Seattle Schools Board Meeting Mar. 11, 2026

you can see.

Good afternoon.

We will call the meeting to order momentarily and SPS TV will begin broadcasting.

Two different things.

All right, the March 11th, 2026 board meeting is now called to order at 4.30 p.m.

Thank you everyone for being so prompt.

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

Can I get staff to call the roll please?

Vice President Briggs?

Here.

Director Lavallee?

Here.

Director Mizrahi?

Here.

Director Rankin?

Here.

Director Smith?

Here.

Director Song?

Here.

Student Representative Mangelson?

Here.

Student Representative Massoudi?

Here.

Student Representative Yoon?

Here.

And President Topp?

Here.

Alright, tonight we have the honor of recognizing some outstanding student athletes who have made Seattle Public Schools incredibly proud.

Just a few nights ago, Rainier Beach High School boys basketball team won their second state championship in a row.

And we have the Roosevelt girls basketball team who made it all the way to the state semifinals and had an outstanding season.

They're here as well.

Both incredible, incredible performances.

I am very, I am personally very big into sports.

I think it teaches perseverance, teamwork, as Superintendent Shoulder tells me all the time, time management skills.

but tonight we are joined by these student athletes so we can celebrate their achievements and Superintendent Shouldner will recognize them more in his remarks and then we'll take a short recess so board directors can meet the students and congratulate them.

So with that, I will turn it over to Superintendent Shouldner.

All right.

Good afternoon, everyone.

As President Topso easily set me up for good news, I really do want to congratulate, of course, the Beach Boys, as I have been told, on their state championship.

and also to really recognize Roosevelt.

Also, I want to be very clear, they are in third place because they won the consolation game.

So that's even more impressive.

So I just want to say congratulations to all of our winning teams.

And also, I want to take a moment about student athletes.

One of the reasons why I care so deeply about students playing sports is, as President Topp mentioned, there's a lot of research and a lot of study that shows it's about time management, it's about being able to kind of do multiple things, but the other thing to remind everybody is in order to play sports at a school, you have to be eligible, which means that your grades have to be good.

And so as a superintendent, I of course care much more about academics than I do about winning the game.

I like winning too, don't get me wrong.

But the idea that I know if you're playing on a varsity team, it means that you're passing your classes.

and that means a lot to me.

And so I hope that all students pick a sport, pick art, pick music, pick something and engage.

Because we also know that when students are engaged in, you know, theater, in drama, in arts, in music, in sports, they do so much better in life.

So congratulations so much to you.

And thanks, of course, to Rainier Beach, who I here is just stuck in traffic and is on their way.

So typically at this time, I'll give some kind of opening comments.

The first one is I want to recognize everybody in the audience.

There are going to be, I'm sure at every board meeting, comments from the public about us doing our job better, and I really want to say thank you.

Thank you for coming out.

Thank you for the signs.

Thank you for bringing our students.

They can see democracy exactly at work.

It's really important that we all engage in discourse around what's best for our students.

And this isn't just giving lip service to it.

We also then go and have what are called mitigation meetings so that we can help to figure out what is in fact best for students, while also recognizing the $100 million deficit that we are in.

But I do want to say that the sense of having an active community advocating for our children and our students and our schools is really, really powerful.

all of you in the audience for that.

Of course, I want to thank our wonderful executive team, our labor partners that are here, and all the folks that are here.

Right now, it is not standing room only yet.

I am sure there will be meetings where we do that, but I just want to say thank you to all of you.

And the last thing I will say is As you will probably hear, we did have our first round of conversations around budgets.

I've tried to be as transparent as I can be around the system.

You might have checked in last week when we gave a budget presentation.

But just for all of you kind of listening at home and in the audience, what we do is we present what's called the purple book.

We run the numbers.

We run them based on the facts as we see them today.

That is things like projection of enrollment.

development.

It's like the number of students, the number of teachers, the building, the programs, etc.

And then we see what happens.

Sometimes it works out what looks like the right way.

Sometimes it works out where there's heavy hits to places.

Sometimes it's heavy hits because what we've seen is that a lot of children are going from one school to another.

But the good news is that we have opportunities for the principals themselves to make their case to central office around why that is incorrect.

In fact, if you had come visited me at 6.30 last night and the night before, where am I?

I'm in the room up on the third floor going through the budgets with our what are called our Reds, our Regional Executive Directors, to try to figure out what is working and what is not.

So it is wonderful to hear the advocacy.

It's wonderful to see the process.

Please know that when we create those purple books, they're based on assumptions.

And then we look into those assumptions to see.

And what's great is so many of you are at schools that have thoughtful and powerful principals who are trying to advocate for what they feel they need.

And then, like with one principal, we just sat with their their schedule.

And we said, what can we do?

And so we tried to figure it out.

So I just want to let everybody kind of know publicly how this works and that we appreciate the advocacy because it allows us to then go back and readjust.

But I will say at the end, the reason why we have to do it this way is that we have to follow the formulas that the system is built on today.

I've been very public that I think we need to change the formulas in which it is built on but right now as superintendent these wonderful people employ me to follow the rules as presented.

So we've got to do that but we still do have the ability for mitigation and for waivers and so I do appreciate doing that.

Other than that I just want to say thank you to everybody I know we want to meet these amazing athletes and nobody wants to hear me speak so the last thing I would say though is not only are people here but so many amazing community members are coming out to the community meetings last night we had a meeting standing room only at Salmon Bay before that we were at South Shore also standing room only we had to find more chairs and find more tables and our first meeting at Bailey Gatzert also was packed Thank you, community, for coming out.

We want to hear your voice.

We very much appreciate it.

And with that, I turn it back over to President Topp.

Thank you, Superintendent Schuldner.

Just real fast for board members, I also want to note we have an action item on today's agenda to approve a request from the Rainier Beach boys basketball team to participate in a throne national basketball championships, something we as a board have to approve.

So we'll get to do that later on.

But with that, we're going to take a five-minute break.

So we'll come back here.

at 444, and yes, 444 to continue.

So we are recessed till 444. All right, I don't want to break all of the celebration up, but I do want the board directors to come back.

Rainier Beach basketball team, you're welcome to join.

We will later in this evening.

Our action item on tonight's agenda is to approve your request for the Rainier Beach boys basketball team to participate in the throne national basketball championships.

Congratulations again, and we look forward to you competing on the national stage.

And I have a request from Director Rankin, which I think it makes sense.

Can we modify the agenda and vote on that now?

No.

Not until after public testimony.

We have a packed agenda tonight, so we're gonna go now to our student representatives joining us this evening for comment.

Do any of the student representatives?

Director Yoon.

Yes, thank you.

So our first update last Thursday, we had our second meeting with the AI Steering Committee and there was just a lot of discussion around AI usage in schools.

Much of the conversation focused on clarifying current district policies exploring ways to responsibly integrate student and educator perspective in AI guidance.

There was a clarification sent out via the school leader communicator regarding AI detection.

The message basically said that currently no AI detection tools are approved by the district for educators to use as evidence of AI use in students' work.

The committee is still in the process of exploring responsible and sustainable approaches to AI detection and guidance, ensuring that future policies are effective, are culturally responsive, and aligned with district standards.

This guidance will also be reflected in the AI handbook, which is on the SPS website.

The committee is currently working on updating that, so the public has the same information as well.

The committee is also working on to incorporate diverse student perspectives in this process of identifying other ways to understand and support responsible AI usage beyond just relying on detection tools through student surveys.

We have been supporting this process as student reps and giving feedback on those survey questions.

We are also continuing our work with the school meals and food education working group.

to support their goals.

They will be meeting with the Superintendent Student Advisory Board during our March meeting.

They want to share sustainable ways to continue involving students, such as surveys, so yeah.

Other board directors, Director Masuti.

We have also been working with the web service team to work on our student rep website as well as with the Alliance for Education to make the website more useful, clear, and just accessible for students across the district.

And we are also continuing to improve our social media as well as from help from the Alliance for Education on ways to better connect and engage with students across the district on our SPS student rep Instagram.

Awesome.

Director Mangelson.

Two last updates, so last week we had a meeting with the original authors of policy 1250, which got amended last month, it's the student board policy, and so now we're currently working on designing a more comprehensive four-part training for future student board members for this summer, and it's gonna have a more focused, it's gonna have stronger focus on collaboration with the NAACP Youth Council alongside other newly outlined responsibilities.

Last update, for our quarterly letter that we've previously talked about, we had a meeting with Theresa Scribner, who she was here, but she's the legislative executive assistant, and she advised us on some next steps, so we're planning on holding off on the letter for now as we restructure and redesign how we want to kind of and explore the information on updates and stuff for the public.

Great.

And I'll just say, with the update of the student rep policy that we passed, I will now ask student representatives for their position before we vote, whether it be pro, con, or no position prior to our board vote this evening.

So it'll be something new we will see and something I'm very excited for.

With that, we're gonna move then on to our board and liaison comments.

We've got about six minutes for this, so just so folks are aware, we do have a packed agenda tonight, and you'll see a couple of late-breaking additions to the agenda.

So folks are aware, our policy 1,400 says that we need to post board materials for meetings three days before our board.

That's our own internal rule.

We can add stuff late but that is sort of an exception that I'm going to try to stick to moving forward and mainly for three reasons.

So materials need to be ready, requests need to come in before the Friday before a board meeting.

For one, just for me as I try to prepare for the board meetings, two, our board officers spend a lot of time figuring out how much time we have for different things in meetings as we prepare and adding things like last minute extends our meetings or makes us have to cut short things that we are sort of set have set time for also for the board to prepare last minute materials make it all very difficult for board members to prepare for Wednesday night's meeting and finally public testimony starts at Monday morning bright and early and we need to allow for our community to know what is on our agenda or whether they need to sign up for public testimony so Currently, our policy says three days before.

That's the Friday close of business.

I'm going to try really hard to stick to that, and I just want to make board directors aware that that will be the practice here moving forward.

So with that, do committee or liaison reports from board directors.

And again, if you have a report, one to two minutes.

We ask those who come to give their time to stick to that, so board directors.

Director Rankin.

Yeah, just quickly, and there's an action item later on the agenda related to this.

So as our representative for Council of Great City Schools, I'm going to be in Washington, D.C.

on our behalf, flying there on Friday.

And I just wanted to briefly read the vision of Council of Great City Schools since it seems to be a sort of mysterious boogeyman, and it's actually 70-year-old organization, and you can find the website online, but the vision of the Council of Great City Schools, which is between 78 or 80 of the country's largest school districts.

We're the only school district in Washington State that's eligible to be a member based on size.

So the vision of the Council of Great City Schools is that urban public schools exist to teach students to the highest standards of educational excellence.

As the primary American institution responsible for weaving the strands of our society into a cohesive fabric, We, the leaders of America's great city schools, see a future where the nation cares for all children, expects their best, values their diversity, invests in their future, and welcomes their participation in the American dream.

We commit ourselves to the work of advancing empathy, equity, justice, and tolerance, and we vow to do everything we can to vigorously resist the forces of ignorance, fear, and prejudice as we teach and guide our students.

We will keep our commitments and with society's support, cities will be the centers of a strong and equitable nation with urban public schools successfully teaching our children and building our communities.

There's two conferences annually.

The one I'm attending in D.C.

is the Legislative and Policy Conference.

So when I come back, I will have briefings from the council's legal and legislative team on cases that have to do with public education that are being heard in Supreme Court, district courts, all kinds of issues that are facing districts across the country.

And I will also take with me our advocacy, depending on the signing on of the letter that's posted to the meetings, and it gives me the opportunity to, on our behalf, interact with other board directors from other large cities that are dealing with issues that are a little bit different than sometimes other districts in Washington State.

And yeah, I look forward to sharing more when I get back.

Thank you.

Director Lavallee?

Yeah, last month at the BECCS committee, a big chunk of time was spent reviewing what properties were owned by Seattle Public Schools and a bunch of variants around what we own, what different relationships are within all of our properties, whether they be school or non-school properties at this point in time.

So there was a review in not formal audit but a little bit of auditing and discussion about each of those as well as pricing and how that's affecting some of our projects as well.

I was not able to attend the latest BEX meeting and will be at the next one to give updates on that in the future.

Thank you.

Director Song.

This is a very awkwardly timed legislative update given that session is closing tomorrow and our legislators are working up until the very last minute.

But I think that Assistant Superintendent Kurt Buddleman at our last budget session gave a really nice update on where we were really hoping things to land.

which is that Seattle Public Schools is not going to be impacted by the two larger cuts that the other districts in our state are going to be facing related to LEA and transitional kindergarten.

And I'm hoping that once session ends, I will work with Julia and Cliff to provide a wrap up to the board.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Song.

Other directors?

Perfect timing since it is 5 p.m.

and I like to start public testimony on time.

We are now moving into public testimony.

I have a quick little blurb.

Our board policy 1,400 provides our rules for testimony.

The board expects the same standard of civility from those participating in public comment as the board expects of itself.

As board president I have the right to and will interrupt any speaker who fails to observe the standard of civility required by our procedure.

A speaker who refuses or fails to comply with these guidelines or who otherwise substantially disrupts the orderly operation of this meeting may be asked to leave.

I'm going to just say one more thing before I pass it on to staff.

We have again a packed agenda We have a packed agenda tonight.

There are some topics that we are going to have some probably longer discussions about, would be my guess.

So I'm going to stick strictly to the two minute rule.

I'm going to ask you if you are still going past that two minutes to please conclude your remarks.

Please wrap up so we can try to stay on time.

As you're looking at your remarks now, please look to see, is it about two minutes?

Is it going over?

If it's going over, please revise.

With that, I'm going to pass it over to staff to go over a few additional directions.

Thank you, President Topp.

The Board will take testimony from those on the testimony list and will go to the waiting list if we are missing speakers.

Please wait until called to approach the podium or unmute and only one person may speak at a time.

The Board's procedure provides that most of your time should be spent on the topic you signed up to speak to.

Speakers may cede their time to another person, but this must be done when the listed speaker is called.

Time isn't restarted and the total time remains two minutes.

The timer at the podium will indicate the time remaining for speakers here in person.

When the light is red and a beep sounds, it means that your time has been exhausted and the next speaker will be called.

For those joining by phone, the beep will be the indication that time has been exhausted.

Moving into our list now, for those joining by phone, please press star six to unmute on the conference line.

And for everyone, please do reintroduce yourself when called, as I may miss some pronunciations as we move through today's list.

The first speaker on today's list is Vivian Van Gelder.

Good evening, directors and Superintendent Schilder.

My name is Vivian Van Gelder.

