Part 1 Seattle School Board Meeting Oct. 18, 2017

Yeah.

you.

October 18, 2017 regular school board meeting.

I'd also like to welcome our student representative from Chief Sealth High School Alyssa Chin.

Ms. Chin will have an opportunity to provide comments regarding her school later in the meeting.

So Superintendent Nyland is out of town at the moment at a conference and Director Blanford is also out of town at a conference.

So and I see that Director Harris is joining us.

So with that Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Burke.

Here.

Director Geary here.

Director Harris here.

Director Patu here.

Director Pinkham present.

Director Peters here.

If everyone would please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation

So we do not have any recognitions tonight but we do have a student presentation.

So students from South Shore Pre-K 8 have a presentation for us and I would invite the board directors to take a seat in the audience so we can enjoy it as audience members.

Thank you.

Oh sure, we'll do that.

DeWitt.

So thank you for having us tonight we are really excited to have some kids.

This is just an activity that happened at our school and it was such a great opportunity that we wanted to bring the kids and let them see you and have you see them.

So my name is Kristen DeWitt and I'm the principal at Southshore.

Last year our teacher Katie Bedford who is the beautiful lady in the back row in the worked with Anita Coyier-Mwamba and Marsha Rungetate who is a young elder in our area to put together a reader's theater on the book The Stolen Ones which happens to be a book that is written by Marsha and she came in and what was different for us when we talk about family engagement is that and I'm just going to talk in my career.

When I started as a teacher in 1981 family engagement meant that you had events at your school and families came in and they had a good time.

And as things moved on we learned about family engagement and what we knew was that we need to bring families in and we need to take the opportunity to share what we are doing at the school so families want to support us.

They could do the things that we were doing but it also kind of came as the point of the school was telling parents how to raise their kids and that's a little bit backwards.

And so what we know in true family engagement is that we look at the strengths of our family and our community.

and we bring kids and their families in and what happens is they teach us.

And so this event that took place at our school because our teacher was so willing to let her kids come out and practice we had this great event and we got to learn all these wonderful things about our families and about their histories and the kids asked questions about this book and it just became a fabulous opportunity to see them learn and know about their own culture.

So tonight they're going to present to you what they did.

We have a few people that have moved on so we have some new people doing a reader's theater on the book The Stolen Ones.

And before that I'd just like to introduce both Anita and Marsha who have been sort of sponsors to me in learning the whole Rainier Beach community and we often talk about the things that South Shore gets.

We we do have a donor that gives us money but that's not where the riches come in our school.

The riches come from when community members come into our building.

and share their knowledge with kids and hold them up.

And so tonight we're trying to model for you exactly what we're doing at our scale and I think that goes right along with our dual capacity framework that we're trying to use in Seattle Public Schools.

So with that I'm going to turn it over to Marcia and to Anita but I'm going to give one plug.

Besides just doing small academic groups I want to tell you that when we check the data on our students when we involve them in activities like this every single one of these children made typical or high growth last year and I think they should be applauded for their efforts.

So good afternoon, I'm Anita Cuellar Mwamba and today I stand before you as the incoming manager of family partnerships which is very exciting.

At the time that I did the work with Kristen and Saocho and Marsha I was there as a coordinator of family partnerships and Ms. Bedford who was incredible through this process just raised the question of how do we get children more engaged?

And I figured well that would be a good place for us to actually show what the work looks like at the school level so that we can see what the alignments are at the district level.

And so to do that we looked at components of the dual capacity building framework and there were five pieces that we felt were really important.

How do you create a situation where you link it to learning You make it relational, you make it collaborative, you make it interactive, and you make it developmental so it's not just a single time, a one time service opportunity.

And that's what we did.

And then we thought about what is it that the students should learn.

And we looked at their learning standards and we associated this with the learning standards.

And what we said was we wanted to expand their skills and capabilities.

One was looking at the pedagogy which is a call and response pedagogy which is very common to African-American communities and other global African communities.

And through that we got children at a variety of levels.

of reading so not everybody here came in as a master reader and that's the beauty of this program.

And then we reached out to our community and it's pretty expensive to get Marsha but she blessed us and said I'll do it for nothing if it's beneficial to the students.

So I just want to let you know that when we tap into our community resources, we can do great things.

And for these little ones, this is the reason we are all employed.

So I just want to thank them.

To me, they are the heroes of the day.

And I'd like to introduce Marsha Tatorunga, and she'll take it from there.

Thank you.

I want to thank South Shore for really stepping up and taking this initiative so that we could work with the children.

I'm Marsha Teterunga.

I'm a proud community member and I'm the author of this book.

It's called The Stolen Ones and How They Were Missed.

I use this book as a tool for teaching the history that is common to people of African descent particularly the African-Americans who can describe their story through the transatlantic slave trade and what that connection is to recent African immigrants and so it has been a really important tool for understanding We use many multiple intelligences including verbal, linguistic, kinesthetic, bodily kinesthetic.

We use interpersonal and intrapersonal multiple intelligence skills to really address what students need to learn this work and also we couple that with stage presence and with team building.

So they have a lot of work they do together.

I think that this is the cream of the crop myself.

But every student group that I work with ends up being the cream of the crop.

And so they will set an example of their of their high level quality learning for other students in their classroom as well as people in their community.

We hope that this book will be used not just by the children but by their families and anyone who's interested in lifelong learning.

So without further ado the students are going to read for you it should be about an 18 minute read and we will provide images that are in the book so that you can follow along with the story.

Thank you.

The Stolen Ones and How They Were Missed by Marsha T. Arunga.

One day in the year of 2000, a group of African-American women from the USA went to visit Kenya in East Africa.

As they sat in the backyard of their hostess, many women came to greet the African-Americans who had traveled to the homeland of their ancestors.

As they sat together, the African-American women shared stories and photos of their families and community.

One of the elders said, you call yourselves African-Americans.

Where in Africa do you come from?

The African-American women laughed and said, well, we do not know exactly where we came from.

Sadly we're not able to trace our exact roots like Alex Haley.

The elder looked with a glimmer of light and recognition.

She declared Oh you must be the stolen ones.

The stolen ones you say.

Who are they?

We asked.

The elder began to tell the story.

Long ago in Africa there lived a beautiful girl named Mia.

Her beauty not only came from her lovely face and smile but also from her kind heart.

Nia was always thinking of others.

Nia loved and admired by the village for the way she walked with purpose and attention in her life.

The meaning of her name, Nia.

Can you say Nia?

Nia.

Nia of purpose.

Nia had many gifts and talents.

One of them was her gardening skills.

She made soil in her garden rich and fertile.

In Kiswahili the garden is called Shamba.

Can you say Shamba?

Shamba.

In Nia's Shamba seeds were planted with care and attention and the crops were plentiful and nutritious.

All year long Nia harvests big juicy pie pie.

Can you say pie pie?

Pie pie.

Pie pie means papaya.

It grows on tall trees.

The pie pie from her trees grew very big, sweet, and juicy.

She also grew mayanbe.

Can you say mayanbe?

Mayanbe.

Mayanbe are mangoes from tall trees that give the sweetest fruit in all the land.

Her younger brother lived the delicious taste of mayanbe.

Nia watched him grow strong from its sweet taste.

In Nia's garden there was indizi, bananas.

Can you say indizi?

Indizi!

Everyone loved to pop the little fruits in their mouths as they enjoyed the delicious sweet taste.

Nia grew machungwa, oranges.

Can you say machungwa?

Machungwa!

In Nia's garden machungwa had a green colored peel but inside they were filled with sweet and succulent juice.

Like all of Nia's crops, these fruits grew larger than any in the land and were always the most popular at the big market in the nearby village.

In Nia's village people lived together in harmony.

Families were healthy and strong.

Food was abundant and the granaries were full.

People shared in the goodwill of the village.

Children played happily while adults were together.

The elders in the village were wise and loving.

They advised people in the village on matters that believed would keep peace and prosperity among them.

The children learned many lessons from watching their elders.

One harvest Nia grew more sweet and succulent fruits than before.

The people in her village joined in celebrations of Nia's harvest.

They asked abundant blessings be received by Nia.

Many people gathered to dance, play games, and celebrate a prosperous harvest.

Before everyone shared in the feast, the people gathered for Tambico, a libation to honor their ancestors.

Can you say Tambico?

Tambico!

They poured water on the ground as a sign of respect to those who had come before them.

When they acknowledged their ancestors, they called the names of their grandparents, their great-grandparents, all of their ancestors until they called back many generations.

They prayed for common goods of the village, for Nia's safe journey, and the quick sales of her fruits.

When the party ended Nia prepared for the safari journey to the big marketplace.

This journey would take her many many hours on foot.

Nia used the biggest kakipu that has been in her family for many generations.

Can you say kakipu?

Kikapu.

Nia took special care of the kikapu that her grandmother had given her.

She would one day pass it on to her own grandchild, just as it had been passed on to her.

As a small child, Nia practiced carrying the big kikapu on top of her head.

She knew this would be the best way to carry things.

If she had carried the basket in her arms, it would hurt her back and make her very sore and tired.

If she had carried the kikapu by hand, though, this would only be fine for short distances.

For long distances such as this journey, Nia knew that carrying the kikapu on top of her head would be most suitable.

After much practice, Nia learned to walk with straight posture and her body walked balanced and centered.

This way, she could go for long distance without injury.

The Sokoni Marketplace was filled with a lot of activity and excitement.

Can you say Sokoni?

Sokoni!

Everyone was happy to see Nia again.

They loved her beautiful smile and her warm heart.

Customers knew that her fruits would be a big treat.

Nia's fruits sold quickly.

She took time to share stories and laugh with friends before she began her return home.

The money that Nia received in exchange for her goods were called cowrie shells.

This was a common kind of money in Africa.

When Nia was halfway home she heard brushing sounds in the bushes.

When she turned around and looked she did not see anything.

She continued her journey and then she heard footsteps behind her.

When she turned around the strange creatures rushed toward her and captured her by force.

Before they before she could run scream they grabbed her by her hands and feet and tied them with a rope.

She fought and fought and tried to pull away, but they were very strong.

They pulled and dragged Nia for days to the edge of the land where the ocean was.

Nia was thrown into a dark and cold dungeon where she was filled with grief and fear.

Nia heard many voices around her.

People were speaking in languages she did not recognize.

She struggled to see who they were, but all she could see was darkness.

She was terrified and longed to return to her mother and father who awaited at her arrival home.

She hoped that they would find her and rescue her from the dark cold dungeon.

Nia was shattered at the thought she may not get back home to her family, to her land, to her garden.

Dewts of grief and shock from having been stolen, Nia lost count of the days.

One thing she knew, she was determined to stay alive and find her way back home.

