We have reached the portion of our legislative meeting to accept public testimony.
There are a great many procedures board procedure 14 30. One person speaks at a time comments addressed to the board.
Please adhere to the time limit.
You'll get a yellow light at the podium that gives you 30 seconds to wrap up your comments.
The majority of the speaker's time should be spent on the topic that you have indicated you wish to speak about.
No racial slurs personal insults ridicule or threats will be allowed.
No comments regarding personnel issues.
Please be respectful.
And here we go.
Please read.
The names three at a time if you hear your name second or third please line up so that we can get through this.
We do have 25 folks on our list today because of the high interest in this meeting.
Thank you.
First up for public testimony we have Franny Hall followed by Milan Filipos and then Avery Wagar.
Hello Seattle school board.
My name is Franny Hall and this is Veronica Collin.
We are from Lincoln High School of Seattle.
We along with Sebastian are part of the student design team.
We've been working since December of 2018 to create a student climate we wanted in our school.
From naming the Lincoln mascot to discussing Linc's values we were passionate in providing a safe and positive learning environment for every student that attends Lincoln High School.
When we discussed what we wanted in our student climate we wanted a place where everyone felt like they could express themselves in a non-judgmental atmosphere.
This year is the first time Lincoln has been open since 1981. We've started the school year with 400 students from class of 2023 and 200 students from the class of 2022. With only a few students with only a total student body of 600 we have started the process of making Lincoln a place for students to call home.
We have many clubs that support our diverse backgrounds such as black student union Asian student union and Jewish student union.
All meetings are open for everyone to attend.
We also hold sexuality and gender alliance meetings every week to support our LGBTQ plus students.
I cede my time to Veronica Collin.
We the student design team attended a conference at Chief Sealth High School where we talked about the issues of diversity and inclusion at our schools.
We realized that we need to take the first steps in identifying our diversity and representing our minorities beyond having clubs in our high school before we begin working on inclusion.
At Lincoln we lack representation of our minority groups being a 70 percent white school.
This means that our minorities need to be acknowledged and appreciated instead of just being a statistic.
To address this would like to have students take at least a semester learning about the literature of minority communities in the U.S. and around the world.
We cannot change the diversity at our school but we can change the perspective on what it means to have an inclusive welcoming environment for everyone at Lincoln regardless of their identification.
Thank you.
Hi I'm Millen Filipos.
I'm a senior at Garfield High School and I'm here to speak about the value of the HCC program.
When I was in kindergarten I dreaded every day of school.
I was extremely shy and I didn't have a single friend.
Though I love to read my class library was limited to picture books that I could finish in minutes and my teacher tried to help me stay engaged but this help usually came in the form of an extra pile of worksheets on addition or the ABCs.
In class differentiation was not enough to meet my needs.
I was not being challenged in school.
Then I transferred into the highly capable cohort at Lowell Elementary which is where it was back then and for the first time ever I began to enjoy my education.
There it was surrounded by a group of kids just as bookish nerdy and awkward as me.
There I had access to a challenging curriculum and a teacher a teacher who thought it was worth her time to teach advanced learners and push them to their full potential.
The HCC program is not a special track for the privileged.
It is a special education service designed for a group of kids who often struggle in regular classes.
HCC doesn't only provide advanced academics it provides a social environment for academically minded students to work together and make friends many times for the first time in their life.
There are students from every economic and racial background who need this service not just rich white kids.
This is why I'm shocked at the proposal to dissolve the HCC at Washington Middle School.
Washington is one of the most racially diverse middle schools in Seattle.
By preserving the cohort at North End schools while eliminating it at Washington you are saying that gifted students in the North End are worthy of a quality education while gifted students in Beacon Hill in the Central District are not.
I urge you to maintain the cohort model reform the admission process and give every gifted student of color in Seattle the education they deserve.
Thank you.
After Avery Wagner we will have Monique Adams followed by Astina DeBonte and Tanya Davis.
Good evening directors.
My name is Avery Wagger.
I'm a junior at Ballard High School.
I'm also in running start and a two term student representative on the SPS information technology advisory committee.
I'm here to voice my opinion against the original bar proposing revisions to policy 2022 and voice my support for Amendment 1. I have dysgraphia which is to writing what dyslexia is to reading.
I was formally diagnosed during my freshman year and since then I've had a 504 plan that allows me to use a personal laptop for most of my written work.
Dysgraphia is no longer a significant challenge for me.
I don't love the label of having a learning disability but it doesn't burden me like I once thought it would.
Before my formal diagnosis I benefited from three years of informal accommodations that allowed me to use a personal laptop during middle school.
Without these informal accommodations that let me confirm the benefit of using a laptop I might have never been willing to bear the label and get the diagnosis that I needed to overcome dysgraphia completely.
I volunteered for the ITAC to provide input on these types of issues that 2022 addresses and be able to help ensure that all students have the opportunity to use technology in a way that empowers them as it did me.
I'm disappointed that the ITAC was not asked to fully engage in reading the changes to 2022. The changes proposed by the original BAR would end any possibility of informal accommodations at the K-8 level.
Will the changes proposed by Amendment 1 would allow them to continue.
I believe the original BAR would advantage would disadvantage both students and teachers by limiting options available to address learning challenges with formal diagnoses or plans.
Therefore I ask you to vote for Amendment 1 for policy 2022. Thank you.
Hello my name is Austina Devante president of the Northwest Gifted Child Association.
Two years ago I was invited to give a study session to the school board about equity and high cap.
I pointed out your many barriers to equity and nothing has changed.
Those barriers still exist.