I'm a long-time SPS parent, and I'm here to urge directors to vote against the proposed amendment to policy 6114 that would raise the board approval threshold for grants from $250,000 to $500,000.

At a time of large structural deficits, raising the grant approval threshold would be an egregious step backwards for board budget oversight.

The current grant approval threshold doesn't prevent the acceptance of grants in excess of a quarter million dollars.

What it does is give the board insight into the nature and extent of funding over that amount that comes into the district so that the board can ensure that spending aligns with the strategic plan.

Far from raising the threshold for grant approval, I would actually urge the Board to consider lowering it to bring it in line with other peer districts across the country, where $10,000 is the average.

A much lower threshold would provide the Board with a more appropriate level of insight into the district's budget.

Here's just one example of what a lower threshold would show the board.

This year, each of our two North End dual language immersion schools will receive just under $250,000 a piece from their parent groups to support their language programming.

At the same time, one of our two South End dual language schools will receive just $32,000, while the other will receive none.

In fact, half of our schools will receive parent group subsidies this year, comprising half of all non-government grants to SPS.

Why are families subsidizing basic budget items with private money?

What are the implications of some communities being able to provide bigger school subsidies than others?

What does this practice tell us about deeper structural weaknesses in the district's budget and about who bears the burden of those?

The existing approval threshold prevents the board from grappling with these critical questions.

A higher threshold will make things even more opaque.

SPS grant funding needs greater board oversight, not less.

Please vote no on raising the grant approval threshold.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for wrapping up at that two-minute mark.

Again, reminder folks, we're going to keep it at two minutes.

The next speaker is Auri Kimchomsky.

My name is Ari Chihomsky.

I am a social studies teacher at West Seattle High School.

I received news on Thursday that my position is one being displaced by our loss of 3.0 FTE due to the new budget reallocations in the purple book.

I'm not here to talk about how this will impact me personally.

I can find a job elsewhere.

I'm confident in that.

I am here to talk about the impact these displacements will have on students.

Yesterday a student told me, you're the only teacher I trust.

They wanted to share an exciting story that happened over their birthday weekend, but didn't think any other teachers would care.

This particular student is trans and Latino, a set of identities that I share, making them feel represented and understood in a way that no other teacher in the building does.

When I heard those words, I almost burst into tears, thinking about how this student and the others who have come to see me as their trusted adult will feel when I'm displaced.

Trust is something that is built over time.

It's not something that can easily be transferred from person to person.

Even when we stop being a student's classroom teacher, they still drop by our rooms to say hi, to chat, receive guidance, especially as they navigate college applications.

That's what happens when you are part of a learning community.

Teaching at the high school level is so much more than just helping students make sense of the content.

It is about being a safe, stable force in these students' lives as they navigate one of the most confusing, emotionally vulnerable times of their lives.

Continuity and consistency of presence are essential for that.

Superintendent Schuldner, on Sunday you sent out an email telling us that we need to sacrifice our individual needs for the collective good.

I would like to ask you, who is included in this collective good?

Are the students furthest from educational justice included?

Because these are the students who have the hardest time building trust.

These are the students who will be most impacted by these displacements.

A collective good that reduces our communities to a series of numbers is not a collective good at all.

The next speaker is Kristin Ekonger-Loconti.

Hi, I'm Kristin Ekonger-Loconti and I'm here representing Cascade Parent Partnership.

It was a shock to see the purple book this year and see our school's viability sacrificed to balance the budget.

The mitigation we received yesterday of an additional 2.0 FTE means we're no longer in a position where we're going to close one of our programs, but we're still losing 25% of our teaching and counseling FTE.

This will result in significant disruption and reduced support to our students.

We look forward to continuing the discussion on funding and operating our school sustainably and to be included when SPS plans a new WSS.

Our K-12 school has been left off of websites and our students have lost access to scholarships because district staff doesn't have procedures to recognize our existence.

And our projected enrollment, except when it's capped by SPS, is often wildly incorrect, creating ongoing instability and breaks in our trust.

Over the last several years, the budget process has made it clear that SPS decision makers don't fully understand who we are and the essential role our school plays in retaining students who would otherwise leave the district.

So we're here tonight to share that information and our stories.

Cascade serves over 400 students from all across the city through three distinct programs.

K5 virtual, 612 virtual, K8 in person.

And we hope you visit both virtually and in person to learn more about them.

Families choose cascade when regular SPS schools are not a good fit for their students and when your other schools have failed.

This is not a decision that any of us take lightly.

Cascade requires considerably more work for a parent than a regular school.

Many of our families sacrifice a tremendous amount to be here.

Tonight our families will share their stories with you, both via board testimony and almost 200 written testimonials that we assembled in the last couple days.

So you can hear from more of us in our own worlds.

Thank you for your time.

The next speaker is Erin O'Neill.

My name is Erin O'Neill and I'm the parent of a student at Cascade Parent Partnership.

Our son transferred to Cascade after two and a half years at his neighborhood school.

He was not well supported there and from kindergarten to second grade he was clearly in distress and experienced a significant amount of school refusal.

We want to stay in Seattle Public Schools and attending Cascade is the only option that allows him to access that education in a positive, supportive environment.

We have seen a dramatic transformation of our son from being unhappy, afraid, and isolated in school to a student who engages with learning and attends Cascade with pride.

nearly everyone in our lives have noticed his remarkable growth.

This is entirely due to the sensitive, flexible, and skilled teacher, counselors, and community at Cascade.

There is a small sign in the hallway at Cascade that my son often quotes when speaking to someone about how school is going.

It says, being at school is not the priority.

Being okay at school is.

Knowing he is going to be okay at Cascade allows him to attend class with absolutely no school refusal.

For the first time in his education, he feels safe, valued, understood, and included at school.

And this is what makes Cascade such a valuable place for learning.

Our children need Cascade with its outstanding staff and administration to be a robust, equitable, and sustainable alternative learning environment where they can thrive within Seattle Public Schools now and in the future.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Phoebe Rounds.

Hi, I'm Phoebe Rounds and I cede my time to Leith Wahelia.

Hello, my name is and I'm a third grade student at Cascade Partnership located in Queen Anne.

I came to Cascade after being homeschooled for kindergarten and first grade.

I like coming to school so much that when we have school breaks, I actually get bored because I miss being there.

One day, One thing I really like about Cascade is that I can attend school with my four-year-old brother, Malik, while I'm learning.

He can play and learn too.

It makes school feel like a place for our whole family.

Our certificated teachers are amazing.

They teach math, science, and writing.

and art with creative themes every semester, so there is always something interesting to learn.

I have a steady group of classmates, but students from lower and higher grade bands can also join our classes, which makes learning more fun.

and another great thing about Cascade is that we get to choose our own classes every semester.

The contractor classes are amazing.

So far, I've taken parkour and robotics.

We also plan our classes around our other activities.

For example, I'm able to continue swimming and tutoring while still being part of the Cascade community.

Cascade is also a very inclusive school.

There are students and staff with many different backgrounds, including narrow divergent students.

Everyone is welcoming and the school feels like a big family.

Because it is a parent partnership school, there are many parents on campus during the day.

I've made friends and a lot of them too.

I love talking with them.

about my interest in technology and some of them even work remotely while supervising their kids.

When I first started at Cascade, I was nervous, but I can't be, became comfortable very quickly.

I also noticed that new students quickly made friends in Philly at home.

Cascade is perfect for my family, which is why I feel worried when I heard that we might lose staff in some classes because of budget cuts.

My mom told me that the superintendent's support adding back some of the staff.

We hope that with the support of the school board we can keep Cascade fully funded so students like me can continue learning here.

Thank you for listening.

The next speaker is Manlio Locanti.

For the record, I'm Manlio Locanti.

I cede my time to Allen Hamburg.

Hi, my name is Zalyn Hamburg.

I'm the mom of a disabled fifth grader at Cascade and I'm here because Cascade fills an important role as a safe place for children who aren't adequately supported as other SPS schools.

Cascade is the third school we've tried.

Our neighborhood school wasn't able to meet my child's needs in their resource program and the second school wasn't able to meet their needs in its access program.

My child wasn't learning and they came home distressed every day.

My child refused school, eloped and had frequent meltdowns.

By the end of second grade school trauma contributed to their spiral into a months long mental health crisis and they were too ill to go to school at all or home school for the entirety of third grade.

Near the end of that year we found a medication that helped.

My child wanted to do things again but was scared of school.

We came to the Cascade because they're uniquely able to provide accommodations that help my child feel safe and in control, including only attending chosen I interest classes and having a parent sit with them in class to provide the focused co-regulation and support that they need.

Cascade teachers and staff are amazing at flexing around my child's needs and supporting them where they're at.

My child looks forward to school every day.

This is the first school where they've ever felt safe.

At Cascade my child has met lots of kids like them and made so many friends.

At Cascade I found community among families who have been through similar struggles to help their children.

At Cascade our family belongs.

Cascade keeps children and entire families in community instead of isolation.

If we didn't have Cascade my child wouldn't be able to go to school at all.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Eileen Singh.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Great, thank you.

Good evening, my name is Eileen Singh and I'm a parent of a 10th grade student at Cascade Virtual Options 6th through 12th grade.

I'm here because of budget allocations for the school.

Before coming to Cascade, my son struggled in a regular SPS school environment.

Sorry, the setting was overwhelming for him and conflicts with other students created stress for both of us.

There were many days when he would come home and after being pushed into a locker, make fun of because he's injured.

So sorry.

At one point, he was close to being suspended for defending himself and I had to fight hard to advocate for him.

so he wasn't misunderstood.

What my son needed wasn't punishment.

He needed the right environment and the right support.

Moving him to Cascade was the best decision because he found exactly that.

The teachers support him and they meet him where he's at.

Because of that, he is gross.

Today, Evan is a 10th grader who's thriving.

He's proactive with his studying, excited about what he's learning, and actually cares about his education.

He's an advocate for himself, and as a parent, that transformation means everything.

For many students, like my son, Cascade is where he finally feels safe, and it's a safe place for him.

The relationships he's built with the guidance and collaboration with the staff has been amazing.

I urge you to fix the budget allocation to continue to support the staff, the great staff, the 400 plus students and the programs that are there to help my son succeed.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Dana Del Monte Townsend.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Dana Del Monte Townsend and I'm a parent of a fifth grader at Cascade Parent Partnership.

I want you all to understand that Cascade is not only a safety net which allows many families to stay enrolled in SPS.

Cascade is also a ray of sunshine in my family's educational journey.

Since enrolling at Cascade one year ago, my fifth grader is now excited to attend school five days a week.

My child feels a sense of safety and belonging because he is safe at Cascade and he knows he belongs.

His spark for learning has returned and he is thriving academically and socially.

he is surrounded by teachers and a whole school community who understand that a right to education starts with supporting a safe and nurturing environment for all students.

Hearing, hurry up, I don't wanna be late for school, is music to my ears.

Before transferring to Cascade, I could not imagine my child's excitement for school.

School refusal was my child's way of keeping himself safe from the compounding distress he was experiencing at our neighborhood school.

where he was not being supported and his accommodation needs were not being met.

Because Cascade provides a safe and engaging school experience, my child is accessing his right to a public education through SPS.

Also at Cascade, we value real life lessons and coming here and attending and advocating for our school's sustained existence is an important lesson for our students.

and the lesson that hurts my heart is that many of these students, including my child, were overlooked in other SPS schools and they are continuing to learn the lesson that because traditional classroom settings cannot accommodate them, they are once again being overlooked.

Please don't overlook our students.

Our students deserve to attend a well-resourced public school.

Our students deserve forethought and appreciation demonstrated with financial resource allocation.

Our students deserve sunshine.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Heather Hart

My name is Heather Hart.

I have been a parent of students in Seattle schools for many years.

I'm here to urge you to vote no on the proposed amendment to board policy 6114 regarding gifts, grants, donations, and fundraising proceeds.

Increasing the threshold for approving grants would decrease board oversight, decrease financial transparency in the district, and further cloud the board's understanding of district finances.

It also exaggerates already existing inequities between our schools, and I am dismayed that this proposed amendment states that the equity toolkit does not apply.

In the overall district budget, PTR foundation grants are a smaller piece of the bucket.

But here's the reality.

Schools whose communities can give grants of $250,000 to $500,000 a year look and feel very different from schools that raise $0, $10,000, or even $100,000.

The wealthy schools feel each budget crunch less.

I am one of the leaders of the Southeast Seattle Schools fundraising alliance.

We are an alliance of 17 PTAs in D7.

We fundraise together and then equitably distribute the funds so the schools who need the most get the most.

We work really hard to raise about $30,000 for each set of our 17 PTAs.

Our PTAs are not granting funds to their schools for staff positions or major projects.

They are providing funds for basic needs, snacks, tutoring programs, school supplies, interpreters, and hosting community celebrations.

If wealthy PTAs and foundations can move up to 500,000 into a school without board visibility, The call to action from our superintendent in his last newsletter that he said, we must be willing to sacrifice our individual needs for the collective good.

Our wins are collective and our belt tightening is as well.

That becomes much harder.

Wealthy schools would offset that tightening with grants.

D7 schools would not.

The sacrifice falls on our most vulnerable students.

Please vote no or even consider lowering the threshold.

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Nikki Diaz.

Good evening.

I cede my time to Kate Erickson.

Good evening, my name is Kate Erickson.

I've been a teacher at interagency since 2012. I was present at last week's board meeting and I appreciated in particular the superintendent's comments in support of closing outcome gaps for SPS students furthest from educational justice.

We work daily at interagency toward that end.

Gap closing happens in our small communities and classrooms of IA.

At campuses situated around the city and in our students' communities, classified and certified staff help close gaps in small school environments.

We take time to get to know our students, their families, and their goals.

We provide joyful and rigorous classroom instruction as a team daily, rehabilitating academic identity and restoring students' view of themselves as competent scholars in addition to helping meet basic needs of our students and their families.

At last week's board meeting, I heard this group discussing the viability of seven-person classes in high school.

It was observed, in this time of financial crisis, niche classes for a handful of students are not a responsible use of funds.

I hear you and I ask you to hear that a seven-person Algebra I class at Interagency is doing an entirely different and essential thing in the school district.

It is creating and providing a space of repair and joy and learning that many students will spend just some time in before returning to their comprehensive schools.

Others will choose to stay.

Students in interagency feel safe and they feel belonging.

Every student deserves and requires these conditions for learning, but the comprehensive schools are not always positioned to provide them for every student.

Reduced teacher allocations and displacements at interagency will change our academic program meaningfully and to our students' detriment.

My colleagues and I learned this afternoon that our principal waived the opportunity for mitigation last week.

