SPEAKER_28

Ellie, are you set when we're set?

Are you set?

OK.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everyone.

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

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

All right, this is President Rankin, and I am calling the February 7th, 2024 regular board meeting to order at 421 p.m.

This meeting is being recorded.

Oh.

Yeah, this meeting is being recorded.

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

Ms. Wilson-Jones, the roll call please.

Director Briggs.

SPEAKER_29

Present.

SPEAKER_32

Director Hersey.

Vice President Sarju.

SPEAKER_46

Present.

SPEAKER_32

Director Topp.

Here.

President Rankin.

Here.

Director Muthuswamy.

SPEAKER_07

Present.

SPEAKER_28

All right, per board policy 1114, the board is publicly acknowledging and announcing the resignations of the districts two and four school board directors.

Lisa Rivera and Vivian Song resigned from the board effective February 2nd, 2024. On behalf of my fellow directors and the district, I wish to thank them for their service to the district and its students.

And we'll be launching the process to appoint how to fill these seats soon, and more information on that will be coming later in the meeting.

So welcome everybody.

It's a full house.

Thank you for being here.

Before I pass it over to Superintendent Jones, I just wanted to take a little moment to give a little bit of background for folks who may be, we have a lot of younger families, younger students of folks who during COVID we had a big gap.

And there's sort of some institutional knowledge was lost.

We have lots of new, younger families really eager to engage and kind of learn about being part of a public school district and what different things are and all these things.

So there's a lot of people signed up today for speaking, I assume, in support of Black Lives Matter at School Week and Ethnic Studies.

So just to provide a little bit of background because this is a very very local event Black Lives Matter at school began in Seattle in the fall of 2016 when John Muir Elementary created t-shirts and planned a welcoming event at their school to stand together for black students and After receiving hate mail at the school and central offices, including a bomb threat, instead of backing down, the Seattle Education Association, or SEA, reps, voted to stand in solidarity with the John Muir community and students across the Seattle school district and SPS staff also quickly mobilized to ensure the safety of the school and the event was able to go on as planned.

On October 19th, 2016, thousands of teachers, parents, and students showed their support for Black Lives Matter across SPS.

The Seattle Council PTSA Board, under the leadership of the first black woman to lead the organization, Sabrina Burr, endorsed participation in the Day of Action with the full support of her vice president, Liza Rankin.

We also worked with the then Chief of Equity Partnerships and Engagement in SPS, Brent Jones, to encourage SPS to participate and say unapologetically that black lives matter at school.

In 2018, the Seattle Council PTSA General Membership adopted a resolution in support of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, and so did the Seattle School Board under the leadership of President Leslie Harris, who is also in the room today.

There are countless other names and people who have been part of this movement, Jesse Hagopian, Wayne Owl, many of you who are here today.

And it's really, I'm really looking forward to the testimony.

It's powerful to have a room full of support.

of students and educators who are continually pushing and centering this movement and demanding that we continue to advance and to support the success of our black students, commit to dismantling racism in our schools, and celebrating and uplifting the brilliance of our students.

I really look forward to hearing from you today about how we can support and push to continue moving the work forward together.

so that we can actualize for students an educational system where they don't just hear us say Black Lives Matter, but they know that it is true by how they move through and experience being in our schools.

Dr. Jones.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you President Rankin board members.

Just to tag on to that.

This is Black History Month and Black Lives Matter at school week.

And this is the time of year to honor excellence contributions and values beauty and purpose that lies within black people.

Most importantly our students.

At SPS we're fortunate to have multiple expressions of honoring achievements and black excellence.

Just this week, we opened Black History Month here at John Stanford Center for Excellence by raising the Pan-African flag, the red, the black, and the green.

Proudly honoring Black Lives Matter at school week this week, it opens Black History Month.

We will read into the record the official proclamation for Black Lives Matter at school shortly.

To that end we welcome our students families and allies who can trick who continue to raise their voice in support and are gathered here tonight to urge us to continue pressing forward in the fight for racial equity.

And as superintendent of this school it's this school district.

Please know that this will always be part of what we do on a regular basis.

So let there be no doubt about our commitment to racial equity.

I will now read a proclamation to affirm our commitment to Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter at School Week Action 2024 and Year of Purpose 2324. A proclamation of Seattle school district number one King County Seattle Washington declaring the lives of black students matter and recognizing and encouraging participation district wide in the national 2024 black lives matter at school week of action.

February 5th through 9th 2024 and year purpose 23 24. Whereas the Black Lives Matter at school week movement began at Seattle in the fall of 2016 through the leadership of educators and whereas the Seattle School Board has repeatedly recognized and encouraged participation in Black Lives Matter week at school and action and the year purpose and whereas the Seattle School Board has also recognized that throughout our nation's history institutional and structural racism and injustice have led to the deepening of racial disparities across all sectors of society and have lasting negative consequences for our communities city and nation and whereas a public school district we are facilitators of limitless growth potential of human beings with a charge to be to guide our youth in finding and achieving their purpose with a belief that every human being deserves to live with dignity.

And whereas in school board policy number 0 0 3 0 ensuring educational and racial equity Seattle Public Schools makes a commitment to the success of every student in each of our schools and charges district staff administrators instructors communities and families with this broadly shared responsibility.

And whereas in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and countless black named and unnamed victims the Seattle School Board adopted resolution number 2019 2038 to affirm Seattle Public Schools is committed to the safety of black students and resolves that black lives matter don't just matter.

They are worthy beloved and needed.

And therefore Seattle Public Schools declares that the lives of black students matter and hereby proclaims February 5th through 9th 2024 as black lives matter at school week of action and encourages participation district wide through discussions in classrooms in homes throughout this week of action.

The 2023 24 school year of purpose.

SPEAKER_28

I will now turn it over to Jerry.

SPEAKER_27

Oh, sorry.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_08

And in pursuit of excellence, transitioning, we will do progress monitoring today.

And progress monitoring is where we describe our current state, our desired state, and the strategies to get there.

We're talking about third grade reading and seventh grade math.

Our transparency around our process our transparency around the action steps that we're taking are going to be expressed here in front of the board later on in the agenda.

But this is a this is a key part of what we're trying to do to ensure that we're held accountable to student outcomes.

Must speak a little bit about budget.

Our journey to a balanced budget is difficult.

Our last year's efforts got us through $131 million deficit.

This year, as you may have heard, we have $105 million deficit.

Some of us have gone to Olympia as early as this weekend and testified around the resources that we need to sustain what we do in terms of excellence for our students.

However, those efforts have yet to bear fruit.

We are taking necessary steps.

We are reducing resources here at central office in a way that is cutting almost to the bone.

We are taking every step in doing that to ensure that our bread and butter of what we do teaching and learning is not negatively impacted.

But after a while, we were going to be in a place where we cannot cut anymore.

Nonetheless, it is important that we focus our collective efforts to ensure that we are asking our state to fully fund education.

This superintendent, this team is tired of fighting a fight with limited resources.

to spend time being creative and innovative about trying to find ways to reduce a budget that is already stretched too thin, it seems like a waste of time, but it's something that we're forced to do.

I'm asking all of us who are listening to enroll in trying to find ways for us to get resources.

If that means we need to load up buses to go to Olympia to talk to our people around fully funding education, so be it, but it's time for us to continue to continue to fight for the resources that we need.

Now on a lighter note I want to have a point of celebration here.

I want to acknowledge the C.

David Hugh Banks Donor Advised Fund contribution to the Seattle Scholarship Fund.

And I'm grateful that members of the Seattle Scholarship Fund including former director Leslie Harris are here tonight along with some very special guests of the C.

David Hugh Banks family.

C.

David Hubeck's donor advised fund has made a five million dollar gift to the Seattle scholarship fund.

Let me say that again.

I'm going to I'm going to wait until there's a more robust applause.

A five million dollar contribution.

C.

David Hughbanks was the last surviving member from a third generation Ballard family.

He worked his entire career in PR making Seattle a better place.

He served more on more than 50 boards all of whom would have loved to have his family's legacy gift.

Instead he chose the students of Seattle Public Schools.

His gift of five million dollars for post-secondary education scholarships is the largest gift ever for our district.

We thank him and his family here for believing in our students who continue to make Seattle a better place for all.

Thank you.

And if members of the family please stand.

On behalf of Seattle Public Schools we thank you.

And now there's no better way to continue centering the celebration of students than to have a watch party for the next installment of First Bill.

SPS's video newsletter produced by the public affairs division and distributed monthly to all staff and families.

Let's watch a portion of this latest episode.

It features a takeover by the students of the center school.

SPEAKER_20

Hi, I'm Dr. Barbara Casey, proud principal of The Center School.

SPEAKER_13

Hey SBS, I'm Charlotte Choka-McCrary.

And I'm Rahsaan Somerquist.

Thanks for tuning in to First Bell, where we chime in with news from around the district.

It may be a new year, but we've still got some great things happening in our schools.

So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_35

The Office of African American Male Achievement ended the year on a high note when it was announced that their leader had been given a prestigious award.

Eros has the story.

SPEAKER_41

The NFL's Inspire Change Awards recognizes people who are making a difference in their communities through social justice work.

The Seahawks selected Dr. Mia Williams as their 2023 Changemaker Award winner.

Dr. Williams has served in Seattle public schools for nearly three decades.

As the executive director of AAMA, she has made it her mission to enhance the school experience.

SPEAKER_13

Your programming and safe use of artificial intelligence.

With the help of volunteers from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Minecraft, students were able to learn coding, video game design, and more.

At Louisa Bourne STEM K8 in Arbor Heights Elementary, Amazon volunteers use a new dance party software to give students an introduction to coding and AI.

SPEAKER_08

When we look at the jobs of the future, we don't even know what they are right now, but I do think they'll have some aspect of coding, they'll have some aspect of science, technology, engineering, mathematics.

That's just what it is, and we can fight it or we can embrace it, and I believe our students are learning how to embrace technology just naturally.

SPEAKER_49

I love coding.

Oh my gosh, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_13

Congratulations to Maple Elementary for being named a State Distinguished School for its exceptional student performance and academic growth.

The award honors schools showing a commitment to closing educational achievement and opportunity gaps.

SPEAKER_35

The Office of African American Male Achievement ended 2023 with a recognition event for students who show up.

The We Show Up award ceremony honored 12 black students who continually pour energy into their academics, their school, the community, and their future.

SPEAKER_48

You already know what time it is.

Get ready for the rundown.

The first semester ends next Wednesday for students in K-8 middle and high school.

Families should be on the lookout for report cards on the source in February.

SPEAKER_35

If you want to learn more about these stories, visit our website.

And be sure to follow SBS on social media to get the latest news.

Until next time, I'm Charlotte Choco-McCrary.

SPEAKER_13

And I'm Rahsaan Samarkoos.

We'll catch you next time for First Belt.

SPEAKER_08

And that concludes my comments.

Back to you, President Rankin.

SPEAKER_20

Hi, I'm Dr. Barbara Casey.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Dr. Jones.

Student board member Muthuswamy, do you have any comments?

SPEAKER_07

All right thank you President Rankin and today I wanted to take my time and give a student perspective on the fact that there are five and one board members at the dais today instead of seven.

When events like these arise in the way that they do I feel that they damage the already fraught relationship of this board and this community that we're mandated to represent and we distract and take away from our goal of ensuring student success.

We need our community to trust us in order to govern effectively and when our community sees that board members struggle to trust one another it's not surprising that they hesitate to trust us to educate and take care of their children.

We're losing two directors who brought a wealth of knowledge through their experience and backgrounds and what I admired most about them is one their unwavering support of our students and their families and also their confidence to challenge decisions that the majority of this board was pushing.

Our board is not a monolith in terms of race socioeconomic status status what have you.

And it's not a monolith in terms of the policy beliefs of the school district.

And in the same way that this board ideally represents the diversity and race and socioeconomic status of our constituents and of our community it should represent the diversity of ideology about the best practices in order to create an effective school district.

A board that all thinks the same in a district that doesn't is a sign that something has gone wrong.

the value of healthy conflicts and a difference of opinion and governing bodies cannot be understated.

And I don't question for a second the commitment to student excellence of any member on this board today.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are different ways and beliefs about the best way to create that excellence and that we need all of those beliefs present in order to adequately serve our community.

So as we enter this process to appoint two new board directors I asked the board this one look for members who will yes fill the gap lost by two strong Asian Latina native board members and also look for board members who will challenge this board and bring new perspectives in the same way that director Song and Rivera did and in the same way that the constituents of their district and the city as a whole elected their representatives do.

And in saying all this I don't mean to downplay the unfortunate reality of residency conflicts simply that we should reflect on the way that events unfolded so that they don't occur again.

And I know that parts of that are happening later this evening but I think what we need to focus on is respecting our community by appointing board members who match the profiles of those who they put in office.

There's a lot of work ahead of us and I mean when is there not.

But it's especially pertinent that we get this right.

I also want to take a bit of a 180 and acknowledge that February is black history month and we're currently in BLM that school week and I'm talking about this because of the amazing community show today of all the people who came to talk about this critical issue.

And I want to give my two cents as a kid who's going through that curriculum in our school this week and has for the last.

four or five years that this has been a program.

And my opinion is that progress is being made, but it's not being made fast enough.

The curriculum that we get feels repetitive and insufficient in covering crucial issues and pieces of the story.

And there's hesitancy to cover topics deemed controversial, even though talking about those topics brings the most opportunity to create real change.

And I know we have a lot of people here talk coming to talk about BLM at school week and ethnic studies curriculum and I'm really looking forward to hearing from all of you.

And I applaud you for coming here today especially the students because I know there are a few of you here.

I know how nerve wracking it can be to stand up here and talk on the dais or talk up there.

So I want to say thank you preemptively for coming out.

I'm really looking forward to hearing from all of you.

SPEAKER_28

It is 442 and we were at the board comment section.

I'm going to propose that we move into public testimony now and come back to excuse me come back to board comments.

Later in the meeting.

And there will be when we get back to board comments.

I will be sharing information and getting feedback from my fellow directors on the appointment process.

I will also have a legislative update and any other board comments liaison updates can happen then as well.

So let's get through our business agenda which begins now with public testimony.

Board procedure 1430 BP provides the rules for testimony.

I ask that speakers are mindful of these rules.

Some important parts to note are that testimony will be taken today from those individuals called from the public testimony list, and if applicable, excuse me, geez, applicable, applicable, the waiting list, which are included on today's agenda posting on the school board website.

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

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

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

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

Those who do not wish to have time ceded to them may decline to retain their place on the testimony or wait list.

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

And the board expects a standard of civility for those participating in public comment as we expect of ourselves.

As the board president, I have the right to and will interrupt any speaker who fails to observe this standard.

A speaker who refuses or fails to comply or who otherwise substantially disrupts orderly operation of the meeting will be asked to leave.

And because we do have a full list and a wait list, I don't want to have to cut people off.

I really want to get through everybody.

And I also want to be fair in maintaining the two minute time.

So please do your best to stick to that two minutes so that we can get through to everybody.

Let's see, Ms. Wilson-Jones.

SPEAKER_32

For those who are joining remotely to provide testimony tonight when you hear a name called please press star six to unmute from the conference call line and also make sure you are unmuted on your device.

The first speaker today is Milo Clark.

Milo Clark and Milo will be followed by Anya Sousa-Ponce and then William Sousa-Ponce.

And for all of the speakers as we go through please feel free to reintroduce yourself.

I'm not going to get all the name pronunciations correct.

SPEAKER_02

Hello my name is Milo Clark.

I am a senior at the Seattle Public School and an active member of the Washington State NAACP Youth Council.

A proud black and a proud black man as well.

And I'm here to testify for the utter importance of ethnic studies courses.

and proper communication surrounding their existence.

At the beginning of my junior year a teacher whose class I had never had before went on stage at an assembly and told us his names and what classes he was teaching that year which is when he said in passing he was teaching an online black studies class for juniors.

Now admittedly if I was at a bigger school I would have shrugged it off as I missed the news but my school has less than 300 students total.

So I realized it was not the fault of the teacher or even my school administration but more so a lack of communication on the part of Seattle Public Schools.

I proceeded to reach out to said teacher personally and have a long thread of e-mails and managed to transfer into the class with a lot of effort.

For about two weeks it was just me and him and I spread the word around to some friends who proceeded to join the class.

In the end it was eight students and the teacher.

We joined the first annual black studies showcase and without the combined efforts of us and other classes in the district the ethnic studies branch would have been shut down and current juniors wouldn't get the blessing of being part of that class.

My outlook on school and my future were permanently changed by one year in an ethnic studies course, as it inspired me to dedicate myself in college to getting a degree in ethnic studies and becoming a teacher so I can impact students the way this teacher impacted me and really make a difference.

Without that class, I don't know where I would be academically today.

Every passing day, I am grateful I took the efforts to join it.