Barriers like requiring parent or teacher referrals only screening 40 percent of your second graders using only one screening data point when state law says you need two and using high screening cutoffs that leave out potentially eligible students testing kids on multiple Saturdays referrals due in September for services starting 12 months later.
The barriers are obvious.
Now the district is ready to act and I agree that bold steps are needed.
But instead of fixing the equity problem the proposal is to restructure the high cap program into the neighborhood schools and worse now eliminating an HCC site in the south region where your largest equity problems lie.
It's unconscionable.
Changing the program model doesn't change the equity situation at all.
It's a total bait and switch.
The kids you're currently missing are not going to magically appear for all the same reasons that they haven't been identified so far.
The inequities will only grow as each school with their limited resources will default to identifying the easy to spot high achievers who are going to be disproportionately white and high income.
A few schools will rise to the challenge.
Most will not.
You say you're about equity, but this change will make it worse, much worse.
The actions being proposed are the exact actions you would take if you wanted to fix the optics, but had no intention of fixing the actual equity problem.
Fix the real problem your identification practices universal screening data sweeps local norms will make a world of difference.
It'll cost money but not as much as you think.
Ten dollars for the Naglieri nonverbal abilities test administered in the regular classroom.
I offer to audit your qualification data.
I assert that I will find hundreds of kids who are wrongly denied high cap services in the past.
That has been true for every district I've worked with so far.
When you look across three years of student data and look at the highest scores you will find students that qualify even with your existing criteria and those overlooked students will be disproportionately low income ELL students with disabilities and students of color.
Thank you.
My name is Monique Adams and I'm the parent of a fourth grader in Thurgood Marshall's HCC program.
At our neighborhood school our son with his high scores on assessment tests was never recommended for advanced learning by his teachers.
In fact he was assessed with low grades despite his high scores.
Implicit bias in white teachers as gatekeepers has been confirmed in numerous studies and its effects are catastrophic for black and brown children.
And to be clear.
Our experience is not unique.
Black and brown parents in HCC often relate similar stories of teachers failing to recommend children for testing and their neighborhood school refusing or unable to provide coursework to address their children's needs.
So as black and brown parents how can we trust that the same teachers that failed our children before will now accurately assess our children once the HCC cohort is dissolved.
Will these same teachers receive mandatory training to address the implicit biases preventing them from acknowledging children of color as advanced learners in the first place.
The HCC cohort should not be dissolved.
It should be widened and deepened and remade.
How can the district credibly address issues of inequity if it has not undergone an aggressive campaign to comp competitively hire more black and brown teachers who are more likely to recommend children of color for advanced learning at far greater rates than their white counterparts.
How will the district address these issues of inequity in the HCC program if the district has not sought the counsel and recommendations of experts of color studying gifted children of color.
When SPS specific when will SPS specifically meet with HCC parents of color to address our concerns on how to improve the program and make it more equitable.
Widening the scope to attract more children of color into these programs has been successful in Miami-Dade and other school districts.
Federal Way and Tacoma outformed Seattle in making their programs more equitable.
Why is Seattle Public Schools still falling behind.
White children do not have a monopoly on giftedness.
Being black and brown and gifted is not an anomaly.
These children are out there.
Failure to take the action necessary to equitably widen access to HCC is just the district's continued failure of children of color and dissolving the cohort without first doing everything to make it more equitable should not be a compromise.
Any of us are willing to make.
I'm available to any board members for further discussion.
And thank you.
After Tanya Davis we will have Brian Terry followed by Hauwanda Cheyenne and Julie Popper.
Tanya Davis.
After Tanya Davis we will have Brian Terry and then Hawaii Deschayan and then Julie Popper.
So I'm ceding my time to Kathleen Lenve.
She's a third grade Marshall PTA co-president.
Thank you.
I'm a parent of a Thurgood Marshall fifth grader and a Washington Middle School sixth grader.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak and I would like to make three points.
First the district has created a false link between the TAF decision and a decision about HCC and the Southeast.
These two topics should be decoupled and considered each on their own merits without an artificial deadline.
Second community engagement by the district with Thurgood Marshall parents on removing the HC cohort has been non-existent.
Our PTA heard about this potential policy change from a parent and we hastily organized a discussion forum on October 22nd.
115 people packed into our school library on 48 hours notice.
Families asked numerous questions and expressed concerns about why HCC and TAF can't both exist in Southeast Seattle.
what the HC services program will look like if the cohort is dissolved and how it would possibly further their goals of racial equity to dissolve the cohort only at Washington Middle School.
Even with chief of schools Wyeth Jesse in the room whom our principal was able to invite those questions could not be answered.
No further community engagement has taken place.
Third Seattle families are asking for solutions from district leadership not just pointing out problems and tearing things down.
I would love to be here today to hear a new plan for providing equitable robust accessible HC services throughout Seattle.
Instead our superintendent is taking a decide first and plan later approach with an implementation date that is only nine months away.
Seattle should have a robust equitable accessible gifted education program that meets the needs of all students who could benefit.
Going back to the failed model of expecting teachers to just do more to differentiate across several grade levels in every classroom at every school is not a plan.
It might sound OK in an op ed but it's not smart.
It's not equitable.
It's not effective and it's not legal.
Thank you.
Brian Terry.
Good evening.
In our district today a white student is 13 times more likely than a black student to be identified as highly capable.
In many cases we place.
The mostly white classrooms that this creates and mostly black neighborhood schools.
This sends a clear message to all of our students.
White students are more capable and more deserving.
This is white supremacy culture.
Black families from Washington have testified about the damage that this does.