Interagency staff is united in asking you on behalf of all of our students and their families to fund our campus model.

Teachers, SFAs, CEAs make these campuses safe learning communities.

Thank you.

Please visit.

The next speaker is Sabrina Burr.

How are the children?

As you know, my name is Sabrina Burr and to see the amendment on policy 6114 is heartbreaking.

We have been here before and nothing has changed since then but board directors.

Please, I ask you to vote no.

This creates much inequities.

to our schools, our PTAs and our families, and it gives them the wrong message.

Short a teacher, buy one.

PTA is not a purse, but the oldest and the largest advocacy organization in the world since 1897. Our mission is that of advocacy, equity, and family engagement, a foundation for strong educational system.

For many, it is easy to write a check.

but what does it look like when we are united in our asks?

To who is truly responsible for funding education?

Our united efforts have proven in the past and this allows more wealthy communities to buy what they want for their children.

All of this creates more inequities for all of our children in our district and we must dismantle it.

We need to be aligned, intentional and effective school district for all of our students, not just some of those in the loudest voices and the most privileged.

Our children, a children is not loved by the village will burn it down and far too many of our children are burning it down because we are not treating them fair, we are not giving them what we need, we are giving them harm.

Southeast Seattle is not safe and it shouldn't take a child being chased by the gun last Thursday for police and everybody to show up.

And lastly, I want to ask for Marnie Campbell to not be in our community.

It is traumatizing.

She has not done what she's supposed to and because she hasn't, we have two kids there.

Keep to our two minutes.

Please conclude your remarks.

The next speaker is Laura Rose Murphy.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Great, thank you.

Good evening, and thank you for listening.

I am here because the grant cap affecting PTSA giving hasn't changed in over 10 years, but the cost of supporting students certainly has.

I'm told the current limit of $250,000 was set in 2014, adjusting for inflation that's plus or minus $350,000 in today's dollars.

In other words, the spending power available to support schools has already effectively dropped about $100,000.

At the same time, schools are facing rising costs, staff salary increases, and declining enrollment that reduces school budgets.

All of this puts pressure on all programs, and many of them have been working for years.

At our school, the PTSA has helped fund a full-time counselor, and she provides the students who are furthest and vital services.

This year, we are facing having to cut part of that position because of this cap.

We have no objection to oversight and we want equity.

The original policy envisioned that the board could review requests above the threshold, but in practice, that is not happening.

is happening.

Our principal has been told outright she cannot bring the budget exceeding the cap to the board at all.

The $250,000 limit is functioning as a hard cap with no path for review.

The families that afford to will just leave, removing even more money from the whole district.

our students and families and caregivers deserve a message better than one of limitation our shared goal is to strengthen Seattle Public Schools and we should be working together to expand opportunity not placing barriers in the path of communities trying to support students there are more constructive ways that the district the district can truly address equity concerns and we need to find ways to share the strengths not just turn them down our school is trying to get involved in some of the cost sharing, PTSA sharing options that there are.

But in a district that is struggling financially, how can it possibly be responsible to turn down money that directly supports students?

As other parents speaking before me with an opposite viewpoint have said, the ones who bear the burden of this are students, all of them.

Please raise the cap to at least reflect today's money and restore the board's intended oversight process.

So schools aren't for- Please conclude your remarks.

Thank you.

Please restore the board's intended oversight process so schools aren't forced to turn down resources that help students succeed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Erin Moore.

Good afternoon, school board.

I'm Aaron Moore, an IA at Sacagawea Elementary, and I'm speaking out against the planned loss of 17 staff members at interagency.

Since a new principal was appointed to the itinerant interagency program during COVID, it has appeared as if the district is intent on dismantling the program, presumably in order to tighten our belt.

Several sites have closed under her leadership, including YEP, OSA, Beacon, and Orion.

An additional closure at the Queen Anne Recovery School was pursued and was pushed back by community outcry that showed up in the news.

Let me read you some of that.

Jennifer Hildreth spoke with Como News in March 2024, saying, I imagine that this school does not look good on paper.

No standardized testing, frequent absences and tardies, and their grades are not stellar.

But this Recovery High School is literally saving lives.

Now let me contrast that with excerpts from the March 8th Superintendent Newsletter.

As we take a deep look into how we spend the money we are given and not the money we wish we were given, I am confident we will come out stronger.

We must be willing to sacrifice our individual needs for the collective good.

Our wins are collective and our belt tightening is as well.

I would ask that you take a deep look at the equity dimensions of this belt tightening and ensure that the collective sacrifice you allude to does not, to the greatest extent possible, entail in sacrificing the lives of our students furthest from educational justice.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Samantha Fogg.

I am Samantha Fogg, cascade parent.

Budgets are moral documents and ours puts our bankruptcy on full display.

In the numbers you can see who you value and who you do not.

I want to recognize that our superintendent is new and that the budget was baked before he got here.

They call it the push-out.

Maybe a nice teacher tells you they've been trying to protect your child but really your child will be harmed further if they stay.

Maybe they directly threaten the student and then hurt the student.

The goal is to make the parent choose a different school and it works.

It sounds benign but, and I say this with no hyperbole, we are talking about trauma to children that changes their lives and the lives of their families forever.

Cascade is one of the few places that takes in the kids who have been pushed out.

The families you heard from tonight that you will hear from tonight are not only survivors of your system but also proof that these students not only deserve an education but can be educated in this district.

Cascade does it with the smallest amount of district resources and typically we do whatever it takes to make it work until you produced a budget that staffed our schools so minimally that it would have no longer been able to offer masks.

Thank you, Ben, for the mitigation which has brought back math, though it hasn't returned critical supports.

Oddly, we are being projected for our lowest enrollment ever, even though we see families continuing to enroll this year.

March 1st, we were at 411. Currently, we have 443 enrolled and are projected next year at 323. A budget is a moral document.

What does our budget say about us as a district?

The journey families take to Cascade reflects harm that happens to children across our district.

Our district has historically fought investments in safety ignoring concerns until there is a lawsuit or tragically a loss of life.

Please conclude your remarks.

what will you do to them when they arrive?

Thank you.

The next speaker is Amy Nelson.

Hi, my name is Amy Nelson.

I'm the parent of two students at Cascade and I'm a tutor for the in-person and virtual students.

My first bully was my first grade teacher.

This is not a therapy session, I promise.

My parents homeschooled me for a while and after that, because there were no options, we decided to keep going.

the trauma ran deep.

Homeschooling saved my life, but it's because there was no Cascade.

There was no other option.

My mom was just a desperate parent, no internet, no Cascade, no other choice, and she took the leap.

After eight years at Cascade as a parent, and in working with kids across the program, every year I hear similar stories of stress and trauma, and finally finding Cascade, this soft place to land.

School can be an enriching experience, and for many people, their neighborhood school is that place.

But please look at the packets that we gave you, those 200 narratives.

Let them radicalize you.

These stories show the deficits in our current systems.

No one should experience the levels of distress that so many of our students to cope with before finding Cascade.

The students I work with are amazing kids who care deeply about learning and many of whom were not able to access their education for years because the adults in the room didn't stop it.

Cascade continues to be an afterthought.

We're a Title I school helping those who everyone else has failed.

Year after year of cuts, we have negatively impacted our program and opportunities.

Our kids deserve a stable and flourishing program.

Cascade shouldn't be the last resort.

It should be funded and supported as an important educational option throughout the district.

Let's get kids into educational settings that support their needs before they are harmed.

My heart breaks that today kids are as traumatized in school as I was all those years ago.

But I am so grateful that Cascade exists.

Help us make our school students, school the students deserve.

The next speaker is Alexa Adkins.

My name is Alexa Adkins.

I have two children currently enrolled at Cascade Parent Partnership.

We love Cascade because of the teachers, the counselors, the librarian, the community, the supportive staff, and the safe learning environment that allows my children to thrive.

Cascade is operating on a bare-bones structure in the current school year.

In the proposed budget, we are being asked to operate on even less.

If we lose any staff member, Cascade would have barely anything left to offer to our community.

In recent years, Cascade has lost many long-term students because of how stripped down it's become.

Less students equals less funding equals less students equals less funding.

It's a negative feedback loop.

Add that to how difficult it is for families to even discover Cascade is an option and we have a perfect recipe for low enrollment and therefore low funding.

For my family, it would be difficult to justify staying enrolled in the public school system if Cascade was negatively impacted even more than it already is.

Cascades proposed budget for the next school year is based on overly complex data that does not follow any patterns of previous enrollment averages.

Next school year the projection in the purple book shows that Cascades September enrollment is to be 323 students.

Only once in the last three school years did the enrollment dip below 323 students and today's enrollment is 443. The yearly average for the last three school years ranges from 370 to 467 students.

The low projected enrollment number for the beginning of the next school year means Cascade is facing cuts that will severely affect the already bare bones structure of our school.

I implore that the district reevaluates how they analyze the data so Cascade can receive adequate funding that matches actual enrollment numbers.

The next speaker is Kristin Sullivan.

Hello, I'm Kirsten Sullivan, and I have three students at Cascade Parent Partnership Program.

I'm a Cascade long hauler, I've been there for seven years, and I would love to be there for a dozen more to have my youngest graduate from the program.

We first came to Cascade when my oldest was an incoming kindergartner.

She was performing many grades ahead of her level, but the sensory and social pressures of a classroom made it literally impossible for her to participate in school.

it was only at Cascade where she had a parent onsite to provide one-on-one support and individual instruction that she was finally able to access basic school experiences like circle time, math club, and recess.

For families like mine, our sensory and learning differences dictate the things we cannot do and can do on a daily basis.

And Cascade is the only place that we have a home in Seattle Public Schools.

You are hearing tonight from families who came to Cascade when other schools became untenable.

We are like passengers fleeing a shipwreck and Cascade is our lifeboat.

So while I am grateful, thank you so much for the mitigation that you already gave us, that was a patch that will keep us afloat for one year.

and I am deeply troubled to see a pattern of continually underfunding these programs.

What is happening is like slowly letting air out of a rubber raft and people are still trying to get on board.

Please do not stand by and let our vessel capsize.

For the sake of my kids and for the people who are coming behind you, I urge this board to give Cascade the administrative support and the funding that we need so we can continue the transformative, life-saving work that we do.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Heather Sweet.

My name is Heather Sweet and I cede my time to Lisa McAllister.

Hello.

My name is Lisa McAllister.

I'm the mother of Liam McAllister.

I'm here to share my family's experience with Seattle Public School System and to advocate for the continued support of diverse educational models like Cascade that meet the unique needs of all students.

He's been attending since ninth grade the Cascade Virtual Program.

A little bit about my son.

Liam is a cancer survivor and he lost his dad to brain cancer shortly after he survived his own.

And my story is not unique.

but what happened is that going to school in a traditional setting just simply was not a good fit for him.

It wasn't working, compounded by trauma and anxiety and his autism, the hustle and bustle of a standard classroom left him feeling unseen, very scared and unable to express his needs.

He was falling behind academically and his distress reached a point where it became physically impossible for me to get him to school.

While we initially struggled to find the right path within the district, our situation changed entirely when a special education teacher at Denny Middle School advocated and referred us to the Cascade Parent Partnership Virtual Program.

Cascade brought specialized curriculum teachers, staff, and the use of an AAC device for communication into our home, Liam's safe space.

Cascade created that safe space where learning is finally accessible and relevant to Liam's specific needs.

Having the right amount of staff, including the right level of support at the right time is critical.

Thanks to the dedicated teachers there, he is no longer just surviving.

He is a junior who is thriving in a way I never thought was possible, but hoped for.

He is now working toward graduation through a combination of adaptive skills and required coursework.

I urge you to continue supporting Cascade.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Augustus Locanti.

This needs to get to alarm.

Hello, my name is Augustus Loconte.

And I'm Ada McCracken.

Cascade is important to all of us and should not get budget cuts.

My old school didn't teach me the right way.

It was too rigid and I was always being asked to be flexible.

That it's not fair to ask of a student.

We shouldn't have to fight for the right to a suitable education.

Moving to Cascade provided that for us.

It is calmer, there is less chaos, and Cascade helps us learn.

We can choose what classes we take and focus on a bunch of different things versus just being told what we need to learn and when.

Cascade is a welcoming place for all kinds of kids.

The word bully isn't a thing here.

Kids aren't mean, and there are lots of adults to help us when we have any problems.

All of the teachers and students are really nice.

They show us that they care and they want us to have access to an education that is right for us.

Every student is provided and supported to have what they need to learn.

You can have flexibility with your schedule and make it so it fits your needs.

Cascade does its best with the teachers we have who are all amazing, right?

Right now, there are only four for all 145 of the in-person kids.

That is about one teacher for 36 whole students.

We think that there should be more teachers, not less.

Cascade makes school fun and enjoyable.

We get to visit the library and go to class.

Without the difficulties and boundaries that our old schools caused us, we won't be able to do this with less teachers.

In conclusion, Cascade is important for us.

Please help us save Cascade and the future of our education by stopping the budget cuts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Heather Kohler.

Tough act and all that.

Thank you everybody for being here and caring about our kids.

It's amazing seeing all these people.

I have two children at Cascade in first and third grade and my family has a genetic connective tissue disorder.

So my oldest child missed a third of her first grade experience with medical complications.

She's nearsighted, she has hearing loss and she sees specialists at Seattle Children's to monitor other systems like cardiology and neurology and also she's awesome.

In traditional school, she seemed like she was doing just fine.

She's testing strong, not disruptive, but physically and emotionally, she was really struggling.

She came home exhausted, melting down.

The stress became so intense that we ended up at Seattle Children's Urgent Care and the ER multiple times with painful digestive blockages and vomiting related to school anxiety.

We were doing all the things.

We worked with her teacher, managed a 504 plan, coordinated with medical providers.

The traditional school model did not meet her needs.

She needed fewer hours, more flexibility.

She stopped wanting to go to school and she had no bandwidth left for interests and connections outside of school.

We were exhausted.

After months of searching for options, we discovered Cascade and it was a lifesaver.

And it was crazy that we weren't directed to it sooner.

No one in our school knew it existed.

And I constantly still hear, oh, you guys are at Cascadia?

So, Cascades flexible schedule, individualized learning plans, family involvement, commitment to neurodiversity, allow students to engage in learning ways that work for them.

My daughter has a spiky profile, so she excels in reading, geography, history, math, but she struggles with things like multi-step tasks, social anxiety, emotional regulation.

and it's important for her to be at a school where we can break learning into pieces and target things.

She gets to use tools, advocate for herself, and connect to a learning community.