And this isn't just me.

Everyone in my class and other ethnic studies classes feel the same way about their respective courses.

White and POC alike.

Spread information about ethnic studies courses in your district and while you're at it institute more ethnic studies courses overall to give students more agency in an anti-racist future.

Thank you for your time and I hope to see changes made going forward.

SPEAKER_32

Next speaker is Anya Souza-Ponce.

SPEAKER_03

Hi, everyone.

My name is Anya Sosa Ponce.

I use she, her pronouns, and I'm the president of the Washington State NAACP Youth Council.

I'm here today to talk about the Black Lives Matter at school policy of implementing ethnic studies in school.

So often in school students of color we only see ourselves represented through a traumatic lens and through our connection our relationship to whiteness.

So the Aztecs were conquered black people were enslaved native native people were massacred and we'd never see ourselves within the richness and the joy of our culture.

We only see this traumatic aspect and that is all that our white peers see and that is what we end up internalizing.

We don't get to learn about the joy of our communities, the joy of our culture, and we don't get to learn a culturally cohesive lens of just, you know, global basic history.

We go to school, we write literature, we learn white science, we learn white history.

We never actually get to understand who we are and where we're coming from.

We have to do this work by ourselves.

Ethnic Studies is so vital to Seattle Public Schools and should be not only a single class but should be implemented among all levels within our history classes within our even our electives within our workshop classes within our botany classes within all of those.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

It is Williams who's supposed to say.

SPEAKER_04

Let me pull this up.

Okay.

Hello my name is William Sousa Ponce.

I my pronouns are they she he and I'm the treasurer for the Washington State NAACP Youth Council.

So I'm a junior in high school and I've gone to SPS schools in the north end since kindergarten.

And in 12 years I have only ever had one teacher of color.

I have never had a black teacher.

Now, a study from Johns Hopkins University found that black students are 39% less likely to drop out of school if they have one black teacher, and 29% more likely to consider a college.

There are no black teachers at my school.

And in fact, there are no black teachers at nearly three quarters of all schools in Washington.

So when I say that black students are 39% less likely to drop out with a single black teacher, That's over 37% of black students.

They don't have that.

Over 17,000 black students in Washington are in schools with no black teachers.

And this is for the Black Lives Matter at school policy for hiring and retaining more black teachers.

There are so many schools that don't have any black teachers or only have a few of them.

And it's a really important it's really important for students to have this connection have people who share their experiences and can connect with them.

And that's that's it.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Milana Lee.

Milana will be followed by Selah Burrows and then Eros Nelson.

SPEAKER_49

Hi my name is Milana and I am a fifth grader at Decatur.

I am here to talk about how Decatur has helped me and why SPS should work together with us to support our community and preserve our students future.

Changing schools is never easy.

When I first came to Decatur I was a bit worried about how the transition would go.

However I quickly formed connections with some of.

my classmates.

When it was time for recess, I felt comfortable enough to ask if I could join their game, and they happily included me in their activities.

It felt like a sense of belonging.

I truly believe that this is one of the most important values that school can offer to a student.

A lot of students like me decided to be at Decatur for this reason.

I also loved the interaction with my teachers at Decatur.

In the past, the teachers would be busy helping other students, so I wasn't able to talk to them and was discouraged from doing more things in the class.

I felt like I was a burden or extra work to the teachers.

These interactions made me feel like I was unheard and not important, which impacted my self-esteem and confidence.

So when there was a problem, I didn't feel comfortable asking the teacher for help.

However at Decatur I feel like the teachers all have my best interests at heart and genuinely want to help me.

I am now comfortable talking to the teachers.

This experience has allowed me to be more proactive and confident in sharing my opinions.

While I am leaving Decatur next year for middle school.

I still have a sister who will hopefully be in the Decatur HCC program for the next three years.

It took us a long time to find a school that we both felt comfortable at socially and academically.

And then we finally found Decatur.

It was not an easy decision for our family.

We chose Decatur based on SPS's promise to continue the HCC C program for existing students.

If this promise is broken my sister and many others will lose the stability and confidence they've gained from the Decatur community.

I want you to remember that the school means a lot to the students.

Students spend the majority of their time at school.

School is the most important part of their lives.

The students are the ones who will live through your decision and shape their futures.

Please make decisions that foster a sense of belonging excitement for learning and confidence for all students including those at Decatur.

SPEAKER_32

Sela Burrows and after Sela will be Eros Nelson and then Leslie Harris.

SPEAKER_42

I attend Lincoln High School.

I'm one of three students in Philippines American U.S. history.

This is not of a lack of interest rather a lack of promotion and compliance to promote these classes and provide the resources for these classes to.

exist.

I'm here to ask the school board to simply do what they declared they would to demand the continuation of Black Lives Matter in school week and liberatory courses.

SPS strategic plan states we focus on ensuring racial equity and in way we use that we focus on ensuring racial equity in our educational systems.

No.

Not only would canceling BLM Week go against this very statement, it would be incredibly detrimental.

I first-hand witnessed the profound impact of learning the 13 values.

To this day, my proudest projects have been from BLM Week and classes related to ethnic studies, and most importantly, the education and conversations that take place.

funding this school district Seattle and the U.N.

U.S. has historically benefited from black indigenous and people of color.

and continue to to this day.

Every single SPS building is on indigenous peoples land.

This school district continues to financially benefit from the land and BIPOC people.

To say these courses are not financially viable is utterly disrespectful.

virtual liberatory courses are vital and students and cost efficient as each student in the district already has a device provided by the district.

The funding of these courses mainly include paying the teachers.

Our curriculums are created by community leaders and textbooks and.

Does that mean I'm done or continue.

Oh continue.

Okay.

Stop beeping at me.

It's created by the community so therefore there's not enough.

All you're doing is paying for the teachers.

And also my school continues to do this.

We have a class that's going to happen and it's called black studies honors.

How come my school gets to have this and yet more students across the district from that have more representatives of these communities do not have access to this to say that there is not funding.

is to continue to perpetuate the inequalities that exist in the school system that exist.

So my school is able to have those because we have resources.

Where from where from where.

Tell me where.

Because we get these resources from other places not the school board.

This has to be addressed or else we'll continue to be here continually fighting for these courses continually every year every year.

It is absolutely utterly exhausting for students to have to take place to advocate for courses.

And yet.

And yet, to say it's not financially viable while this building here, this building here is able to exist, and yet you can't teach courses that represent these communities and appreciate the contributions, that is what I ask.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Eros Nelson.

Eros Nelson.

SPEAKER_40

Hi everyone.

I'm Eros Nelson a student at the center school and a member of the NAACP Youth Council.

The first classroom where I felt like I mattered was an ethnic studies classroom.

Me and seven other students all gathered around one table in the Spanish classroom a small but close knit community.

Though I would never have been able to join that class if it weren't for a friend of mine who saw me in distress taking a break from my U.S. history class because of an incident that happened where me as an Afro-Indigenous kid in a room full of white kids felt alienated and attacked when discussing colonization and the way that it was handled and is handled in Seattle Public Schools.

He told me to talk to our school counselor about it.

So I did.

And it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

It was the first time I had a teacher who I felt actually cared and understood me.

One of the few times I felt like, sorry.

I felt like I wasn't made out to be an idiot based on my cultural differences.

I felt safe enough to drop the mask that I had carefully crafted to make my white peers feel comfortable.

I was finally able to escape the constant microaggressions from students and teachers for a small part of my day.

Without ethnic studies, I would not be standing in front of you today.

I would not have the confidence to be proud of who I am because this school district taught me to be anything but myself.

So I urge you please give the ethnic studies program the time and energy and funding it deserves.

Thank you for listening and I hope you take my message to heart.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Leslie Harris.

SPEAKER_21

Hi there.

It is my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce Ronald Boy former appointed district council fellow co-chair of the Seattle Scholarship Committee and the C.

David Hughbanks family.

I figured you needed to hear from this family out of respect as opposed to secondhand information.

I cede my time.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

I appreciate your remarks earlier Dr. Jones and I would just like to add on to those so that everybody in attendance and the board can fully understand the legacy and the gift of five million dollars that my cousin C.

David Hughbanks and his family made.

I am Anne Ouellette Fitzmorris I'm here with my sister Therese Raine and her husband Hap and I want to just add on to what you already know.

My cousin C.

David was a third generation Ballard family.

He knew hardship.

His family passed away while he was attending the UW.

He had a sister with special needs and while he knew this hardship he lived a life of outgoing positive energy.

His career was in public relations and he worked tirelessly to improve each organization and thus making Seattle a better place to live.

This included creating Bumper Shoot and the Folklife Festival for the Seattle Center.

As a proud battle Ballard alum he created the Ballard High School Foundation that served as a model for many other schools.

He served on more than 50 boards throughout his life into his 70s.

We had the honor to help him create the donor advice fund that would hold five million dollars his family's legacy.

He felt strongly the best place for these funds was with you the students of this Seattle School District for post-secondary scholarships.

He believed with this huge gift that you all will make Seattle a better place.

And it is my hope in highlighting his life that the Seattle School District will continue to highlight this gift so that others will follow his lead and that you can have some fantastic PR as C.

David would have done.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_21

The scholarship gala for 2024 is May 9th.

Check your calendars.

Thank you.

Obviously.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Chris Jackins.

SPEAKER_34

My name is Chris Jackins box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4. It's great to have members of the native community here today.

Please listen and respond to their concerns on the Rainier Beach High School construction project boondoggle.

Four points.

Number one there are expensive items on the consent agenda for a vote without any board discussion unless a board member requests that the items be pulled.

Number two one item would give the architect for the project Bassetti an extra seven hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars.

Another item would give the contractor Leidig an extra three point four million dollars.

Number three on June 21st previous board allowed the project to go ten million dollars over budget an amount the district hopes to cover through a future levy.

likely while claiming that all of its projects are on time and on budget.

Number four to those members newly elected to the board.

These cost overruns and this boondoggle now belong to you.

Please ask questions.

Please vote no.

On the Alki elementary project five points.

Number one is not clear that the board has the information to honestly certify what is happening with the project.

Number two the city ruled against the Alki plans.

Number three the district magically now says that it can provide on site ADA and some other parking.

Number four the project is still way too big for the site.

Number five the board also needs to fix Montlake.

On school closures please drop school closures.

Also I would like to thank departing board members Lisa Rivera and Vivian Song for their service to the district.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Laura Laney and following Laura will be Claire Abe and then Aiden Carroll.

SPEAKER_33

course my speech went away as soon as I get up here.

SPEAKER_19

I am.

SPEAKER_33

I signed up to testify today about goal number one literacy which states 70% of black boys will achieve proficiency or higher on the third grade smarter balanced assessment by June 2024. According to the most recent data less than 30% of black boys are achieving this.

Why does that matter?

Our students deserve a transformative change in their education and I believe ethnic studies for all students can do that.

I am not an elementary school teacher.

I am not a literacy coach.

I am not the parent of a black boy but I can tell you that making goals and not changing our methods is not working to address the systemic and institutional racism within Seattle Public Schools which impacts BIPOC students specifically and all of our students holistically.

I am a high school teacher.

I have been a teacher in the district since 2006 and I am still seeing the district make the same goals to be promoted each year for our black and brown students.

That means we are not achieving our goals and we are not serving our BIPOC students.

Students arrive in my classroom with two years remaining in the public school system and they are just starting to learn things that they should be included from elementary school on.

Students deserve teachers, educators, books, and leaders that not only reflect them, but also see them for who they truly are, not just an S-O-F or S-O-C-F-F-E-C-J, whatever the letters are, on Atlas.

That comes with ethnic studies.

I am an ethnic studies teacher and all students deserve ethnic studies in all of their classrooms and as a specific course of study.

Today in class students stated why ethnic studies was so important to them.

They said ethnic studies should be mandatory for all students.

Students need to leave.

This class changed.

They said that this class is more than a subject.

It is a community.

The barriers for ethnic studies black and brown students Black Lives Matter at school week and literacy for black boys are everywhere.

Where is the district leadership in all of this.

They're not here.

What happens in the ethnic studies classroom is in spite of what is happening at the district and administrative level.

We keep hearing that there is going to be a lean.

This is going to be a lean year financially and that the threat of losing sections of ethnic studies or having less teachers have been thrown out more than once.

That is not what is best for our students.

SPEAKER_32

Next is Claire Abbey.

SPEAKER_47

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

I'm asking that the district please show transparency and accountability when determining the upcoming budget and include important stakeholders in the planning and decision making process.

I want to remind the board of the amazing advocacy work by the SPS students in the Seattle Student Union who saw an unmet need for mental health support and successfully advocated to the Seattle City Council to approve 20 million dollars to fund school counselors to have a 1 to 250 student ratio at least one full time social worker and one full time mental health therapist in every school building.

It is important that students, families, social workers, counselors, and social workers, and other important community stakeholders have a seat at the table when the district and the Department of Education are in early learning.

When they discuss how the funding will be allocated, we must make sure to listen to our students and center student voice in the decision-making process.

I'm also going to read on a different note a statement from a Cleveland student.

So Marsha P. Johnson lunchtime society for a club for trans and non non-binary students wants to speak out on the need for providing more resources to all of our ethnic studies classes.

Ignorance because of a lack of proper education has no home here.

Earlier this year in our 12th grade ethnic studies class Mixie Menez gave us a list of possible ethnic studies classes from our SPS course catalog.

These classes don't exist at our school because of a lack of resources.

For example we learned that we could have had a ninth grade queer literature class but we didn't.

I personally personally believe that learning about where people come from even if it's not they're not our own is necessary for further betterment of understanding empathy.

Many students of color never get to see our own cultures and taught properly in a standard classroom.

Proposing that these classes be cut is harmful and highlights a lack of care and support.

It's SPS's job to reflect its students and cater to their learning needs.

To get rid of ethnic studies or never provide queer studies can not only be harmful to the students but to the growth of society as a whole.

These classes exist to give better opportunities to students.

These classes should not be taken away but expanded on.

SPS is nothing is nothing without its students and resources should not be taken away because of a lack of budgeting on your part.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

Next is Aiden Carroll.

SPEAKER_25

Oh, they started it?

All right.

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_17

So my name is Aiden, and I'm here with Urban Native Education Alliance for a couple reasons, one of which is the importance of focusing more attention and transparency and community collaboration with Native education and the title Six.

Additionally, the recognizing Billy Frank Jr.

Day, which is on March 9th.

He was a Nisqually activist in the fish wars and somebody who was arrested more than 50 times in civil disobedience for treaty rights.

But there's many kinds of civil disobedience.

And finally, we want to speak about the importance of everyone, including the school district, has a responsibility right now to teach about the ongoing genocide in Gaza and to do everything in our power for an immediate ceasefire.

I don't think some people realize that our government could stop this with one phone call.

Like, not the whole apartheid situation, but the war, certainly.

SPEAKER_16

We need to build international movement to isolate Israel in the same way as Rhodesia in the 70s and South Africa in the 80s, that the good people within that country will eventually take power with the external pressure being applied for human rights.

It is so desperately necessary.

SPEAKER_32

Next speaker is Chloe Kimye, and then after Chloe will be Sarah Sens Wilson, and then Fiona Berhane.

Hi, I'm Chloe Kimye, and I cede my time to Layla Adam.

SPEAKER_44

Hi I'm Layla Adam.

I'm a former chief South student alumni and I'm a current Seattle student communications major and I'm I'm here on behalf of the Southwest community who had gathered a week prior to talk about student safety and our concerns for our students in school.

And we had come up with some ideas we would like to share with the board today.

But firstly I want to start to say the request of changes most definitely has been in response to my brother's death last week.

Well two weeks ago on the 23rd of January.

Gun violence is an issue gun violence is an issue in school.

Sorry.

It's most definitely so.

Sorry.

I'm.

We've seen this incident happen in Ingraham.

Our students lives are being endangered in school and we need the board to start making decisions to prevent things like this from happening.

So we urge the Seattle Public School District to.

of mean state resource officers an increase of hiring security specialists at Chief Sealth there are only two security specialists for a school of over a thousand students that it's simply inadequate for so many students.

If there's an incident in one place they can't get to it another place.

And we also demand that.

I'm sorry.

We urge the school district to consider our requests for the increase in security the reinstatement of police presence and possible metal detectors to keep these firearms out of our schools.

They don't belong there.

They shouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_43

And.

SPEAKER_44

And.

Our community has also asked asked that in Chief Sealth specifically sorry that Chief Sealth has 13 entrances that are unlocked at all times and it's very hard to monitor these entrances.

Students will go in and out at all times.

So we request that at least four of these entrances which have been.

what's sorry that have already been picked up by the school.

We had talked to folks in the school that it's possible to close these four entrances without compromising the safety of these students and we would like to see the possibility in that.