Their students complain that they are stuck in the dumb classes because they are not white.
For almost 40 years.
We have overlooked.
The oppression this creates.
As though black students didn't matter to us.
Today.
That changes.
Thank you for having the courage to face this problem and taking action now to end racial segregation and oppression at Washington Middle School.
This is a bold step toward equity and one that will take careful planning to succeed.
Many highly capable families are horrified by the systemic racism at Washington and eager to support TAF.
But are worried that the district does not have a clear plan.
Please engage with these families by coming up with and sharing a more detailed plan for how TAF will work and by holding the district accountable.
For this plan.
Thank you.
For taking immediate and concrete action toward dismantling the institutional racism in our schools.
And thank you for showing that you believe in all of our students.
Hi my name is Sabeel and I'm going to help my mom.
I'm going to read my mom's testimony.
My name is Hawaida Shaheen.
I have three kids in the advanced learning.
I want to talk about the one who moved from.
Who has moved to HCC after completing fourth grade.
During his time in general education.
He was achieving above nation grades but he was always not happy happy or feeling.
A part of something at school.
He would shut off his brain and doodle all of his notebooks and he was not.
Very noticeable in class.
The school teachers kept telling us.
That his educational needs were being served.
We started to.
Explore reasons for his behavior.
Besides talking to doctors we also started to talk to other parents who advised us to test him and moved in and move him to Thurgood Marshall.
We did so.
He took time to adjust but gradually he opened up and started to feel part of a group.
HCC help Mike could not only be academically academically challenged but most importantly feel.
Not to feel alone or weird.
The advanced learning in his neighborhood school did not help him.
I'm asking the board members to keep the HCC to not force us to look for.
Private schools and add more financial burden on us to open it up for schools who qualify even if not tested and to test all school all kids in SPS.
Thank you.
After Julie Popper we'll have Jeremy Manzer followed by Elaine Harger and Dion Malastretz.
Hi I'm Julie Popper.
I live in the Washington Middle School attendance area and I have a kid in HCC at Thurgood Marshall.
I'm going to start by talking about TAF since I feel this is the route inappropriately forcing the HCC decision quickly.
It is wrong to trial this curriculum at an attendance area school and make our kids the guinea pigs.
Other STEM and project based learnings are options at schools like TOPS and Boren.
They're not forced upon us.
Is putting kids in front of screens more often a good thing for education because that seems to be what the TAF model is.
And why is TAF demanding terms from us.
We don't need them.
If after thorough consideration and input we decide to adopt TAF as an option school SPS should set the terms not TAF.
Washington Middle School has had some tough times but it's undergone significant changes in the last two years.
The dust hasn't settled yet.
It is not right to say it needs a turnaround when it is in that turnaround.
Let it thrive.
Don't stop it now.
And let's get real.
Let's talk about HCC.
HCC is cheap.
It is not personalized.
The class sizes at my kids school are 5 to 10 bigger in HCC than non HCC.
It's not special.
It's the same curriculum that other classes use.
It's not some unicorn.
Yet.
An entire.
Room of HCC parents said we would have preferred to stay at our neighborhood schools but they said they couldn't serve us.
My husband and I even sat down with the principal of our neighborhood school and asked to for walk to math or something.
She said it was a scheduling problem.
She couldn't promise anything and told us to go to Thurgood Marshall because they were resourced for this.
You can't dismantle with that HCC without resourcing the alternative which will take training and smaller class sizes for differentiation.
An iPad is not differentiation.
Furthermore eliminating the cohort for the south end only creates inequity.
How can these kids keep up with others who still have the cohort.
We have an advanced learning task force who's against this.
We're finding new ways to improve equity.
If I 1000 passes which we hope it does of course we have even more tools to make the situation better.
In summary we need to say no to TAF and no to dismantling HCC.
Thank you.
Good evening my name is Jeremy Masner I'm a parent at Washington.
I ask that you vote no on Amendment 1 of the student assignment plan for three reasons.
First it creates a conflict between the assignment plan and policy 2109. Second the board should require a single action item and holistic review of TAF in conjunction with the advanced learning task force.
Third the board should demand an option for TAF that doesn't come at the expense of South End HCC.
Nova's alternative learning program coexists with Garfield.
Why can't TAF and HCC coexist for middle school as well.
I cede to Yvonne Hubbard.
Hello.
I've heard so many like things right now and I'm just trying to stay calm but one that really stuck out to me was labels.
And I know that many of you when you look at me and you don't know me.
You're not going to think that I'm a mother.
You're not going to think that I'm a mother of four children.
One who is 18. One in Maine in college.
One that is in HCC because I don't meet that visual that comes with that HCC parent.
And I want to tell you that I've had a kid my youngest one who I've struggled with the most trying to get.
Differentiating learning.
Teachers told me that my kid wasn't gifted that she wasn't smart enough that she couldn't read books that I donated from my own house that she wasn't able to do the things that she's been able to do.
I was told that my child was autistic.
And so yes.
Dissolving the cohort is just going to label more black children instead of helping to identify them and getting them the services that they need.
And we should not have to say no.
To TAF.
We should be serving all students everywhere in every neighborhood.
My neighborhood school is Rainier Beach and it needs some support.
I'm Elaine Harger I'm the librarian at Washington Middle School and I hope that if you haven't you will read this book by Garfield High School student Azure Savage.
The title is You Failed Us.
Students of Color Talk About Seattle Schools.
Azure was a Washington HCC program and their book's main message is that academic tracking must cease if Seattle is to dismantle this spatial form of institutional racism.