We're one of many families that would not have a home at SPS without this school.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Stephanie Skilljohn.

Hi, I'm Stephanie Skiljan.

I'm an educator at Franklin High School, and I cede my time to Demetris Wheeler.

Good afternoon, my name is Demetris Wheeler, student family advocate at Interagency.

Interagency was designed to be a safety net for students whose needs have not been fully met in traditional settings.

These decisions do not strengthen the net, they weaken it.

Interagency is facing a projective loss of 17.3 FTE and that is a profound reduction for a program like ours.

This may be considered programmatic change, a shift in direction or a budgetary necessity, but in practice it removes the relationships our students rely on and leave behind some of the very people who built them.

The math on paper may balance, but the reality it creates does not.

Interagency works because we meet students where they are.

Our enrollment is rolling throughout the year and our students often arrive with complex barriers.

What makes this program work is our relationships, the trust that is built between staff, students and families.

Many of the students we serve are students of color and many of the paraprofessionals being displaced.

bringing shared community ties, cultural understanding, and lived experience to this work.

These are trusted adults who help keep young people connected to the school's supports and resources through consistent student-centered care.

I understand the district is facing a deficit, but even in a time of deficit, our choices reveal our priorities.

The district says it is committed to students and families, to equity, to safety, and to the whole child, but those commitments are not real if the staff who do the work are the first to be removed.

Therapeutic practices are not new at interagency.

Staff have already been doing the work, often without the title or recognition.

You cannot speak about equity, cultural responsiveness, policy 0030 while removing the very staff who makes those commitments real.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Rachel Kiger.

Good evening, my name is Rachel Kiger and I'm a parent of a first grader at Loyal Heights and a third grader at Cascade Parent Partnership.

Tonight we are sharing how vital this unique school is, especially for children who have learning challenges and can't find fair and equitable education elsewhere in Seattle schools.

Last week, we learned that Cascades' future was uncertain.

The enrollment projections used don't make sense.

The impact of the proposed teacher reductions weren't one less grade-level classroom, they were, do we stop offering math?

Regardless of where the budget lands, this has been a hard week for us.

My story is not unusual for a Cascade family.

After two successful years of preschool, my twice exceptional son Charlie went to Loyal Heights in kindergarten before moving to the highly capable program at Cascadia in first grade.

For two years, I watched my bright, curious son spiral down.

He said he hated school and that he was stupid.

I shared my desperation with a friend who mentioned Cascade Parent Partnership as a possible solution.

At this gem of a school, we found hope.

Through deeper dive learning in multi-aged classrooms with certified teachers and special education support, the school shapes our success with a hybrid homeschool model for our kids.

Charlie has thrived at Cascade.

He now says how much he loves school, and he's friends with kids, parents, and staff alike.

He finally feels engaged and supported at school.

Superintendent and board, we've shared our stories tonight.

Please understand, Cascade is a life raft for many vulnerable and desperate families.

If it's not sustained over time, Charlie and others would be left behind.

Now I'd like to read you your mission.

Seattle Public Schools is committed to eliminating opportunity gaps to ensure access and provide excellence in education for every student.

please work with us to eliminate opportunity gaps for our kids and ensure access to a school that works for them.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Gerard Montejo Thompson.

Hi there, Gerard Montejo-Thompson, Seattle Education Association President, and I yield my time to Ashley Meyers online.

I'm Ashley Meyers.

I'm currently serving as Seattle EA Treasurer.

I'm in my 13th year teaching computer science here in this district.

This is the second time going through a very tight budget situation.

I have proudly taught at three Seattle Public School high schools in this district.

At the start of my career, I was pretty closely fresh out of college, had spent some time in industry and made this move into education and was taken under the wing of three highly experienced PPE teachers.

These folks mentored me on how to bring specialists and industry mentors into our classrooms, supervise those folks, build incredibly strong pathways and strong student organizations.

Since the start of my career, I have watched our CTE teachers lose their extra planning periods.

This includes our culinary teachers, school-store teachers who used to have time in their day to do inventory, to make purchases, to manage supplies.

And I just mentioned a couple of these pathways.

But as some of those folks who had those at time in their day have left, we no longer have that.

I'm deeply concerned about the change in the funding model that is going to cause us to lose some of these folks who have these specialties and this knowledge.

We don't have time in our day to provide as strong of programs that I once saw us have.

Please consider changing the funding model so we can continue to build our programs and move away from having part-time electives at our high schools.

The next speaker is JK Burwell.

Hello, my name is JK Burwell and I am the teacher librarian at John Muir Elementary School.

I'm here to simply say thank you for supporting school libraries.

We are about much more than just books.

The library is a calm, safe, welcoming space for all of our students.

We host authors, we have valuable partnerships, and we are places where curiosity and imagination thrive.

Because of our partnership with Third Place Books, our K-2 classes are looking forward to an author visit in May where they're gonna hear about beavers and dams and our local tribes.

And we also partner with the Seattle Public Schools Skills Center here with me.

Ms. Chen and Skills Center students will tell you about this later.

Another partnership that we have developed is a field trip for my library helpers at the end of the year.

We walk over to Franklin High School and their librarian, Mr. Longhurst, takes us to the wood shop where they get to cut their wood nameplates for themselves.

Then we go back up to the library.

He shows them how to create their own designs on their piece of wood and finally everyone gets to watch as it's laser cut into the wood.

Safe space, I mentioned to you it's a safe space.

The other day the social worker came to me and said, May we use the library for a conference?

This young student identifies the library as his safe space, and this is where he will talk.

Curiosity and imagination, we have that all the time.

Ms. Burwell, I want a book about snakes, because I love snakes.

Really?

What do you love about them?

I like the way they go ssss.

Oh, cool, okay.

Ms. Burwell, are we having tea time today?

Nope, not till Friday.

And my latest personal favorite from a first grader in my reading group, why do they call it a building if it's already built?

So these are just a few of the interactions that brighten my day.

I guarantee my fellow librarians have stories like these and many more.

Please come visit us.

And we actually have gifts for you.

May we give them to you?

Yes.

Come on up.

This is what we make.

Sorry, Ben, you got the big gift when you came to the school.

I gave you a book.

You got the big one.

They have our names on them and they say library advocate underneath, if you're wondering.

The next speaker is Brianna Draxler.

Brianna Draxler.

Okay, we're going to move on to our wait list then.

Michelle Campbell.

Hello.

Yes, we can hear you.

Hey, I'm ceding my time to Manuela Sly in person.

Thank you.

My name is Manuel Slay.

I'm here to talk about policy 6114. I'm here to speak from my experience.

I'm not here to advocate for non-monetary donations to any of our schools.

That's not my intent.

I was a JSIS parent for seven years, just like you, Director Song.

In the last two years, I was also a Danny parent.

I experienced firsthand the abysmal differences in fundraising power.

I'm not making this up.

I was there.

JSIS raised $425,000 in one of those years in two weeks, indirect give.

No auctions, no bake sales.

At the same time, Denny had a budget of less than $10,000.

Again, I know, I'm not making it up, I was there.

I was a PTA officer at both schools.

At JSIS, we bought instructional assistants for every immersion classroom.

At Denny, we could not afford to buy uniforms for the girls' volleyball team.

So the amendment to raise the threshold to $500,000 will deepen the inequities in our district.

We need to work together and tighten our belts together and advocate together for the legislation to fully fund education So, Superintendent Scholdiner, I told you I would always tell you the truth, and this is the truth.

Again, this is my lived experience.

I was a JSIS parent, I was a Denny parent at the same time, so I urge you to really look into this and make it equitable for all our students.

I also want to say that now later when you talk about the English language adoption curriculum to really ask the questions why out of the three finalists for the curriculum the one that was chosen is the McGraw-Hill that is the only one that doesn't have a Spanish component.

This is a huge blow to our Spanish teachers and our students because the teachers have to come and make up their own curriculum and that's not fair.

That's inequitable.

Thank you.

That was our 25th and final speaker.

Thank you, and thank you everyone for being here tonight to give up time in your busy schedules.

I know it's not easy, but we heard themes tonight of safety and belonging, of the importance of a strong school, of really feeling safe and where our schools provide safe environments.

So thank you all for being here, for providing your testimony.

You also got, I think, some call-outs in your email from the collective good Superintendent Schultner.

with that we will take a six-minute recess we'll reconvene at 6 10. We sure yes we we've heard we will take it we will take a 11 minute break we will reconvene at 6 15 thank you everyone again for being here.

All right, I appreciate our student representatives being here.

I'm going to ask that if conversations continue, that we move them out into the hallway or the foyer.

All right, going to join back together here.

So again, I mentioned this at the top of our meeting, but this is the first regular board meeting where we are implementing our new provision to board policy 1250, student representatives calling for a student representative advisory position.

So before we vote, I will ask our student representatives for their position, pro, con, or no position prior to calling the board vote.

So we have now reached the, hang on just a second.

All right, we have now reached the consent portion of our agenda.

Can I have a motion for the consent agenda?

approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

All right the approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Vice President Briggs and seconded by Director Mizrahi.

Directors have any items they'd like to be removed from the consent agenda?

Seeing none I am going to now turn it over to our student representatives.

Representative Yoon would you please state your advisory position?

Yeah on behalf of the student reps we've discussed item and reached consensus so we collectively vote pro.

Great thank you so much.

Those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

Great.

The consent agenda has unanimously passed.

All right that's the easiest portion.

We are going to now move to our action items.

Our first action item is the approval of the student assignment transition plan for 2627. Can I have a motion?

I move that the school board approve the student assignment transition plan for 2627 as attached to the board action report.

Second.

All right.

Let's see.

Do directors have questions or comments?

Director Lavallee.

Yeah, I'm happy if you wanted to go first.

Okay.

I have huge concerns about the student assignment transition plan.

I think, I mean, part of it is just simply that we have enacted a plan and then are forcing the board into voting on it after the fact, which I find very problematic, and this board has a history of doing that.

I also feel like we have often, I know I have often not gotten my questions fully answered by the district within this plan, and so I have many outstanding concerns that I have asked in meetings and submitted in writing as well that have gone unanswered at this point in time.

so I don't know that I have a question necessarily about it but I think we need far more information about this plan in a more timely manner before it's actually been enacted in the public and to have parents go through it before it's presented in front of the board like this.

Director Rankin.

I just want to echo some of the comments that Jen made.

I think where I kind of struggled was with the timing of this and so I respectfully suggest to Superintendent Schultner and my colleagues that we think about consideration of an item like this even before the school choice window so we understand what's what changes are going to happen that could impact the school choice process and how it would impact the budgeting what not.

I understand and appreciate that there was so much community desire for expanded access to HC programs, and so that's why we're kind of rushing through this, but that's kind of my request to my colleagues.

Thank you.

I'll add to that, you know, I feel like our role in this process has been somewhat unclear to me from the start.

which of these things are actually things that require our approval, which are things that we've already delegated to the superintendent's office.

And I think that getting clarity on that for future years, we're really only approving the pieces of this that we need to be approving and that the rest of it is delegated in the way that we've already delegated it and that the parts that we do have to approve that we're doing so in a more timely manner.

I mean that said I do want to just say that there are a lot of things in this that I think are really moved in the right direction like as you mentioned the expansion of highly capable and even within that not you know not that everything may be perfect but that we're not getting like bogged down by inaction direction moving on things obviously a lot of the changes with the with the enrollment process I think we're already seeing the positive results of that so I think there's a lot of really good things here I'm just not sure which of it we actually have to be approving and which we don't and I would like better clarity on that in future years.

Director Rankin.

That was actually inadvertently the perfect setup for what I'm about to say, which is if we look on the board action report, why board action is necessary, it's necessary only because the board has taken action on this item before, which means it's actually not necessary.

This is, for me, what both of you said, for me, the perfect example of confusion between the role of the board and the superintendent, that we should be involved much earlier in understanding just, hey, what's going on?

What are you thinking?

What's coming up?

What's changing?

but ultimately this is my seventh year on the board and in my experience this is a perfect demonstration of what happens when the roles are blurred and the superintendent's actually not in charge and then staff is trying to do their job without direction and tries to bring something that someone will say yes to.

and so it ends up being what do we think four people will approve so that we can do our jobs.

It's not malicious.

It's an absence of leadership and governance.

And so it ends up that at the last minute, we're forced to feel like we have to approve things that we don't really understand because either it butts into some kind of a deadline or just something happens.

And then we're like, well, so I think I share the sentiment that Families wanted to expand access to highly capable.

We're excited to see that.

That's a commitment that's been made to the community.

So we don't want to vote no and say you can't enact that, which is what we would be, we would make this illegally, like this is our, authorized direction to the superintendent, if we say no, that's the official statement that this cannot go forward.

If we say yes, we're approving something we don't actually have to approve and there's a mindset that once the board approves, it's done and we're off to the races.

So I would like, and probably need to make a motion but as you said Joe this is the superintendent's authority and I don't want to vote yes on it and then make it so Ben feels like he can't make change you know a lot of things are we're digging into things and evaluating things from the superintendent and staff level in a way that has not we have not had the chance to experience in the past.

And it means that a lot of things are changing quickly and we need to allow our superintendent flexibility to make those changes within his role as we've directed.

So I think, yeah, there are a ton of questions.

I'm really like, and we also, last year, kind of between superintendents.

Another example of where board and staff roles got interfered with is the decision to move the wait list, which is again, was responsive to community, but we did not see or understand or even really talk about the systemic impact that moving the wait list was going to have.

And I'm not advocating we don't do that, but I'm just, the way the process went it doesn't surprise me that we are not at a satisfactory result right now.

And so I would actually ask the superintendent, if we were to, if I were to make a motion that we just take no action, what would that say to you?

And then what could we expect to happen?

Is that, I don't even know if that's okay to ask, but.

Thank you so much, Director Rankin.

I mean, clearly the answer a superintendent would give is, please give me all the power.

But no, I think the only concern I would have would be to ask legal, because as you said, The history is that you have voted on this before.

If you do not voted on now, I want to make sure that what that is saying is I'm allowed to do it.

Because I would be worried that because you've set a precedent, if I now act without your direction, that would be somehow going against the board.

So if a not voting would legally equate to voting it down?

Is that your question?

Or not allowing me to move forward on something that historically has been voted on by the board.

Got it.

but I guess also I would be curious from my colleagues what we think about that, about no action.

I would definitely support that.

I've just been sitting here thinking like, oh yeah, this is the familiar place that we find ourselves in and now what do we do?

Our hands are tied.

If we say no, all these things fall apart that have been committed to the community.

But also we can't keep doing this.

We have to change how we do this.