Many days had passed, still Nia did not know where she was or how to free herself.

One day a huge ship stopped just outside the dungeon.

Nia heard people scream as the doors opened.

They were pushed and shoved out the doorway and forced to lay on the bottom of a horrible smelling ship.

She left by sea to an unknown destination.

Nia laid at the bottom of the ship for days and days, for weeks and weeks, for months and months.

She laid there until her home had become a distant memory.

Meanwhile, in Nia's village, a few days had passed, and Nia's parents got very worried.

They called together the men in the village and organized a search party.

From house to house and village to village, the men searched everywhere for Nia, their lost daughter.

They could not find her anywhere.

They even went to the edge of the land where the ocean waters were, but they did not know that the ships had come to take Nia and many others away.

After several months of looking, the search party returned home to tell Nia's family that she could not be found.

They declared that she must be dead.

Nia's family mourned her death with a deep sorrow.

They cried and spent many days remembering the special gifts that she had and the life that she had filled in the village with her loving heart and her brilliant talents.

For years the elders of the village would gather to discuss the loss of so many who had disappeared from their homes and just as Zia had.

One day, a traveler passing by the village told how he had been seeing ships passing through the ocean.

He said that many of the young people who had disappeared from the village were taken away and placed onto the ships.

He declared that they were not dead, but instead they were stolen.

He explained that these people had been forced to board these horrible ships, never to be seen again.

People thought of those who had gone missing, the hunters, gardeners, healers, thinkers who were so violently stolen from them and they wept with despair.

During that time so many people were stolen from their homes.

The village gathered to honor their ancestors.

They always remember the stolen ones.

Today we call that the Maafa tragedy.

Can you say Maafa?

Years had passed when Nia had grown old and feeble in the new land.

She called together the two children whom she had raised.

She told her children, I'm old now and I will die soon.

I want you to remember you live in America but your home is Africa.

Tell your children to tell their children till one day we find our way back home.

As the elder finished telling this story, she declared, you must be the stolen ones returning home.

Welcome.

Karibu.

Can you say Karibu?

Karibu.

When the seven women from Africa heard this story of Nia, they learned that Nia was not only the ancestor of the African homeland, but she was their ancestor too.

Since that day the woman from Africa vowed to continue reconnecting with her long lost family in Africa.

Together they will build Mother Africa and the ancestral homeland of Nia who is the ancestor they share.

And I believe that's the end.

Thank you very much.

This story, as the children have explained, was a true story told to us by an elder in Kenya.

And I forgot to tell you that you would hear some Kiswahili words that you have learned and the students know very, very well as well.

So if there are any questions or comments.

Yes.

and your teaching into other schools.

Yes, we have done.

The first project we did was at Denny Middle School, where we turned it into a play.

And we had choreographers show African dance.

We had drummers.

And it was a very lively play.

We also did a project with Maple Elementary School, where students did an art project.

And they were, for the first time, instructed to draw black and brown faces.

and it was an amazing project.

I was very touched by that.

It was based on the book and the read aloud is about five years old.

We have done the read aloud through Africatown for about three years and then we were gracious enough to be asked by South Shore to come in and so now we are at South Shore and we would welcome teaching this content and the read how to read aloud to any school that requests us.

Yes.

We welcome that.

We welcome that with this important story.

Yes.

Well, I'm going to let them respond to that question.

So thank you for asking.

And you can also do that at the very end.

Who would like to talk about, oh I want you to talk about, because we had, Sania here had a problem with Ania growing old and saying I will die soon and she had a big problem with that.

Can you explain?

It was hard for us to do that at first because we didn't get, in third grade of course, we didn't get the part where we had to actually read it and believe it like it was true.

Until she actually told us that it was true, we actually played it out and said it like we were doing it ourselves.

And when you said, I will die soon, you said what?

I said, when I said, I will die soon, I said, why would she say that to her children?

That doesn't make any sense.

And then Mr. Ranga here told me that, well, I would say that to my children, but I wouldn't at the same time.

Okay.

Well, I think what she's pointing out, what Sania's pointing out is that we had many discussions about the severity of the story.

And because they were able to stop, she actually stopped her reading and said, what you said was, this is so dark.

And it was true that it was so dark, but it is a tender story.

But I think that because it's told about one child, that it lessens the impact.

We don't think about the transatlantic slave trade in a way that it really, there were people left at home who wondered where they were and never knew.

And then there were people who were brought to the new land, not just to the Americas, but around the world.

And as they were brought to the new land, they were even more terrified.

And these happened to be the ancestors of the people who stand behind me.

So it's a story they need to know.

And I don't believe that they had any adverse reaction.

But if you have had any, please come and describe what you felt.

Did it sound strange to you?

Did you like the story?

Were you afraid?

OK, that's a good one, too.

But there's a hand up.

Do you have something to say?

OK, that's OK.

OK, next question.

Well we find that the discussion of slavery begins in the fourth grade and more elaborately in the fifth and then later in the seventh grade.

Now I remember I am a product also of Seattle Public Schools where I learned oh you know get over it.

These are Africans who sold you and move on.

And when I heard the story from an elder that we were missed.

It was one thing we had heard that there was stealing going on and that it wasn't a very well organized exit that people were taken in violent ways.

But I had never been told that we were missed or remembered.

And so it gave back some dignity to that story.

And for those who are in the fourth and fifth grade classes you know that the story of the transatlantic slave trade is a very bitter one.

It's one that leaves children really scathed and they don't have anyone to talk to about it.

So this is more of a how do you feel about that.

How did you feel about her dying.

Well let's talk about that and let's stop and talk about human feelings.

that put together the story.

OK.

OK.

So we're asked to introduce the children because our time is up.

And so they will come up.

Just give your names.

They are all in the fourth grade.

They have three different classrooms that they are in at South Shore.

And we'll begin with you.

My name is Mohamed Finch.

My name is Oteko Mwamba.

My name is Malia Dickerson.

My name is Saniya McKinney.

My name is Ajani Stewart.

My name is Amina Goulet.

And together they make the read aloud.

Reader's Theater South Shore.

Excellent.

And on behalf of Ms. DeWitt, we would like to present every board member with a copy of their own book.

And it is autographed by myself.

And it says that I would like to personally thank all of you for your service to our children.

So we'll give that to him and put it in his chair.

Thanks, Sue.

Okay, line three everybody.

One, two, three.

One more.

One, two, three.

All right.

Thank you guys.

Good job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Peters Thank you so much to our presenters from South Shore.

So I will now turn it over to Deputy Superintendent Nielsen for his comments.

Good evening everyone.

As noted earlier Dr. Allen is out of the area.

He's attending the Council of Great City Schools conference where later this week he will be joined by Director Geary and they will be presenting on our eliminating the opportunity gaps to a national audience.

We are recognized for that effort across the country and we appreciate the opportunity to share with others to make the difference for them.

I also am a little bit humbled beyond a little bit the presentation by our South Shore students and the topic is Beyond amazing and it's very it's a good reminder of what we need to do to work together and to love one another.

This is appreciate your principal month and we have some terrific principals we have terrific staff in our school district so we want to acknowledge them.

We want to acknowledge them for their leadership for their passion for their caring for what they do to help all of our students for their work with our tremendous teaching staff.

It's a hard job to be a principal and we thank them for that.

We're also celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day this month and so we are looking at the contributions that our First Nations people have made here and the legacy they have left for us and we want to acknowledge them again tonight.

Also noted this month is we are working on bullying.

This is national bullying month and we're working among other things on a pilot program this year to lessen or hopefully eliminate cyber bullying on social media.

Very important topic something that is very powerful and something we need to address.

There's more information about a lot of these kinds of things in our site visits and all on the back table.

Shifting over to our strategic plan.

Remember that it has three components educational excellence and equity improving students in school and family and community engagement.

So on the educational excellence and equity we are committed to building an understanding across our schools and our departments on how to eliminate the opportunity gap.

And we are looking at our racial justice and accelerated learning for all of our students.

And tonight we are fortunate to hear from one of our outstanding principals in schools.

So I'd like to invite Helen Young to come up and make another introduction and talk a little bit about that excellent work in one of our terrific schools in West Seattle.

Good evening, thank you.

It is my pleasure to introduce to you principal Erica Ayer from San Isidro Elementary tonight.

This is Erica's 17th year as an educator and 11th year as principal in Seattle Public Schools.

Erica and I started last year together in our new roles and since her arrival Erica has been focusing on building strong Systems of professional collaboration to ensure every student receives high-quality instruction and individualized support as stated in our formula for success.

The major initiative of the second pillar or student focused collaboration highlights the MTSS framework.

Her staff is working hard to provide equitable access increase teacher collaboration through the MTSS team and provide tier supports for students.

We are learning from schools like San Islo to replicate replicate MTSS best practices.

Please welcome principal Erica Ayer.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you for having us here.

I'd like to introduce my colleague Marcy Shepherd Shaw who is the head teacher at Sanislo and in previous years has also been our math interventionist and is a key member of our MTSS team.

I believe we have a PowerPoint.

So Sanislo as Helen mentioned is in West Seattle and just a little bit briefly about who we are.

Every morning we start off with our Pledge of Allegiance and with our mission statement.

Sanislo is a safe learning community dedicated to building respectful and responsible citizens and empowering all learners.

And this year as a staff we recommitted to being a learning community for all the adults involved as well.

Can we move to the next slide please.

Thank you.

We are a small school or 237 students currently in the Puget Ridge neighborhood of West Seattle and we are very culturally and linguistically diverse.

65 percent of our students receive free and reduced lunch.

15 percent of our students are reported as homeless.

24 and a half percent of our students receive ELL services and 13 and a half percent of our students receive special education services.

When I arrived at Sanislo last year I was very fortunate that the previous principal had laid the foundation for the MTSS work through in the three years where principal Rhodes was there he began the conversations about the importance of having an MTSS model.

And so that allowed me to build off of that foundation.

Part of that was to hire the right people in the right positions.

In the last 14 months I've hired 10 people at Sanislo Elementary that serve again 237 students.

We have partnered with multiple community based organizations that support our MTSS model and we have aligned our model with the formula for success and the strategic plan.

And so our model has three pillars.

We're focused on adult learners student learners in our center and the positive learning environment.

And they align with the three pillars of the formula for success.

The high quality teachers and leaders pillar one student focused collaboration and pillar two and the commitment to racial equity pillar three.

In pillar one our adult learners all of our teachers and staff participate in professional learning community and meet weekly together to plan and review student data.

Twice a month our teachers have an opportunity to visit each other's classrooms through learning walk.

We were able to do this by having a creative PCP schedule.

We debrief what we've learned with each other and provide feedback to the teachers about what they saw what they learned and the questions they have.