Tracking establishes academic stereotypes.
Students labeled smart and are gifted, others average.
Tracking reproduces privilege and entitlement for some, second class status for others.
Tracking must end.
Yet tonight you are voting on a proposal that merely fiddles with this form of structural privilege.
The proposal to disband the HCC cohort at Thurgood only if a private non-for-profit takes over Washington is highly questionable.
It leaves testing for giftedness intact in elementary schools citywide.
It leaves intact HCC cohorts everywhere else in Seattle.
Every child is gifted and deserving of the best education.
Now, about TAF.
Maybe the TAF at Washington idea is an experiment of sorts.
Maybe a good idea.
However, the process has been autocratic.
No one has sat down at the table to hold a conversation about bringing TAF to Washington except among administrators.
Information sessions have featured TAF and district representatives standing as sage on the stage telling listeners how excellent the program will be.
Essential questions have gone unexplored.
There is much talk about the importance of relationships to educational success.
But this process has taken place as if the staff at Washington has nothing to contribute to the conversation.
On the back of my statement I'm giving you a copy of a letter I sent to Superintendent Juneau.
I urge you to put this matter of TAF at Washington on hold until real conversation and collaboration has been allowed to happen.
Thank you.
After Dionne Malatesta we'll have Julie Van Arcken followed by Emily Lieberman and James Wagar.
I'm Dionne Malatesta and I'm ceding my time to Hannah Evans from Decatur Elementary.
Hi my name is Hannah Evans and I'm in fourth grade in a highly capable cohort.
I read the letter that the superintendent wrote to the Seattle Times about changing the HCC and I wanted to share my thoughts with you.
I agree that it is wrong that there are not more black and Native American kids in the cohort.
It makes me really mad because I am black and I am HCC and I know there are more kids like me.
You said that the system is broken and the cohort isn't serving all students well.
I agree that the system is broken but the problem isn't the cohort.
The cohort does an amazing job of serving us who are in it.
The broken part of the system is that you won't let more black and Native American kids in it.
I want to explain to you why for kids like me the cohort is what makes education go from impossible to possible.
Before I went to an HCC school it was really hard for me.
I felt out of place because everything the teacher taught was stuff I already knew but my friends didn't and it made me feel weird.
This work we had to do was hard because I had to write this boring easy stuff over and over again.
I was I was always the last to finish my work or a lot of time I never finished and I felt like the other kids probably thought I was weird for being so behind.
I had to stay in for recess almost every day and I felt like I was the worst student in the world.
It made me feel bad that even though I tried so hard to be a good student.
My teacher thought I wasn't.
I felt like a troublemaker because I was sent to the office a lot.
It made me never want to go to school again ever.
When I started the HTC this year, it was amazing.
I heard the kids asking questions.
questions the same questions I had.
And I was like wow I'm not the only one here.
There are other kids like me.
I never felt like I fit in and belong the way I do right now at my cohort.
I love it and I never want to go back to a regular school again.
It was horrible for me.
Please don't vote to end the cohort.
Hi my name is Julie Van Arcken.
I agree with Superintendent Juneau that the highly capable cohort is racially inequitable and that it must be changed.
The current system inequity harms everyone.
I pulled my own daughter out of HCC away from all the classmates she grew up with and sent her to our neighborhood school even though I was told she would have to repeat a full year of math if I did so.
I've heard the chief of schools refer to HCC kids who go back to their neighborhood schools as success stories.
However I believe that when kids have to repeat a full year of math that's not a success.
That's a failure.
I believe that families should not have to choose between racial equity and an appropriate curriculum for their children.
And that's why I serve on the advanced learning task force.
We've been working for the last 17 months on recommendations for a racially equitable advanced learning system.
We believe that it's possible to eliminate racial disproportionality and to provide HC students with the accelerated learning that's specifically required by state law.
However there needs to be a clear plan for achieving these two outcomes.
They are not going to happen on their own and they are not going to happen by having advanced learners teach lessons to other students which some documentation suggests is the plan at Washington.
Given that the district has already asked the task force for a year and a half of our time and we have just one month to go.
I ask that you please wait these last weeks to receive our recommendations before pushing through any fundamental changes to advanced learning.
Thank you.
I yield my time to Stephanie Sato-Yuha.
I'd like to start also by acknowledging that we are on the traditional land of the Duwamish people.
My name is Stephanie Sato-Yuha.
I am a public servant representing the state of Washington since 2005. I worked with all the school districts in King County on truancy prevention and intervention.
I have seen highly intelligent children of color in our juvenile justice system.
One was Dion.
He was a precocious inquisitive 7 year old who lacked impulse control.
He was sensitive to noises smells and scratchy tags in his clothing.
He was a highly capable child but his white teacher did not recognize him as so.
He was placed in an emotional behavioral disorder program at his school.
He could not relate to his peers in the program because his brain worked differently from theirs.
He hated school and didn't have any friends.
He did not engage in the classroom and acted out when bored.
When Dion got to middle school he was already labeled as a problem student.
When a teacher saw Dion that Dion seemed sleepy she assumed he was high.
The SRO took him outside and slammed him up against the wall and accused him of doing drugs.
After that Dion stopped attending school and started hanging out with other kids in his neighborhood.
who are not attending school.
It wasn't long after that that he was caught in a stolen car driven by a friend.
Dion is not a child that I know but many children that I've observed in court.
He was a gifted child of color who fell prey to the schools to prison pipeline.
Getting rid of the HCC cohort in the most disadvantaged areas of our school district before having a plan in place for identifying and serving children like Dion is not the answer.