So I would be, if that is an option, I personally would be in favor of that.

If that for some reason is not an option, then I would be in favor of taking sections of the proposal out and voting as individual pieces of it.

I believe that is a thing we can do, where we could just vote to approve the highly capable sites, but the rest of it we could, I believe we could also refer the whole thing to the operations committee to vet and then bring back to the, but again, that's putting us in the role.

So I don't know, I would like, I guess I'm curious what other people think because I don't feel like I can vote on this as it is right now.

I want to preface this by saying I am not a lawyer however having been on this dais for many times in many different places one could possibly argue that the board could make a motion that would be affirmative in saying that this is the superintendent's purview.

that way you're giving me at least some legal authority to make decisions that I feel as superintendent are best for the district it is certainly I defer to my bosses but again because there is historical precedent of you already taking this action previously it would be difficult for a no vote not a no vote but no vote being inferred as anything other than do not take action we can think of the great Thomas Moore.

So I'm gonna pause this conversation here real fast and invite up Ms. Wilson-Jones to talk through some of the different motion options that are on the table for board directors to take after our discussion on this underlying issue.

I would say that there are a number of different motions you could bring forward.

There are a number of things you could do with approving this same motion as presented and doing other things.

There's a lot of options here.

But I do want to note that while the Borrowed Action Report is noting the fact that the Board approved a version of the student assignment transition plan for it to be substantively changed, then we come back to the board.

In addition to that, so that's really the big thing for the plan if we look at the plan, but there are policies as well that dictate that certain changes be made in the context of the student assignment transition plan and or with board approval.

And some of those are what's reflected in the student assignment transition plan.

I apologize for not being more up to speed about what changes may be of particular concern to directors.

If I were to just make an assumption this may not at all be true, that you may be supportive of the HC changes and indeed supportive of other changes throughout the student assignment transition plan, but this document is cumbersome and doesn't feel like the board's work or whatever it may be, then the board could also contemplate motions to refer work or direct work to your policy committee to look at all of the policies that have relevant references or maybe it's your operations committee and take up that piece because we do have some triggers within board policy that kind of keep us in this cycle.

I think there's lots of creative things you could do of opening up this plan and other documents that connect and highlight anything you think you actually have a governance level decision making for and plunk that into policy and sort of interrupt this process.

but I would say if the board is mostly concerned about why do we keep getting this document after the fact and it's got all this stuff that isn't really the detail we need to approve, then I don't know that a motion on one year's plan is the right way to prompt or the surest way to prompt those changes.

But you certainly could take it up in your committees or add to the motion to direct that the superintendent bring forward a proposal for replacement of this structure.

Thank you, Ms. Wilson-Jones.

We're gonna go to Director Mizrahi next.

as much as I'm usually a fan of doing nothing when it's possible.

I'm worried that we're too far down this path for this year.

So I'm looking at some of this plan.

So for example, I would just, speaking for myself, I'm very much in favor of children of deaf adults, CODAs, being guaranteed access in the DHS program.

I don't want to not take action on this and then have to go to committee and have more process before we're just saying, let's do this thing.

And so to me it feels like I want that thing to happen.

I don't think we actually need board action for that to happen.

But at this point in the process, if we say, well, now we're going to send this to the operations committee, are we sort of building in delay for some of the things in here?

What I would suggest is maybe we're just dealing with something that we need to clean up for 2027 and say, let's not do it this way again.

Let's only be approving things that need to be approved by the board and those things be brought a lot earlier because I just feel like now we're here and I don't want to hold up things that are good in this plan.

I would second Director Mizrahi's points there.

We started this process knowing that we weren't going to be happy with this result.

We all sort of said that.

I remember sitting at the table knowing that we were going to have to approve a plan that was already, that the district was already doing these things.

They're already doing some of the enrollment processes, changes.

They've already done the highly capable announcement, and yet we're approving it.

I think that it makes so much more sense to say, yes, continue on on your pathway forward, but let's continue go send this to the operations committee and have this similar to what we did with the creation of committees, say operations committee or Director Lavallee is this one of the first things that you as committee chair will take up in the operations committee to detangle what is the board responsibility and what is the superintendent responsibility and how we better align these practices so we're not in this same position next year.

That would be my preference here and I think the cleanest way to move forward.

Other directors?

Director Song?

I have a slightly different take on this document.

I kind of think of it as the district's budget, where I don't think it's the board's role to line item veto specific lines, but I do think it's the board's responsibility to approve the budget in aggregate.

And I kind of see this document as where students are assigned to schools is one of the most, it's important to the district, right?

And actually, because of that decision, it kind of, other things, ramifications kind of trickle from that.

So I do actually think it's important that the superintendent and his team decides the contents of this document, but I think it's important for the board to approve the document in aggregate.

So I...

that's just continuing on with this, but that would be my suggestion to the operations committee as it continues.

Director Smith.

I just want to express a couple of concerns that are kind of related.

So first of all, when we were presented this last month, I think that we had a lot of discussion about wait lists and sort of like the enrollment process and changes that have already happened and then also the HCU locations.

and then today we've heard from a lot of public testimony about the impact of this plan on Cascade School which wasn't something that was really discussed at all and so if we were to vote yes I think I'd have some concern especially if we want this to really be the superintendent's domain but then we're voting yes on this plan would we be locking him in to where he's bound to follow this plan in a way that he can no longer say, yes, I'm going to change something in order to not have this impact on the Cascade School.

And especially because that seems like that goes beyond what was presented to us.

And so I have hesitancy around that.

Do you want to respond at all to that?

I mean my understanding is that what you heard from the wonderful folks at Cascade Parent Partnership as well as Interagency was more aligned with the number of students that were currently enrolled or not enrolled that is not necessarily about the changes to the transition plan.

I do really appreciate Director Smith's point about not tying the superintendent's hands.

Sorry to talk of myself as in the third person, but sometimes it's appropriate.

And that I don't perceive this as tying my hands in a way that is onerous.

I think what it does is give direction around things like HC.

However, I really do appreciate both points by Director Song as well as was stated in terms of having it go to the kind of newly created committee structure because I do think there are things in this that are probably the purview of the superintendent and then I think there are things that are very much the purview of the board and then I do think it is in sense that like here is the in toto what we believe and then that is the direction you give to me to then enact the day-to-day policies.

So I appreciate the point.

I'm not that worried that this one would do that.

I do see it possibly in other actions the board could take.

All right, we're gonna go, we're gonna start where we left off because we've got Director Lavallee.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I...

Okay, so this is all already happening.

So if we, in theory, if we voted no on this, what even would change?

Like nothing?

If I can answer.

My thought is that that is the board taking a clear and direct stance in forming their sole employee to take action.

What I would infer from a no vote is we would in fact have to stop the HC sites because the board is taking an affirmative, which is a negative here, but an affirmative stance saying Superintendent Scholdiner, we have voted no, we are not approving it, thus we could not do that.

That would be my take.

I defer to counsel, but I would pretty much think she would agree, and then that would be that.

Okay.

So I do...

Oh, follow-up there.

So what about the CODAs, because that's new, as well as the enrollment changes?

I mean it is a difficult situation to put me in in the sense of what would my interpretation be of a no vote but again the no vote is saying whatever is in there I should not do because you are taking an affirmative stance directing me to do that.

on everything, right?

Because it is there, you now voted, that is saying to me, I'm inferring, but it's pretty direct, hey Ben, I voted no, I being the board here, you shouldn't do that.

If I did it, you could in fact fire me for insubordination.

Not that you would, I just said.

I just want to finish my comment, which is just that I think we really, really need to get clarity around what piece of this is the board's.

And I'm not sure if the right way to go about that is through the operations committee or through the policy committee or if that is, what did you say, Lanza?

but I feel like we find ourselves in this position and then we talk about how we're in this position and we don't want to be in this position and then it happens again.

And then we talk about how here we are again, don't want to be here.

So this is a rhetorical question, not to open a new debate, but I'm genuinely asking what will it take for this to not happen again?

I'd like us to get to the bottom of that.

to answer the previous question.

I'm more than happy to support this going into committee.

I am slightly concerned because that further delays everything.

That being said I would like to clarify as well a no vote although it's voting no to this plan from what I'm aware and I could be wrong so please correct me if that is true that votes no to this plan that does not mean that no there is no HCC possibilities it means that no the way that it has been proposed and with the information that has been received the board cannot vote yes so that would not freeze everything that would force the district and you Superintendent Schulzner to come back with a potential another proposal.

So I want to push back that it might not freeze the ability to have HC.

It will just force a different or new plan that answers the board questions.

Correct.

I absolutely agree.

It's no to this.

Yes.

And then it would be, hey Ben, come back, bring something else.

We would either vote yes or no on that.

Agreed.

So I'm more than happy to defer this to committee if that is a proposal on the table.

However, it does further delay and potentially get us to a point where we're in a little bit of trouble for not having taken a stance on it because the committees are still ramping up right now.

So I do have the concern with that as we are approaching our first meeting of the committees putting something like this in front of them that has a very timely outcome could be potentially dangerous for these programs.

I will also state that we, All of these have been bundled together in such a way as one of my other board members pointed out that it is hard to decouple them and there are different elements of different parts of them that have or have not been answered to any satisfaction of why things were chosen or what impact is or what planning might be around it.

So again I'm happy to defer to committee if that's a proposal on the table.

However it it can come with its own downsides.

Director Rankin.

So I have a motion actually that I think may hopefully help us.

I agree with Director Song.

We it shouldn't be our job to go through and say we like this.

We don't like this.

We don't like that.

We don't like this but we do like this.

But we should understand what the plan is for assigning students to school.

We're at the point in time this year where you know if it goes to committee without movement that that puts a lot of families in a really difficult place.

and so I'm just gonna say, I guess I'm just gonna make a motion.

I'm gonna make a motion and you guys, I'm gonna make a motion and see what you guys think.

I move we authorize the superintendent to implement the student assignment transition plan as necessary to provide school assignment for next year reflected in or no let's see no I move I move we authorize the superintendent to implement the student assignment transition plan and refer the policy the plan and associated policies immediately to the operations committee to review for next year.

Ms. Wilson-Jones is standing up so hang on just a second before we.

I wanted to inquire whether this motion is intended to be coupled with the existing motion.

I ask that because you're referring to implementing the student assignment transition plan rather than amending the transition plan.

So I would see this motion as being something that would need to layer on the motion that's already before you.

And so in that case you could I think you're already authorizing the superintendent to implement that plan if you make the changes.

I'm not trying to suggest that that's what you're intending.

That's just a guess.

And then you certainly can refer it to committee.

I mean, you've got two bar routing approvers here, too, so we can also just stop it before you got one for next year, too.

I think the board's direction's clear there.

but you so you might want to augment the existing motion if that's the intent if it's not the intent if you are intending that the plan not be amended at this time that's something different and I would I would point back to the policies that direct.

So my intent here is for us not to have to say we accept this and we love it but for us to say we authorize the superintendent to within his judgment and authority implement the plan as amended.

as he deems necessary, so that means not going back on these assignments and making it clear that he can make some changes to it and that we're revisiting it.

So I'm trying to address what Evan was talking about, about like we just keep doing this, how do we not keep doing this?

And so I am uncomfortable with just voting yes and then saying, and then let's send it to committee.

I would rather kind of, I would rather say we're authorizing the superintendent to do this and do the things that he feels need to be done and implement the changes in there but we're not just saying yep check another year of the student assignment transition plan which is a transition from 2009.

Can I ask a question if this is possible?

So is it possible for us to like defer this vote and send it back to staff for them to disentangle the parts that are not ours to vote on and have it come back before us with any outstanding questions having been answered and the parts of it that are not our purview removed and then vote on that.

Is that a possibility like next month without stopping anything that's already in progress?

Okay, we're gonna, we've got now maybe two motions, so pause for just a second there.

Let's let Liza finish making her motion, and then if you have a, I know.

I hear you, but we wanna follow, we wanna.

I mean in some cases it's just pure semantics but that's also like that's what we're doing here.

That's that's what we're doing.

Miss Wilson Jones do you have a suggestion?

Might be able to help you out with that motion if that's helpful.

It's still in progress.

This tacks on to the end of the existing motion.

Please stop me if this is not what you intend.

There's a motion on the table so I'd actually be amending the motion.

I'm proposing an amendment.

I move to amend the underlying item to replace that motion with the following motion which would be I move that the school board approve the student assignment transition plan for 26-27 as attached to the board action report.

And this is where we add.

And further that the board authorizes the superintendent to implement the student assignment transition plan with any minor additions, deletions, and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent to take any necessary actions to implement the transition plan that's probably not necessary.

What I didn't get to writing was and that the board further directs whatever step you want it to take, if you want to direct the superintendent to bring back a proposal or perhaps the board is giving itself direction and refers the policies associated with the student assignment transition plan and the plan to ex-committee or process for further consideration and collaboration with the superintendent.

I don't see a path forward where we would quickly enough get commitments to families to be met and get something back from the superintendent.

I don't think that's reasonable.

What I'm looking for is a way to very clearly accept and allow the necessary changes to go forward but without

I mean, do you want to say accept and allow approval of this item would accept and allow the Student Assignment Transition Plan for 26-27 as attached to the Board Action Report?

Well part of what I'm looking for is historically we vote no and the changes don't happen or we vote yes and then that becomes like etched in stone and there's no wiggle room and what I'm trying to get at is for Ben to be allowed to as these things move forward say oh wait we just ran into something that doesn't make sense and be able to make adjustments that are reasonable without having us to have to approve the whole thing again if that does that make sense that's what I'm trying to figure out Director Smith

Do you just want to add that when I asked earlier about how if you would feel it was too binding or too restrictive, if we did vote yes, he thought that was okay.

So I like the direction you're going that we don't want to be having this set in stone.

And I think that that's something maybe we can also navigate through the board relationship with the superintendent.

And I think referring to the committees to update policies in order to change how we proceed going forward would be something that we could do for the future.

And for right now, in the moment we're in, we can just think about what's the way we can proceed and not break everything apart.

So I'm going to make a motion.

I'm going to try this.

We're going to see if I get a second and we're going to vote on it.

I move that approval of this item or I move that we approve the student assignment transition plan for 2627 as attached to the board action report and then send this work to the committee to figure out how to navigate the parts moving forward to best address board work and superintendent work.

Just point of order, if there's still a motion on the table, does that need to be...

I'm not sure she ever finished, she made her motion.

Did I officially make the motion?

It wasn't seconded, which we don't have to do because we're a small body, but...

Sure.

I just want to make sure that we're...

Democracy is so fun.