We have monthly data meetings with the teachers and our MTSS team and make adjustments accordingly to make sure that we're provided the differentiated learning opportunities.

We are fortunate this year to partner with the Satterberg initiative and so we have coaching support this year to also help our teachers improve their instructional practice.

And we are also part of the Southwest schools attendance initiative which provides more resources and learning for our staff.

And I'm not going to turn it over to Marcy who's going to talk about our student learners pillar 2.

Hi thank you for having us.

We have a math interventionist and an ELA interventionist.

Our math interventionist has a team of three and they have taken on the task of assessing every single student at our school to make sure they are so they can look at data drive the instruction through data.

So students can learn where they are.

They can be retaught what they need and they can be pushed to to be enriched if they need to be.

They work closely with classroom teachers and so they are able to meet or exceed growth.

Our ELL team has embraced the new CC curriculum.

They're experts in LLI and SIPs for interventions so they can give all students access to the content needed to be successful not only at their grade level but beyond.

They also align grade bands so they are ready for the next grade.

Our attendance campaigns include tier 1, 2, and 3 campaigns.

Our tier 1 is a daily campaign where we acknowledge the classrooms that have 100% attendance.

Our tier 2 campaign is a weekly check and connect every single day.

And our tier 3 is we have 10 Teachers who have volunteered for long term commitment to up to three students each.

So we're serving 30 kids right now with the hope that will grow throughout the school and every teacher and every person in our school will sponsor two to three students and that will be half our half our student population will be receiving a one on one check check and connect.

We do regular data cycles so we can make sure that students are getting what they want and if they can be exited out of an intervention system we can enter a new student.

And this helps us to individualize education to meet every student's needs where they are and beyond.

Thank you Marcy.

Just an explanation of what this is.

This is a banner that is out front of our building that we adjust every week to show our community what our attendance rate is.

We do share that with the students every Friday to announce where we were the previous Friday and where we are this week.

We do have a school wide monthly attendance goal as well.

This month I believe we were looking for 97.3 percent.

So that hopefully we'll let you know in November if we've made it.

Our next slide is one of our data walls.

This is our reading levels for our students.

It is two data points.

It's the map score as well as the Faunus and Pinal.

This is the fall reading scores.

This gives us a visual example of where our students are and who needs interventions and who needs accelerations.

This is a visual representation of our independent reading levels for fun and some power for fall.

This is a poster that is in the hallway for everyone to see.

Just recently we added a new component to this where we've asked families to put a sticky note underneath the poster to indicate how they can help support all of our learners.

Pillar three positive environment.

This is some of the posters that you also see in the wall in the halls at Santa's low.

We have school wide behavior expectations that are explicitly taught at the beginning of the year by all of our staff members.

And it's we have visual representation as well as the words so that we can differentiate for our varied learners.

In addition to some of this work that we're doing with PBIS we have a focus as well for professional development on racial equity as a staff.

We have weekly assemblies as a school.

We have a word of the month which is this month is ambition and it's we call them qualities for success.

In addition to our interventionist we also have a full-time counselor, a youth services assistant and again regular progress monitoring of our discipline and attendance data.

And so to close up we cannot do this work alone.

There are a lot of adults who are supporting the students at Santa's Sloan.

We're very grateful.

We have many community partners.

We are very lucky to be a family and education's levy school and part of the Satterberg initiative as well.

Some of the community based organizations that we work with our city year reading partners.

And this year we started partnering with United Way of King County for fuel your future so that every single one of our students will receive breakfast.

We are a creative advantage school.

We partner with Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra so that each and every one of our fourth and fifth graders who play a string instrument have a coach.

Navos which is mental health.

And this year we also implemented watchdogs which is bringing more of our community members into our building.

And that is all.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you very much Erica and Marcy.

Also want to acknowledge some outstanding work that took place last week at Chief Sealth High School and that is around our schooling for racial justice.

It was a sold out event.

It took place all day during a professional development day and it was one of those things where those that weren't able to attend were all saying well I heard it was great I'm hoping to be able to do something like that soon.

So I want to thank Keisha Scarlett and Brent Jones for helping make that reality and we look forward to that continuing as we work on the EOG effort.

Around our systems improvements the budget continues to be a challenge for us.

Next year as we look at our budget for operating the Seattle Public Schools it's a unique year in that the changes of funding from the state include a little bit of the old funding model and some of the new.

So as we look forward to next year we don't see any dire changes beyond the cuts that we already made for this year.

What we do see however is a serious problem in the years following that.

and that the state funding will decline in relationship to our needs and we will not have the resources in the future to do the kinds of things that we currently do to help students and we believe the legislature has a lot to do.

We hope that the court recognizes that and makes the legislature come back to work and get their job done.

On school and community engagement we've had a lot of input on high school advanced learning.

We've had over 2000 families engaged all kinds of good things going on there including multi languages.

Those people that have attended those have translators they have ability to provide feedback in manners that we've never been able to achieve before because we want to hear from all of our communities.

We want to learn what people are looking for.

And we want to be able to improve our systems.

We also have a website satisfaction survey.

We have engagement coming around the student assignment plan and high school boundaries.

We will have five I believe five regional meetings coming up.

So make sure we get people out to see those in the good news department.

We have a teacher librarian at Ballard who is a finalist to receive $100,000 grant for making the library a social culturally and technological improvement center.

So we hope that she is able to receive that grant.

There is a dinner coming up from LGBT families on November 2nd at Meany.

You can find more information how to sign up and attend.

John Kroll has been named to the city technology advisory committee.

That's a new event for the Seattle Public Schools.

So we're looking forward to more relationship with the city in a positive way.

Hazel Wolf K8 STEM is featured on the fall cover of learning by design magazine.

We're training our substitutes and for the record we are drawing more and more from substitutes because there is a teacher shortage.

That is not unique to Seattle it is unique to the country.

Once again we don't have the funding to adequately pay our staff as we would like to and that creates more substitutes.

So we are training our substitutes helping them to be better in the classroom.

At the interagency we have a number of programs that do good things for kids and one of the things that we have that many people don't know about is high school program for incarcerated students.

And we just celebrated the graduation of five students this week and they don't always graduate on the same schedule as everyone else and so we just want to celebrate that and let our public know that we do everything we can to serve all students.

A couple of things coming up.

We are served in transportation by first student and they have a labor agreement with Teamsters.

There is a dispute going on right now.

We hope that they are able to settle the dispute so we are able to transport all of our students as agreed upon in our contract.

And we are looking forward to that settlement.

Finally we have 24 credits switching over for graduation and it is a lot of work.

It's a big lift and a change for our high schools.

So we're working with our principals our teachers and our communities to address how do we switch over to that.

It is a change for the students and their families and that will be a topic coming up with more work as we go through the year.

So I'd like to end by just saying that we have much to celebrate.

A lot has taken place and I'd like to thank everyone dedicated to addressing our work and supporting our students.

Thank you.

Thank you Deputy Nielsen.

So we will now turn to our student guests.

Again I'd like to welcome Elisa Chin.

Elisa is a very involved student leader at Chief Sealth International High School.

She currently serves in student government as a junior class vice president and is a student leader in the link crew ninth grade mentorship program.

Additionally she's a full diploma student in our international baccalaureate program as well as a member of Sealth Academy of Finance.

As if this were not enough Lisa is on Chief Sealth's wrestling and girls softball teams.

In short she's a very impressive young person and a great representative for Chief Sealth.

I will now turn it over to her for her remarks.

Thank you.

At Chief Sealth currently it's homecoming week so currently we have our spirit week today was denim on denim and Friday we have our tailgate game which is what I'm doing for link roof so it's for our ninth graders and we also have the game right after that's our homecoming game and the homecoming right after.

This year I think our spirit week has been pretty good compared to all the other years.

We had a lot of improvement in student appearance in the spirit.

For our link crew we are also planning a lot of freshmen activities this year and we are planning to have more connections between our freshmen to allow them to have a better year.

For my full IB diploma program I believe that I'm being very challenged so I believe that's going very well also and so far our sports are doing very well too.

I believe our school has been doing great this year for when it comes to our diversity and how it's been indigenous day month and how we had an assembly earlier this month and it was based on indigenous peoples day and it was on the day of indigenous people.

It was it was to me personally I believe that was an amazing assembly and it just showed the diversity at Chief Sealth that we have.

Thank you very much Elisa.

So I invite you to.

Remain with us up here as long as you want for the whole meeting if you like or if you want you can stay for the public testimony.

That's always an interesting part of the meeting and you can also respond afterwards if you like.

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

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

OK.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

Do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda.

Seeing none.

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

Aye.

All opposed.

The consent agenda has passed.

OK so we have reached the public testimony part of the meeting but is not yet 530. So I'm now going to invite any board directors to begin their directors comments at this time with the option of responding to the public comments later on.

So anybody who's ready to say a few words at this point.

Director Burke thank you for volunteering.

I will I will start with some of the brief perfunctories just to kind of get this going and then maybe come back afterwards.

So beginning with Alyssa thank you for joining us.

And so did I hear correctly both Academy of Finance and full IB diploma?

Yeah.

I think I think that's commendable.

I've heard really great things about the academies at Chief Sealth.

I understand that there was a like a career fair or something on Monday.

Yeah.

Did you participate in that?

Yes I was there was a field trip on Monday where all of the academy including finance and hospitality we all went to the Seattle the Washington Convention Center and we all learned I had lectures on how to basically become in the business world.

And we also had networking where we would connect with others to get into whatever summer internships we want.

and basically get out into the business world.

So that was also really fun as my first year doing it.

I got a lot of business cards from that.

So I'm hoping to get an internship this summer.

Burke That is great.

We love to hear that here on the board as well.

We talk about that sort of work all the time so happy to hear that.

I want to thank the South Shore K-8 community for coming out and sharing both The actual content of the stolen ones and the story behind it and some of the.

The nuances about having those conversations at that age and I appreciate the dialogue with the audience as well.

And the Q&A there I thought that was really really great.

Thank you to Principal Iyer and her team for the work they do at Sanislo.

I really as a as kind of an engineer geeky person.

I'm I fancy the way they've built out an actual structure that's based on the formula success elements but they've personalized it for their school.

And they're really owning that.

And so we're looking forward to long term student benefits community benefits and hearing more about that work in the future.

I will I'll go to my community meetings.

I have two community meetings that are scheduled October 28th at Greenwood Public Library from 330 to 5 and December 9th in Fremont Public Library from 1 to 230. Those are I believe both posted on the website.

I'm thrilled that director Harris and I are going to be co-sponsoring another meeting we're trying something in addition to reaching out to the community in general.

We're trying to do some specific outreach to to our educators because they're the ones that that really make this magic happen.

So we have a meeting scheduled a central location November 4th 4 to 5 30 p.m.

