this data here even if natives haven't moved with something that's positive we still need to see the data around our community.
So I think just for future and just for folks around the room that are staff please continue to add native folks and disaggregate that data to make sure that we're included because like I said if we're not here then we don't feel like we count.
Directors will be able to make comments about public comments after public comments and Superintendent Nyland did you have a few words.
Just to follow up on that comment.
Yes we'll be glad to do that for our data.
We have inquired and we do not have data data from Stanford so I guess we could show that with an asterisk but we don't have it.
OK we will come back to the dais at 530 to hear public testimony.
Thank you all for coming.
It is hugely appreciated.