Moving too quickly to arrive at a solution without the consensus of the collective is a white dominant culture way of doing things.
The letter opposing this amendment was signed by more than 500 stakeholders in 36 hours.
Please slow down and follow the appropriate process.
There are many bright children of color in the southeast part of the district that need advanced learning cohorts.
It is insulting to assume that there are not enough children of color in the area who are highly capable.
Please veto Amendment 1 of the student assignment transition plan.
Thank you.
After James Wagger we will have Chris Jackins followed by Margaret Dolan and Kate Poe.
Good evening everyone.
My name is James Wagger.
I'm a community representative on the SPS information technology advisory committee and a parent of three Seattle Public School students.
As a parent of two students with 504 plans for dysgraphia which in their cases is best addressed through the use of a personal electronic device.
I want to voice my opposition to the original BAR proposing revisions to policy 2022 and voice my support for Amendment 1. Before my students were formally diagnosed with dysgraphia and had 504 plans established both used personally owned laptops under informal accommodations afforded by their K through 8 school.
The changes proposed by the original BAR and any possibility of informal accommodations at the K through 8 level while the changes proposed by Amendment 1 would allow them to continue.
Therefore I ask you to support Amendment 1. The elimination of informal accommodations at the K through 8 level would potentially force families to incur significant upfront cost to diagnose learning disabilities before any PED based solution can even be tested.
A functional Chromebook can be had for under one hundred dollars.
While it can cost upwards of three thousand dollars to diagnose dysgraphia and other learning disabilities as a condition precedent to establishing a formal plan.
My students are in closer proximity to educational justice than many in the district.
And enjoy certain privileges that come with that territory.
Nevertheless the possible need to invest six thousand dollars.
To diagnose two students with dysgraphia was a consideration.
Even with clear visibility of the benefits we saw from the informal accommodations.
Cost aside.
Being diagnosed with a disability also.
Creates an unwelcome label.
That might be avoided or delayed through an informal accommodation.
The students who are furthest from educational justice often carry too many labels.
As it is.
All students and families should have the opportunity to explore the effectiveness of device based solutions on an informal basis before taking on the labels and costs associated with a formal diagnosis.
If you truly.
Like to engage with the ITAC.
Before deciding on this issue.
That's what we're here for.
As a parent.
If you're going to vote on this tonight.
I would urge you to vote for Amendment 1 to policy 2022. Thank you.
My name is Chris Jackins Box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4 on property alterations at Memorial Stadium.
Three points.
Number one the district report states that the XFL professional football league wants to make a gift.
Of updates to the stadium.
Number two the field would be rented at eighty five dollars per hour.
This sounds like a good deal for a for profit company.
Number three the team will have exclusive use of the field during practices.
How often would this happen.
Please vote no.
On the Spanish instructional materials adoption.
R C W 28 A 3 2 0 2 3 0 requires the board to approve the members of the instructional materials committee.
This has not happened.
Please vote no.
On board policy 2022 current use of personal electronic devices is violating district policy on commercial advertising in public schools.
A strong district wide policy is needed.
On the student assignment transition plan four points.
Number one lack of transportation guarantees for all school choices has created a racial imbalance at schools.
Number two the amendment on the technology access foundation TAF program lacks clarity.
Number three a higher priority should be reopening Indian Heritage High School and the African-American Academy.
Number four Licton Springs K-8 is being forced to move to Webster under threat of death to the program.
This is the wrong way to locate programs.
Please vote no.
Thank you.
Hi I'm Peggy Dolane also known as Margaret who is the parent of two African-American special ed students one of whom graduated outside the district because he was underserved and my daughter is pending diploma.
I'm here to talk to you about the legislative agenda.
I applaud the sub goals that you have listed in the flyer where special education multiplier is on the list and support professionals for counselors social workers and all that.
That's great.
I'm so happy to see that.
And I'm happy that you're still not you haven't voted on it.
I know I'm late to the party.
I've been working on children's mental health intensely over the last few years.
And one of the things I wanted to just two things I wanted to raise about this issue is the public process rationale for excluding a public process was that engagement will occur with districts across the state as well as other key partners and stakeholders.
Well parents are a really important stakeholder that are not included in your discussions and I've heard a lot of people around here today talking about transparency and communications back and forth.
I think there's a real lack of understanding of the legislative agenda and and also the.
Strategic plan.
Like what what is it going to be.
What students want to know is what parents want to know as well as how are you doing this and we're not hearing it's a big.
mysterious black hole over there.
And the second is consistent language within the state.
You guys have it under opportunity gaps.
Special education is not an opportunity gap at the state level.
So when you are doing like This district feels seems to think that it doesn't need to use consistent language with what the state is doing and what that does is makes it harder for parents to understand what's going on because there's two different languages being used.
And I encourage you to involve parents in the future process.
Thank you very much for allowing me to have this part of the process.
After Kate Poe we will have Manuela Sly followed by Liz.
Murtgaard Jalepsi and DJ Yu.
Hi my name is Kate Pooks and I'm a parent of two HC qualified daughters one at Washington and one at Franklin.
I support a TAF contract with Washington Middle School for the 2020 2021 school year because students experiencing racism can't wait for schools to change at a comfortable pace.
As of September 2019 Washington is 22 percent black having the second largest concentration of black students in SPS middle schools currently.
In 2019 black students at Washington passed the SBA at 32 percent in ELA and 25 percent at math.
Their white counterparts 84 percent of them highly capable qualified passed the SBA at rates of 95 percent and 90 percent in the same building.
This glaring systematic dysfunction warrants a research based equity focused intervention like TAF.