And we're going to try to do you know maybe every couple of months themed meetings.

This first meeting is going to be themed around career and technical education.

So it'll be an opportunity for anybody to come but we're going to be focusing the questions the conversation on some of the CTE work that the district is doing and trying to understand what that looks like in the classroom and how.

How we can build out these structures.

What are the leverage points we should be looking at.

So we're really excited about that work on November 4th.

And we'll get that posted on the website and send out some invitations as well.

I'm going to I'm going to close these initial comments just by I wanted to I wanted to go on the record as we're looking at our high school boundaries because this is going to be a really challenging conversation.

And there's a lot of staff that have been doing work and community and our high school boundaries task force to understand the interrelation between where our students live how we draw our boundaries and where they go to high school.

And also how that relates to our K-8 pathways.

And one of the things that's confounding that that the community knows well the board knows well staff knows well is understanding how we translate our highly capable students from K-8 into high school.

And I think that's been a long topic of conversation.

And so I just wanted to.

I feel like we have not been able to put.

We haven't been able to actualize.

A clear vision.

So I'm just going to throw out mine.

Because I figure if I put it out there people can comment on it.

We can see how it fits.

And I'm just going to say that in the long term I believe that our high schools should not be pathways for highly capable.

And I know that that sometimes that might be a little bit of a contentious view but I think if if we look through the what would things look like if they were perfect.

It would be that we would offer services at every high school.

that would draw our highly capable students from their neighborhoods into their high schools would serve them where they are in a way that their families want to be served.

So I say that as a long term.

But I also say that we're we're we're not there yet.

We have schools that that that are serving a lot of highly capable students and some of them with dedicated pathways some of them without dedicated pathways.

And then we also have some schools that are are I would say less.

Friendly to that particular.

Demographic or are.

Less supportive of the idea that there are groups of highly capable students that might benefit from special types of classes or programming.

And so my belief is that we as a district the board the staff the school leaders we have to reach a level of agreement where we can put high quality highly capable learning in our high schools.

before we can expect our families to want to go there.

So again a long term vision to get there and a short term vision to solve our capacity problem.

And I believe the way to do that is to just put kids in Ingram for the north end and for Garfield for the south end.

And then once we resolve the space constraints then we can have some really thoughtful conversations about how to do that.

in the long term and I welcome feedback to me as an individual or you know further conversation on the topic which I know will come up at these next five community meetings.

Just had to go there.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Burke.

Anybody else who has some comments at this time.

Director Harris.

Welcome all of you and thank you for coming down.

You are truly welcome here and we are listening.

It's difficult for us not to be able to answer the questions that are posed to us at the podium and having spent a fair amount of time at that podium during public testimony prior to my arrival on the dais.

It's a frustrating system.

But if you go to the website.

You will find all of our emails or if you'd like to write to each of us in a group SPS directors at Seattle schools dot org and I encourage you to do that.

And it's OK to remind us even though we get dozens and dozens of emails a day.

And it's OK to take us for a cup of coffee to tell us your stories and.

If you could and would give us constructive suggestions and put a price tag on them hugely appreciated because we truly are in this together.

Thank you to the South Shore principal SPS family partnerships.

Ms. Arunga and especially the students.

That was amazing.

And it's my hope that teaching and learning together with Deputy Superintendent Nielsen will broadcast this out through the Puget Sound educational district and throughout our district with a replicatable curriculum I don't I don't know your fancy words for this but that piece of this curriculum so that we can in fact replicate because that was powerful wonderful stuff.

Congratulations to our Chief Sealth International High School student who has since left here can see it from my home.

Proud proud mother of a Chief Sealth International High School graduate.

Chief Sealth has done some pretty amazing things and frankly they've done it on a shoestring.

And it is the staff at Chief Sealth that is working really hard to bring up all of our students.

And it's exciting to see what's going on there.

Principal Ayers and her team again District 6 less than a mile from the house.

Principal Ayers was the assistant principal at a school that my daughter attended in and she's a hero of mine.

Delridge community meetings.

West Seattle District 6 at the Delridge library October 21st 3 to 5 November 18th 3 to 5. You now have a one in two chance of getting lasagna if you come and it's good and worth it.

And also as director Burke mentioned November 4th where we are going to co-sponsor a conversation.

Folks will remember.

The last board meeting where this board voted 7 to 0 to ask the city to collaborate.

towards including the Seattle Public Schools in the Fort Lawton EIS.

This is not to replace housing as the city has been working on since 2008 but to in fact supplement it.

And it was a long and rich discussion.

We passed the resolution and much to my extreme dismay the next day.

The superintendent wrote an email to one of his valued colleagues a professor at Seattle Pacific University and to the mayor of the city of Seattle and said the short version is the school district does not meet the requirements of immediate need and immediate funding in hand.

To say that I am extraordinarily distressed that less than 24 hours after this board passed a resolution to have our superintendent undermine us is on its face not OK.

And I'll reserve my comments for after public testimony.

Thank you Director Harris.

So anybody else who has a few more comments to round out the half hour?

Director Geary.

Hello everybody.

So thank you to the South Shore read aloud theater.

That was a treat.

I think some of you many of you came in afterwards but it was our students from South Shore taking turns to read this lovely book that taught them about their heritage and how the narrative of Slaves being taken or Africans being taken from Africa and brought to the United States as slaves is one perspective.

But the thought of the gap left by those communities losing people losing their children sending out their fathers and mothers out to their daily activities and never seeing them again was truly powerful because I think.

All of us.

That's one of our greatest fears that one of our loved ones would leave our day and we would never see them again and we would have no understanding of who they are.

And that's what these children are learning.

And it's an important.

frame of reference.

And I when you put it in that context you see how powerful it is and how we're all just taught one perspective so often on these stories.

And it's so easy if you just shift the lens how it takes on a whole different meaning and how important it is that we constantly look for ways to shift our lens to somebody else's perspective to get the full story.

So I was so deeply moved by that and I will remember it forever.

Thank you to our Sanislo Elementary.

Teachers and the partners that are coming together.

It once again confirms that in order to make public education work in an era of underfunding we have to continue to reach out to our partners who come into our schools with a belief that our teachers are doing a great job can do a great job and will support us in our work.

So thank you for all of that.

Last week.

I had the great pleasure and honor to witness three ways our district is institutionalized institutionalizing equity.

We've been talking about this it has been one of our goals for many years and I know many people like where is.

Why aren't we seeing anything?

Where is it happening?

And I think you know this is not push button work.

We're not going to see as they said in this.

I heard earlier today not in this book but I heard it earlier today.

You don't expect to reap a harvest on seeds you sowed yesterday.

You have to wait.

You have to take care of them.

You have to nurture them.

You have to bring them up and we will start seeing that payoff I believe.

And I was seeing right now we're really fertilizing the work we're really watering it.

And I came in one day and this room was filled with principals and they were receiving a presentation on how to examine their own racial biases in their work.

and how that will impact them and how they talk to and teach their students.

And that was they were there eager to participate and really you could tell they were happy to be there.

They were learning.

And then the next day again in this room I saw all of a huge cohort of our second year teachers who are participating in the star mentor program and again getting similar race and equity training.

And again a full room of people paying attention there voluntarily in order to do the work.

And then Friday had the honor of going to the eliminating the opportunity gaps Institute schooling for racial justice.

Had the pleasure of meeting one of our star IA's Anthony Washington who is doing this work had the pleasure of meeting him talking with him about it talking about his goals to really get in there and make a difference for our kids.

And again a room full of people super jazzed that this work is finally being spread that we're we're doing the training and they're being given the tools to take this and put this on the ground in their classrooms.

So.

I wanted to report that because I hear so often it's not it's invisible to many of our families.

But our teachers are in there doing the work and they are really appreciative and excited about taking it into their classrooms.

So I heading off tonight on a red eye to Cleveland to attend the Council of great city schools.

This is a conference that is designed specifically for urban school districts the biggest in the nation.

And it's this particular training is interesting.

It's almost like speed dating with our urban districts.

Every district is around different themes puts on 15 minute presentations and so you can go and for three days just get this overload of information about all the great work people are doing everywhere and you get a chance to take it.

And it's so interesting because you'll hear things and you'll get a chance to see how different districts are making it all work.

And then you have the names and the numbers and you can bring that information back.

So I know we have quite a few of our staff not you know not tons but I think about five or six of us will be there.

And I have to say it is it is really a benefit.

It's doing that professional development at a very high level.

and learning how to find out the best practices and bring them back to our district.

So if anybody has a specific question they want me to ask this during this training of anybody I can find to answer it send me an email and I'd be happy to do that.

I will be having my director meeting on October.

I didn't put that date on it.

That's going to be in again I'm going to do that at solid ground.

Give me one moment so I can get up a calendar.

Can you do that for me?

And then I'm continuing to have my next what's next Saturday?

The date.

Well it'll be next Saturday.

Not not this one because I'll be in Cleveland but Saturday fine.

And then I'm continuing to have Tuesday morning coffees at Zoka on Blakely from 8 to 9 30. And please just feel free to drop by to listen in on other people's concerns or share your own with me.

And we get a date on that and I'll get back with you the date but it's next Saturday.

I just don't have the date in front of me.

Thanks.

Thank you Director Geary.

So as we've now reached 530 we will now go to public testimony.

The rules for public testimony are on the screen and I would like to ask the speakers be respectful of these rules.

I would note that the board does not take public comments on items related to personnel or individually named staff.

I would also like to note that each speaker has a two minute speaking time when the two minutes have ended.

Please conclude your remarks.

Ms. Shek will read off the names of the testimony speakers and thank you all for coming tonight.

First up for public testimony we have Kaim Basar Fontenot followed by Hani Ahmed and Chris Jackins.

Hello members of the board.

I'm also a student from Chief Sealth International High School and I heard you talking earlier about a way to to attract highly capable students and a way to maximize and also create equity in our school environment.

And as the president of the Chief Sealth Black Student Union and the co-captain of the mock trial team I find that debate and teaching students how to actually debate In mock trial settings and in debate settings increases increases the student attraction in both of these things.

In mock trial this year students learn how to how to learn the legal process.

They learn they create their own direct and cross examinations.

They basically get a.

a crash course on trial in two days and then over a span of four months, four or five months, they get the opportunity to perform this actual trial in the King County Courthouse in February.

This program to me has done a lot more for me as a public speaker as a debater as a student of Chief Sealth it makes me more confident in who I am and for the people who I know also join this they could say the same.

Students who have participated in the mock trial program have.

gone on to read University of Pennsylvania studying international relations at University of Washington.

So I just wanted to keep that in the back of your mind that debate and programs like mock trial give students confidence and the opportunity to be able to express their ideas in a new way and have an impact on their school because everybody obviously sees the impact mock trial has on school especially when we come to school dressed like this.