And if it's not possible there was a suggestion that they be used as fire exits like emergency exits where there are some sort of alarm system in place where as a deterrent so students don't willingly go out all the time through these entrances just so it's easier to monitor our students to make sure that they're safe.

And then there was also a request from some parents that there be separate grade lunches because I At least at Chief Sealth ninth graders aren't allowed off campus.

But my brother who was a ninth grader had gone off campus the night of the incident.

So sorry.

I just.

Sorry.

I just on behalf we really want you to hear our pleas because we send our kids to school to learn for their future but their lives are being cut short.

School's a place for students to learn.

We want that to be the case.

But this can't keep happening.

It's happened before.

It's happened to my brother and it doesn't seem there will be an exact end.

But we urge the school district to start start making some measures to prevent it in the best that we can because you know the Second Amendment law is a thing.

But thank you.

Sorry.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Sarah Sense Wilson.

SPEAKER_25

Good evening everybody and I'm with the Urban Native Education Alliance and these are majority of the folks here are students of UNEA interns and students of the Clear Sky Academy.

We're here today really to voice some concern and then also make some requests.

I would like to make public the request to have Indian education provide biannual reports.

Historically they always did that and for some reason the last four years or so there's not been any reports.

When I sent the request to the school board and superintendent I did not get a response other than a month later an email from public records saying that it was going to be done through public records.

So I'm not sure what the secrecy is or what's being hidden with Indian education but that is something that it's a treaty right.

Title 6 Indian education.

Our kids deserve better.

We also would like Brent Jones you've been superintendent now for a while.

Why haven't you not met with our native community.

Why.

It's long overdue and we have put we've extended ourselves multiple times.

So we expect better of you.

We've we've been working with the district for 17 years and more and longer and we've always had communication and meetings with superintendents.

And so this is really curious to me is why that's why that's not happened as of yet.

We also have concerns about the high turnover rate of Indian education.

We understand that there are nine grievances that have been filed against the Indian Ed leadership.

Why is there this high turnover rate.

What is happening.

What is the turmoil and the crisis happening internally with Indian Ed.

That needs to be resolved.

It impacts all of our kids.

It impacts our communities and our families.

There needs to be a stabilizing force.

And that comes from the leadership top down.

We'd also request that that there the district data dashboard be reinstituted and also really curious what is the district strategy around the severe woeful undercount of American Indian students in the district.

It is not reflective of the population in King County.

And so there's there's some severe undercounting happening which means that's less funding.

That means there's less support.

That means there's less effort from resources that could be assisting those students.

Also curious about what what is the job description.

Who's going to be appointed appointed as the native liaison as a school board member.

And what does that job description look like.

What are the qualifiers.

We want access to Robert Eagle Staff School.

There has been some severe serious gatekeeping happening at that school.

We are very confused about that.

I think one of our elders is going to give some history about what was committed to our community at Robert Eagle Staff.

UNEA we're located we're situated and located at a good place.

We don't we're you know we don't need Robert Eagle Staff but there are things that we do in terms of curriculum and educating community about the significance and the history of that school.

And as things stand now we have to stand on the outside of the fences.

the native community the community that helped name that school the community that helped keep that school going.

And so that's that's again that's very curious to us.

Essentially I speaking for Sarah since Wilson have a vote of no confidence with Indian education period.

Another question is what's happening at Licton Springs.

Where is the report on the future of what what they're doing in terms of a native focused curriculum.

What how are they working with community.

What is the plan.

I know that they are they have an attendance and a enrollment problem.

So curious about that.

And is there a possibility that they may be moving back into the Robert Eagle Staff as a solution to keeping that alternative school going.

And finally you know we would like to throw our support behind ethnic studies and all the people that are here advocating for that.

We have always supported that.

And we also support Black Lives Matter and most definitely free Palestine.

All right.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Fiona Berhain.

Fiona Berhain.

After Fiona will be Julia Wilson Peltier and then Amelia Andres.

SPEAKER_28

Apologies there.

I was I was listening very intently and missed the beep of the time.

So I was like listening to everything Sarah was saying.

But yeah we still do have a long list so please as much as possible stick to that two minute limit.

SPEAKER_32

Fiona if you're on the phone and ready to go we can hear you.

SPEAKER_18

Hello my name is Fiona Berhardt.

I am a firm believer that ethnic studies should be enforced in schools.

For one specific reason I will talk about today.

Representation and inclusivity.

Studying ethnic studies exposes me, as I do go to a private school, to experiences and perspectives of people from different backgrounds.

This broadens my empathy and understanding towards others, fostering compassion and respect for diverse cultures and lived experiences.

Ethnic studies courses provide representation and inclusion of different perspectives, histories, and experiences that may otherwise be marginalized or overlooked in schools.

It acknowledges the contributions and struggles of various ethnic and racial groups, promoting a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of history and society.

So please think about ethnic studies.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Julia Wilson-Peltier.

SPEAKER_22

Hello I'm Julia Wilson Peltier, I'm Turo Mountain Chippewa and Oglala Lakota and I am a parent of a kindergarten student at Olympic View Elementary School.

I am here to express the importance of having an Indian education program that serves our native students, not just one that merely acts as a referral service.

There needs to be intentional outreach efforts on behalf of the Indian Ed program.

From my firsthand experience nobody reached out to me regarding enrolling my son in Indian Ed who is an enrolled Tulalip tribal member and who is a student in need of additional services.

Additionally it is concerning that there is an extreme lack of native educators in Seattle public schools comprising only 0.5 percent of educators.

Where are these educators.

And additionally also why is there such a high turnover in the Indian ed program.

Upon reviewing the Title VI Indian Ed website, there appears to be an incredible lack of transparency and accountability.

I had to really dig deep to find any type of reports for how they utilized Title VI funds, and I was very unimpressed with the documents I did find.

The program advertises a referral service that states they work with students parents and guardians teachers principals and SPS departments to address the broad scope of needs and that their goal is to ensure all native students have a high quality educational experience and reach the goal of graduation.

However.

According to Urban Native Education Alliance which is the only organization in Seattle area that focuses on urban native youth education the Indian Ed program has never referred a single student to UNEA's culturally based services and programming.

This is alarming considering the promising educational outcomes among students who are involved in UNEA programming.

My question is what systems are in place to ensure the utmost transparency and accountability of the Indian ed program and its leadership because our native students have some of the poorest educational outcomes.

Our students deserve better.

They deserve an accessible Indian ed program that has proactive caring competent and professional leadership because from what my experience is that is not what I am seeing from the current Indian ed leadership.

Thank you.

Next is Amelia Andres.

SPEAKER_37

I'm Amelia Andras I cede my time over to Giselle Jenkins.

SPEAKER_38

Hello.

Hi.

Good evening.

Hello.

I'm Giselle Jenkins.

I'm a Nunnock Aleut from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and I'm currently a freshman at the University of Washington and I'm a 2023 Ingram High School graduate and SPS scholarship recipient.

And my brother Elijah is currently a student at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School.

I've worked with Urban Native Education Alliance or UNEA since my sophomore year of high school as I found support in them that SPS lacked during the pandemic.

Today I am speaking on behalf of my mother Lynell Jenkins a UNEA board member and Isabel Hawkson a UNEA intern and a senior student at Roosevelt High School.

So we're concerned about the lack of communication and inclusivity inclusiveness.

for our Native American students.

I kindly request that the board's action to ensure their inclusion and purpose establishing a yearly Billy Frank Jr.

Day on March 9th honoring his contributions.

Additionally I urge the acknowledgement of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and stand for a cease fire.

Educating students about the atrocities of this war while you're at it.

Speaking for Bella Hawkinson Old Harbor tribe.

We'd like to use this time to speak about the educational system disparities for our native youth especially specifically in SPS.

As you've heard of the title 6 this is the annual funding for the title 6 Indian education formula grants program that assists American Indian and Alaska Native students for SPS grades K through 12 that was enacted in 1972. I would like to ask where is this money going.

When her sister was a sophomore at Roosevelt in 2018 she saw a poster about indigenous club meeting after school.

She brought smoked salmon and was the only one who showed up.

I wonder if this was an attempt to use the title six money or a box to check off where her school could say they have representation.

As COVID ended she started the Native Student Alliance her junior year.

She hadn't seen any acknowledgment of Billy Frank Jr.

MMIP day.

The club wanted to have these acknowledgments and announcements informing the students because SPS doesn't.

And as Billy Frank Jr.

Day came around she put up the posters with his face and the next day she found one of these posters defaced by a fight club sticker.

with she contacted them and they responded back by cursing her out and tearing the rest of the posters down.

This should not be acceptable in SPS being one of the six native kids in that school.

She looked to UNEA to address this obvious act of racism.

These issues are generational and yet they continue to happen now.

Her family is specific and has seen and handled these disparities as long as all these other families and anyone here today that come with being indigenous.

She's had we've had homelessness and addiction in our bloodlines and we need more representation and education opportunities so generations in the future don't continue to carry these issues.

I urge the school board to recognize the generational trauma and implement more resources for a native community as written in Title 6. Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

Next is John Greenberg.

John Greenberg will be followed by Catherine Hanson and then MC Najdekal.

SPEAKER_11

Hello John Greenberg.

There was a time not that long ago that the district actually paid SPS employees to create Black Lives Matter curriculum led by the work of Dr. Castro Gill.

And there was a time not that long ago that the SEA promoted people to teach it.

I cede the rest of my time to Bep Park.

SPEAKER_36

Hello my name is Bep Park.

I use any pronouns and I'm a junior at Lincoln High School in support of ethnic studies.

It was only just here when I was only just this year when I signed up for black studies that history went from a cumbersome boring subject to my favorite class and too many of my middle and high school history courses were fixated on the same region of Europe.

And those few times when the stories of people of color were included there was always an emphasis on tragedy death and suffering at the hands of white people.

However in teaching with an emphasis on restoration my hope is that critical thinking is something that students can find compelling.

and that's something that I enjoy now.

Instead focusing on the successes, backgrounds and the knowledge of black indigenous and people of color is what should be emphasized.

If our curriculum must be limited we need to pick the stories that challenge society's biases and share those.

and not only acknowledge the reasons for these biases but also emphasizing that black history is U.S. history and it's not meant to Teaching this course is not meant to divide us or to shame people for having these biases but is meant for us to reduce and reverse these biases and grow from that.

The most authentic way to learn is by listening to multiple different perspectives and mindsets and this is only one of the many reasons why ethnic studies should be preserved.

Thank you.

Next is Catherine Hansen.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you board members and thank you to all the people who've spoken tonight.

Really important issues and I'm grateful.

My name is Catherine Becerra Hansen and I am the counselor at TOPS K-8.

I'm here to request that the school board honor and advocate for the demands of the Seattle Student Union.

They went to the Seattle City Council to propose a 20 million dollar tax that would help fund school counselors in every school at a ratio of 1 to 250. One full time social worker in every school and agency therapists in every school.

The city council approved this money and it's vital that it be applied in the way the students intended.

This is my 12th year in Seattle Public Schools.

I've spent many years working 14 hour days with a caseload of over 1000 students.

In my years I have supported students who have experienced shootings family suicides family deportations housing instability and who have experienced profound neglect and abuse.

I have helped many suicidal students, students who self-harm, and students with numerous diagnosed and undiagnosed mental health challenges.

There is ample scientific evidence to show that students cannot learn if they are struggling with mental health and behavioral challenges.

Teachers have neither the expertise nor the capacity to fully address these issues.

School counselors and school social workers are the only people with specific training to support students and families with these mental health needs.

And yet we are the very professionals who are the first to be cut or whose funding is taken away when there are budget shortfalls.

Please honor the demands of our students and provide transparency and include stakeholders in your budgetary decision making.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_30

Good evening my name is MC Nachtigall and I'm a school nurse.

High school students across this district who are enrolled in both world language and music classes are being told that they must drop out of their longtime participation in music programs such as band and orchestra to satisfy a graduation requirement of a health class.

We know the well-documented benefits of participation in a school music program on attendance cognition mental health and social engagement.

We also know the increased likelihood of giving up music participation altogether with a long absence from playing.

This is demonstrable harm in forcing adolescents to give up the social support and benefits of music playing to satisfy a course requirement that can be accomplished in other ways.

Current options include taking health in 12th grade enrolling in running start to take health online or enrolling in summer school skill center to take health.

However all of these carry some uncertainty.

for the student of whether they'll be allowed to enroll near the end of their high school career.

When I was a student at Roosevelt High School a million years ago and preparing to study abroad for my senior year I took health through the University of Washington distance learning.

It was allowed then.

I went on to earn three graduate degrees in health sciences fields so I was not harmed by not taking health in school including the one that led to my current employment as a school nurse in this district.

Currently in Seattle there is a board policy that prohibits a student from taking a course outside of the district if it's offered at their school.

I ask two things of the board today.

First modify the policy number 2024. Ironically that prohibits a student from taking a course so that students may take health through or other courses through an approved online sources for purposes other than to satisfy college preparatory reasons which is the current stated policy.

Section I.D.

5 of policy 2024 SP.

Second instruct all high school counselors to offer all options for satisfying the health requirement.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

The next speaker is Isaura Jimenez-Guerra.

After Isaura will be Cheryl Lynn Crowther and then Jennifer Motter.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

I'm actually going to defer my time to Nevaeh Byanna Casey.

SPEAKER_39

Hi my name is Nevae Belinda Casey.

I'm a freshman at Cleveland High School.

I'm also the founder and co-founder and president of the Pacific Islander Club at Cleveland and I'm also part of the Filipino club and I'm also part of the racial equity team at Cleveland.

I am here today to talk about the Pacific Islanders.

I even have something that my cousin wrote because I feel like her story is very important.

My cousin Shailene she experienced a lot of racism and a lot of misplacement at her school especially because it was a mainly white school.

She I told her to write something because I feel like her what she said I mean what she went through is really important and I feel like she needs a voice.

So she wrote that Seattle public schools need to realize that they can't just teach history forced on one culture or race.

They also need to stop teaching one side of the story.

Yes we learn about the Native Americans and the messed up story of Columbus.

But what about the Native Hawaiians and the other Micronesian and Polynesian cultures.

Just like New Zealand we were forbidden we were forbidden to speak our language because of the Hawaiian language.

No because because the Hawaiian language is almost extinct.

Did you know that Hawaii was stolen from our people as well?

Did you know that our queen was locked up in her...

Wait.

Did you know that the British locked up our queen in her room like a prisoner?

I bet you didn't because we don't learn about it.

If we were in Hawaii and enrolled in a school there would be we would be learning about our culture and our history.

So why can't we do that here.

This is why we need a history.

history classes to involve more of the students population.

Not only it will help the Pacific Islands Pacific Islander students and students of color feel more comfortable and welcome in their own skin but but it would also educate the other students and teachers at Cleveland and other SPS schools.

We need to stop letting our ignorance get involved get in the way of our education.

Also we are here in Seattle that connects that connects there.

OK.

There's people in Seattle that connects.

that connects their home and country.

These classes that are what.

OK never mind.

So basically you know Pacific Islanders they experience a lot of racism and in America because us Hawaiians we got our land taken away.

Our island got annexed illegally and it was stolen.

The reason why.

Our island is a part of America is because it was annexed and it was illegally stolen and they imprisoned our queen.

So the thing is I feel like we need to have a ethnic studies at this and any school.

I feel like if you think about it every single person who goes to Hawaii they only go there just Just to think about just to go to the beach and be and also because it's just a tropical island.

It's very beautiful.

But think about it.

There's a lot of there's a lot of cultures.

There's a lot of history behind everything you're walking on.

So I feel like we need to have a history class talking about the Pacific Islanders especially Native Hawaiians.

Native Hawaiians went through so much stuff but no one acknowledges what we went through.

So I feel like we need to talk about it.

So.

This is why I'm going to hand it off to my to my vice president.

SPEAKER_37

Hi my name is Jackie Palepa Rachel Stowers.

I am the vice president and the co-founder of the Pacific Islander Club at Cleveland and I'm here to talk about how ethnic studies should be one of the things that we have in Seattle Public Schools.

Why?

Because there are so many.

There are so many topics that people can learn about other cultures besides the Europeans.

If you think about it, in humanities classes in high school, all we learn about is the history and the war that has happened between the Americans and the Native Americans.

What about the history that has happened in the Pacific Islands, such as the colonization of New Zealand and how they were close to the point of their language almost becoming illegal to speak and so on and so on.

How would you feel if your language was colonized, no, if your culture was colonized and you weren't allowed to speak your own language because you were scared of what would happen to you and your family?

And else Seattle Public Schools should allow Pacific Islander ethnic studies.

You must be asking why.

The reason is that the Pacific Islanders have gotten misplaced and underappreciated having a PI and underappreciated so many years and so many times.

Even I as a sophomore at Cleveland I grew up grew up getting called biracial slurs and other things.