I think if board directors are all clear that there's not a motion from Director Rankin on the table, then you'd be okay to move forward.

Procedurally, President Taub, you may wish to move to amend the underlying item to replace the motion.

I move to amend.

Thank you.

As you have stated.

Yes.

I'll second.

All right.

We have a second.

So can we, well, we will have discussion on amending the underlying motion.

Director Song.

not really clear what is the extra direction that we're giving.

I think we're giving the extra direction that this that this should be taken up moving forward as we look at additional amendments to the student assignment transition plan or what this looks like moving forward whether there is even a student assignment transition plan or it's broken up that the operation committee is taking this this discussion up, working with the superintendent to come up with the direction that they bring back to the full board on how we should address this moving forward.

I think we've talked, you know, families have made decisions based on things that we have heard, on enrollment processes that we have sort of given the nod of approval for, and I think we are too far, even though we've been here before, to go back on many of those things.

So I would like there to be clarity for families here moving forward saying this is where we're at, but I don't think any of us are happy.

I think we heard Interim Superintendent Podesta in his role say, you know, I'm sorry that this was not taken up in the right way.

and we said this at the beginning here, that we were going to be very unhappy with this result, which I think we all are and the only pathway I, the pathway I see forward to provide that clarity for families is to say we need to live up to what we've said we're going to do and we have to fix this.

Director, discussion on the, my motion to amend, Director Lavallee.

I think some of that work is already part of the operations committee so you know I think it's a little bit of a moot point because going forward that should already be part of the working order of things so it just kind of states what we've already put into place so it's a little duplicative I would like to get a clarification on kind of what has to be approved and if there's any chance that it can be withdrawn and not voted on by the board or if it is at this point legally something that we do need to vote on and I think that's a question for both our superintendent and our legal

The policy structure that generates the student assignment transition plan is pretty diffuse throughout your policies and there's not sort of a cohesive place that outlines this planning process.

So it's challenging for me to give you a really direct answer on that but there are numerous places in which your policies and other board actions contemplate a student assignment transition plan or directly reference one.

They also contemplate that certain decisions will be made in the context of the student assignment transition plan.

Some of those decisions relate to placement of services that are governed by the Student Assignment Transition Plan.

So to me that's most relevant because of the placement of new HC pathway sites.

and so in that way I would say there's a barrier to moving forward without a student assignment transition plan.

I think it would take a pretty big scrub of all of your policies to find all the different places that this has become entangled to figure out what a student assignment like what would need to come for it could be a piece of paper maybe that says x y and z I'm not sure but I think that's the work that is potentially contemplated for the committee in preparation for the the coming year but right now you don't necessarily have policies that dictate a student assignment transition plan looks exactly like it did but I my understanding is we sort of staff went in and scalpily changed things for next year with the intention of collaboration to blow it all up from a planning standpoint for how it's documented not blow up how we assign students for the coming year.

So I think there's I would advise staff that we would probably not be in compliance with policy if decisions were not being made through something similar to what's before you.

other discussion on the amendment before we just vote on the amendment.

Just Director Rankin.

Yeah, I was going to say, you know, Jen, you were saying it, that we've sort of already committed to doing that.

So it seems duplicative for me.

What's important about that is that this is a little bit of a different, but we're not.

Yeah.

Even though nobody, nobody actually cares about us, but for the record for, um, documentation I think it I feel it's important to specifically say we're referring this immediately to committee with the expectation that because the other problem is we're at the what I said at the beginning is that we're taking action on this because we've taken action on it before as opposed to because it is dictated by law or it's determined in our policy so for me we also need once we disentangle whatever and as Ellie is saying like it's kind of it's kind of everywhere and nowhere it should actually be in policy therefore annually the board will approve whatever it says instead of well we voted on it last year so let's vote it on again this year like that's just so so for me the amendment is an improvement over just accepting the plan to make that commitment and direction very clear.

The piecing it out doesn't make sense to me because I don't know that there are individual recommendations in there that we would say, no, we don't want those kids to go to there, we want them to go to here without a wholesale look at the whole system, which is actually what I would like to do, but we don't have time right now.

We're gonna take the vote, so I'm gonna call staff for the vote on just the amendment, so everyone is aware.

Do the student board members get to weigh in on the amendment?

Oh, yes, yes, I'm so sorry, student representatives.

President Topp, before we move there, do we have a second for your amendment?

Oh, I seconded.

Joe seconded.

Oh, I did.

You really missed out on that.

I was right there with a second.

So I know students haven't had an opportunity to caucus, but I want to, I'm looking, Director Mangelson?

We've decided that it's a pretty complicated and nuanced discussion, so as of right now, on behalf of the student representatives, we're not going to provide a position.

Great.

Wow, they caucused wonderfully.

All right, so now we will roll call, please.

The motion is just about us not feeling crappy about voting for something that we don't think is good.

I move to amend to approval of this item would approve the student assignment transition plan for 26-27 as attached to the board action report to approval of this item would approve the student assignment transition plan for 26-27 as attached to this report and immediately send this item to the Operations Committee for full review and process moving forward.

Can I ask a point of clarification or are we already voting?

We're going to vote.

We're going to vote here.

Roll call.

Vice President Briggs?

Aye.

Director Lavallee?

No.

Director Mizrahi Director Rankin Director Smith Director Song President Topp

Did you get Joe?

Oh, okay.

We'll turn the volume on your mic up a little bit.

This motion is passed with a vote of six yes to one no.

All right.

So now we vote on Ms. Wilson-Jones.

But now you'll need a new motion for the underlining item.

Apologies I don't recall what number it is but I the motion could be I move approval of action item X as amended.

I move that the school board approve the student assignment transition plan for 2026 2027 as attached to the board action report as amended.

Joe did second, but his microphone did not work there.

Okay, Director Song?

Yes.

Oh, no, we're not voting yet.

Now it's discussion.

Okay, so now discussion.

Yeah, you can ask.

I don't know that my question applies anymore because we've already taken the other vote.

I would like to state that, again, we have not gotten our questions answered within most of the questions that have been asked from this body.

I am not sure that it is clear what programs are actually opening up because at this point in time looking at the budget for some of the schools that are applied it does not have enough teachers to run a cohort model and the understanding is not that that is the case so people are understanding that it will be a cohort model when in fact that is not what's proposed the clarity on all kind of parts of this have just not been there.

So as much as there was the conversation earlier that a no vote means that this cannot go forward, that is not true.

It cannot go forward as it has been proposed.

It can come back to this body with a different variant or with questions answered.

And we do have the ability to do that.

Director Rankin.

I just kind of I guess again for the just unequivocal clarity when I ask the superintendent is it your understanding that by approving this you are authorized to assign children to schools which we must do and as you discover in the sort of intersection between the student assignment plan and the budget, do you feel you have sufficient direction from the board to make changes as you deem necessary?

Not that we're saying go ahead and do whatever you want, but do you feel you have the direction necessary to implement something that's gonna work for us this year without us taking other action right now.

I think there is both enough direction to move forward as well as enough flexibility that would allow me as superintendent to make some decisions.

But I do want to be clear about Director Lavallee's point is that certainly a no vote isn't a no forever.

It would just be the ability to then come back.

what I see here is if you do vote yes you are authorizing me and directing me to do very specific things in terms of specific pieces of this but yes there is always the opportunity for me to enact things that I think that is the purview of the superintendent and of course if I do feel like I need clarification or direction from the board I can always come back to this austere body and I feel comfortable that if you vote yes to this it gives me enough direction to move forward and I think that certainly all of your concern is duly noted and though with the amendment as well as all of the public comment as well as all the comment from the board it would be very clear that if you do vote yes other than enacting it the next job would be to make sure that this never happens again like this.

Director Song.

I just want to use the example of the budget again like that's a document that we approve when the actual spending happens.

Superintendent Schilderner definitely has the authority to make decisions he needs to make around sending spending.

But I do think having what the plan is for assigning students in a document that is public facing that has the affirmation of this board is important.

Director Smith.

Sorry to bring up another thing but I think you gave a very good response of letting us as a board know the implications of if we vote yes.

Do you think you could do a similar if we vote no would you feel like you have the direction and authority to assign students to schools or would you feel like you're you can't do that.

What would be the impact of that.

If the board voted no I would feel very hesitant to execute any piece that is being discussed within this.

I would then urge the board to quickly caucus and or meet and or direct me to do something to bring back to the board with all deliberate speed to come back to the board.

But a no vote, again I would defer to council, but a no vote says you are voting no on the thing in front of you.

That would then basically pause until, and when I am directed to do something else.

I could imagine the board could direct me immediately to come back with a plan that would be enacted as quickly as possible.

Absolutely.

Or the board could say, hey, you know what?

You got to really take some time and do whatever it is, et cetera, et cetera.

But I would think that if you do vote no if a majority of this board says do not enact this I should not enact this.

But I should then try very deeply to do something pretty quickly in another way.

We are going to vote on this so I'm going to call on staff for the looking at student representatives.

Seeing if there is a position.

Director Mangelson.

We would not like to provide a position at this time.

Perfect.

I appreciate that.

Roll call for the vote please.

Director Lavallee.

I'm deeply supportive of that my area needs more HC programming but there has been so many misses in this that I vote no at this time with the understanding that we need to pressure our superintendent to create a plan that additionally answers these questions and creates these programs.

want to make sure when we're voting yes yay or nay no comments.

I'm so sorry.

No.

Thank you.

Director Mizrahi Yes Director Rankin Yes Director Smith Yes Director Song Yes Vice President Briggs No President Topp Yes This motion passes with five yes to two no.

We're going to take literally a four minute recess only because we have a lot on our agenda still and I'm a little bit concerned that there are some things we have to get done tonight that we're not going to get to.

So I'm going to try to pare things down.

So I need just a few minutes to try to do that.

So we're going to come back at 715 since we have to we have to end at nine.

So we will end it no matter what at nine.

But we have a lot of important items to get through.

So I'm going to real fast see if I can pair things down with staff.

So we will be back together at 715. All right let's join back together here.

So we're going to just mix up the agenda a little bit.

We are going to I would like the full board here so I don't have to repeat.

Where is Director Lavallee?

Right, so we're gonna just move switch up the agenda order slightly so that way if we do run out of time some of the things that we have to get done this evening will get done.

So in the action items order number two the amendment to board policy 6114 grants gifts and donations and 6220 we're going to move to the end.

We're going to move quickly on three four five and six and seven I hope.

and then we're going to, just so folks are aware on the introduction items, we're going to move up the adoption of the K through five English language arts instruction and materials.

So that's what the new agenda looks like.

So we're gonna just start off and see if I have a motion for item number three.

I move that the school board adopt policy board number 2416 performance-based pathway for high school graduation as attached to this board action report.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

I have a motion from Vice President Brakes, a second from Director Mizrahi.

I'm going to pass it to Dr. Perkins to introduce this item.

Thank you very much, President Topp.

Caleb Perkins, Executive Director of College and Career Readiness.

I'm joined by Principal Willingham from Interagency.

We're grateful for the opportunity, the consideration of this performance-based pathway and a new policy, policy 2416. As the board knows, students are required not only to earn credits but to meet graduation pathways.

There are a number of pathways available, state assessments, dual credit courses, but one that we don't currently have that the state allows is a performance-based learning pathway.

and we would like to add that to give students the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency in English and math using state developed proficiency targets and associated rubrics but in a way that more authentically meets the needs of particular students.

Why now and why particularly for our alternative learning education programs because we note that there are students in the class of 2026 who need this pathway and we believe thanks to the hard work of Principal Willingham and some of our other ALE principals that we're ready to do this in a thoughtful and rigorous way so that we're not lowering expectations but providing the flexibility that our students need.

So with that we ask for intro and action to this evening and thank you for your consideration.

I'll turn it I think over to Superintendent Shoulder.

I mean I'm always happy to but I'll defer to the principal if she wants to speak first.

Thank you so much for hearing us and making this an intro in action to tonight's board agenda.

Some context for Interagency Academy we are a credit recovery institution and we serve students that do not traditionally work in the four-year high school construct.

So a lot of students come to us to recover credit and the comprehensive school or the curriculum is not in a manner or a universal design for learning that works for our students' needs.

And so what the performance-based pathway does is it allows students to understand their interests and prepare themselves for the college or career that they want to move forward after it.

They can work with internships, business, corporations and get that real life work-based experience and embed that into their learning and through a project-based learning lens.

And so we believe as a district that we need to have universal design for learning and to be able to meet all the needs and this performance-based pathway does that for our students and it gives opportunities for students to be more exploratory in their learning and also learn outside of the school context and additionally with the bridge to college interagency uses that pathway traditionally for students to graduate because we serve fifth sixth and seventh year seniors then the bridge to college pathway was limited because students had to only earn that credit within one academic school year.

So the performance-based pathway allows for our students to have the extended time that they need to earn their high school diploma because we all know that all students do not graduate within four years.

So we're asking for the district's flexibility and allowing for our students to learn at their own pace but also experience learning outside of the classrooms to develop their life skills.

Any questions?

Questions or discussion from board directors?

Director Rankin.

I'm having a hard time with this coming for intro and action in March for kids that we're worried are not going to graduate this year.

I can't really fathom how that doesn't mean lowering expectations for those kids so they'll graduate.

And maybe that's really cynical of me. but knowing how much folks are struggling to support students, knowing how much attendance is an issue, knowing how we keep failing the same kids as a system, and I hear the opportunity for this to allow them not to fail, but I'm really worried that it's only on paper and not in reality, given the experience I know some of our kids are having.

So it's hard, I like this as an idea, it's really hard for me to think about how doing this in March is, I'm also confused about if it's a new policy, why it's not coming twice.

I thought that was a legal requirement.

I don't know, Superintendent, if you had the opportunity for this to come to you, what your recommendation is.

Again, I love the idea.

I am highly skeptical of the timing.

So the room was packed today.

Half was from Cascade Parent Partnership and the other half was interagency.

Both of those schools are different than the kind of regular school.

This district has tried I think again one month in 11 days to try to do different for better.

However, as you could see with our funding model and why you had a full room of people is that we haven't necessarily always gone the next step, which is to actually have the right budget formula, the right policies, the right way of thinking.

I would always be concerned about anything coming to you at this late date.

However, this is something that should have been brought years ago because the idea of how non-traditional education works, especially online work, especially fifth-year students and sixth-year students and seventh-year students is you take the ability to earn credits in new and novel ways.

It is unfortunate that this hasn't, I don't even think, been brought to this board before, let alone have you vote on it.

So I very much agree that this is tough to do kind of at this late date.

I also agree that one could perceive this as lowering expectations.