Thank you.

Honey Ahmed.

Good evening Seattle school board members.

On RVHS boundary changes all the drafts that came coming out of high school boundary task work task force negatively impacts Rainier Beach High School.

The numbers are highlighted on the paper I gave you.

I also attached a copy of the students proposal for the boundary changes.

What is the district or school board members long term goal for Rainier Beach High School and Cleveland High School.

And what is the high school boundary task for committees long term goal for the growth of Rainier Beach High School and Cleveland High School.

Do they align with each other and is the district going to continue its commitment to the growth of Rainier Beach High School.

Will the addition of Cleveland High School boundaries negatively impact Rainier Beach High School.

Are we looking with equity lens.

On the state of Rainier Beach high school structure, two things that happened last week.

An announcement that was made in the late afternoon that no one should use or drink any water coming within the school.

Keep in mind this is during high school hours.

The announcement was made over the intercom.

The reason for this announcement was because the city was either fixing or cleaning a pipe that directs water to Rainier Beach High School.

My question is did the city not communicate this with Seattle Public Schools or vice versa?

And why did no one in the building know about this ahead of time?

A couple of days later in the same week there was an announcement made about a possible low air quality or odor because a pipe busted in the school.

Students were told to stay in class as they were not allowed to be in the hallways until an hour later when the fire department confirmed it was safe.

This interrupted our instructional time as students were not allowed to change into their next class.

This would not occur if our building was renovated.

We do not intend to lambast the district and to become divisive.

We come to let the school members know that we will not stop fighting for a healthy environment, quality education in an equitable environment.

Thank you.

After Chris Jackins we will have Amy Bryan, Kelly Picarro and Gloria Ann Renflo.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4. On the September warrants payroll is listed with a notation that does not reflect direct deposit.

Does the school board ever see and approve the full payment amount on playground space.

Three points.

Number one the district shrank playground space at Loyal Heights.

One reason these unpopular district plans went forward is that previous boards did not object.

Number two the district is currently planning to shrink playgrounds at Magnolia, Wing Luke and Queen Anne elementary schools.

Number three the board needs to object to these plans.

On policy 21 61 special education on the resolution on career and technical education partnerships.

Three points.

Number one the district once employed special education student interns in its mailing department.

Number two the district unfortunately ended this program.

Has the program been reestablished?

If not please bring it back.

Number three this approach seems better than what is apparently being proposed in the resolution which would seek private partnerships for public school programs.

On school bus drivers four points.

Number one when the district moved to implement further changes to school start times and allocated funds to meet the transportation costs.

Number two the district should have made a similar effort to improve benefits for school bus drivers.

Number three and current contract talks school bus drivers are again seeking to address shortfalls in medical and pension benefits.

Number four please help improve the contract.

Thank you.

Brian and I'm the Whittier PTA legislative representative.

Current students impacted by boundary changes in areas 127 and 128 were new kindergartners at most in November 2013. These families did not have a voice in this process.

They were not informed of the scheduled change upon enrollment and the two informational meetings were held less than five months before this board votes on related district recommendations.

This change which isolates these families geographically moves these families to a school that for many is farther away than four other schools and for some across five major arterials.

District meetings informed families of the option to grandfather at Whittier but no transportation is provided to the only Whittier area that qualifies for bus service and no sibling enrollment guarantee.

This is a false choice for many who depend on transportation or who have siblings entering elementary school in the next few years.

These 90 students from 76 families represent 18 percent of our student body but 20 percent of current enrolled special education students 26 percent of our students of color nine single parent families and 40 percent of our English language learners.

This boundary change fails several district principles regarding boundary development to provide equitable access to programs and services maximize walkability maintain key features of the new SAP including diversity within boundaries.

to minimize disruptions by aligning new and current boundaries when possible and to be responsive to family input to the extent feasible.

There is no plan in place to address equal or greater capacity issues at Adams, North Beach, Viewlands and continued under enrollment is projected at Loyal Heights and Greenwood.

I have met with these PTA presidents and we all want to know what the big picture is.

We are drafting a letter to the board and district to challenge the current boundary change process and the lack of forward planning for our region in the district that disrupt our families and communities.

Just as you prioritize middle high school and advanced learning pathways we want to engage with you to prioritize family and community pathways.

We know Whittier is running out of space.

Please help us find transportation funding and ensure sibling enrollment for these families and let us know how we can help.

Thank you.

Hello I'm Kelly Pecoraro.

I have a second grader at Whittier and a child who has a late summer birthday and will enter school either in the fall of 2018 or 2019. I find the proposed boundary change to area 127 and the related policies related to this change to be out of alignment with key SPF beliefs and goals on the SPF.

SPS website it states we believe it is essential to place the interests of students above all others in every decision we make.

And one of the SPS goals is to strengthen school family and community engagement.

I'm extremely thankful that the district is recommending grandfathering so that my daughter can complete her elementary education at a school she's already spent over two years at.

However next year or the following I will still be faced with a challenge if I'm unable to get my son into Whittier since grandfathering a sibling of siblings is not guaranteed.

At that point I will have to face the very difficult choice of either asking my daughter to change schools in third or fourth grade or to have my children at two different schools.

If I keep my daughter at Whittier to avoid forcing her to make a major social and academic shift more than halfway through elementary I will need to take her to school since transportation will not be provided.

This means I'll have to put a kindergartner on the bus to a school that he is not familiar with at all and is over a mile away from our home.

Even though he does not yet attend Whittier he's very much a part of the community.

He's been at Whittier almost every day for more than half his life.

He knows teachers staff students and parents and they know him.

Having him attend Loyal Heights would be just a big just as big a transition for him as it would be sending my daughter there.

And how do I explain that she gets to go to Whittier but he does not.

As for me I would now be part of two school communities.

I am currently vice president of the PTA at Whittier but I think it would be extremely challenging on many levels to be anywhere near as involved as involved if at all if I'm bouncing between two schools and neighborhoods multiple times a day.

This hurts not only our family but the school communities we would be a part of.

I know we're not alone in this situation.

And it is an impossible decision to put one child's welfare before another's.

And yet that is what you are asking us to do with not allowing grandfathering of siblings of families affected by boundary change.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will have Allison Osner Taylor Stahl and Simon Napas.

Ladies and gentlemen of the school board first I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak.

I reside in the area that is part of next year's boundary change to move to Loyal Heights.

While I appreciate the grandfathering opportunity without transportation it really does put the burden on the parents to then provide transportation for the rest of the child's time at the elementary.

We are a two income family and it would be a huge burden on our family to have to provide transportation to and from school for the next five years.

Jamie just started kindergarten and loves Whittier.

Her older sister Bella just left Whittier last year so she has already spent a lot of time there for various functions and already felt at home before her first day of kindergarten.

But I feel that we are being forced to switch since you won't allow for transportation.

I've heard the cost estimates to provide transportation but there must be another way.

I would even be willing to walk several blocks into the Whittier boundary and have her catch a bus where there is already a bus stop with other children going to Whittier to catch the bus.

And I believe that would offset the estimated cost given.

If the bus is already picking up children one more child at that stop can't make a huge difference in my mind.

I think I heard 40,000 but I'm not positive.

Another worry that I have about next year is that if Jamie does for some reason miss the bus after school has to go to the bathroom the bus drives off without her it's going to be a huge burden for me to come and get her as I commute by bus and don't have a vehicle.

So if you know I'm just praying that someone's willing to stay at the school with her until I can get there because I know it will eventually happen it may not be a regular occurrence.

So and there and it makes me and I think other parents wonder why you selected the area you did.

There are other areas that are way closer to Loyal Heights.

It would actually make sense for them to go there.

I do realize that the district is facing many challenges but truly believe that if you partner with the community that your decisions affect to at least provide input into the change the community would be more apt to be on board with the decision if they were able to be a part of the decision making.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi my name is Allison Ocenar and I also would like to address the issue of the area 127 being moved from Whittier to Loyal Heights.

Like others here I'm concerned about this decision and feel strongly that is one the school board should reconsider.

I have been a Whittier parent for six years for the last six years and with two first graders I have several more years of elementary school left.

I have found that one of the most valuable aspects of attending a neighborhood school is having neighborhood friends.

My kids walk to school almost every morning meeting up with friends along the way and my now sixth grade daughter who also attended Whittier is able to walk to the homes of most of her friends.

This proposed change not all not only almost doubles the distance to our elementary school and requires our children to go from crossing two extremely busy streets to crossing four of them.

It also isolates our kids from their classmates.

None of the areas adjacent to area 127 are designated as loyal heights.

We have North Beach to the west.

We have Viewlands to the north.

We have Greenwood to the east and Whittier to the south.

And when you couple this fact with the recommendation to not provide transportation or to allow sibling grandfathering it becomes more and more likely that our kids will not have neighborhood classmates.

In addition to my concerns specific to area 127 I would like to share some concerns about implementation and timing in general.

I find it incredibly frustrating that despite this change being approved in 2013 we will not be hearing about a final decision regarding grandfathering until four years later when we will be only months away from school choice deadline and less than a year away from implementation.

While I can appreciate the complexity of the boundary issues in a city that is growing as fast as Seattle the school board should also consider the complexity of the lives of the families it serves.

As things stand now you're not leaving us adequate time to fully understand and consider the impacts of a decision to grandfather at Whittier or move to Loyal Heights.

As you look to implement additional boundary changes I would strongly urge you to provide more time for families to plan for the impacts of your decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello board.

My name is Taylor Stahl and I'm here to advocate for sibling grandfathering and continuation of transportation for grandfather's students in the Whittier Loyal Heights boundary change.

I'm the father of an enrolled Whittier student and a post change future enrollee.

Our family moved to Seattle in 2013 and had no voice in this decision at the time that it was made.

We purchased a home in the Holman triangle in part due to our access to Whittier.

With this change there's a significant chance that our youngest will not be admitted to Whittier via school choice and will be forced to attend Loyal Heights.

Unfortunately this will force our family into a position of pulling our oldest daughter out of Whittier.

Even if both are able to attend Whittier we won't have the transportation services that we currently rely on to get our kids to and from school every day.

These impacts reduce and maybe wipe out the value of grandfathering to begin with for families like ours.

I applaud your interest in minimizing the impact of this change to families but the current plan fails to do so for families like mine who have a high likelihood of being impacted in exactly the way you profess to want to avoid.

A real solution to limiting family impact is 100 percent sibling grandfathering and continuance of transportation for all grandfathered students.

These measures minimize the impact to existing school communities and allow families entering the school system to plan for a future in their assigned attendance area including assurance that their children will be able to attend the same schools and that the city will provide transportation options that meet their needs.