I say we should have a PI studies at all Seattle public schools because this is one of the things that our culture should be taught because there are so many things in our culture that nobody knows about because everybody is too uneducated and too unaware of what our culture is about.

There are so many things that you guys can be taught about because we are more than just being like a Polynesian sausage Chick-fil-A being Moana the Moana movie the Lilo and Stitch and so on and so on.

Why should our culture be colonized just because you guys are too uneducated to learn about it.

That's all.

SPEAKER_32

Next speaker is Sherilyn Crowther.

Sherilyn Crowther.

SPEAKER_19

Good afternoon I'm Cheryl Lynn Crowther pronouns are she her.

I am the co-president of the Seattle Special Education Parent Teacher Student Association.

At the last board meeting there was an update on the Head Start preschool program in Seattle.

Thanks to additional funding from the DEEL at the city Head Start is switching to locations to become inclusive preschools.

This opens spaces for the growing number of preschool students being evaluated for IEPs and special education services.

This need makes sense.

The city's largest early intervention clinic has been seeing an increasing number of referrals for infants and toddlers.

Thanks to early intervention not all of these children will need additional services after age 3. Knowing an increasing number of Seattle Public Schools youngest students are coming into preschool with IEPs is important.

Unfortunately those preschools are most likely segregated.

Looking at the district map of preschools 46 are operated by the district or Head Start.

More than a third are development preschools where children with disabilities are separated from their typically developing peers.

That's the type of program my son was in 16 years ago.

To be inclusive the number of students with IEPs needs to remain below 25 percent.

Less than half of the non-developmental preschool programs in the district meet that bar.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children including children with disabilities in preschool results in greater empathy and acceptance of differences among all children as well as improved academic social and behavioral outcomes for children with disabilities.

While the Head Start funding will shift to locations into inclusive preschools, There is an opportunity for SPS here.

Inclusive preschools connect families as well.

Parents of a child without a disability are more likely to meet and get to know the parents of a child with disability.

Head Start is making the changes thanks to the city's funding but the price tag on inclusion works out as an investment that saves over a student's lifetime.

Please learn more about the inclusive preschool programs in the district and increase the numbers.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

Next is Jennifer Motter who will be followed by John Einkauf and then Kay Fidler.

All right.

SPEAKER_10

Good afternoon.

My name is Jennifer Motter.

I use she her pronouns and I proudly serve as Seattle Education Association president which represents approximately 6000 educators working in Seattle Public Schools.

Today I'd like to talk about safety and gun violence.

As we heard gun violence tragically killed another Seattle student just two weeks ago.

In 2020 guns became the number one cause of death for children and teens in the United States.

And according to a recent KUOW report it's the number one leading cause of death for juveniles in King County.

Of course in 2020, COVID also happened and it became the primary focus of our attention.

And so the grim milestone of gun violence becoming the number one cause of death for our youth did not get the attention it deserves.

It's time we start treating gun violence like the public health and public safety emergency that it is for our students, families, and educators.

I recognize that the primary focus of Seattle Public Schools is academics and that our school district does not have the resources or ability to address public health or public safety issues plaguing our community.

And speaking on behalf of SEA we don't know the answers.

But as school leaders we do have the ability to ask for help from our city county and state leaders.

And so I'm asking you to think about how we can ask for help and work together with our city leaders and public health officials to address the gun violence that is afflicting our school communities.

And as you consider candidates to replace Director Song and Rivera I would also ask you to consider candidates who.

can see the big picture of complex issues like this affecting our schools who have the ability to ask for help and to partner with our city county and state and who are committed to engaging with and honoring what our students families and educators share they need in their school communities in order to thrive.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

Next is John Einkauf.

And if you're on the wait list tonight, we have three more speaker spots.

And if those speakers are here, we will not be making it into the wait list.

So if you're deep in the wait list, probably not going to get to you.

SPEAKER_51

Hi, my name is John Einkauf.

I have two kids in the Seattle Public Schools, a kindergartner and a third grader.

My third grader is at Decatur.

The parents of Decatur have been told that Decatur will be open next year, but we don't know what will happen the following year.

As I'm sure you can all imagine, that causes quite a bit of uncertainty and anxiety for students, for parents, for staff.

I understand obviously the district faces some difficult choices and it's a complicated plan that we're trying to think through.

The options that the parents have heard floated include everything from the kids will be moved over to View Ridge, maybe the kids will be allowed to go to Cascadia, maybe the kids will be moved to the neighborhood schools and any number of other options.

We frankly don't know what to expect.

We don't know when we'll find out.

I and many of the other parents at Decatur are particularly concerned about any option that has the kids moving back to their neighborhood school for the simple reason that the neighborhood schools right now are just not equipped to provide the support that these kids require.

So for instance, just as one example, a fifth grader at Decatur is taking seventh grade math.

I don't know how is it going to work that you take that fifth grader, you put them in a neighborhood school where all of their peers are taking fifth grade math.

We just don't understand how it's going to work.

Nobody has explained that to us.

Again, I understand the district faces some difficult choices.

I don't envy the decision-making.

My hope and my ask is that the district can provide clarity soon to the students, teachers, and parents, and also ideally find a way to keep these kids together so that they can continue to get the support that they need.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_26

Boozhoo.

You started this time before I even got up here.

You have no handicap accommodations.

Boozhoo.

B'nasi k'w'nishnika makwda tatam.

Pembina band.

Anishinaabe.

I want to talk to you a little about history because none of you have been around that long.

And I've been coming to the school board meetings for over 40 years to talk about education rights for our native children and for all children.

So y'all started as an organization.

What I saw on Google and Google don't ever lie right said y'all started in 1867. Nobody's arguing so it must be right.

And then.

I read that the African American people in this country were given citizenship in 1868. So as an organization, you beat citizenship by a year.

Native people were given citizenship in 1924. And so that had to get like applied over my parents.

I'm a citizen of my tribe first and your country after that because your country has worked really hard to annihilate my people.

The practice of genocide in the Seattle Public Schools started early on and it continues.

You've made a lot of promises.

You promised us I was standing there the day Seattle Public Schools promised the native community not just UNEA the native community were promised that we would have access to the Robert Eagle Staff building promised that we would have secure storage in there to keep our supplies.

We were promised that you would respect shut up.

We were promised that you would respect and educate our children.

We were promised that you would not try to push our children out of your school district.

One of my grandchildren I had to move to Highline School District the only native in her high school.

And she gets treated better than your school district was treating her.

We haven't had to deal with racism we've dealt with understanding we go to the principal boom it gets fixed.

We don't have to go to the school board for 40 years.

Now you're going to appoint a new Indian agent.

We never even asked you for an Indian agent.

But you're going to appoint one like you appointed that went to the school board that Chandra.

She worked actively against my grandson graduating high school.

Thank God for that Lisa Rivera Smith.

She helped him do the work.

That was racism that they were trying to hold against him.

Fine arts credit.

As long as the fine arts were studying white people fine arts.

Right.

We natives we have fine arts.

We know that.

And so he finally was able to graduate on the fine arts in our native community.

But that Lisa woman that I don't know why she left.

I've heard rumor.

And it might be true because that's the same stuff that's happening to our kids.

Anybody who speaks out now you're going to put a new Indian agent on your school board or your liaison to your school board.

The Indian agents on my reservation starved over 300 almost 400 people in 30 and 40 below weather because they wouldn't sign a treaty that gave away everything forever.

And when we act we act for the next seven generations because seven generations ago people gave their lives so I could stand here.

So these kids could stand here.

We're not the same tribe all of us.

Some of us.

This girl is my tribe.

We are different tribes.

We're different people.

We have different cultures.

And I'm listening to these Black Lives Matter children and especially this girl who's you know suffered that loss in her family.

Y'all need to come off the podium.

And I think that the other superintendents probably might have gone a full month before they met with our community.

But see you all are listening to your Indian agents.

They want to starve us so we sign a treaty.

I am not willing to sign a treaty.

I do not want your Indian agent.

I do not want your liaison because they lie to you.

and you believe them because they make you comfortable.

I don't want you to be comfortable.

I want you to be uncomfortable while you destroy my babies.

If you're going to go after us with your racism and your genocide, at least have the decency to be uncomfortable while you do it.

So no Indian agents.

Keep them.

But you come out and you meet with us.

Jose Banda did it.

Even that Juno, Juno did it.

Susan Enfield, she was a tiny little woman.

She did it.

Good old Johnson did it, yeah.

There is history, and see, we are a people of history.

Because without history, we don't exist.

Without history, we're just like you all.

No more genocide on our children.

No more Indian agents putting a buffer so you feel comfortable.

If you cannot grow a pair get off that chair.

Anyhow thank you.

Goodbye.

SPEAKER_32

The final speaker tonight is Enrico Abadesco.

SPEAKER_05

My name is Enrico Badesco from Cleveland High School.

I'll cede my time to Jaron from Rainier Beach High School.

SPEAKER_06

Hello, I'm Darren Regala from Rainier Beach, a current sophomore at Rainier Beach, and I am part of the Rainier Beach High School Filipino Club.

Ever since last year, despite being a freshman, I've been fighting for the right for our ethnic studies class to exist.

But before this, I didn't even know what it meant to be Filipino, to be somebody from my culture.

There was no place nor any way for me that I saw to learn with our community.

And for that to happen, well, that's such a disservice to the millions of Filipinos who have lived and died in the United States and who have been in major events in U.S. history.

And it's tied integrally with communities like this one here in Seattle, San Francisco, and L.A., and especially with our landmarks being named after our own national heroes, like the Jose Rizal Bridge, which is confusing to me because how are our landmarks being named after our heroes, yet The education for our history is being cut.

Filipinos here have fought for this country and bled for this country.

They at least deserve to be taught about and their stories shared.

Their stories deserve much more recognition and they deserve much better.

And I'm sure a lot of you know about Rainier Beach's story, our own troubled schools, previous students had to fight for our continuance in the district and fight for a new building.

Much like how we right now are fighting to save these classes that we had last year, now this year.

How much longer do we have to fight in order to secure our very own stories and heritage at schools where this district abides by its commitments to the ethnic studies classes?

I can recall I've seen one document, resolution 2016-17-17, where this very district had promised to build on ethnic studies but now revert on that promise.

I want to end on this note.

We are able to tell that immigrants built this country but not tell their stories, their cultures, and the real impact that they had.

How is that any different than just brushing aside their past and denying our history when people today don't know our own stories when our own people don't understand the significance of these stories due to a lack of education and knowledge on these issues.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_32

That was the final speaker for testimony tonight.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you very much, everyone.

We will take a 13-minute recess to 610.

SPEAKER_27

All right.

Keeping the party going.

Do we have a see Director Briggs and Director Sardieu not to rush you but we're going to get started.

SPEAKER_28

So join us when you're ready.

All right.

It is 6 11 and we are going to do our progress monitoring session.

We're going to go back there.

So I'm going to hand it over to Deputy Superintendent Jarvis to kick us off.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you President Rankin.

SPEAKER_28

And for those of you in the in the auditorium please feel free to stick around.

If there are conversations though that you're having please kindly take those out to the lobby so we can continue our meeting.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_50

Thank you, President Rankin.

Good evening, everyone.

As part of our regular board meeting, I'd like to transition to our progress monitoring discussion and to outline the agenda for tonight's discussion as part of the Student Outcomes Focused Governance, SOFG, that many have heard about, in support of our third grade reading and our seventh grade math goals.

This is our fourth formal opportunity to review the progress we are making in these two areas through the formal SOFG process.

I'm joined by three key leaders of this work, Assistant Superintendent of Academics, Dr. Mike Starosky, Executive Director of Curriculum Assessment and Instruction, Cashel Toner, Executive Director of College and Career Readiness, Dr. Caleb Perkins.

Before we engage in our conversation on strategic questions, they will help me provide a clear response to the following key questions.

What is the current state?

What is the desired state?

What are we doing to get there?

We will follow a similar sequence we used in our last review of both of these goals, taking each memo in turn.

First, third grade reading, then seventh grade math, by spending a few minutes doing an independent close reading of each memo to refresh our memories and to ensure that we're all coming into the conversation with the same information.

Similar to both these memos were presented in November.

The team will also be presenting some slides to help highlight the work being done in support of both goals.

Finally, I want to note that we will be incorporating into our introduction this evening some initial responses to the feedback we heard during our last SOFG progress monitoring session on January 17th.

Specifically, we want to begin to note how we are connecting the strategic work we discuss to the request to have clear leading indicators and lagging indicators.

Within these indicators, we aim to set clear targets and baselines so that we can better understand and communicate what progress we are making, where we need to adjust our strategy.

So let me pause for a second and see if there are any questions.

Hearing none we will go ahead and begin our close read of the third grade reading memo.

So I offer a timing back to President Rankin.

SPEAKER_28

Do folks need time to read or are we prepared to get into it.

We did our homework.

Let's go.

SPEAKER_50

Then let me reintroduce Dr. Mike Starosky to do an executive summary of what's ahead of us.

SPEAKER_45

Thank you Dr. Jarvis.

So as a refresher as you see on the top of the first page I want to state the first goal that we set in support of our strategic plan goal for third grade rating.

The percentage of black boys who achieve English language arts proficiency or higher on the third grade smarter balance assessment will increase from 28 percent in June 2019 to 70 percent in June 2024. For our two new board members being introduced to this work and presentation structure I want to touch on a few of the metrics we use when reviewing our district's progress in measuring and meeting our target.

We use two standardized assessments of student outcomes to monitor progress at the board level.

The third grade smarter balanced assessment SBA is our top line measure and the ultimate indicator of our success.

The measures of academic progress map that assessment is in grades second and third and serves as an interim measure or early indicator of progress that when viewed in combination with other data at the school level can inform implementation decisions.

In looking at figure 1. Next slide please.

And looking at figure 1 which was represented at our last meeting our top line measure of third graders proficient in English language arts on the smarter balance assessment.

You will notice 29 percent of our African-American males or boys achieve proficiency on the spring SBA 23 23 2023 SBA which is a slight decrease from spring 2022. However.

It is consistent with our African-American boys student performance pre pandemic.

While these results for SPS are consistent with Washington state trends since 2019 they do indicate we are on track to meet do indicate that we are not on track to meet our set target.

Even so our African-American males our students have benefited from targeted efforts in the 13 priority schools despite overall declines in proficiency.

Our African-American boys and our students in our district are benefiting from our work in our 13 priority schools.

Proficiency for our African-American boys declined by 2.4 points from 2022 to 23 compared to 10.6 point decline at comparison schools and SPS with similar demographics.

That is data that we have brought back to you in the past but we're bringing it back into tonight's discussion.

Taken together these results indicate that SPS's strategy is beginning to take hold and have an impact at the 13 priority schools by staying focused on research based strategies for literacy literacy instruction and effective school based implementation supported by central office.

we will be able to solidify the model and begin thoughtfully expanding supports and scaling these efforts across the system.

So what I would like to do is just do a general reminder and you'll see this evening as you've seen many times a consistency with the strategies that we're using among third grade reading and seventh grade math.

So some of the things that I talk about on this front end you'll also hear about in math as well.

Specifically the core of our strategy at the school level is to provide our schools our principals our teachers with the job embedded learning and support necessary necessary to deliver high quality standards aligned instruction.

And we are basing that on the five following areas.

Excellent teaching and joyful learning strong relationships and connected families equitable measures and student supports.

expanded learning and enrichment and finally opportunity pathways.

Now I will turn it over to executive director of assessment and instruction Cashel Toner to further explain what the current state is since the last time that we met.

SPEAKER_24

Thank you Dr. Storosky.

Let's see I'd first like to reiterate the results of the first two figures highlighted in the memo so that you have the context for our current state and an understanding of the progress we're making towards our goal.

So as previously noted on figure one the SBA SBA is our top line measure and the results from this spring indicate that while roughly one third of African-American male students were proficient on the ELA portion of the spring 2023 SBA Which is stable compared to historical trends Those results are 29 percentage points below our target So we clearly have a lot of work to do together moving on to figure two Thanks.

This visual illustrates predicted proficiency indicators for the spring of 2024 SBA based on the fall 2023 ELA portion of MAP.

That's a lot of education ease there.

So but I believe that you all probably read the memo in advance of this meeting right now.

So I'm kind of looking around you're all nodding so we're going to move on.

All right.

Forty three point six percent of current third grade students furthest from educational justice are projected to test proficient on spring ELA SBA.

While 32.1 percent of African-American males are projected to test proficient on the spring ELA SBA.

This information is useful to think about as we look to identify groups needing to make accelerated growth to meet proficiency to ensure we match them with the supports and resources needed.

Finally I wanted to kind of zoom out for a minute and remind our whole system that overall in third grade reading achievement historically our district has been at about 65 percent proficiently proficiency for all kids and that would be like pre pandemic.

Just to put this into context and post pandemic in spring 2023 third grade kids overall in Seattle Public Schools were about 61 percent proficient.