Students of color at Washington Middle School are in a unique position of risk.
The disproportionality in academic performance and behavior referrals is a shocking recipe for disaster.
The message that black and white students get about academic achievement and intelligence at WMS is doing long term harm to both groups.
The vision of TAF is that students learn to succeed so they can position themselves to create a world where they themselves envision personal communal national and global success.
Integrated differentiated classrooms where students work on solutions to real world problems supported by clear equity centered leaders is what I want for my HC daughters and her peers.
I fully agree that this TAF contract process has been murky and disjointed.
But the arguments to wait and fine tune the process are fraught.
With racial bias and privilege.
There is a vast community of other stakeholders that we are not hearing from tonight.
Many of whom do not speak up because HC is a system that does not serve.
Or see them.
If we're going to live up to this bold promise of our strategic plan.
This is a historic moment of opportunity.
Thank you for your bravery and consideration.
Hi my name is Liz Murtaugh Gillespie and I am the parent of a seventh grade HC student at Washington Middle School and a fifth grader at Hawthorne Elementary.
Any step toward undoing injustice.
Is better than standing still.
It's better than being complacent about deeply flawed systems that marginalize many.
And hoard privileges for the few.
The most damaging injustice we can begin undoing today.
Is one that has created segregated schools within schools.
It's a system that perpetuates inequality where kids who test into a highly capable program are grouped together while other students who are disproportionately kids of color.
in lower income families are made to feel lesser than.
Opportunity gaps are not abstract percentages.
That we need to shift somehow.
They are students and we are failing them.
My daughter as I said is a highly capable seventh grader at Washington.
She tested into the program in kindergarten but we kept her at Hawthorne Elementary because it is an excellent school where every teacher.
meets every child's needs right where they are.
We made the same choice for her brother.
Both of my kids have excelled in school and not just academically.
They have learned that the strengths they see in people on a surface level are most often a product of opportunity and not inherent ability.
They are better more caring members of our diverse community in Southeast Seattle because they have gone to their neighborhood school.
They know the people who live nearby.
They see value in the many dimensions of humanity that makes them better problem solvers.
They understand that in the long run helping everyone serves both the common good and their best interests.
They've learned all these things not in spite of the diversity in their classrooms but because of it.
It has enhanced their education.
It has not been a sacrifice.
I know this is a plan that has had a process that many have pointed out as flawed but more than anything else it is a step toward undoing injustice.
So I urge you to vote yes.
After.
Next up we have Manuela Sly followed by D.J.
Yu Mary Griffin and Andrea Rosadovich.
Hello my name is Manuela Sly.
I'm a parent of three students at Seattle Public Schools.
I wanted to talk about student assignment plan and how important it is to listen to all the voices in our district.
The student assignment plan is very important for us when we talk about dual language immersion.
We want to make sure that there's higher numbers of heritage speakers in those schools that will make them much more effective.
And when we talk about also access, we also talk about information.
And I feel like there's a lot of information that has not been provided to the whole group of parents, whether they're HCC or, you know, dual language or general education.
This is very important.
And because of that, I would like to see the rest of my time to Aya and Muse.
Hi, actually today as much as I love dual languages because I come from that world, I am going to talk about Washington Middle School and I am going to talk about the importance of TAF partnership.
You see my young man also went to TAF so it's important that we have options especially in a school that it does not work for all of us.
As we speak that school has not been working for kids of color.
So as much as I heard the European mothers and fathers speak I can honestly say.
That is not a school that I would want my children to go to.
And the biggest reason is even when you have a IEP open.
You don't not get the accommodation that is due to you.
We don't even know how to restrain young people.
So.
When you have systematic things broken.
You need.
Partnerships that work.
You need to give options to families.
And it is no longer, we are not living in a time zone when those options are not available.
So please make the right choice today.
Thank you.
Hi my name's DJ and I have three kids in the HCC program at Garfield and Thurgood Marshall.
My kids suffered bullying and racism in our local neighborhood schools.
And as a family of color our priority is academics.
And identity.
We cannot afford private schools for our three kids.
Eliminating the HCC pathway at Washington Middle School would hurt impoverished families of colors.
The most.
Families who cannot leave to a private school and the TAF decision and the HCC decision should not be linked.
I graduated from Rainier Beach High School and remember participating in sit ins.
I learned to participate actively in my education.
SBA's SPS didn't lay off our teachers.
They listened to us.
When the kingdom imploded families of colors on my number 20 bus.
Metro bus did not care about Seattle City politics or businesses.
They cared about their kids education life changing education where kids can excel in college.
Right now there is an idea of a one size fits all approach and this is not how kids.
Come to us.
They learn at different.
They learn differently.
It's a job of the district to maintain rigor for all but most importantly to meet the child where they are and to raise them up.
It was a principal who indicated that my child was HCC.
And advanced learning told me that.
SPS will meet and challenge my kid at any level.
We emailed.
Advanced learning eight years ago and told them to change to a neutral test.
Create literature in other languages and create universal testing of all second graders to find more families of color.
Why.
While saying the SPS is burgeoning.
The HCC cohort.
Nothing happened.
Now the polarizing diatribe.
Is dividing.
And obfuscating the reality of where our kids education is headed.
The trust with the district is broken now.
Everyone knows what general education means at a local.
At our local school.
People who are self segregated.
Now.
It means better outcomes for richer and wider communities.
It means the status quo will continue while effectively eliminating any chance for those impoverished family of color.
To rise above their socioeconomic background.
Education is not a one size fits all.
It has gradations where the job is to meet them where they are and elevate them.