By moving forward without sibling grandfathering and transportation you're making a decision based on antiquated data which results in inadequate access to services reduced walkability as Loyal Heights is more distant for many families no cost effective transportation for families and failing to minimize disruption to impacted students missing on five of your eight guiding principles.

I ask you now to adhere to your final guiding principle.

Be responsive to family input provide for 100 percent sibling grandfathering for enrolled families and continuation of transportation services for all.

Thank you.

We will have Abraham Taylor followed by Brian Terry and Robin Schwartz.

I'll try again.

Hi my name is Simon Kanapis and I'm a member of the racial equity and HCC team.

I have a first grader at Thurgood Marshall in the HCC program and a sixth grader at Mercer International Middle School in the advanced learning program.

I'm here to join the chorus of voices that are expressing outrage at how disproportionately white the advanced learning programs are in Seattle public schools.

They don't just reflect the institutional racism that we find everywhere.

Seattle is doing worse than our neighboring districts.

Institutional racism can be so frustrating because so often we look at it and say there's nothing that I can do.

But this is a case where you all have the exciting opportunity to actually do something to address institutional racism and to create institutional equity.

I encourage you to please take the clear concrete steps that have been outlined by the racial equity and HCC program.

Now is the time to implement them.

And also please stop accepting private test results for non-disabled students who are trying to access advanced learning programs.

My first grader is one of only two black children in his class.

At the school that is ironically named after the highly capable black hero who argued Brown versus the Board of Education.

When I decided he go he would go to Thurgood Marshall which was a very difficult decision.

I told him that there were supposed to be more black kids in his class and that the school district knows that it's a problem that his classmates have been overlooked.

I told him that you're working hard to find his other black classmates.

Please do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Wow.

Hello school board directors and superintendent.

My name is Abraham Taylor and I'm here to talk tonight about the labor dispute between Teamsters Local 174 and First Student your subcontractor for student transportation.

The dispute has reached a boiling point and this group is on the brink of a strike that would create havoc for Seattle families.

None of us want that to happen and so we are asking your help in resolving this situation as quickly as possible.

First student has not bargained in good faith with these drivers.

They made promises last year that once they were able to get a new contract with the district they would be able to address our members very real concerns about affordable health care and retirement.

Now that a year has passed and first student was able to get contracts settled with the drivers and with the school district they came back to the bargaining table without a single penny more than what they had been offering up until now.

They had a year and they came up with nothing.

Health care is not affordable for these drivers.

Out of 400 of them only 26 of them have signed up for the plan that the company has offered.

And the new plans the first student brought to the bargaining table were even worse.

To be clear the vast majority of the people that transport our most precious cargo our children do not have quality affordable health insurance.

First student has committed multiple violations of the National Labor Relations Act while attempting to bargain this contract.

We have filed several charges with an NLRB and even just today a new charge was filed because first student has been attempting to intimidate our members an illegal act under the law.

You the board members have a responsibility in this situation.

This is your contractor.

You hired them.

They are they are treating a union unionized workforce this way and it won't continue.

You can look at these drivers and say I'm not your employer.

I can't do anything about this but that is an abdication of responsibility that will not we will not accept.

You can do something about this and you need to.

Thank you for your time.

Good evening.

In our district a white student is 20 times more likely than a black student to qualify for HCC.

Thanks to universal testing we now know why.

If we were to test a typical sample of 600 white second graders by my calculations more than 80 of them would be identified as highly capable.

However when we tested 600 black second graders at underprivileged schools only six of them were identified as highly capable.

This is why HCC is segregated.

Our current identification process is heavily biased towards privileged students.

State law and district policy mandate that we identify and support highly capable students across all demographics.

To do this we must change our identification process to remove extreme bias towards privileged students.

Universal test results show us the impact of privilege on test scores.

We can account for this and look for other ways to identify underprivileged highly capable students.

This will produce a much more diverse cohort of highly capable students to meet their more diverse needs will require changes to the service model.

This is the only way we can desegregate HCC remove bias from the identification process and adapt the service model to meet the needs of all highly capable students.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Robin Schwartz followed by Cynthia Kifton and Valerie Cooper.

Hi thank you.

I'm Robin Schwartz PTA co-president at Concord International Elementary School.

I'm here today to talk about the kindergartens at Concord which are unacceptably overcrowded.

We are a title one school.

Last year 80 percent of our kids qualified for free and reduced lunch.

60 percent of our kids were English language learners and 70 percent were children of color.

We are the opportunity gap.

This year our three kindergartens have been condensed into two with 25 and 26 kids per class.

According to state initiative 1351 class size for high poverty schools like Concord is 15 kids.

We are on our way to double these numbers.

Our teachers are overwhelmed and overburdened and our kids are not being served.

I have emailed and called everyone I can think of and the answer continues to be Concord admin is in charge of allocating teachers.

I am beginning to think that what we are asking for is unreasonable that the resources do not exist and that maybe I should focus my energy elsewhere.

But ethically I can't just decide to let this go and neither should you.

We need help at Concord.

These 51 kids and their two teachers are at the wrong end of an unjust system.

SPS has made closing the opportunity gap a priority.

If we do not find a third teacher these kids most of whom are children of color most of whom live in poverty and most of whom begin the year at an academic disadvantage compared to their white and middle class peers will end kindergarten and begin first grade at an even greater disadvantage.

If we continue with these numbers I can guarantee you that these kids will not be where they should be and could be by June.

If I sit down and stop agitating and if SPS refuses to find the funds to assist us then we are all complicit in this system that creates and sustains the opportunity gap.

I am asking everyone on the board and in this room to take action tonight towards a solution to this urgent and unequitable situation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Cindy Niffin I'm the parent of a second grader at Hawthorne Elementary and a teacher in the Highline school district.

I'm here to ask you to act now for greater racial equity in SPS's advanced learning programs because I believe it is a social justice issue.

In my work as an ELL teacher I've consistently seen students who come into school with a home language other than English perform at a higher academic level than their monolingual peers once they've acquired enough English to be proficient bilinguals.

However many of these bright incredibly capable ELL students are excluded from high cap programs because of barriers such as limited parent availability and biased language dependent tests.

Seattle Public Schools says it is committed to closing the opportunity gap.

I applaud you for your recent efforts to extend universal testing to all title I and high ELL population schools and for translating the referral forms into multiple languages.

I urge you to continue the work of removing barriers to the high cap program by one extending universal testing to every second grader in the district to conducting all follow up testing during the school day.

Highline and many other districts do this with minimal impact on school schedule and three using a test such as the non-verbal abilities test which provides unbiased scoring regardless of students primary language socioeconomic status or educational history.

Recently as I've examined the biases I've carried with me from childhood I realized that many simply came from my lack of exposure to people of color and of diverse language groups.

My daughter has the privilege of being educated in Hawthorne's diverse school community and she doesn't think to question that individuals of any racial or language group could be in any position that she as a white middle class child could be.

She sees it every day in her school.

For the sake of our collective future I ask you to make this a reality in SPS's advanced learning program as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

After Valerie Cooper we will have Sarah Coulter followed by Georgie Nickerhill and Kate Poe.

Hi in front of you you have enrollment data from the McClure cluster.

There are currently about 980 students in the kindergarten 1 and 2 grade levels at our K5 elementary schools.

That is approximately 980 kids in three grade bands.

All of those kids are going to McClure which holds 600 students.

That would require a nutrition rate of 38 percent.

Recent recent attrition to middle school has been approximately 20 percent.

I did a survey of about 300 families and our rates of estimation showed about 15 to 20 percent attrition rate.

If you recall SPS projections routinely show an additional 20 students at McClure middle school by 2020. If this doesn't show immediate need I don't know what does.

So on to Fort Lawton.

SPS does in fact qualify through the Department of Education for athletic fields environmental education maintenance facilities and the hope for funds for an eventual school at the site.

Future student growth is a valid indicator of immediate need.

We do not yet know if the city will collaborate with SPS.

Word is that the city now has an immediate deadline that will not allow any changes.

This seems questionable and at the very least should have been communicated to the district as a sign of respect.

Also why does adding a school use delay the EIS process substantially?

It requires several sentences about a description about what is required.

If the city is purposely denying the school board the opportunity to collaborate we have several questions in front of us.

I would not leave the hope of this project without an extremely vetted assurance for another project.

The question of 40 acres and a process starting in 2018 is a pipe dream and something that we don't know has any teeth.

But if the if the city is going to go against their own school board and their overwhelming community feedback we must ask the question I often receive is is this how our city functions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sarah Georgie.

Good evening school board members.

I am here as a representative of the racial equity in HCC team and as a parent of a child in the HCC program to talk about the need for greater racial equity in our advanced learning programs.

I am grateful that Seattle Public Schools has a strong program for advanced learners.

It fulfills an important need but it isn't right to have a program that doesn't provide services to everyone equally.

We only knew about HCC because we talked with other parents at the kindergarten playground.

The experienced parents told me about how the testing worked about where to find the application and that I had to be sure to submit it by a certain date.

I looked around and wondered why aren't the kids simply tested at school where every kid could be tested.

I think it would help increase equity if we created an HCC presence in schools so that families of color learn about and gain trust in the program.

And if kids are tested at their own school or as part of another test that they're already taking underrepresented families would more easily find their way to HCC.

Also if the district holds the line against families with means by saying private test results are not allowed it could balance the playing field and mitigate the over representation of white families in the program.

Thank you for supporting equity in the HCC program.

Thank you.

Kate.

I am a representative of the racial equity in advanced learning and HCC team as well and a parent of two children in HCC and a teacher in Seattle Public Schools.

I'm here to implore you to make equitable access a top priority for the program reviews planned this year in advanced learning and HCC.

There is great work happening in neighboring districts.

Now is the time to learn from this work and live up to the promises that we make in equity policy 0 3 0 0 3 0. Last year Renton School District was in their third year of redesigning their high cap referral and identification process.

A year of data mining and targeted referrals only slightly improved numbers of underrepresented students from 9 to 11 percent.

So they doubled down on family outreach the next year.

They crunched achievement data and invited the top 250 underrepresented students to take the COGAT and they shepherded these families through the referral process.

They host information nights all year long.

They have a rolling test schedule.

They test students in their schools.

They use only the COGAT screener to identify second graders in universal testing.

They prepare teachers to manage rigor in diverse classrooms and they have an exit process when advanced learning is not serving a student's needs.

They have a sense of what the numbers should look like if there was proportional representation and they use these numbers to set goals.

The burden is on the district to find students and serve them and not on parents to navigate complicated hurdles and loopholes or scale the castle walls as we say at MLK elementary where I teach.

Fixing this broken piece of advanced learning.

This piece that hinders access to educational equity the piece that protects privilege and enforces shocking racial segregation in our schools.