So we have work to do as a whole system and we have targeted work to do as well.

But I just wanted to share that with you.

All right, now that we have established the context for where we are currently, I'd like to talk about the progress being made and the next steps to get us to our desired state.

The student outcomes I just touched on are the product of several factors.

So just to be really clear it is our core belief that all children can be confident and joyful readers by third grade.

There's nothing wrong with the kids.

They're brilliant.

It's our job to think about what are the systems and structures we need to put in place in order for all kids to be their best selves and their most brilliant selves as they partner with us.

in their schoolwork, right?

So this isn't about fixing kids or fixing schools.

This is about systems and structures improvements.

To that end putting aside the impact of the pandemic the most important historical factors within the control of Seattle Public Schools that we need to address are things like we haven't had a research based literacy instruction instructional tool consistently implemented across our system.

We've changed that and now we do have that with the support of the board.

Right.

So that's our center for collaborative classroom instructional material that's aligned to the science of reading that is now being implemented system wide.

Another area of growth that we need to address all together would be the school to home family engagement that authentically partners with black families to to build that relationship and to build trust so that we can be really honest about what we can do as a system and how we can enter into partnership with families.

Another area we need to keep working on is a dosage issue.

Because if you have more growth to make, you might need a little bit more time to do that, right?

So we're doing what we can, you know, during the school day, but we also need to really think carefully about out-of-school time partnerships.

So I'd now like to highlight the progress we've been making along with the next steps we are planning on undertaking in support of this work.

So it's important to note that the work currently underway and planned support going forward are tightly aligned with our previously discussed five core areas of work of work that Dr. Skowroski just talked about.

Excellent teaching strong relationships equitable measures and student supports expanded learning and opportunity and pathways.

Here on this slide, you can see some of our current successes.

But I'd say one of the biggest lessons we've learned so far is that we need to do fewer things, and we need to do them really well.

When we kind of do a little bit of everything, it doesn't have a great impact.

So being really tight, being really focused on our instructional priorities in this work has been a lesson learned that we need to kind of hold true to.

We've also learned that our educators given the space and time to do what they do really well which is to think about the relationship between the content and the teaching and the student.

And if we can do that in professional learning communities and focus on student data and student growth that's a really promising practice.

At our let's see I want to make sure I don't miss anything in my notes here.

Another promising practice we're learning from is that family literacy connectors that we've hired at our early literacy partnership schools to really strengthen the connection between home and school.

And at a targeted level our early literacy improvement network that I'll talk about that more in just a minute.

But we've been having joint site visits to our schools with the regional executive directors some of the content folks from my team and our school leaders visiting classrooms and calibrating around feedback for educators with coaches and being really tight on those instructional priorities is another promising practice.

Let's move on to the next slide.

So I just sort of described some of the lessons we're learning.

I think we should move on a little bit because I'm worried about time.

So let's move on.

OK let's zoom in just for a second on the excellent teaching and joyful learning.

Let's move to the next slide.

All right, so in response to some of the feedback we've been getting, you know, it's one thing to talk about SBA results, but that's sort of like the end of the marathon, right?

We need to have better leading and lagging indicators, and that's some feedback that this team has given us.

So let's just look at this slide together at the top here, and we have some examples of some leading indicators and some lagging indicators.

So on this side you can see how we're thinking about leading and lagging indicators.

For example under the teaching and learning and joyful learning top of this slide here.

If you were to focus on just one of our instructional priorities which would be fluency instruction a leading indicator could be something like how many teachers are teaching fluency lessons and how often.

Right.

The lagging indicator could be changes in student oral reading fluency measures as measured by dibbles.

And that would be something that would be really interesting to think more about because a student's ability to read accurately and at grade level when obviously impacts the other indicate the other measures of MAP and SBA.

So you can kind of see that through line right.

Anyway as you look across this slide you could see some of the other examples that we're considering for leading and lagging indicators.

And I appreciate that feedback to help us get that kind of clarity.

I just talked with you a little bit about one of our instructional priorities which is fluency.

And if we can go to the next slide since we used fluency as an example of one of our instructional priorities I want to share a with you a few sample slides from our most recent convening of our principals in our Early Literacy Improvement Network.

We meet with this group monthly in what we call the Early Literacy Improvement Network.

For just a bit of context, reading fluency is the ability to read a text accurately at about 96% rate or above automatically.

In other words, that means not slowing down to sound out the words and reading with an expression that matches the text.

As you can imagine fluent reading is a prerequisite to comprehending a text though all by itself it's not enough.

So I wonder if you all could just look up here at this slide for a second and this is an activity we did with our principals and coaches just like a week and a half ago.

If you want to read that slide to yourself then we'll talk about it in just a minute.

OK I can kind of tell that you've all finished because you're looking around a little bit.

So now I wonder if Director Hersey would you do me a favor and read that slide out loud.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah gladly.

Since our kids are going to be tested on their silent reading comprehension, why would we bother to have them practice oral reading?

The purpose, quite simply, is that oral reading practice has been found to have a positive impact on students' silent reading comprehension.

The National Reading Panel reviewed 16 experimental studies in which students practiced their oral reading with a partner.

With rereading, they should be reading texts that are relatively hard and with feedback, someone who helps them when they make mistakes.

In 15 of the 16 studies, the kids who were engaged in this kind of activity ended up outperforming the control students in silent reading comprehension.

There have been many additional studies since that time across a variety of ages with similar results.

SPEAKER_24

So if I could just indulge a little bit.

Director Hersey what was that like for you to read that out loud versus what was it like for you when you just read that silently to yourself.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, so I have a little bit of a cheat code having taught this stuff.

Reading out loud and being able to match the sounds and movements of my mouth with what I am seeing on the paper is like super critical.

I think both in practice because of all of the reasons that it articulated in the piece, but it also reading out loud for me makes me feel like I have more ownership over the piece and gives me more confidence in my comprehension of what it actually said.

SPEAKER_24

Thank you for sharing your thinking that's like a practice of metacognition we use in the classroom sometimes but what he was able to describe to you is what a really confident and fluent reader is able to do and when you're building those skills what we're doing in our classrooms in our second and third grades in our early literacy priority schools is being really clear about our instructional focus right around fluency and then building some like how do you build those skills protocols with educators.

And so that means having our coaches work with groups of teachers to teach a protocol around fluency.

which is actually aligned to a larger focus of our district around inclusionary practices.

And I'm going to tell you why in just a minute.

If you're a student that's not able to access that text and we all read it together I can fade back and not say the words that I'm not sure what they are.

But guess what.

You all just helped me out because you read them right.

And so then my brain gets to say, oh, that's what that word means, right?

And then we go through that protocol on the first day, we read all together with the teacher's support, and then slowly the teacher backs out, and maybe we're paired up strategically with multilingual learner and maybe somebody who's reading above grade level or whatever the pairings are.

make sense in the classroom.

And then as we go across the week, kids become much more confident in that little excerpt of text.

And this quote helps you think about why we would want to do a protocol, a fluency protocol like that, and how it can transfer over to when kids are reading silently or independently, which is what you need to do to be a confident reader, right?

Okay, so I just gave you a little example of some of the actual work that goes like five levels down away from the top line measures of SBA, then we tracked to MAP, which is one of our data metrics as well, and then we talked about some leading indicators and some lagging indicators, and we talked about a classroom practice of fluency.

That's some of the work that we're engaged in and thinking about how might we want to scale some of those practices district wide.

And with that I will just I'll pause there for some questions.

Oh actually I have one more slide that I wanted to show you because you might be thinking about how do you measure that with kids.

So if we go to the next slide and we did this also activity with our early literacy improvement network and on the left you'll see an actual student's Orf.

That stands for oral reading fluency.

What are you talking about?

That's what it means.

It means being able to read.

The goal is you want a high accuracy and you want to be able to comprehend.

But be enabled to in order to be able to do that your brain has to have automaticity and understanding what those letters mean and how they all work together so that then your brain can be freed up to think gee what does what does that all mean together.

Right.

So on the left you'll see a student's first read of that passage and then you'll see on the right what improvements this this particular student was able to make.

After you know five days of a fluency routine in the classroom that I just described to you.

So that's a kind of real life example of some of the work that we're doing in the classrooms.

SPEAKER_45

And if I could just add to what was powerful about this this just happened last week.

The training with the coaches and the principals is that you could know we heard about it but also we could see it with a student who did this so we could see the video see it in real time and see.

So after a week of practicing a week of focus on instruction what would be how did this student change over time and just four or five lessons in a week.

And this is what we saw.

This is what was indicated here.

And so in specifically looking for fluency specifically but the rate and expression and accuracy.

SPEAKER_24

So we just did sort of like a way deep dive into one component of this work by no means is that representative representative of all of the work that is supporting this strategy.

So I just want to be really clear about that.

OK.

SPEAKER_50

Dr. Turner thank you Dr. Strauss.

Thanks.

This is we hope helpful to you as a board.

And as we transition to our main discussion we're going to stop for just a minute and pause for any clarifying questions.

After any clarifying questions we'll spend a few minutes looking at our strategic questions.

But first are there any clarifying questions.

SPEAKER_28

No.

SPEAKER_50

We will move on and focus our conversation for the evening on the strategic questions.

In which case I'm going to turn it back to President Rankin to facilitate the discussion and we'll take it from there.

SPEAKER_28

Great.

Thank you.

Directors as Dr. Jarvis noted strategic questions are after if you have tactical questions I would ask that you either write that down to submit in writing another time or you can state it now if you want to.

If it's a tactical question though I'm going to ask that we get that.

answer later.

Who would like to go first with questions about what we've just seen?

SPEAKER_09

be helpful just given that we have new directors and for folks who are listening in to give us a brief overview of the difference between a strategic and a tactical question.

SPEAKER_28

Sure.

Well I had the opportunity to meet with our two directors.

before three made a quorum it was when there were still seven people on the board to before their first progress monitoring session at the last board meeting to talk through a little bit about what the purpose of progress monitoring is and what we're looking for as a board or as board directors.

But yeah so strategic what what our job.

as the school board is to provide direction to the superintendent to manage staff and direct the district to operationalize education in a way that's aligned to you know federal standards there's tons of requirements but specifically our direction.

And so we have we have asked for to be able to measure.

We also need to be able to reflect back to the community who we collectively are representing how the system is or isn't doing in educating our all of our kids.

And so progress monitoring sessions.

We have three top line goals around third grade reading seventh grade math and college and career readiness.

That's like a spotlight.

Again this isn't like and we don't do anything else.

We only do these three things.

This is just kind of a spotlight based on what was really important.

to our community when the last strategic plan was being developed.

These priorities came through very clearly that that was those were the focuses.

And so we want to be asking not you know our job is not to be curriculum specialists is not to be education specialists although we happen to have a former you know post-secondary educator and elementary educator on the board.

But that's that's our goal really is to reflect back to the community how how our system is doing.

And so we need to be able to ask from what we've seen.

We want to ask strategic questions.

So what strategies were employed that you deem to be working to be making progress or not making progress on the goals.

Tactical would be more operational things happening in the classroom which might be very interesting to us.

But the reason I ask for us to save those is that they're actually not.

They're interesting to us and they're informative but they're not as directly connected to what our role is in this moment which is to examine the outcomes and push the whole system towards what's working what's not.

And I'm saying superintendent but because the superintendent is our connection to staff.

But what's being directed is that making the progress that we expect to see for our students and meeting our goals.

And if it's not you know then we want to hear about that too.

What we might be seeing that they might not be seeing from that higher strategic level as we govern a district of one hundred and six schools.

that all have very different needs.

We have to find a way to be to keep our eye on the big picture which is reflecting back to the community how our kids are doing and holding the district accountable for providing the education that we expect.

So that's why we want to focus on the strategic Rather than the what curriculum did you use and what was happening in you know the third classroom on the right at John Hay Elementary on Thursday.

That's maybe interesting but not going to be what's really helpful and our role in this conversation.

Director Hersey go ahead.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you for that.

So this is awesome.

Thank you.

It's really cool to get a look into how we're actually using these strategies.

My question in relation to this particular exercise is, is there a follow-up exercise that goes along with this that addresses comprehension?

And can you tell us a little bit about what that looks like?

SPEAKER_24

Sure I'd be happy to.

So this we have instructional priorities that are kind of sequenced across the grades because you know learning to be a confident reader by third grade doesn't happen in third grade.

It starts in the early years and all the way up right.

So for example in kindergarten and first grade we're focusing on systematic phonics and we've talked about that a little bit.

I just described to you a fluency protocol but like the next step instructionally would be a different protocol that would be like text at the center or a writing about reading project.

Essentially what does that mean?

It means.

helping kids read a passage confidently and then make some meaning from it, right?

So make a claim about it, use some evidence from the text to kind of write about what did you just learn about.

So that would be like the next step.

But before we get to that part, you have to do a couple things first.

You have to understand the phonics component, and then you've got to be a fluent reader enough to be able to get to that next part, which is that comprehension progression.

But great question.

And all of that work is aligned to the science of reading.

So it's not just like, what does Cashel think?

That's really, those are research-based strategies that help kids, especially kids that, you know, some kids learning to read is a pretty seamless thing, but for other kids, it's like, what are you talking about?

I need you to actually be really explicit about how all of these symbols work together, and then I need some strategies about how to even, I mean, make a claim and, you know, have evidence from the text.

What are you talking about?

So actually teach into that for kids and be really explicit about it.

SPEAKER_09

One additional follow up.

Thank you for that.

I appreciate it.

Are we seeing data that would suggest that by so saying for instance this scenario when that student then goes to another cold read are we seeing that they are performing better on cold reads throughout.

Do we have data that supports that.

SPEAKER_24

So I would say we have anecdotal evidence from educators right.

But I don't necessarily have a spreadsheet with all the kids organized to be able to share but that might not be appropriate right.

Like really the power of that is the educator seeing that progression and being able to talk with the with the child about you know their own reading growth.

But I would say generally speaking yeah.

And that goes along with kind of common sense thinking right.

The more you practice something.

And the more you get like really specific feedback about whatever it is the better you're going to feel about it and be able to do it.

SPEAKER_28

Director Topp.

SPEAKER_31

So I have a question.

It's going to be a newbie question.

And I don't know if, I'm not sure who's supposed to answer it or if it's supposed to be answered even tonight.

But I am missing the connection between we, you know, we have the goal, we have sort of strategies, we're playing around with strategies that work or don't work.

How do we take that information and transfer it to the budget decisions we're making in order to invest, make sure we're investing in the right things?

I'm missing, I guess, that link.

And I don't think it's a question for you.

SPEAKER_28

That is a great question.

It is.

You're right.

Not for right now but it came up it came up last time because we had a progress monitoring session on college and career readiness and we had a budget conversation.

And so we did ask the question you know what should we expect to see as you're furthering down the the budget process to show us that investments are being made in the strategies that you're working on.

So that we we should be able to talk about whether it like are the strategies working.

Who are they working for.

Who are they not working for.

How are students doing.

And then if staff is being clear with us about what's working we should be able to see that that's what's being invested in.

SPEAKER_31

How are we investing in the strategies that you are recommending.

SPEAKER_28

And some of it might not like you know a lot of it is hiring teachers.

Right.

So there's not going to be a different line for you know some of the skills that teachers have.

But if there's different like the aligned curriculum curriculum that is aligned with the science of reading continuing to invest in that.

That would be an example of something that we'd see or professional development.

Likewise if there's an area that we see needs to be invested in more that's not.

You know my question would be why not or what what do we need to maybe think about doing differently to invest in it.

But we would see that more in the budget conversation than this conversation.

Director Hersey.

SPEAKER_09

I do want to kind of build off of that question really quickly, just as an idea that popped up.

And please tell me if this is wildly inappropriate.

I think that there is a clear link here just because it would be nice to be able to see, all right, this is a really strong strategy.

As close as you could get without with knowing that it would be very difficult to do so but showing how much in a dollar amount of resources whether it be instruction curriculum timing all those types of things how long this has been implemented in comparison to other strategies I think would be super useful for folks sitting in the audience members of the public to be able to determine like OK.

This makes sense to me.

We're spending X amount of dollars in this.

What does it look like to double down on this as opposed to some of the other things in curriculum instruction or other strategies that we might not be seeing as readily progress from.

So I did just I think there's some there there.

And I wonder if there is a way to connect these types of conversations because especially for a community member who's watching this but might not necessarily be watching a budget meeting who might be watching a budget meeting but might not necessarily be watching this finding a clear connection between these kind of frames of thought might be of great use.

SPEAKER_28

I would say a yes and because this is our only time as a full board to discuss together these questions.

And so while the public gets to watch us we need to make sure that we are doing our work as effectively as we can and that honestly some of that is on other staff to communicate out effectively to the public because this is not a replacement for that community outreach and education I would say.

But there also I notice in the memo there is usually at the end what board support is helpful.