Every student works at their pace and no pace is inferior to another.
You're drawing a bright red line sharply indicating the severe disparity in the South end schools.
Next up we have Mary Griffin followed by Andrea Rosadovich and Flo Beaumont.
My name is.
My name is Mary Griffin.
I am a parent of a student with a disability.
I'm also an attorney and I was here.
I got I'm here to comment on this flyer that was posted about your legislative priorities.
And the first one talks about providing services supports and staffing for the whole child to eliminate the opportunity gap.
And then it goes on to talk about funding special education English language learners and highly capable as supposed members of the opportunity gap.
Parents of students with disability have been told for the last 10 years their students are not the students who are farthest from justice.
They are not members of the opportunity gap.
But what I can tell you is is that.
They cost you know Seattle Public Schools spends a lot of money on on special education services and somehow when when we're talking about money for students in the opportunity gap then students with the students with disabilities show up.
As a budget priority.
Last year Seattle Public Schools spent 70 million dollars of their levy money on special education services.
It should be a legislative priority.
It's a priority of the Washington State School Directors Association.
It's it's a huge expense.
Seattle Public Schools should have a dialogue with the parents of these students because they can be effective advocates.
And that's what you are losing when you do not communicate with parents of students with disabilities effectively.
These parents could be advocating for you at the federal and the state level about funding for their students with disabilities.
You do need to increase the multiplier.
You need to educate the parents about the multiplier.
You need to talk to everybody.
about what they can do to help get more funding for their students.
Thank you.
I yield to Hewson Kim.
Hello.
My name is Hewson Kim.
I'm a freshman at Garfield High School and I'm here to tell you why you cannot destroy the HCC program at WMS.
You say the HCC program is racist.
I have been in the HCC program since second grade.
The HCC curriculum engaged me.
And made and made education enjoyable for the first time.
It changed my life.
Without the program.
I would not be the person I am today.
You have not asked the students how they feel about the program before you attempt to destroy it.
We who are the most affected by your actions yet we do not have a say in any of it.
You are making decisions for us and telling the future generations of students who stagnate in an unaccelerated environment that they must conform.
If the HCC program disappears from Washington then you can justify removing it altogether.
I'm here to tell you that that is an unjust unjustifiable reaction.
At my local school I had horrible experience with education in general.
I did not feel comfortable in the classroom.
I did not feel motivated to excel.
Every student has their own pace.
And no pace.
Is inferior.
It is up to you to provide the necessary resources.
So every student is doing the work that they feel comfortable with.
It is impossible to provide a singular pathway that will support every child's diverse needs.
Yes.
I agree that the HCC program is not racially diverse.
This problem has nothing to do with the students who are using the program to thrive.
It is everything to do with how the school district has been controlling accesses.
Access for families of color to HCC.
You.
Control diversity.
You say that you are doing this to serve the community.
Fix the problems of our education.
I experienced this firsthand at Washington.
Where we learned that vital classes would be taken away.
From the kids who are just a year younger.
You are telling us what is good for us.
Without ever considering what makes us successful.
I was successful.
Because I was challenged.
And without the HCC program.
I would have been lost.
By destroying the HCC program.
You're denying my siblings.
And others like them for years to come.
The opportunities that let me succeed.
Thank you.
After Flo Boman we will have.
Jared Hopkins.
Good evening directors.
My name is Flo Beaumont.
I'm here with Fang Zhou who is a Mandarin teacher at Mercer Middle School.
I'm a parent of two children in SPS and I'm asking you to please amend the student assignment transition plan to fix the problem of there not being a successful high school pathway for the southeast for the dual language immersion programs.
Since last year when Rainier Beach High School was designated the pathway for Spanish and Mandarin immersion students from Mercer.
Unfortunately no students continued on that pathway.
Instead nearly all the students and families chose to attend their closer high schools Franklin and Cleveland.
There are two problems you can fix.
First Franklin currently offers Spanish up to 5a which is great but in Chinese they only offer courses as high as Mandarin 3 which is not high enough for the kids who have been studying this for nine years before.
I believe with a small amount of work higher level Chinese courses could be offered at Franklin again such as AP Chinese and this would increase access and opportunities for not just the immersion students but for the other students at Franklin who are studying world languages and traditional class.
I'm also here because the southeast pathway impacts my family and other students directly.
Like several families in each class.
Mine is not currently in the zone for Franklin.
So it's not a choice for my son to attend in two years.
While many of the students from Mercer could continue to Franklin without it being an official pathway.
Some of the families in each class don't have that choice.
The advanced language classes in high school are more viable with more students and that benefits the entire dual language program.
And.
That positive impact on SPS language education is much greater.
Than the small impact of admitting the handful of immersion students who are not in the school zone.
Those classes need.
Numbers in order to survive.
I'm here tonight to ask you to reconsider this and to look at where the students are going and the importance of providing a pathway that supports the students and aligns with the schools the families are choosing to send their schools to.
Sorry send their students to.
And.
In two seconds I want to put in a good word for the Confucius Institute of Washington.
Without that we wouldn't have had the Mandarin immersion program in the first place.
Thank you.
When Jackie Robinson first started playing baseball it was clear to the proponents of equity that the best way forward was to increase minority representation in baseball.
To the great glory of baseball and society that succeeded.
In the 1940s, reactionary forces, segregationists, white supremacists, institutional racism, tried various tactics to stall that, including tactics like canceling baseball games.
Their attitude was, if we can't do this the way we've always done, let's just shut it down for everybody.
In reaction to Brown versus Board of Education in Virginia and elsewhere, schools were closed.