We will undoubtedly learn lessons about trust potential and community that we could apply in all corners of our district.

Thank you.

Next up we have Sabrina Burr followed by Emily McKeon and Natasha Boswell.

Good evening.

This evening I had originally talked originally meant to talk to you about shared governance and decisions that are made at our schools that are devoid of conversation with parents like the food feeding program the weekend backpack program at Lowell going to the classroom instead of being relational putting shame and now them seeing those backpacks rotted.

But there's two other things that have been on my heart that we must address because there are inequities that happened here.

Last school board meeting you guys talked to Wyeth Jessup as to where he was looking for underrepresented students in HCC.

The only answer he could tell you was Title 1 schools.

And I want to tell you that's unacceptable and I am enraged.

Gifted students of color are everywhere.

Look for them and find them.

My niece who graduated from Garfield many years ago I asked her how she got into HCC.

She said I never tested and the teacher told me I was too smart.

Students didn't know where she came from when she ended up on the cheerleading team.

Where have you been all day?

She hated being isolated being the only African-American student there.

Right now we have her kids in school who are not testing and who are bored who came in here reading.

But more importantly is this piece of literature that you guys sent out.

This is unacceptable and you owe all of the public an apology.

This went out in first first day packet and how this was written and who wrote this needs to not write any public things anymore.

Right here in the middle.

Under discipline.

What happens if a student breaks the rule.

You have a picture of a very sad African-American child.

The message is not very good.

Right here you have all the harming things all the guns and things.

We had a kindergarten parent of an African-American student that was outraged.

You need to look at this document.

You owe the policy the public an apology and you need to do better on ACC's and if Wyeth thinks that is only in Title 1 schools then maybe you need to really rethink who's over that program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I am Emily McKeon and I'm going to cede my time to John Q. Hi I wanted to talk about open data government transparency and civic activism in a in a collaborative way.

I'm a new parent at Blaine.

My son just started in the kindergarten program and I'm excited to be part of this district.

One of the things that I'm concerned with you know as is everyone is the.

the capacity planning issues.

But when I when I went online and I looked around for some of the data a lot of the data that underlies sort of enrollment figures you know projecting five to 10 years out in the future.

They're either missing or it's in a form that can't be easily consumed or it's something which just is is difficult to understand.

We don't understand necessarily how these enrollment figures come about.

This makes it extremely difficult for the community to collaborate with you and come up with innovative solutions.

I wanted to make it sort of a one of the other examples I was thinking of today on the way here is it's raining right now.

How many kids miss school because of footwear that isn't sufficient.

You know if we have raw absentee data on a daily basis by school we might be able to understand a little bit more of that.

So it's not just the capacity planning issues it's like a lot of these sort of interesting issues that may be impacted by other factors other pieces of data that maybe the school district does not collect.

We need the data and I'd like actually the first act of the new CIO to be publishing extensive data on capacity planning issues.

You know things like that to make it easier for us to collaborate with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Natasha Boswell followed by Alosha Adams.

Hello.

Thank you.

First I want to say thank you for listening to us over the past couple of months.

And thank you for unanimously even those with hesitation and really good questions for voting to request to be a part of the EIS during the last school board meeting.

I would like to highlight that we have not been asking for the school to replace low income housing.

We've been asking to share the space to learn that the superintendent claims less than 24 hours later that we do not qualify is disappointing to say the least.

And I also want to add in that Magnolia does not only consist of rich white families.

I am a teacher.

My husband is a black firefighter and we have biracial children.

This is not a NIMBY issue for us for our family and for many others like us that currently live in the inner Bay Magnolia area.

The idea that we do not qualify is something that we've been countering for months and as a community we would like to push for accurate enrollment planning sorry I'm sick.

In McClure at McClure currently where I also teach our eighth grade class we have 165 students.

The kindergarten class within the McClure boundary area has 317 in first grade there's 323 in second grade there's 333. Additionally our registrar at McClure has a substitute call all the potential families throughout the summer to find out the numbers instead of depending on current enrollment projections.

We will continue to fight for this land and we appreciate your assistance and we request we like to request for an updated enrollment system.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Alosha Adams.

I am a fifth grader at Lawton Elementary.

First of all I would like to thank the board for voting unanimously to acquire part of the land at Fort Lawton.

It is a great decision.

However there is still a lot of work to be done.

Please address capacity issues proactively and please be active in collaborating with the city for growth planning.

Please grandfather siblings because we know that boundary changes are coming to Magnolia and Queen Anne and please continue to listen to family input.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This concludes the sign up list for public testimony this evening.

Thank you everybody for coming out this evening.

So now I will turn over turn the mics over to my colleagues and see if any directors would like to speak who haven't spoken yet.

And after that any directors would like to add any comments.

Director Pinkham.

Good evening and thank you.

Thank you to all our presenters here that came up and talked and shared your views.

And that's one thing that I learned as being part of the board here and actually when I was running for the board is that yes your voice counts and please continue to come here and share your concerns and also your praise of what we are doing here.

It is appreciated.

I just want to let you know we are listening.

I'm listening to try to.

address all these issues that are coming up as far as boundary issues in the classroom sizes budget and for the even our transportation issues.

I must note that I voted no against the contract because with the bus drivers we need to find something to show them that we need health care for all our people that work to help our students to attend schools.

You know it's to me it's about more equity and we got some people having it and others not.

We need to see what we can do to make sure everyone has the same affordable coverage and the best that we can.

And I'm not sure what we can do as far as since we already approved the contract and how we can help our bus drivers.

Highly capable cohorts for that.

Director Burke kind of shared you know is this something do we get rid of it.

And at the high school level and continue it.

And I too have concerns about where we're having the system that.

Tests people and then says this these people are above these others and there's some cultures that no I don't want to be put above.

I want to be with my.

You know community and helping everyone up.

We need to find a way to definitely celebrate the strengths and.

skills of our students.

There may be some that are good at reading some are good at math some good at art some good at singing and other ways that everyone has a strength.

Everyone I believe is highly capable.

Again as Ms. Brewer shared they're not.

Don't look at the title ones schools just for our underserved students.

They are all over this district.

And if they are aren't tested you know what can we do to get them tested.

How much would it cost to test every student and test a student with the exam or assessment that is equitable that doesn't favor one group over another.

These are challenges that we are facing now.

And what can we do to be proactive and address those with your input we'll find those solutions.

So continue to come here and share your thoughts and perspectives.

Again I appreciate it very much.

I want to also extend thank yous to the first listening session that was held at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School for our native community.

Kyle and Yudy came out there from the school board office here to listen to the native community up in the north end.

And I was in attendance too but more for a community member not necessarily a representative of the board or the district.

But I just sat there and was able to listen to see what was happening.

And even within the North End and those that attended we know that the families of the native families they had different issues and they would see things different ways.

But hopefully we'll see that there is a common ground that we want what's best for the students.

And then what may be best for one family may not work for the other family.

But if we give our families a choice that will help them out instead of trying to tell them yes you must go this way or you can't go that way.

Let's give our families more of a choice so that they can serve their children to the best of their needs.

I also want to extend a.

Thank you I recognize the principals for principal month Erica Aaron and her crew at Sanislaw and also want to thank Dede Fauntleroy at Northgate Elementary and the staff here that helped address an issue that came up here.

We got it resolved and again.

family coming up and sharing their voice and yes we will do our best to take the action that we can and be aware that does take time for us to do some things but we still need to communicate where we're at in the process so families are confident in coming to us for issues because if we don't respond they're going to stop coming.

Why would I go there and tell them if they're not going to do anything.

So let's let them know where we're at in the process that yes you're heard and we're addressing it.

Thank you to the South Shore students and their presentation is definitely a joy to listen that we're sharing the history of people that that helps other cultures understand where people are coming from and share that perspective and not just from the perspective of the majority telling the story but let the cultures themselves and people from a certain area tell their own story.

And I think it was powerful for the students to read that the stolen ones.

Thank you to Elisa Chin from Chief Sealth for coming up here and sharing her a few thoughts and also the student from Chief Sealth Cameron talked about the value of having the debates and mock trials at his school.

I must also acknowledge Indigenous Peoples Day that occurred and that remind people that for me I'm indigenous every day.

It's not just one day out of the year.

So for me every day is Indigenous Peoples Day and for other cultures they are who they are every day and they got to feel safe wherever they go to school that they recognize themselves they see themselves in the in the schools and that was definitely an issue that we talked to again at the listening session that we need to have our students feel safe at the schools wherever they go that they feel safe about who they are as a person and individuals and as a community and larger society.

My next community meeting will be this Saturday at Northgate library at 330. I won't have any lasagna though to provide.

Unless you got leftovers to send my way.

For a price.

So again anyone that has anything to say doesn't have to be in my district.

You come by the community meeting to share your thoughts.

I just want to let you know I am listening.

And then before I sign off on my comments I got to wish my niece happy birthday.

She'll be turning I guess I shouldn't say her name or her age but my niece Brooke Pinkham who's actually the director of the Indian Law Center at Seattle University she'll be celebrating a birthday tomorrow so wish her happy birthday.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Patu.

First of all I'd like to say thank you to Elisa Chin from Chief Sealth for her presence and also her presentation in letting us know what's happening at Sealth.

I also want to say thank you so much to the South Shore team that was here to entertain us with their reading skills and a wonderful story that actually uplifted a lot of us and hopefully to I would like to just go home again and just read this book all over again and really let it sink in because it's a wonderful story and it's it's also very educational in terms of a lot of us who actually have left our country for many years ago.

and forgot some of us forgot what our culture was all about.

And this kind of remind me of who I am and what is my purpose within where I am today and then also continue on to teach my grandchildren about our culture because a lot of our kids have actually forgotten who they are and not even know what the language is.

So this is a really great reminder of us of where we came from and how do we come back and remind our students of the wonderful culture that they're from and the language that they learn.

I also want to say congratulations to all the principals for this is principals month for all the great work that you're doing without you and your leadership.

Our schools will not move forward the way it is today.

There's a lot of wonderful things that's going on in various schools across our district and I thank you for your leadership.

I also want to say thank you to Sanislo for your presentation.

Very much appreciate it.

and letting us know the great success is happening at your school.

As some of us who actually are from different districts it's always wonderful to hear about what's going on in various schools and different districts so we can share the success and really know that everyone is moving in the right direction.

I also wanted to.

to say that this has been quite a very busy week for some of us who are running for reelection.

It's an overwhelming week because not only we have to work in that area but also at the same time make sure that we don't.

that we do our duty as board president I mean board members and continue on our duties.

So we are what we still be updated in terms of what we're supposed to do.

But I just want to say that serving on Seattle Public School Board is probably one of the most exciting thing for me as a board director because it gives us an opportunity to look at education from a whole perspective.