But in fact, my read of the law of the state of Washington, as well as alternative education, is this thing is something we probably should have done a long, long time ago, and my, again, I would never ask the board to do anything, but I would say if we are going to invest in our alternative education programming, this is yet another tool that a top-notch alternative education program would do.

in terms of timing yeah it's pretty problematic just like the student transition plan and just like all the other things that are being come but my hope is that if this does pass it would allow all of our alternative education not just interagency but bridges and there's many other programs to do very good very thoughtful highly academic ways of showing knowledge but in a non-traditional sense which is why we have non-traditional schools in the first place.

Director Smith.

Sorry, you called on me so fast, I thought I would have to wait my turn.

I guess if we were to approve this, could we also get any kind of reporting on the impact to try to, I understand that we have to do it fast for any students to benefit this year because I think in the board action report there's a deadline coming up for submitting graduation requirements.

So could we get, you know, reporting afterwards to help show was it effective?

Did it do what we wanted it to do?

Or did it actually just lower those expectations?

I mean not to speak for the two people standing but I would hope that you wouldn't even need to ask I think that what we have to do a better job as a district is to show the board and of course vis-a-vis the community what the kinds of things we're doing are and why a child deserves to graduate or not and you know certainly I would defer to the staff on what this would look like but my hope as you saw today with students and I know that President Topp has been a big fan of this we should be bringing students to every board meeting and I think that there's a way to actually showcase how this kind of performance based pathway can be really quite special.

So I mean again not to speak for staff but yes I would look forward to them sharing with you this information.

Absolutely I love data and so I will give it to you whatever way you want student voices projects expeditions like whatever you need but just to know that we have to approach education in a non-traditional way and this is also going to impact our students in institutional education we do not talk about our students in King County Jail we do not talk about our students in youth detention and this pathway will create a ripple effect because when a student comes to King County Jail they're coming from other school districts and if they can meet their pathway with us we have essentially removed the barrier with that student while they were institutionalized.

So I'm asking the board for you to let us be experimental with this but then let the data show the facts about how we are able to move the needle for students in non-traditional environments who are looking for a different way to access their education.

Director Yoon.

I had a question.

So if a student, let's say this policy passes, if a student has done an internship in the past before this policy passed, would that count towards a graduation credit as stated?

Well we're looking at developing the curriculum but the OSPI already has frameworks for the students so we're looking at those frameworks and there's other school districts that have performance based pathways and it speaks to mastery based as well so I don't know the nuances of if they had an internship in the past could they use it right now but OSPI has provided frameworks for teachers to use and to build upon that.

I'll just add that yes, you can draw on prior learning experience but there's a number of specific requirements they have to meet for English language arts as well as math.

So there still would be that additional piece that they'd have to do.

Quick note just to Director Rankin, this is why we started so cautiously.

This is only for our three alternative learning education programs.

and what makes us less optimistic about this is because Principal Willingham has been asking and talking about this for many months and years and so you know we should have brought it earlier but we're excited to be able to take advantage of it in this small setting and learn from it as Principal Willingham said and then bring it back before the board before we would ever expand it.

Director Song.

technical question.

So the policy makes reference to the superintendent or designate will develop a process and accompanying procedures.

So is that already been drafted or once we approve this policy that will give you authority to develop.

We've actually started that process following the WASDA model practice procedure and policy.

So but the short answer is that we that's in process but we would be able to do it quickly because we'd be following the state guidance.

So one of the things that's I think being highlighted which I want to just underscore is this is something that a lot of other school districts do and there's a long long history of this.

So the good news is we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

So if we are given the direction that yes go forth they've already been working kind of hoping and then there's also a ton of models out there and we don't have to really reinvent this.

I'm going to take a vote now.

Director Rankin.

Thank you, sorry.

So I appreciate what you're saying.

I also don't trust or believe, based on my own experience here, that the kids that we've already failed won't also, again, be failed by this.

That's the reality.

and I'm wondering too about right now in this moment, I know that there's staffing capacity challenges and if a performance-based pathway requires an instructional or a certificated instructor in the different subjects to review it, I'm sorry, I just don't see that happening.

I just don't, this feels fake and I think there's real intent behind it.

I don't know.

I also, Bridges, I don't think this would apply to because that's a transitional program.

Correct.

Not at this point.

And that's very different.

But also, NOVA has had a standards-based, NOVA has been standards-based for, I think, since it was in existence.

Principal Wynette and I have been working on this and so she's speaking for her and not getting the permission.

But this is much in alignment with their model of what they're doing already.

So in their competency-based approach, it will be the same process that we're using, but we're just using state.

We have to use state-aligned framework.

So it has to be based in that.

So OSPI created these frameworks.

other districts have these frameworks so it will have to go through that process and having conversations with staff about the impartiality we would have other teachers that would assess the portfolio it wouldn't be the teacher themselves because we need to create objectivity in the process and that is something that you know I was talking with Nova as when we were talking about this well maybe our two schools can combine and your teachers come in great hour and stuff and you know we can have a learning process but objectivity does need to be in the process because the rigor does need to be there and it does need to have feedback and you can also have students to have student voice and to give feedback and also engage in the learning.

So there's different ways that we can do that and that can be a part of the policy that you want us to do moving forward.

How do we objectively make sure that our students are meeting these requirements?

And there's a way that we can do that in our district.

by working with the other small schools to make sure that we are doing that.

Other school districts do bridge projects and you have teachers that will, don't know the students, they would grade the assessment.

So I think having that caveat to be a part of the process where another school, you know, and we talk about non-traditional schools and I'm gonna speak on this.

we need to have a practice for our non-traditional schools.

Curriculum, how we serve them, how we fund them.

And the curriculum tool gives us that ability to own something in this district and to do something different for our students.

So it definitely differs from the four-year track.

But our students are fifth, sixth, and seventh-year students.

So they need something different.

And we can partner with each other to make sure that the rigor is there.

I don't want our students to have lower expectations.

Absolutely not.

But we also need to be nimble and flexible in how we approach learning for our students to open up their capacity of who they can be in their humanity through curriculum and we do that outside of the school walls.

So give us an opportunity to go outside the school walls with businesses and to bridge those gaps.

Director Smith.

Okay, you always have to wait a second for the mic to turn on.

Director Rankin, in response to your concern that there might not be enough staff available to implement the alternative graduation, sorry.

performance-based pathway.

If that were the case and we did pass this, would we actually be worse off or would it just mean that we've passed something and it isn't actually happening and that hopefully it would eventually start happening?

It gives us actually more flexibility to our, we had a meeting, you know, because as you all know we're experiencing teacher loss and budget loss and we had a campus to actually come up with a plan where the portfolio pathway would actually work with 2.5 teachers.

so again it's the experiential learning that you have to do and you know with the block schedule and students going outside working in our ALE status provides that it really interconnects really well with our ALE our ALE allows our student not to be assessed with seat time they as long as they meet those competencies or those standards they're able to celebrate their learning Another thing we've experienced as an alternative school with credit recovery, sometimes our seventh period day or the traditional way we do business actually becomes a barrier to students who are credit deficient.

So we're trying to find accelerated pathways with rigor that honors where our students are trying to go.

Because our students may have missed 10th grade because their father passed away, does not mean that that student is not smart or educated.

life happened to them, so they did not earn their credit in their 10th year.

What if we created accelerated pathways where students, life happened to you, we also honor how smart and intelligent you are, and we've created an accelerated pathway where we're not having a traditional school schedule become a barrier to you.

This is the innovation that small schools are asking the board if you will allow us the chance to pilot it, to have the data to come to you, to have the rigorous expectation and really change the way that we are approaching curriculum in our non-traditional schools.

Director Briggs and then we are going to move to a vote.

I'm just curious to know why if NOVA has already been doing something very similar, why are we voting on this now?

I just don't understand.

So the state created the performance based pathway as an additional graduation pathway.

It requires the district to approve a new policy for it to be formally considered a state graduation pathway.

So while the work is very similar and that's why again in these very small specific circumstances like interagency like NOVA we believe their staff is ready to do this kind of work but without a formally approved board policy we can't offer the performance based pathway as one of the state options.

quick does you're talking about fifth, sixth, seventh year students.

Does this pathway allow for graduation with a regular diploma as opposed to a modified diploma at the end of that time?

No this is a regular diploma this is and this to Superintendent Schilder's point this has been around for a couple of years and you know again this is something that that could have been taken up earlier but this is when we're taking it up so that given the need.

Call for the vote please Director Mizrahi Director Rankin

Oh were we getting the student members.

Yes I'm so sorry I will I will get I will get used to that student representatives their position real fast.

Yeah we vote pro.

Thank you so much.

All right please continue.

Thank you Director LaValle.

Director Rankin.

Aye.

Director Smith.

Aye.

Director Song.

Yes Vice President Briggs aye Director Lavallee aye President Topp aye This motion is passed unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I'm going to repeat myself just so directors are aware we've on action item number two we've punted at least to the end of the meeting possibly till later and we will be moving up the adoption of the K through five depending if we do not make it through all of our action items I may call a meeting for next week to go through all of our intro items.

and do an intro just an intro meeting next week.

So with that we are on to action item number four approval of the Head Start program.

Is there a motion?

I move that the school board authorize the district to implement updated background check procedures by approving the Seattle Public Schools Head Start background check policy as attached to this board action report.

I further move the school board authorize the district to revise program selection criteria conduct a community needs assessment and carry out annual self-assessment priorities to ensure federal compliance and continuous program improvement for the Seattle Public Schools Head Start program.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Vice President Briggs seconded by Director Mizrahi.

I see Dr. Toner here to speak to the item.

Good evening.

I'm Cashel Toner Executive Director for Curriculum Assessment and Instruction here on behalf of the Early Learning Team for Seattle Schools.

In the interest of time I'm going to really condense this presentation if that's OK with the board.

OK.

As required by federal regulations, the school board serves as the governing body for Head Start program and provides joint oversight of the program with the policy council which is comprised of parents, guardians, and community representatives.

Federal Head Start regulations require the school board approval for applicable personnel policies, selection criteria, self-assessment topics, and community needs assessment.

The policy revisions included in this board action report that is for introduction and action this evening include four topic areas.

One, updating our background check policies.

Two, updating our selection criteria for students.

Three, initiating a community needs assessment and the self-assessment focused areas.

Questions from directors or discussion from directors?

All right, we're looking to the student representatives for their position.

In regards to being federally compliant as well as just addressing the needs of the community on behalf of the student representatives, we would vote pro.

Great.

Thank you so much.

And call for staff for the vote.

Director Rankin.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

Director Song, did you have a question?

Oh, I feel like I need to just make a disclosure.

This bar makes reference to an agreement with the Denise Louie Education Center.

And I just want to disclose that I am also a board director at the Denise Louie Education Center.

Thank you, Director Song.

Continue onward.

Director Rankin.

Yes.

Director Smith?

Aye.

Director Song?

Yes.

Vice President Briggs?

Aye.

Director Lavallee?

Aye.

Director Mizrahi?

Yes.

President Topp?

Yes.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Next we are moving on to approval of the Superintendent Evaluation Tool.

May I have a motion?

I move that the school board approve the superintendent evaluation tool as attached to this board action report.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

I have a motion from Vice President Briggs, a second from Director Mizrahi and I am going to pass it over I think to Director Lavallee to walk us through.

Yeah, I'll try to be in the interest of time as quick as possible.

Director Rankin and Ms. Rahi as well as myself went through the evaluation tools available to us through WASDA knowing that we could also do and look at other options as well.

At this point in time, for the period of one year, we have chosen to go with a standards-based tool, which has eight different standards, and then we have gone through and selected two themes within each standard.

The standards are vision, core values, equity, cultural responsiveness, curriculum instruction and assessment, community of care and support for students, professional capacity of school personnel, meaningful engagement of families and community, operations and management, and collaboration with the board.

We went through the process to select two themes from each standard and made sure that the measures are Able to be done within this period of time for the superintendent then reviewed with him as well as the board and are now putting it to a vote with the intention that this will be for the period of one year and we will go back and create a new tool once we are in alignment with our goals and guardrails going into the future.

Questions from board directors or discussion?

Director Rankin.

I just have one clarification.

It's for the rest of this school year.

Yes, thank you.

As aligned to the superintendent's contract, it's for the period of February 2nd to the end of this school year.

Annually we're required by law to approve a superintendent evaluation tool publicly.

And so as Jen said, we've chosen this.

And the one thing I wanted to note was to get the clarification on the timing.

So before the end of the school year, we will need to again approve an evaluation instrument for the superintendent for next.

school year, which will cover a full 12 months, which is the typical cadence.

One thing I want to add is that I've had a couple people ask, say, Liza, you talk about holding the superintendent accountable.

What does that look like and how do you do that?

That's not just firing them.

and this is one of the ways to do that that's really important is by us adopting the tool we're making very clear here are our expectations and here is how we're going to determine whether or not those expectations are met.

We're also required to post the evaluation so at the end of this evaluation period we will be able to share back to the community here's what we agreed to with the superintendent so it's not creating some wild things that are unreasonable, but here's what we agreed to as expectations and here is how they are or aren't being met.

And through the contract process, evaluation process, all of that, we and the public should be able to see, hey, is the superintendent doing what we expect of them or not?

and then in terms of accountability, if they're not meeting expectation, then you have a conversation with the superintendent about how to do that.

And so that's the, you know, it's not we don't like you, so you're fired or you didn't do this thing perfectly, you're fired.

These are the expectations.

How are we doing on meeting them, yes or no?

And then what's the plan to meet ones that aren't being met?

So that's, yeah, the answer to how do you hold a superintendent accountable?

This is one of those ways.

Director other directors.

I appreciate Director Lavallee Director Rankin and Director Mizrahi pulling this tool together.

This was one of the deliverables from our retreat and I think that same group of directors is going to be working on the next iteration of this.

So with that I call for a vote.

Oh sorry Director Mizrahi.

Student representatives I'm I will I will highlight this in my next talking point.

Student representatives would like to say yes to this.

We believe that it would be beneficial for the long-term success of the board.

Thank you so much.

Director Mizrahi?

Yes.

Director Rankin?

Yes.

Director Smith?

Yes.

Director Song?

Yes.

Vice President Briggs.

Aye.

Director Lavallee.

Yes.

And President Topp.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

All right on to item number six approval of the letter to Congressional delegation to protect students' education and well-being by protecting sensitive locations.

Motion.

Second.

We have a motion by Vice President Briggs and a second by Director Mizrahi.

I'm going to pass it over to the sponsor, Director Rankin, to introduce the item, but I'm going to ask her to be very brief.