It doesn't have numbers on it but it will tell us kind of like here's what we found to be effective and here's what we would like your continued support with.

That's one connection.

And then I think it's a great suggestion for us to maybe have some of those with us in the budget conversation so we can say, hey, we heard from curriculum and instruction that this is really effective and needs to be invested in.

Are you doing that?

Where is that?

SPEAKER_09

One last add on to that and then like also having consideration especially from senior staff to say like in addition to that these are things that we are asked are considering letting go of because we're finding that they are less effective.

Right.

So having some almost sentence stems from y'all's perspective to provide context for us about what are those trade offs could also be a really powerful tool as we're making some of these decisions.

SPEAKER_45

Yes to put Dr. Jones in the room strategic abandonment.

Yes.

Is the term we're all clutching onto.

SPEAKER_28

And that that there are lots of things that we all like and want to do but we are going to have to make choices and be honest about what the tradeoffs are.

So what's that.

SPEAKER_45

I said math.

We still have our math time.

So whenever you're ready.

SPEAKER_28

Well so sorry because I actually have some strategic questions.

Well one is a tactical question that I'll take later which is I'm still unclear about dibbles because my understanding was that was our approved dyslexia screener.

But then it's being described here as an assessment.

So I'm just what what's what's there.

Don't don't answer it now.

Please put it in writing to the full board.

Strategically.

What strategies at so so because you said something about you know we're learning that instead of doing a whole bunch of things kind of we're going to focus on doing things really well.

I still see a lot of things on here under the universal and the targeted support.

There's still a ton of different strategies in here.

So I would like to know.

You mentioned that the.

So I'll say the seeing a decline is disappointing and upsetting especially when proficiency was not that great beforehand.

It's not out of step with what I'm seeing nationally on just how early learning and elementary school reading is going.

So but what does stand out is that 10 point 10.6 decline compared to only a 2.4 decline.

What I can't tell from this is what are the strategies that you attribute are making that difference at the 13 priority schools.

What did it.

SPEAKER_45

So not to get into the specifics of that I will tell you what we're discussing with Dr. Jones.

The directive with Dr. Jones is to be very clear about going from the targeted to the universal.

And so what we've been clear about is that the need and the want to of.

going from not just the 13 schools but to the 14 plus 57 or 70 or however we're going to count our elementary or elementary and our K-8's but being really specific about a transition plan from the targeted 13 schools to all of our schools specifically in regards to our focus on third grade reading for African-American boys.

So we're coming up with a transition plan.

It's part of our budget process.

It's part of our scaling out or scaling up.

And so we're we'll be able to come back to the to you with a plan that's in development right now.

SPEAKER_28

OK so what I'm hearing so I'm putting you're not going to like this because I hear like what's going to be upscaled if you if we don't know which strategies are the ones that are working.

How do we make those universal.

Which ones are they.

Is that what we have yet to determine.

That's part of the, because there's an implementation plan of rolling up from targeted to universal.

But there's also, you have to identify which strategies you're going to be making universal, which you can't do if you don't know which ones are the ones that are working.

SPEAKER_11

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_24

So sometimes people say you know it's not rocket science.

Right.

But actually teaching reading is is very complicated and it takes lots of different components to put in place.

But I would say and this goes back to the lessons learned and I I can clarify.

about being really clear, the instructional priorities, being really clear about that progression I was describing to you around foundational literacy skills, phonics in kindergarten and first grade, fluency protocols in second, you know, second and third, and then writing about your reading in third grade.

Having that kind of laser focus and then connecting the teacher practices with the feedback from and support from school leaders in also support of central office that kind of that triad that I just described to you is something we probably need to really dig into.

But the.

Hard thing is you're going to say well Kishel can you quantify that for me and that's actually really difficult to do in in our work.

But we are in partnership with the University of Washington to do an analysis of the strategies and we're doing it as fast as we can.

I wish I had it a year and a half ago but it's not possible.

So we're in that process right now and I'll be able to share those findings as we get them.

SPEAKER_28

And I can appreciate that it's a little bit squishy because there's I mean there's so much variance in relationship between you know in one classroom the relationships and the strategies between an educator and all the different students.

But when we talk about scaling up the scaling up can't just be.

Teach harder.

Like we've got like what what are we providing and what is.

And so I guess the flip side might be if you're identifying things that you know are not strategies that are working.

I would like to see in that plan what's being abandoned.

And then the other strategic question is what do you.

So the.

There was a decline the six point nine.

point statewide decline in proficiency that returns us to prior to the pandemic is really interesting because that to me says that during the pandemic it was higher than usual.

For us to have declined and returned to pre-pandemic levels it's indicating that there was a higher than previous.

Am I misunderstanding what this data is saying?

SPEAKER_24

I'm thinking.

Are you thinking about when I shared overall third grade proficiency or are you looking.

SPEAKER_28

So it says on the.

Oh sorry.

Sorry that's ELA.

Or maybe this is a typo but it says 29 percent of African-American males achieve proficiency a slight decrease from spring 2022 though consistent with student performance pre pandemic.

SPEAKER_24

Right.

SPEAKER_28

So that means that there was an increase.

SPEAKER_24

So Seattle schools has historically our African-American boys in third grade have been hovering somewhere around 29 percent proficiency.

Sometimes we pop up to 33 31 somewhere in there it's been a consistent trend.

And so I think that that is what that means is we're kind of back to where we were.

So it wasn't necessarily there was a spike and we've returned it's just sort of there's a tendency to sort of hovered around that for a very long time which means as a system we need to do something different.

Yeah.

OK.

And I would also say the compounding effect of the pandemic on this particular learning outcome really can't be underestimated.

Right.

Because learning foundational reading skills was quite difficult to do virtually.

That's not an excuse by any means.

SPEAKER_28

Well but that's why I wondered if there was a spike.

It was like wait a second.

That's not what we would expect.

OK.

So that's along like historical trends that wasn't.

OK.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Does anybody else have questions about these strategies.

OK.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_50

Trustee would you introduce the math.

SPEAKER_45

Certainly.

So with what I mentioned earlier the same common strategies of the areas that we're focusing on with third grade reading are also present in our seventh grade math.

And so I'd just like to read the goal and then I'll go through those strategies real quickly and then I'll hand it over to Dr. Perkins.

The goal for us is that the percentage of black boys and teens in seventh grade who achieve proficiency or higher on the seventh grade smarter balance assessment in math will increase from 23 percent in June 2019 to 45 percent in June 2024 and to 70 percent in June 2026. Essentially doubling over three years and reaching the targeted 70 percent goal in five years.

And so as a reminder that the seventh grade goal is truly in its second year of implementation compared to our third grade reading goal.

But the focus areas are the following is that we believe that just like third grade reading it's about excellent teaching equitable measures opportunity pathways expanded learning and strong relationships that will move the rates that we want to see for our young men and our students of color for the seventh grade math.

And with that I'll hand it over to Dr.

SPEAKER_23

Thank you Dr. Strasky.

If we go to the next slide.

We'll just orient you.

One more slide please.

We'll just orient you to the same data.

As is often the case, I'm drafting off of Cashel and the literacy work, which is amazing and remarkable.

As Dr. Straski shared, we're just in year two, but we're learning so much from how they're setting up the literacy work in terms of working with educators and school leaders and using the curriculum as well as assessments.

So I just want to share that gratitude.

We see as we shared in November some sobering data from math because it's worse than what we saw with literacy.

Not all we're not at pandemic level and we're actually below that and we're trending in the wrong direction in terms of African-American male students as we saw the last person testing that we did was 20 percent of students reaching proficiency in the spring of 2023 for our seventh grade math students for African-American male students.

If we go to the next slide.

So this is also indicated by the fall map.

So fall map is basically predicting what percentage of students are going to be able to reach proficiency.

This is of course not necessarily a prediction we want to hold.

We're working day and night to try to make sure that we're giving students every opportunity.

But again it indicates that far too large a percentage of our African-American male students are off track with math and we know this is a critical level.

We need to ensure students are proficient in math so they can access all the amazing opportunities that we've been talking about in terms of STEM and advanced math and so forth.

So, as we've shared before, this is concerning and it does require immediate and urgent action.

And I'm going to talk about that in just a moment and some of the specifics in getting into the leading and lagging indicators that you all have been appropriately asking.

I do want to just quickly respond to Director Rankin you're referencing the national data because I think it's an important we this is the targeted.

But if we zoom out to the universal just for a second.

What is interesting is that we were around 62 percent proficient in 7th grade across all of our students before the pandemic.

We're about 52 percent.

But what's interesting is that we hit a low point of around 44%.

So at least there's some indication that we might be rebounding.

And if you look at a study that just came out, actually was covered by NPR, so many of you might have heard about it from some researchers at Harvard and Stanford who have studied thousands of districts, they show that Seattle They analyzed many districts but Seattle's just shows that we fell less during the pandemic by comparison and we have rebounded more in math.

So these are just signs of hope.

There's a lot of work to do but I just want to give you some some hope in the midst of the some sobering statistics.

So we can go to the next slide.

To your point, we need to be focused if we're going to actually move the needle.

And I think I am so envious of how focused the literacy work has gotten in terms of the precision.

But what we're trying to do in matching that is really focusing on excellent teaching.

So yes, we have We have five buckets of work, but if we wanted to think about strategic abandonment, we have moved most of our energy into one specific bucket, which is excellent teaching and joyful learning.

That's one pivot we've done.

That's one way we've strategically abandoned some of our energy in the other four.

And why?

Because we think if we help educators maximize the curriculum and the assessments within the curriculum, that is the best chance of really making sure our students are making progress.

I'll even be more specific, not quite as specific as Cashel, but we're focusing on two main levers within the curriculum.

One is this exercise that students do every day.

called Solve and Discuss, where they come in and they give their energy towards a math problem before they get any instruction to really wrestle with it and to discuss it with a peer because it teaches them how to construct a math argument which is required for proficiency.

So that's one piece.

And then we're also putting a lot of energy around performance tasks, which is about ensuring students really get a chance to show their conceptual understanding.

And what has been encouraging is that we've seen teachers across these six schools, and I do want to share my gratitude for the educators at Denny, Aki, Mercer, Washington, Meany, and South Shore, along with our school leaders there who have been working much intensely with us to try to figure out what are they learning, to your point, Director Rankin.

How is the Sullivan Discuss helping students?

Which students are benefiting from this?

Is it causing more engagement?

Just on January 23rd we had a really encouraging time with those teachers from those six schools coming together and talking about the same lessons something that we would not have been able to do just a couple of years ago because we pushed on that consistency.

So there's a lot more to talk about but I do want to just be focused in my own comments.

I'm just going to stay consistent with that excellent teaching piece if we can go to the next slide.

There are a lot of next steps to take.

There's a lot of opportunities to see.

We're actually, just like Cashel, we're experimenting with the universal as well as we do the targeted.

We brought in two researchers, Dr. Pam Seda and Dr. Kendall Brown, who are experts on African-American male achievement or African-American achievement in math.

and they're beginning to actually have conversations with outside of these six schools because we believe that setting that foundation in the belief and building math identity for our students, our students of color for educational justice is critical so we're starting that piece and we're also continuing to look for opportunities with excellent teaching.

One specific thing that board members might want to learn more about is the April lab days that we're going to do where we're going to bring all of our educators together and give them choice about how to really learn from those two levers that I talked about earlier.

Finally, I'll just quickly share if we can go to two more, two slides advanced.

So just, I think if you might have to scroll through to get all the text, but the bottom line here is we want to share that we are listening to your helpful nudge on leading and lagging indicators.

And so what we're doing with some researchers from the Regional Education Lab, REL, is to think about what are we seeing in terms of quality of teaching around that use of solve and discuss, around the use of performance tasks?

How is it translating into evidence that more students are engaged, more students are able to show deeper understanding?

To Cashel's point, I wish I had the data right now to share with you, but that's the data we're looking to collect to come back to you to have that more precise sense of what's working and what's not working so that we can focus.

Anyway, thank you.

With that, I'll turn it over to you, President, for questions.

SPEAKER_28

Well, I was just going to say that is the cool thing about progress monitoring is that we're not expecting a polished, finished product.

We're all in continuous improvement.

And our opportunity for progress monitoring is just Where are we right now.

Director Hersey.

SPEAKER_09

So a question that I have is given that we have so many of our target populations that are behind in seventh grade.

What does the.

What do these strategies look like in elementary.

Like how how do we know that the instruction in our elementary schools is best preparing our students for success by the time they get to seventh grade.

SPEAKER_23

A lot of pieces there I'll start and Cashel will be the closer on this.

I think that when one of the other pieces I'm grateful for is that the board supported an adoption of a new K-5 curriculum that's the same curriculum as we're doing in middle school so that integration and that connection that sequencing is much more deliberate and thoughtful and has tremendous opportunities for coherence for our students.

So that's one basic piece.

I'll see if Gishelle has other stuff.

SPEAKER_24

Sure.

So that was a pretty bold move in talking with the Council of Great City Schools other partner districts.

There weren't very many who were engaging in a curriculum adoption during the pandemic.

So that's huge credit to all of you for for resourcing that as we worked through that.

But we knew it was a huge gap.

Right.

Because we had an instructional material at the elementary level that was not aligned to standard.

That's not a good choice.

Right.

So we had to fix that.

So that's like a structural change we made.

But what's I think kind of more interesting to think about are the instructional routines that are inside of that particular instructional material that we selected because they address the kind of math identity part.

and the practice that Caleb was talking about around a solvent share is something that kids now engage in at the elementary level which gives much more access and is complementary to our larger inclusive practices strategy at the elementary level.

We also made some bold changes and abandon some strategies that we know aren't great for kids.

And one of those would be walk to math.

So that was a practice of kind of ability grouping kids in as young as first and second grade.

And that's the math track you kind of stayed on in some parts of our system.

And we've moved away from that systemically.

kind of taught into the expectation that the instructional material that was selected has differentiation components inside of it that we can use to challenge all kids to have strong tier one instruction instead of from a very young age kind of sending the message that you know this child is good at math and this child is not good at math.

Right.

Those are some of the structural changes we've made at the elementary level.

SPEAKER_09

That's super helpful.

Follow up question.

What I heard you say is that the strategies that we are using that we are doubling down on in seventh grade are also being implemented.

Well I heard you say that the curriculum is the same and so we are obviously expecting it to build upon each other in a way that makes sense.

The strategy specifically can you affirm that the strategies that we are utilizing in seventh grade are being utilized as early as kindergarten or like where do those strategies show up for the first time in terms of the scope and sequence.

SPEAKER_24

Aversion shows up in kindergarten, but I also want to give just kind of a little reality to our educators.

Our educators have been through a major shift in like how teaching and learning happens right post-pandemic.

And Seattle has also updated our instructional materials at the elementary level kind of more rapidly than we have in recent, I don't know, the last 15 years or so, right?

So those are changes.

So we're in our second year of implementation at the elementary level for math instructional material.

And we know that we need to provide ongoing professional learning.

We have when we made that shift a couple of years ago with a new instruction material we planned for three years of professional development to support that implementation.

So where are we you know 100 percent implementing.

We're in we're in a pretty good place but it takes time for teachers to be able to get used to new instruction materials.

SPEAKER_09

Are you still anticipating that you're going to hit that three year target.

SPEAKER_24

for professional development.

SPEAKER_09

Well yeah so I'm assuming that professional development means that by the end of the three years that implementation goal of 100 percent will be met.

Is that a correct understanding.

SPEAKER_24

Yep and we work with our research and evaluation team to evaluate our implementation.

Right.

And kind of get feedback from teachers to help us know you know what do we need to improve on and what and what are we doing well.

SPEAKER_09

Sure.

So again the question that I have is that by the end of the implementation cycle we should expect in classrooms from kindergarten to seventh grade those strategies being utilized that we are doubling down on to get us to that goal.

Is that accurate.

SPEAKER_23

We should expect that and we should expect to based on the research and evaluation to be ready to address some gaps that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09

Really what I'm getting at I just want to be super clear is that given the fact that we are woefully behind in seventh grade.

So many people across the district are not absolving our responsibility there.

I just want to ensure that we are actually building upon the strategies that we are utilizing in 7th grade so that by the time our students get to middle school these things aren't new so much so that they have been exposed with fidelity to what we are going to be measuring them on as early as possible.

Ideally kindergarten.

So that's what I'm trying to get at as an understanding.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_45

Oh I'm sorry.

What we can do is be more explicit in that connection moving forward.

SPEAKER_28

That would be great.

So put another way you want to know what's happening before 7th grade to support success in making progress on the 7th grade goal because we can't just say OK 7th graders let's see.

Yeah.

So what where's the.

And what strategies are being employed in elementary school to support progress on the seventh grade goal.

SPEAKER_09

Correct.

That's that's what I'd like to see somewhere.