And what is it that we can do as board director to either change or make things better for families and their children even though that some of us don't always know what goes on on the other side of the district.

But at the same time being here at you know sitting up here and listening to all the various stories and what's happening in different areas.

It really gives us good opportunities for me to know that there's great work going on in all the different districts.

Even though sometimes it may not go the way we want it to but at the same time we hear and we listen as board directors and we want to make sure that all our students across the district are getting the same opportunity that all the other kids from the other district are getting.

So thank you for all the work.

Thank you for the parents and community for your support.

And without our working together, we can't make things happen as we are right now.

And like I said, the most important thing is actually supporting our students to make sure that they are successful.

I also would like to thank some of our students that came tonight to talk about the needs of their schools.

Yes Rainier Beach needs a renovation and hopefully that soon we'll get a renovation for Rainier Beach.

Everywhere I go people tell me what is up with Rainier Beach.

It's still not renovated yet.

Well we're still saying Rainier Beach hopefully soon will be renovated so that way we can see a beautiful school next to the lake.

and people and our students will be able to be proud of Rainier Beach High School because it's needed.

So we will continue on to push for renovation for Rainier Beach.

We don't know when yet but at the same time hopefully it will be done anytime soon.

I also would like to say that highly capable you know that's very is a very interesting situation with that because this is a subject that has come up many times and the question I always ask is why don't we have a lot of students of color and highly capable?

Because as Sabrina Burr has brought up we have a lot of smart kids that are kids of color but they are not given the opportunity to be part of the highly capable program because they've never tested.

I know that for a fact because my own grandchildren have not been tested and they're highly capable.

So I think that you know as a district we need to look at those programs that are actually beneficial to all kids so that every child in Seattle Public Schools no matter what color ethnic group they are would have the opportunity to take advantage of those programs.

And as a district we need to really look at that and be able to make those opportunity available to all our kids.

This is something that has come up many times with a lot of our parents a lot of our community and have told us many times what is going on.

How come we don't have enough kids of color in highly capable.

So hopefully this district will listen to the what's you know what is it that we need to do in order for us to push that forward so we can have more students be part of the highly capable program because we know there's a lot of students of color who are qualified for highly capable programs.

Also I wanted to say I want to thank you to my board directors who have been there to help support me and encourage me sometimes you know as a board director when you're running for reelection you get to the point where you're down at times but when you have people that actually support you they uplift your spirits and remind you there's a reason why you're on this board.

So thank you for those of you who continue to support my candidacy and support my work and hopefully that I will continue on to provide opportunities for all your kids and that looking for bigger and better things to come.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Geary.

I just want to add a couple comments to our bus drivers to our Whittier families to everybody who comes with a request that impacts our transportation.

I think you all know that we did go to the city to ask for more money to get the switch to the two tiers.

We have to continue to make it work but it's not easy.

But it's not that we're not thinking about it and we're trying to put.

our resources to the best work that we can that makes it fair without elevating one group over another and trying to meet the needs of all of our groups.

I definitely.

The bus driver situation is an interesting one just so the public understands is that the way the contract set up is that people who work part time don't necessarily qualify for health care.

But the reality is for our bus drivers is that because of the way we schedule them and they can't work during the summer.

They end up working what feels like full time during the school year and then it's very difficult.

Then we can't we don't have those jobs over the summer.

So when you amortize their time over the whole year they end up being part time workers under the rules.

But you really can sympathize that these people are working full-time and when they are working and that they need to have the same assurances that if they get sick that they are going to be able to get treated and get back on the job.

It is not that we don't understand this issue that it is it is very it's very powerful and I'm sure there are other issues that arise but that is the one that it really speaks to me and it does not feel equitable.

And then finally.

I want to thank both of our students from Chief Sealth High School but Khaim Vassar Fontenot the young man who came and made the pitch after hearing about the highly capable pathways that their school with their debate team really offers something to our highly capable students.

And you could tell his pride.

And so I just want to say that for our advanced learners which are everywhere.

We need to make sure that we are putting the resources to them that they are our gifts.

They are the gifts to our city every single day that we graduate them and that they take their hope and their aspirations and we have to make sure that we are making giving them.

Every opportunity to a great education that we give to any child who finds themselves in a highly capable program.

If you look at the distribution of advanced placement offerings throughout the district I think you will see that that it would be impossible for a student at some schools to really believe that they are considered an advanced learner.

And that needs to change.

And I I won't support anything that doesn't make that a reality for our kids because Mr. Vassar-Fontenot deserves to be considered highly capable because he certainly proved it to us tonight.

Thank you.

Harris.

I could use some help up here Mr. General Counsel and Assistant Superintendent McEvoy please.

Mr. General Counsel would you yell stop if I step over the line and I create an unfair labor practice here?

Certainly.

Thank you sir.

My feet are small they both fit.

When we put out the contract for our bus services did we not meet at some length to speak to the issues of retention of good drivers and benefits.

And did we not give additional points during the RFP process for that very issue.

I can think of two or three meetings.

Yes I recall the same and the RFP did speak to those matters but as you might recall in the end we only had one proposal so there wasn't a competing proposal that might have scored better in those categories.

OK and we had one proposal because we have no space and no land to park buses and that first student has that.

So they have us basically over a barrel is that correct?

That wouldn't be a legal term of art but in one respect.

We can invent.

Yes in one respect there is a challenge here because it's my understanding is it's difficult for other competitors to enter the market because they need the real estate to park the buses and that is obviously in in this economy in this city very expensive.

And can you give us an up to date status.

Of the vote to strike and where we are today because I'm seeing and hearing.

a lot of chatter and a lot of fear.

Yes I might ask Peggy McEvoy to provide you with that information.

So thank you for the opportunity to share what I do know.

I am on a daily phone call with her student and am talking with the Teamsters not on a daily basis but on a regular basis.

And what I am hearing from the Teamsters is that in fact they did take a strike vote that in fact they had a cooling off period that cooling off period has expired so they can strike at any moment.

But what I have also been assured by the Teamsters is that they are wanting to make sure that they have completed all possible negotiations before they do strike.

And I do know that there has been proposals requested by the Teamsters and recently supplied to the Teamsters from first student.

And my last question it's been suggested to some from some folks somewhat vociferously that we're irresponsible because we don't have our own buses and bus drivers as our employees.

Do we have a price tag for that and how long it's been since we had our own bus fleet and bus drivers and how do we juxtapose that with the McCleary missing millions?

Well I think between the deputy superintendent and I we can probably answer most of those questions.

It has been decades since if at all.

We've never to my knowledge and I could be wrong so we're treading on ice here because we're going from memory and we weren't here.

To my knowledge we've never had a bus fleet in Seattle and the cost of an average bus now is about $80,000 depending upon what you get sometimes up to 100. And we would need about 350 buses and we would also have to buy property and make it into a facility and clearly we don't have that kind of resource so what schools do is they have a bus fund and they put a bus levy out in front of the voters in order to pay for that.

And for most districts that do so.

The way it's done isn't in one big chunk you replace the buses and over time so we would have to approach that cost in a one shot opportunity which would be quite expensive.

That is why we've never done the work before.

We have chosen to spend our money in a manner that tries to honor our transportation and the requirements.

And to your point earlier I would like to add that yes we have taken time to make it clear to our vendor that we care deeply about their drivers and their working conditions.

And I would add that most larger urban districts do not own their own fleet that they are in fact contracted out.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay then I guess I'll close it out with my comments.

Again thank you all for coming out tonight and bringing with you all the different issues that we need to be aware of.

Special thanks to our two Chief Sealth students who are here eloquently representing their school and the various programs that their school offers.

Let's see.

couple of things I do have a community meeting coming up and I see that the time is incorrect I think I might have misstated it before.

It's going to be on Sunday the 29th of October from 3 until 430 at the Magnolia library.

And I apologize for not being able to do it on a Saturday with the libraries in my area were booked on those days.

Our internal auditor Andrew Medina is going to be presenting a white paper at the Council of great city schools conference.

So we're pretty excited about that and to be a sort of a national leader on this sort of thing and we're going to ask Andrew to make a presentation to us afterwards.

So hopefully we can do that at a board meeting and everybody can see what we're doing.

All right regarding let's see the advanced learning and HCC there were some really good ideas tonight and I know we've already received a lot of ideas from the equity team on this.

I was talking to staff the other day and I know we used to have an advisory committee.

It's currently called the HCC advisory committee.

It was before that it was the APP advisory committee.

And I notice there's a lot of openings on that committee.

What was good about it was it had representatives from our HCC schools district wide.

And so I would like to encourage those who are in the community who would want to be part of the community to to take a look at being a part of the advisory committee because we have some big decisions we have to make in the next couple of years regarding how we address advanced learning both logistically pedagogically and then from an equity standpoint.

And it'd be great to hear from voices throughout the district on this on these topics.

Regarding testing at the schools that's that's a good idea.

My understanding from staff is we have some capacity issues and it's just hard to find the space during the school day but it's definitely worth looking into.

Creating more of an HCC presence in the schools I think that would be good.

There's a lot of people who don't even know about the programs and don't know what it takes and there's always some bureaucracy attached to anything that you apply to and we have to help more families navigate that.

I'd like to encourage all of you who care about these issues to pay attention to the board calendar because we recently just had a work session on advanced learning and the program evaluation and it would be great to have folks show up for those meetings and it's one where you sit in the audience and you get to hear what we're doing but we're just hashing out some things right there and it can be very very informative.

So please pay attention to the calendar for those sorts of meetings.

And then regarding testing kids in title one my understanding is we're not just testing title one kids in title one schools we're going beyond that because we know we've got kids throughout our schools and we also have kids who qualify for title one services who aren't necessarily in a title one designated school.

So we have already heard that that would be too narrow a focus and we are focusing beyond that.

And then.

I think that's about it.

I also want to say as you all may have heard that we are launching our superintendent search that director Nyland's contract is completed at the end of June of next year.

And we're very excited about the prospect of being able to reach out to the community for the first time in six years.

and ask what is it you would like in leadership here in the Seattle school district.

So I encourage people to start thinking about that and start giving us feedback on what sort of superintendent we should be looking for.

I understand that in the past there have been some people have not been super happy with the process and possibly even the results and this is in the past.

And we want to do things a little bit differently.

We want to find somebody who really is tuned in and who can take us forward and build on the work that Dr. Nyland and the staff and the board is currently doing.

And so it's an exciting time and we're trying to do things in an organized planned manner so we don't have to choose a district leader in a time of crisis and duress which is too often has been the case in recent years.

So thank you all in advance for your input on that very important topic.

And at this point I'd like to have the board take a recess for 15 minutes and then we'll resume at looks like about five minutes to seven for the next portion of our agenda.

Thank you all.