An entire school district was closed.
The same tactic of racial supremacism and white supremacy.
It's been a tactic of institutional racism since Reconstruction.
Shutting down the cohort gifted program at Washington Middle School Supported by people with love in their hearts and driving equity nevertheless plays directly into the playbook of institutional racism.
This is a path forward for many students of minority to become future leaders as others have talked about tonight the way forward and it's within your power and the power of your staff and the people of Seattle will support you in increasing representation of minorities in your gifted cohort programs.
We will be behind you.
It's the way forward.
The idea that these students that all of these students will thrive in alternative blended programs is magical thinking as other people have addressed tonight.
Some of them will but many of them will not.
Thank you.
This concludes a public testimony list this evening.
Excuse me council I have my name in list why I cannot speak.
Because your name is 17 people down on the waitlist kind sir.
So the 16 people ahead of you cannot speak either.
Would security like to escort the gentleman out of the room please.
Thank you.
OK we are still on board comments.
I did not make mine.
I will attempt to keep them short.
I believe that Scott is going to call back in because of the audio difficulties we're having.
We need to find out whether Scott wants to make board
at the Greenwood Library.
I also want to, I guess another thank you goes out to all the school board candidates and what they did for their campaign and I also want to thank all the voters for getting out and making their voices heard.
I also want to send a shout out to Teacher Ted from Nathan Hale High School, where I got to go in with my wife and observe what they're doing as far as we started discussing what are the benefits of conflict and progress.
And that's, I think, right now what we're talking about.
We've seen a lot of conflict coming up out of things that are steering people having choices for HCC versus advanced learning.
And I, for one, do want to see that we keep the cohort model going, but we on October 19th.
The discussion was around HCC.
Hugh Son, who's supposed to be tonight, wasn't there.
And I really enjoyed what he had to say.
He's like, you know, we've got to really strive to make sure that all our students are able to take classes that they want to take.
If they want the challenge, let's hope we have those resources available to them.
And also, I guess before I forget, to wish a happy Native American month.
Okay I'm going to make my comments fairly short and I'm hoping that we can
Give our feedback on our public testimony during the agenda items.
I'm going to make my comment short and then we're going to take a 15 minute break.
So folks get a meal break you get a stretch break.
Much appreciate my previously scheduled Saturday community meeting has now been changed until November 23rd 2019 at the Southwest library from three to five and you've got a two out of three chance of getting lasagna because I'm going on vacation with my family at long last.
We hope we don't shatter our shoulder this time.
Richard Stout and Tina Mead big time congratulations and what we need to know as well about Richard Stout is that he also serves and has for two years on the scholarship committee and they also coaches volleyball at Franklin.
That's the kind of staff people we have.
They are all in and I appreciate that we have an awful lot of misperceptions about who we all are as human beings.
And as we address issues that are very polarizing very complicated and very important.
But please let's deal with each other as people and recognize those contributions.
I don't think conflict is necessarily a bad thing.
I think it opens up opportunities to learn.
And I hope that we can in fact embrace that and the folks on this dais are people that I respect and care about deeply but I don't have to agree with them a thousand percent.
But I sure as heck respect the investment that you're all making and to our staff and certainly to folks that have come here to gift us with your thoughts.
I probably will be voting against Amendment 1 and I say that as a signature Amendment 1. Well I'll probably be voting against both of them.
There you go.
And that's why this is a team sport.
We help each other.
I say that Amendment 1 on the student assignment transition plan as a signature of the technology access foundation program.
I am in awe of the team that TAF is.
I think we need to do so very much better because what we're doing on a daily basis here has not worked.
The confluence however of blowing up The highly capable cohort in the southeast pathway and the lack of what I believe to be necessary community engagement will inform that vote.
It is my sincere hope that we can figure something out before February and open enrollment.
That we as a district do not drive the TAF program away because it's extraordinarily valuable.
And again what we're doing is not working and we have to have the courage to try new things that we do that as a separate bar and we work like heck together to make this happen.
I don't believe that TAF is willing to wait a year because frankly we're very slow and I've heard several things.
Don't let the perfect get in the way of the good.
But I haven't seen plans.
I haven't seen community engagement.
Same thing with personal electronic devices.
I have not seen the kind of community engagement that we continue to tell the world we are doing and are capable of and we truly need to stand up get counted and rebuild some of the trust that we have broken in the decades in this district.
And please folks appreciate very well that these are in fact systemic historical problems and that there are a great many people of courage that are trying to make things better.
Do I agree with with all of the different modes of communication.
Certainly not.
Do I respect the people that are doing their best.
Most definitely.
But I haven't seen a plan.
to address the inequity of not having a highly capable cohort in the southeast region.
And I don't want to see a backdoor way to address highly capable cohort and highly capable delivery of services and please remember that state law does not say it is a cohort.
It says services.
Really critical distinction.
I haven't seen a plan I haven't seen a budget I haven't seen required paid professional development on differentiation I haven't seen smaller class sizes etc. etc. etc.
I appreciate the goal very well but we have to have a work plan that goes with it.
We have gotten rid of spectrum.
We've gotten rid of walk to programs and I don't think that the status quo is acceptable.
I do think that for 20 years we've been told by task forces that we need to address universal testing etc.
Farther on down the road.
But but I want to say I have enormous respect for my colleagues and everybody in this room.
And I really do believe that if we get folks talking to each other we can come up with creative solutions.
My sincere hope is that we come up with those sincere those successful ideas before TAF has had enough of us and walks away from the table.
And with that we're going to take a 15 minute break.
Thank you.