SPEAKER_23

Alyssa Farmer our program manager for math is smiling because she appreciates the the encouragement to do just that.

That's what that's her work.

SPEAKER_28

Other questions from directors.

My OK my big one is multilingual learners.

That's really devastating actually.

And I know that there is a huge literacy component to that.

The impact on the seventh grade math goal.

And also I mean I don't know.

Like that to me just shows that there's something really missing in the language access support not in math instruction.

But if I'm wrong I would like to know that.

So what are some ways that that's being like multilingual learners are not going to do are not going to improve in seventh grade math without language support.

It looks like maybe there's something else going on.

SPEAKER_23

Yeah again a couple of basic points and ask Executive Director Toner to add to this.

So this actually has come up in recent conversations with some of you in terms of.

Interestingly enough it is significantly below where we want it to be and it's trending in the right direction.

So the question that sometimes is asked is well what do we think we're learning about the improvements and I.

We do think there's two basic points one our leader of multilingual learner program services Michelle Oda has done a remarkable job of being a really close partner and not having you know and making sure students are being served at their neighborhood schools within their general ed.

classrooms to the extent that's been our approach.

And so we think that's helping.

And back to the idea that we adopted K8 Envision.

Envision specifically was one of the strengths was that they had multilingual supports built into the curriculum so that educators could take advantage of those those two pieces.

Obviously connects to the literacy work as well.

Anything else?

SPEAKER_50

I'd like to just jump in for a second.

We're right on the edge of moving away from our target and our progress report on that target into that next step of then what about this group and what about this group.

So I want to just call that and say tonight we were trying to lay that groundwork I think The questions you're posing lead to what are the strategies in the future that we're going to recommend?

What are the strategies we're going to abandon?

How will we support those strategies with the budget?

The easy answer is that we will always have enough money to do what we say we need to do.

We will not have enough money to do everything else.

So as we narrow it down I'm just calling to your attention that in this progress report there are two key pieces.

One is for the math.

This is our second year of implementation.

So we're we're not in the same position yet.

And as far as generalizing that.

And secondly, that I think you're hearing the elements that give hope to say lining the curriculum, seeing implementation, full implementation throughout the system and the ability for the first time in a long time to be able to take those two and say, this is where it's taking us.

And then as we address a new strategic plan, you'll be able to say here's where we're going for all students and bring in that.

So I just I do a little pulling back on the reins as far as what we're addressing.

SPEAKER_28

Little pullback but that's going to come with little pushback which is if we're not thinking about how all these strategies are inclusive of multilingual learners and students with disabilities.

I don't want it.

SPEAKER_09

Absolutely.

And to build off that I think what's critical is that we cannot look at the math goal without also looking at the reading goal.

Right.

Because if you look at this in context the way that we structure this intentionally first looking at the reading goal aside from all of the data that we know that says if black boys can't read by third grade they are exponentially more likely to interact with the criminal justice system in some capacity.

But what we also know is that reading heavily impacts math.

And so to see that we are really making good progress in reading implementation, I know also yields benefit to math in seventh grade.

Again, when we're also thinking about the implementation, it makes complete sense to me that math is in a different place because there are more grades that we are going to have to implement through as opposed to our reading goal which is why I'm really curious to see what that implementation strategy looks like and how are we confident that it is not only like being positively impacted by our reading goal but in addition to that one other question I had is just assuring that with math because math in some ways is well in many ways is very different than when let me back up assessing math is very different than how we assess reading especially at this grade level do we know for a fact and are we confident that this directly aligns to what our kids are being asked to do when they take the map test between what they are learning from InVision.

And can you say that with confidence?

SPEAKER_23

Well, I could say that first that we share that question.

We ask it often in terms of, you know, so the solve and share, solve and discuss.

The idea is that you're building an argument.

You're able to then construct that and actually translate into what the Smarter Balanced assessment asks in terms of constructing an argument.

So we are drilling down and the performance tasks that we're focusing on are asking students to do the very things that they're going to be asked to do.

I think you've lived through many years of education.

I think this balancing act of how do we continue to make it rich, joyful classrooms while still having one eye on the test without Becoming too consumed with the exact test format and so forth But it's it's absolutely what we're trying to do in the focus on solve and discuss in the performance desk That's a yes All right

SPEAKER_50

I would just say that we would end this evening and this portion by we hope we're providing you additional thought, additional information.

And it particularly does focus on our goal for African-American male students.

I would say that critical progress monitoring so that we ensure that we really can get all students but particularly beginning with a targeted group that clearly continues to be difficult of showing that progress and that that will lay the groundwork for much of the conversation in the coming future and as we look towards what are we doing, what do we need to do better, what are the goals that you're gonna set for that next strategic plan, and then how do we resource that so that that's our number one.

So with that, again, I thank you for an extraordinarily valuable use of your time, and back to you, President Rankin.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you very much.

We do have still our business items and two things from me and I promise I will try to make them short as I can.

But one of them is a legislative update so.

But so let's go back to the dais and can move on with our intro and action items.

OK where are we.

Oh we have now reached the consent portion of today's agenda.

I would accept a motion for the consent agenda.

SPEAKER_46

I move that we approve the consent agenda.

SPEAKER_29

I second the motion.

SPEAKER_28

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved by Vice President Stardew and seconded by Director Brinks.

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

Great.

Seeing none.

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

Aye.

SPEAKER_46

Aye.

SPEAKER_28

And any opposed.

All right.

The consent agenda has passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Where are we.

Okay introduction items.

We will now move into the introduction items on today's agenda.

The first is the annual approval of schools per WAC which is Washington Administrative Code 180 — 16 — 220. Thank you so much for your patience and staying with us to introduce this to us.

Please go ahead.

It feels like you're very far away.

I know.

Does the podium move.

SPEAKER_00

Good evening, directors.

I'm Carlos DeValle.

I'm the assistant superintendent of technology and optimization.

Unfortunately, Tate Howard, our assistant for superintendent accountability, couldn't be here today to present this.

But nevertheless, we would like to present an item that focuses the school board annual approval of the state requirement for maintaining continuous improvement plans at the schools.

These items, it's crucial to component of establishing a robust foundational infrastructure to support the implementation, alignment, and accountability of the strategic plan efforts aimed to enhance student outcomes.

Ms. Tasha James is our lead project manager for this program and is here to provide an executive summary of this introduction.

SPEAKER_12

Thank you.

Thank you directors and thank you everyone.

I'm happy to be able to introduce to you the as already mentioned the Washington administrative code WAC 180 — 16 — 2 2 0 requires that schools be approved.

annually by school district board of directors.

All schools in Seattle Public Schools are part of this approval of schools including schools with a designation of an alternative learning experience or the acronym ALE.

The schools just as a reminder who have that designation and are included in this annual approval having the designation of ALE are Interagency Academy, Cascade Parent Partnership, Nova Alternative School and Middle College.

So just want to be clear that they are part of that annual approval.

So a school board's annual approval of schools also certifies to the state that each school in the district including schools with an ALE or alternative learning experience designation have a school improvement plan.

In Seattle we refer to this school improvement plan as the continuous school improvement plan otherwise known as CSIP.

That's the acronym.

So I'd like to highlight a few things to the directors in the community about this new three year CSIP cycle that we entered into this school year.

The 2023 26 CSIP cycle.

The first thing I want to highlight is the CSIP planning process was updated last school year.

to better align to school improvement plans with the 2019 2024 strategic plan Seattle excellence and the board adopted goals and guardrails.

So this means that schools were required in this new three year CSIP cycle to create for example academic goals that align directly to those top line measures according to their grade level their grade bands.

The second thing I want to highlight is that school improvement plans, as required by the Washington Administrative Code, are data-driven and supposed to be promoting a positive impact on student learning.

To meet this requirement for this new CSIP cycle for the 2023-26 school improvement planning cycle, schools were required to complete a comprehensive needs assessment.

And that documented their observations and analysis of the following, student data, observations of implementation and strategies from their previous 2020-23 school improvement plans, as well as something that was just mentioned and discussed by the group.

strategic abandonment.

So schools as part of that comprehensive needs assessment were also supposed to identify what was having a minimal impact on student outcomes and what strategies they were going to abandon.

The comprehensive needs assessment that schools completed as part of this CSIP development process was modeled after a resource created by.

Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction acronym OSPI and it was based on a root cause analysis that needs assessment provided school leaders school staff and family representatives on the building leadership teams the opportunity to consider the following about their 2020 23 continuous improvement plans.

which strategies and practices and programs needed to be eliminated due to the minimum impacts, which I just mentioned, and which strategies and practices are promising and resulting in those positive outcomes for students and families.

Also, which strategies and practices and programs were disrupting and mitigating systemic inequities along with systemic racism.

The third thing I'd like to highlight is that as in the past, and consistent with the WAC, the Washington Administrative Code, CSIPs are designated to be working documents.

And as part of an annual review, principals, building leadership teams will progress monitor the implementation of their plans, review school data, and report out findings to their school communities and adjust their goals and strategies as necessary.

And the last thing I'd like to highlight is that these continuous school improvement plans or CSIPs as we call them are currently accessible in their PDF format on the website that's included in the board action report that's posted in the agenda.

And I welcome your comments and questions at this time.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you very much.

Do directors have questions.

OK I have a Miss Wilson Jones is going to maybe roll her eyes.

There is an opportunity that I would like to put in a parking lot of some kind to I think use.

CSIPs as to further progress in the ways in which we use our CSIPs as a district and help families understand what why they might want to look at those what the process is why we have it.

I'm seeing over the many years that I have been involved with this district.

alignment between the goals and the CSIPs which is really exciting.

I think everything before things were just sort of a you know half the schools had just like the template that never got filled out.

It wasn't really being used as a tool and in the In the WAC it does say that the annual approval is that each school in the district shall be annually approved by the school district board of directors under an approval process determined by the district board of directors.

So I'm not suggesting any changes right now but just to say that we.

You know when we have time may want to really look at what that approval process looks like and look at our policy around it and make a decision on if we want to what we want the process of our approval to look like.

Right now it is in the whack that at the minimum the annual approval shall require each school to have a school improvement plan that is data driven promotes a positive impact on student learning and includes a continuous improvement process.

We're doing the minimum.

We're affirming that each school has a plan.

I think there's an opportunity for us to lean into this more as a tool both for our district but also for families to really see what's happening in my school and how can I support and how is my child doing and what's important at my school.

So that's not so much a question as just a opportunity.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right.

Next item for introduction is an item that I am bringing forward an amendment to board policy number 1 1 1 3 board member residency board member residency is in state law.

The policy that we have is we're not required to have the policy because it's state law but we do have it as a way to.

It's in it's in the governance.

portion in the 1000 series, which is our direction to ourselves or to the superintendent.

And so in the policy, it's our direction to ourselves about what's in state law and how we as elected officials follow it.

So the existing policy is based on the model policy that's developed by WASDA which is the Washington State School Director Association and it was adopted by the Seattle School Board in 2011. It's it's.

Kind of a boilerplate just this is what's in state law.

So in looking at it and relative to the last couple of weeks I saw an opportunity for us to provide some additional direction to ourselves as a board.

about supporting compliance and making sure that reporting is done as it needs to be done as life changes and many things occur, just to add another level of direction for ourselves to support us in our roles.

So I will ask for Council Narver to come to the podium with whom I consulted, as well as the board office, in proposing these amendments for the legal ins and outs.

SPEAKER_01

Good evening.

Am I turned on here?

Is the microphone on?

Good evening, Greg Narver, General Counsel.

Thank you.

I'll be addressing the proposed changes that President Rankin just described to policy 1113, board member residency, and I'm going to just amplify a bit on the points that President Rankin made about the prior, the version we've had, which is the WASDA model policy and the proposed changes that she is bringing forward.

As President Rankin just said and I think it bears emphasizing eligibility to serve on a school board in the state of Washington is governed by state law not our policy.

It's all in state law.

The statutes are the ones that are cited in policy 1 1 1 3 and these are what set the rules for school board director residency.

While the amendment with the amended policy would provide some additional guidance from the board to itself as to how to communicate with staff about residence issues.

It doesn't change anything about state law.

As President Rankin noted, there's been a lot said recently about director residency, so I think it would be helpful just to take a brief walk through what the statutes say about it, and then that will take me to why we think some changes to the policy would be advisable.

The statutes provide a pretty clear roadmap for the requirements for director residency and for eligibility to continue serving in office should residency change.

The statutes begin with a basic fundamental requirement, which is that the directors, each of you, reside in the director district that you represent.

That's the legal structure, that's the presumption in the law, that the people who live within your district are going to have the opportunity to elect a director who lives there.

Even though in the general election you all are elected citywide, it doesn't change the fundamental requirement that a director, to be eligible to serve, should live in the district that they represent.

Now state law does allow directors under some circumstances to continue to serve in office for a period of time even if they no longer live in the district they were elected to represent.

One of these comes about if through redistricting your residence is no longer within the boundaries of your of your district.

If that happens state law is clear you get to serve your full term even though your residence is no longer within the boundaries of the new district.

The other comes up if a director changes residence from the district they were elected in to another SPS district.

The eligibility question then turns on when that move occurred.

This is going to be a little in the weeds on the statutory language, but I'll have an illustration to show how it works.

If you moved after the opening of the candidate filing period two years after you were elected, then you get to finish your full term without question.

If the move took place before that date, then the seat is supposed to go on the general election ballot.

And the director's service ends when that newly elected director takes office.

So the director who changed residence before that date isn't eligible to continue with the full term.

Here's how to illustrate that.

Last year, 2023, the candidate filing period opened on May 15th.

And those of you who are newly elected are familiar with that date.

That's the date the county opened up the process to file a declaration of candidacy and it closed on May 19th.

For a director who is elected in 2021, if they moved to another SPS district after May 15th, they get to serve the full term without question.

If the move occurred before May 15th, then the seat is supposed to go on the ballot for the fall election.

That director can continue to serve in office, but only until the person that was elected to replace them in that seat is sworn into office.

That is the state law framework.

The problem we're trying to address here is if the school district staff who are responsible for communicating and coordinating with King County elections to tell them if there's a vacancy or to tell them if there's been a change in residence that triggers this need to put a seat on the ballot, if those staff are unaware that a change in residence has happened, I am not tonight going to talk about any privileged communications I had with any of my SPS clients.

I'm just going to say in general that SPS staff, including the board office and the general counsel who oversee this process, need to know in a timely way if there's been a change in residence.

Because if the filing period has ended, there's no mechanism or vehicle available to put that seat on the ballot, which is what state law presumes is going to happen.

I've seen a lot of chatter, speculation about why not call a special election.

That's because under state law, while there are some offices that can be filled through a special election, that's not the case for school board vacancies.

I'm going to cite the statute because I think it's important.

RCW 28A 343 370. That provides that any vacancy on a school board is filled by appointment, and then that appointee serves until the next regularly scheduled election.

There is no provision in the law to fill school board vacancies through a special election.

So let's turn to the policy.

How would the changes that President Rankin is proposing help here.

As noted we've been using the WSSDA model model policy which essentially was just a restatement of state law.

This adds some flesh to the bones in a few ways.

The first to make sure that we do get information transmitted in a timely way.

sets a clear obligation by the board to all of you to promptly report any change in residence to particular officials at the district, including the general council and including the board office.

That's to ensure that there can be timely communication to King County elections of board seats that are vacant or need to go on the ballot because of residence changes.

We have to ensure that the offices that are responsible for that system can do their work so that the voters have the opportunity that state law wants to provide to them to elect directors from the district that they are elected who live who I'm sorry who reside in the district that they are elected to represent.

We just need to know those facts in a prompt way.

I want to emphasize this.

The reason that you may choose to move as Director Rankin said is nothing we need to know anything about.

That's no one's business but yours.

We do need to know if you moved where you moved at the time you moved because those are the facts that relate directly to state law eligibility to serve as a director.

The second thing it does is it makes clear that the residence rules are exactly those set by state law.

The model policy had some language about the redistricting issue I mentioned earlier that was arguably a little unclear.

Our policy would now just simply state our rules are exactly those that are set in state law.

And finally, the revised policy emphasizes that it's the directors themselves who are ultimately responsible for and able to ensure that they fulfill all the residency requirements to hold a board position.

The first thing you all did when you filed for office was sign a declaration of candidacy that included your residence address and a sworn statement that you signed.

that you meet met the legal requirements to fill the seat.

King County does the verification to make sure that the resident's address matches up with the district you're running to represent, but you're the one certifying that you meet the requirements for office.

You are not on your own in this process.

The general counsel's office, the board office are here to help.

I have spent much of my legal career advising elected officials on the law of being an elected official.

I worked for the House Ethics Committee in Washington, D.C. I worked at the city attorney's office for many years, including as civil division chief advising the city council.

I've been in this job for four and a half years advising the school board.

Knowing what the law says about serving as an elected official is my job.