Just very briefly, I included a whole bunch of information in the Board Action Report, so hopefully you read that.

But there's some legislation at the federal level that's being considered right now to kind of clarify what a sensitive location means in terms of immigration activity.

and a board director, a colleague from the Bellevue School Board, Jane Aris, drafted this letter with tons of great research and references and their board approve it and they are asking other boards in Washington State to approve signing onto it and then Bellevue will to send with the undersigned support to our congressional delegation, asking them to approve legislation that would clarify that schools should be safe spaces for students and anybody coming in and out of them.

So that would happen.

And additionally, because I'm going to D.C., if it's approved, I will also take it with me and be able to tell that this is something that the Seattle School Board has taken a position on and I probably also would provide it as an example to school board representatives from other districts too if they want to sign on to the same as this has been an issue that's impacting a lot of us and our students in urban districts.

Questions for Director Rankin?

The advisory position from our student representatives.

As student reps we vote pro.

We think it ensures the safety of all students given the current climate of our country.

Thank you Director Yoon.

All right.

Seeing no further discussion I'll ask for the vote.

Director Song.

Yes.

Vice President Briggs.

Aye.

Director Lavallee.

Aye.

Director Mizrahi.

Yes.

Director Rankin.

Yes Director Smith aye President Topp aye This motion is passed unanimously.

Moving on to the next item approval of Rainier Beach High School boys basketball team participation in throne national basketball championships may have a motion.

I move that the school board approve the participation of the Rainier Beach High School boys basketball team in the throne national basketball championships.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Second.

All right, I have a motion from Vice President Briggs and a second from Director Mizrahi.

Mr. Howard, I have that you're quickly introducing this item, but maybe not.

We may not have any questions, we'll see.

The team didn't stick around for the vote.

I'm surprised that they're not there in the hallway maybe.

Any questions, comment, discussion?

All right, the position from the student representatives.

We would like to vote yes.

Great, all right.

Then I will call on staff for the vote.

Vice President Briggs?

Aye.

Director Lavallee?

Aye.

Director Mizrahi?

Aye.

Director Rankin?

Aye.

Director Smith?

Aye.

Director Song?

Yes.

President Topp?

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

So I'm going to go through two quick options here, okay?

We're just gonna do really quickly option A or option B.

Option A is we'll start with action item number two, which we didn't get to, and I assume that's going to take a large chunk of time.

If we do that, then we move into the, we do the introduced items sometime next week.

Other option is we start with the introduced items, we start with number four, and then we get through as much as we possibly can in the next hour, but my guess is we might get stuck at number four, and we go from there.

So are we starting with action item number two, or are we starting with introduction item number four?

So two or four, that's your choice.

I want to see fingers.

two or four?

Two or four?

But if we get through two quickly, can we then go to four?

Yes, yes.

We're going to try to get through as much as we possibly can.

I'm seeing two.

All right, we're going to move to action item number two.

So action item number two is amendment to board policy number 6114 gifts, grants and donations and 6220 procurement.

Okay, so there is an amendment here.

So first we're going to introduce what was the amendment currently proposed.

We're going to move to discussion on that.

And we'll go to amendment one.

We'll see if there's a motion and a second for amendment one.

We'll move to discussion on that.

It's not what staff told me previously.

So can we go straight to the, so.

If there's no other discussion, but first we have to discuss the underlying.

So do I have a motion for, do I have a motion?

I move that the school board amend board policy number 6114 gifts, grants and donations and fundraising proceeds and board policy number 6220 procurement as attached to the board action report.

Second.

Okay.

Can I go directly to Director Rankin's motion?

Director Rankin.

So yes, sorry, so I'm gonna move the amendment, then we discuss the amendment, and then depending on that, then we go back to this.

Okay, thank you.

I move to amend the board action report titled, Amendments to Board Policy 6114, Gifts, Grants and Donations and Fundraising Proceeds, and board policy number 6220 procurement to remove amendments to board policy number 6114 gifts, grants, and donations from the motion as attached to this board action report.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Okay.

I have a motion from Director Rankin and a second from Director Lavallee.

And now pass it over to Director Rankin to talk about her amendment first and then we will open it up to discussion.

Thank you.

So I'm bringing forward this amendment to ask that we do not take action on the proposed changes to 6114 and vote only to approve the lower threshold proposed for policy 6220. Policy 6114 is not a PTA fundraising policy.

It applies to any funds accepted by the district outside of the state's funding allocation.

So that policy includes grants from PTAs.

It includes federal title grants, the city levy, foundations, any other public or private group.

This money is never given as a blank check to the general fund.

It comes with restrictions and certain purpose.

When we accept those funds, we also obligate SPS to the funders' intent and spending.

In most cases, this is for things we all agree are great and want to do for kids, but there are times that might not be so clear or could even be dramatically at odds with our values.

Increasing the threshold means up to half a million dollars of influence and access to schools and students without the oversight of the board and out of the view of the public.

For federal title grants, it's our legal obligation to ensure that these grants are spent as intended.

At $250,000, our current threshold is already significantly higher than other school districts in Washington and across the country for board acceptance of gifts and grants.

And I want to clarify too that acceptance and approval Acceptance is, we got it, received.

Hang on just a second, Dr. Reagan.

We'll give you time here as we get the lights back on.

Do we need to...

There we go.

Okay.

The current $250,000 threshold is already significantly higher than other school districts for board acceptance.

Community members shared with us in emails that and we heard I think some testimony that the threshold is being treated like a hard cap and that giving above that cap is not allowed.

And I hear that concern and that concern, we can address that concern today by providing a clear communication to PTAs and principals about what that threshold means instead of taking the step to make a change to the policy that reduces the board's oversight on many other funds.

What I also heard was the sentiment that the board or board members just wouldn't accept the funding, so don't even try.

One email from a parent said she couldn't understand why the district saw PTA grants as such a danger.

She shared that she had volunteered on a project to fund an accessible playground at Green Lake Elementary where there's a medically fragile program and many students who use wheelchairs.

And she wrote to the board, quote, End quote.

When I read that, I was like, wait, I remember that project, I remember that vote, and that just didn't bring up in my memory anything that sounded like what I, I didn't recall anything like that.

And so, because the meetings are still on YouTube, I actually went and looked it up.

It was May of 2021, and I went to the introduction item, Green Lake Elementary acceptance of gifts and playground improvements.

Four out of seven directors gave comments.

Director Harris said simply huge thanks for this.

I commented next and noted that one of our district's medically fragile classrooms is at Green Lake Elementary and I wanted to recognize the PTA for a contribution that would truly benefit their entire school population including those with mobility challenges and thank them for supporting a project that would benefit every student.

Director Rivera noted that the majority of the project came from grants and volunteering and she really appreciated the community effort around the project.

Then President Hampson asked, when we say yes to these things, end quote, of course why would we say no to such a fantastic project, end quote.

How could we ensure that schools without resources to do self-help and projects like this can also access similar benefit?

How could the district step in through capital projects?

In response, at the time, Chief Operations Officer Podesta shared that we do condition assessments and need assessments and that SPS could put more capital dollars towards playgrounds and other equipment that has historically been done mostly through self-help.

He also suggested an equity analysis of self-help projects to develop a strategy that benefits all students and balances what the district can do and what individual communities can do.

The capital team now inventories and tracks conditions and a schedule of review and replacement on I think a 12 year cycle for playgrounds at all schools and includes play equipment in our capital levy planning.

All students now benefit from a conversation had around the acceptance of a generous PTA funded project and the $400,000 gift was gratefully accepted.

We're all here because we care about students, we encourage and appreciate people to support our schools, but we have to take the time to develop and uphold policies that will solve problems and not create more.

If we approve changes to 6114 today to raise the threshold for acceptance of all gifts and grants, we open the door even wider to private interests and outside influence to enter our schools unchecked, unknown, and unseen by us and the public in a formal way.

So my ask is to my colleagues to vote yes on this amendment that would retain 6114 in its current state, wouldn't change, and allow us to make more comprehensive recommendations to come from the policy and or finance committee before the end of the school year.

I would also request that the superintendent review existing policy 6114 and provide immediate clarification to PTAs and principals about contributions and board acceptance as it is under the current policy.

Thanks.

And I'm happy to take any questions.

All right.

We're going to move to discussion here and or questions for the sponsor, for the, for Director Rankin.

We'll start here with Director Song.

I still don't understand why we would pay more board oversight to money going out of the district versus in the district, which is the reason why I have proposed that we make that threshold the same in my amendment.

I don't know if my colleagues are aware that on our district's website, there is a website page regarding PTA grants and it refers to a $250,000 cap and it says the word cap.

That is the reason why PTAs perceive this as being a cap because that's what it says on the website.

I would just say that I would expect that in my request to the superintendent to review that that could easily be taken down if that's what's and I don't know when that was put in there it certainly is not directed in that way in our existing policy so if that's the barrier like let's clear that up right now without adding to the level of I mean, there's so many different AI, ed reform, people who don't want us to teach sex ed.

There's so many different potentials for acceptances of funds that a half a million dollars when other districts around us to review and accept funding over $5,000, it's actually really alarming to me.

And I've asked in the past, why don't we have better insight into title grants, title funding, and discovered through this that it's because it falls under this same policy and we should actually be approving those separately to ensure that title funds are not just getting slopped into the WSS, but are actually being driven towards the students who need the support So I think, I mean, I just think that there's a lot more to consider with this and we don't have time to do it right now.

And if the problem is that PTAs think they can't give us more money, then we can fix that by updating the website instead of creating this additional risk and lack of oversight.

We're gonna just keep going around the V shape here, Director Mizrahi.

Yeah, I have some thoughts on this.

I mean, so one, you know, I don't think that it's discordant in a time of budget crisis to say that we want to make it harder and have more insight and more checks on spending money.

And we maybe even want to find ways to make it easier for people to give us money.

That is just, and I think I said this last week or last month, that just seems logical to me.

And I think it was interesting in the testimony to hear almost like whiplash of people who are talking about budget cuts that they're very worried about that are really going to be cuts and then have people testifying saying, well, but we shouldn't make it easier to give us money.

And that seems to me like, well, actually, at a time when we are facing deep cuts and cuts to programs that are, as we hear, important to lots of families, we should be finding ways to make it more welcoming to give money to Seattle Public Schools.

I would say on this hard cap, soft cap issue, I don't think it can be understated how much this has been presented as a hard cap.

to every PTA that I've talked to, to the point that even hearing that some building leaders have been telling PTAs, well, we should really stop at $245,000 because we don't want to accidentally go over it because I will get in trouble.

We cannot take more than this.

And so really, at least it seems like PTAs and building leaders understand this to be a very hard cap.

And if you look at the history of what has been brought to this board and what PTAs have raised.

I don't think it's like a coincidence.

It's, oh, look, there's all these PTAs that happen to stop right around $249,000.

They are operating as if this is a cap.

I think that with that in mind, I think it's actually a somewhat silly number.

One, as has been pointed out, it hasn't been updated since 2014, at least.

But it seems like it goes back even further than that.

I don't know what it was pre-2014.

It seems like it was and also $250,000.

I don't know when that came in.

So it hasn't been updated with inflation, but also that it's a cap, thinking about how it applies to PTAs, it operates the same as at a 60-person school than at a 1,400-person school.

So you have this cap that for a school like Garfield that obviously has a lot more need and a lot more fundraising capacities operating the same as at a very, very tiny school.

And the last thing I'll say is that even if, and I appreciate Director Rankin's your point about we can just say, make it clear, this is not a hard cap.

I'm worried about how even a soft approval cap works in the context of a PTA.

So I'm thinking about a few things.

One, you have a PTA, they host a fundraiser.

Let's say that they are wildly successful and instead of raising $250,000 they raise $300,000.

Well, do they have to prepare a bar?

Where do they go?

Are we going to build a website where they can easily access this?

And then on top of that, what if we say no?

Do they have to track down everyone who bought popcorn at the movie night and refund their money?

It's easy for me to think about how an approval cap works for someone who says, I want to write a really big check.

will you take it or not?

We actually did that today.

We did a $2 million approval in our consent agenda.

I can understand how that works.

But when you do it with a PTA where you have all these different funding sources, it could be coming from 100, 200, 300 families, how that would actually work in practice and how we make that accessible and easy for people to do.

Those are some of my concerns.

We're going to keep moving on through the V. Vice President Briggs.

It sounds to me like what we have is a communication problem, a lack of clarity, which is a problem that plagues our district at all times, that I agree with Director Rankin can just be easily addressed.

I don't think that an approval process needs to be onerous.

It could be very simple, but to me it's really a question of accountability and knowing exactly what, I don't understand what the point of keeping track, I mean, this is a little bit of an overstatement.

I do understand what the point of keeping track of the budget is, but if we are authorizing up to a half a million dollars to just flow into a school at a time with no oversight, that's a hard no for me.

I actually think that we should lower our threshold to $10,000 like most other school districts.

but I absolutely will not sign off on letting $500,000 just go unaccounted for.

It doesn't mean I don't welcome the money, I absolutely do and I will happily approve it.

We just need to know where it's coming from and where it's going so it can be factored in to all the other expenses that we are meant to keep track of.

Director Smith.

I have a question for Superintendent Schultinger because I think there's broad agreement in the goal that we don't want PTAs to be capped at raising over $250,000.

If we directed you to remove that cap, is that feasible?

It's communicated as a cap.

It's on a website.

There's a belief in the district that it's a cap.

And so how effective would without changing the policy how effective would it be if we directed our superintendent to say there's not a cap?

Would that take?

I serve at the pleasure of the board.

If the board would like to direct me to both change a website and write a letter to the community I am always happy to do so.

Director LaValley Director Smith do you have any follow up before Director LaValley.

Before I go, it looked like Director Song had an answer.

Did you have a response?

Okay.

All right.

I cannot direct you alone, but I think we should direct you to remove that language because it is inaccurate and it does not follow what the policy says.

So I hope that we, as a board, because I cannot act alone in this, can go ahead and do that.

To what Director Briggs was saying, yes, we have an issue with communication and we do need to improve that.

We also have an issue with trust.

you know, these PTAs do not trust us that we're gonna go ahead and improve this money because there has been a long history of us not trusting them to make improvements in their school that they so desperately need.

That being said, I am very nervous about raising this cap before we have tried these other steps first.

if we go ahead and continue with this amendment and raise one but do not raise the thing for the other one at this point in time, I believe we can come back and still review it again and potentially review it in a policy committee that looks at how we can to raise this so that funds can both be collected at a higher rate as well as done so in an equitable way.

Is that correct that we could still take this up in a policy committee?