It's other things too, but that's part of it.

If you have questions about the law, about this policy, about what effect a change in residence would have, please come to us for advice.

We just need to know the facts as they occur.

I believe President Rankin is going to address the appointment process for the two vacancies, excuse me, Looking ahead to 2025, past the appointment process, the board office has already communicated to King County Elections that we have the two vacancies.

King County Elections has already confirmed that the District 2 seat will be up for election in 2025 for the final two years of Director Rivera's term, and that District 4 will be up for election in 2025 for a regular four-year term.

This is all part of the state statutory structure I addressed earlier, and I'm happy to address any questions you might have.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

Council member.

And I'll just.

Add that.

It's still.

So the reason that I wanted to say just tell these people is because although it is our responsibility and obligation to make sure that we are maintaining eligibility.

I don't think anyone expects us all to individually know what all of the laws are.

So it's basically what I see it as as a prompt that like hey You don't need to research it on your own, but you do have resources.

And it doesn't mean that anybody, like if I moved a block away from my house, I would check and they would say, nope, nothing's really changed.

Nobody would need to know why I moved or if I moved.

If I've checked to make sure that I'm still eligible.

So we don't we are responsible individually for ensuring as elected officials as any elected officials are for affirming our residency and our eligibility.

I just wanted to add this to say that yes you're responsible but there are people who will support you in navigating whether or not it has an impact.

That's not on us to have to guess.

So it still doesn't mean that everybody in the future will necessarily follow it, but if you move, nobody's checking on our addresses.

So like Greg said, King County election confirms when you first file.

But nobody's double checking on you know do you still live there a year and a half or two years three years into your term.

That's part of the oath of office that we take.

So this is just intended to say hey just be sure that you just go right to these folks and they will support because we oversee the district so the district is not responsible for ensuring that we are doing.

our role in terms of eligibility.

But we do have resources within the district to support us as long as we use them.

Any questions.

SPEAKER_07

Clarifying question, you mentioned that in 2025, the person elected to fill a director or director of our seat would serve two years.

SPEAKER_01

Correct.

SPEAKER_07

And then we move back to our normal election cycle.

SPEAKER_01

It's because she was reelected in the fall of 2023. The appointee will serve through the through twenty twenty five two years but then is correct to get back into the regular cycle.

The person elected then would serve two years when that term ends the position would be on the ballot for the full four year four year cycle.

Correct.

SPEAKER_28

And the person who's appointed could run to be the person who's elected and then could run again for reelection.

But that's up to the voters.

SPEAKER_01

Correct.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you very much.

So question because I know I want to explain the appointment process briefly or get feedback on the appointment process briefly and I have a legislative report.

I would suggest I go as quickly as I can through the legislative report and then we go back to the residency and then board comments.

I thought you meant last in terms of board comments.

So, okay.

No, no, I thought, but I thought you meant in terms of people making board comments.

So, do we want, I guess the question is, as part of board comments, I have a legislative update and I have the appointment part and then we have any other board comments and I'm happy to do those in whatever order people want to do.

So let's I guess let's end with the legislative update.

How about and I'll just make that super fast.

So we talked about the resignations which leaves us with an appointment process to carry out.

State law provides us the eligibility requirements for these appointments.

Candidates have to be a U.S. citizen and a registered voter of the respective districts.

We will be we're we're doing this in real time folks.

So as soon as we agree on the timeline that'll go on the Web site.

So directors in front of you you have a draft timeline and application that I would like to have your feedback on.

We anticipate opening the application by early next week consistent with past appointments because.

I'll say vacancies do happen often for a number of reasons on our board and other boards.

When I called different folks for guidance on you know how to move forward the process there.

Oh this happens all the time.

So we are not charting uncharted territory with the with an appointment process.

In fact we have somebody who went through it personally.

So consistent with past appointments, my suggestion is that we open the application with seeking letters of interest, resume, and a response to just some basic questions that we can then post publicly.

And then after applying, we will ask candidates to record a short video statement like we all did with, well, they won't do it with the city, but we did a two-minute video.

And then we will have written and recorded materials that will be shared with all directors and available publicly through individual candidate Web pages that are that district staff will set up.

Then we'll have an opportunity to review the submissions depending on the number of applicants we may want to devise a narrowing down.

process or we may have a number that we we just move on with.

So we would want to select finalists by about mid-March and then host a kind of forum or public interview here with the finalists for both seats together so that we can hear from them and the public also obviously would have access to that.

I.

Based on when there are midwinter break and spring break and everything, it's looking like the timing for making apartments would make sense around the beginning of April.

And then we would begin, we would swear them in and have them start serving.

Under state law, we have 90 days.

So the legal deadline is Thursday, May 2nd.

It's 90 days from the resignation.

That's if we don't appoint within that time the educational service district that that is over King County will make appointments.

So I am hoping that we can err on the side of finishing soon because we have so many different things that we want to on board new directors and get them at least a little bit of the lay of the land before.

we jump into some pretty big votes.

So.

So yeah.

So that's so basically proposed appointment process is to post an online application collect written responses video statements select finalists if necessary given the number of applicants hold a forum.

make appointments.

As with any board business, this will be completely accessible to the public.

So this is just a recommendation based on talking with staff about what has worked, hasn't worked in past appointment processes.

And also the most recent one was during COVID and the one before that was prior.

So so this is just a suggested outline and I would you know because of open public meetings obviously we haven't had any opportunity to discuss ahead of right now.

So now is the time where I would like any questions comments suggestions whatever you may have on this process.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_09

So a piece that you mentioned was the potential for us not to necessarily have a narrowing down portion I think I want to like thumbs up that depending on how many folks we have apply I can see why it made sense for my process given that there were 12 people If we do not have more than five or six apply for these positions I would say that we could probably feel confident in making an appointment and Just because I want to make sure that these two we are down two members and so like by the fact of like taking an eight-week process I do Believe strongly and like making sure that folks have time to get ready and that you know community has an opportunity to really see and get to know these folks, but I I want to make sure that we are getting representation for these districts as quickly as possible so I think having two processes one that would be What we would go to in the event that we have like 12 people apply for each seat And one that would be a more truncated version if we say have six or less apply for each seat I think would probably be wise.

So as you go back and like work with staff to Implement the feedback that you receive here tonight.

It would be cool to see you know one process for one and one process for the other Okay.

Thank you

SPEAKER_28

So would it make sense to have sort of a, you have, we have our line and then at one point it was like, we'll either, if this, then this, if this, then this.

Okay.

SPEAKER_09

Once, sorry.

And we'll know once the application like portal closes what we're working with.

But yeah.

SPEAKER_28

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_31

I mean, my question was somewhat similar to that, but more along the lines of, like, how are we going to select the final, like, if we narrow down, how are we narrowing down and are we deciding that on the March 6th meeting, the process to narrow that down, or are we going to do that up front here as you

SPEAKER_28

No we don't have to do that right now.

We don't have to do that.

We could.

So I know.

Yeah.

Can actually.

Ellie could you answer that because I know she has sent out some potential hold dates for further discussion since we're not going to design this whole process right now.

SPEAKER_32

Good evening Ellie Wilson Jones director of policy and board relations.

So the the key decisions at this point that the board would have to be sort of united around would be essentially that you want to open an application.

You want it to be an online application.

You want to ask for a statement of interest, resume, the questions that are in draft form, that those are ready to go.

And then generally that the timeline of getting between today and having appointees shooting for April 3rd, that that is kind of comfortable for both folks.

The details around the process for narrowing down finalists, how to hold a forum, what that looks like, those decisions can happen a little bit further in the future.

I think in talking with President Rankin, she wanted to prioritize opening the process so that you can be ready for the eventual decision point.

The board has used I think the same process and perhaps in the last two appointments for selecting finalists.

The voting structure worked pretty well.

I didn't pull it back up for today so I'm not ready to speak to it but the board can make that decision in the future.

We can schedule a work session or find time in one of your upcoming meetings for you to put a little bit more meat on the plan for those further off events.

SPEAKER_31

Oh I have a question on the application portion.

Do you want to go through that or do you want me to just.

SPEAKER_28

Ellie when do we.

So the draft questions were just sort of a combination.

We actually just filled a seat at WSSDA and I thought that they were good questions.

I'm like this is a decent starting point.

Timing wise when would we need to gather feedback on what those questions are for the end.

Again this is just for the initial application part.

SPEAKER_32

So in recent rounds, the board has had a really kind of short initial application.

Well, the content was long, but the detail in the questions was short.

And this time, in talking with President Rankin, there were some potential questions that might be ready to go.

So looking at pulling together steps one and step two of our prior processes which were application and then questionnaire and just putting the board's questions in the application if your questions aren't ready if you want to spend more time working on those together you wouldn't necessarily need to have the questions as part of your application but if you want to go live next week with the application and you want it to include those questions, it'd be helpful if you could flesh them out today.

You also will have an opportunity, if you want to hold a forum, to think through how you generate those questions and what those questions should cover so you can ask about additional things in the future.

SPEAKER_31

I'm still a little bit confused if we wanted or if I had suggestions or wanted to add to sort of the questionnaire.

We've tried to flush it out right right this moment.

SPEAKER_28

We can or if you feel like that's too tight on time we can we can do the like you can think about it and this application.

SPEAKER_31

OK.

Yeah.

Give me a moment to think through a little bit.

I would like something around sort of you know we spend a lot of time on progress monitoring it's very important to us.

Something about progress monitoring our educational goals and have the candidates speak to that because they're going to be coming right into sort of this process.

SPEAKER_27

What's that.

Oh.

SPEAKER_09

Microphone.

Speaking directly to the mic plus one.

SPEAKER_29

This is a really minor question, but this individual candidate webpages, is that something the district is taking on?

Okay, so we're not expecting people to come up with a website?

SPEAKER_28

No, no, no.

Okay.

It will all be uploaded so people can, and there'll be also, there's a communication strategy to let families know, you know, we have two vacancies, here's the process that will be followed, here's where you go to find out more.

It's obviously open to anybody, just as an election for these seats are, so it will also go out, you know, to press release or other communications, I imagine.

But there'll be a central place on the SPS website about this process and the candidates that people can go to.

SPEAKER_07

If we are taking any amendments to the questions in the form I propose maybe adding a question talking about a director's relationship to the district they currently live in and they're trying to represent because I mean even though the directors represent the Seattle City as a whole and the school board as a whole that I feel like they should indicate that they are connected to the community that they're a district of.

SPEAKER_28

That's a great suggestion.

So.

We don't have to vote to accept the questions, and nobody's trying to be mysterious.

They're very basic, like, tell us about your work experience.

Tell us about why you're seeking candidacy.

If you all feel comfortable and to avoid conflict with OPMA, Could ask you just to send to Ellie confirmation on a thumbs up.

And if if we don't all feel ready to go with the addition of Director Muthuswamy's suggestion we can bring it back to a public meeting.

It's just that we because.

I can't check you know we can't all check in about it together because I don't want to violate that.

So if we could kind of do a maybe confirmation directly to Ellie unless we think we don't if we say we definitely don't want the questions we want that to be a second step.

I feel like it'd be I feel like they're basic enough that it would be good to have them be part of the application personally.

OK.

Because we'll also have a forum and a video statement.

SPEAKER_29

If we didn't have the questions, then what would the application be?

SPEAKER_28

It would basically just be like a submission of interest.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_29

I think I think the questions are good to have.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_28

And we don't have to vote but I'm looking for kind of if I see like general consensus we'll continue we'll add this suggestion and folks will let Ellie directly know if there's a problem and then they'll go on the website.

SPEAKER_32

Can I just double check one thing since I have you all here waving your hands for me.

In the last appointment process there was a question that was utilized that was really aligned with what a student member with Swami just shared.

So I wanted to check on that question it says what what is your connection to the district.

insert district number community schools families and students.

How do you foresee growing or expanding on those connections and relationships in your role as a school board director.

OK so I'm hearing with that addition potentially an addition around progress monitoring and any sort of last minute additions you want.

You're comfortable sort of delegating it to me so we don't violate.

SPEAKER_28

Excellent.

Can I just because we have it printed in front of us I will just quickly read for public record what the questions are which is first and last name names that we would like us to use during the appointment process pronouns which of the two open seats which of the districts are you registered to vote in which is the how the law defines residency is where your voter registration is.

Your first name on your voter registration because it goes to King County elections, your last name, date of birth, voter registration address, phone number, email address, and then a statement of interest.

So we ask please submit a letter of interest describing why you wish to serve and should be selected for the appointment, and then a resume.

Tell us about your experience including any board or other leadership experience.

What is your understanding of the role and responsibilities of a school board director and the Seattle School Board.

How do you foresee working with your fellow directors superintendent staff and the public.

Describe the areas of strength you bring to collaboration and building positive working relationships with fellow board directors.

Please give an example of how you have addressed conflict and overcame it to build alignment as a member of a group decision making body.

I just want to clarify that doesn't mean everybody has to agree but we have to align and be direct in our direction to the superintendent as a board.

And then Seattle School Board policy number 0 0 3 0 ensuring educational and racial equity includes the following commitment.

The Seattle School Board is committed.

Well sorry just in the interest of time.

It's a statement from the policy and it says what does the statement mean to you.

And then please share your knowledge and or thoughts on an ongoing educational issue that is a high priority for you and how do you see the board's role in this issue.

And I know that was fast, and I apologize for anyone who is, but that was just to sort of preview and be transparent about it since we haven't been able to post them yet.

All right.

So, once we make the appointments, state law provides that the District 2 seat, as Chief Narver noted, the District 2 seat will be up for election in 2025 for the remaining two years of what will then be an unexpired term.

And then following that, it will be up for election in 2027 for a regular four-year term.

And District 4 will be up in election in 2025 for a regular four-year term.

All right.

Comments questions.

This is this is now we're now we're in board comments.

SPEAKER_31

or one real quick.

Sorry process.

Can we put a time limit on the videos.

That's just.

SPEAKER_28

Oh yeah I would say probably.

We when we.

I think it was like two minutes or something.

Yeah no we'll we'll and we can talk about that more too.

We'll sort of say like I mean we could even just take the form that we get one for the city definitely have a time limit and and possibly have possibly have people able to use SPS TV.

Like we're not asking everybody to have home video equipment.

SPEAKER_32

This is a process step that SPS TV Edgar is listening to us right now helping to broadcast this meeting supported in our last appointments and also has experience doing this at the city level.

And so there is a pretty standard playbook that is generally used with candidates that many or all of you have probably experienced and so would plan to utilize that but can check back for confirmation.

SPEAKER_28

More time to if we want to make some specifics about it.

But so everybody good with the basic structure and the next steps of the questionnaire.

Sweet.

All right.

I have a super exciting legislative update but I can save that to the end so people who want to leave can leave.

If we have other board comments liaison updates etc.

Director Sardieu Vice President Sardieu.

SPEAKER_46

You can call me whatever you want today.

So I think I just need to acknowledge that I am a little disheveled.

And as I make these comments, I think some of you who are paying attention will actually understand why.

Today, and I'm gonna read it.

This is not normally my style, but I need to be measured.

Today the comments I'm going to make will likely not sit well with some.

They will likely make some people feel uncomfortable.

The truth does that sometimes.

And in Seattle we sure love our comfort.

If you find yourself asking yourself is she referring to me.

That's not the question.

The question is why do you think I might be referring to you.

In most situations, I wouldn't normally respond to these types of situations because it's not worth my time.

However, I will never roll over and play dead in instances such as this.

Seattle's version of a racist dog whistle.

I have witnessed happen to another colleague twice.

I knew my time would eventually come.

However, I never imagined that I would be responding to a choir of dog whistlers.

This is the metaphor I will use in my comments.

I asked the media, if you're gonna quote me, to please not take my words out of context.

The totality of what I will say is important.

Last year in late fall, I had several private and intimate conversations with choir director number one.

I will not go into the intimate details of those conversations.

However, I shared on several occasions my concern for how this residency situation may lead to controversy and would affect them and their children.

I strongly encouraged them to prioritize their children.

I shared with them that they had an opportunity to control the narrative and make a decision that would prevent them from being in this exact situation there and now.

That is not bullying.

It is asking people to be accountable.

The racist dog whistle of accusing a black woman of being a bully because she suggested you do the right thing is not being a bully.

It's asking you to do the right thing.

However, what is bullying is the racist dog whistle.

What is bullying is a racist dog whistle choir.

That is bullying in one of its highest forms.

and represents, in this case, adults who have a difficult time with truth and accountability.

To answer an email I received, I'm not happy.

I'm disgusted.

Racist dog whistles are mean and nasty.

I'm not a politician.

I'm not running for city council, county council, or Frank Chopp's job.

Let me repeat myself.

I am not running for city council, county council, or Frank Chopp's job.

To those who have said I will make sure she doesn't get on her endorsement, again, for me, this role is not about endorsements.

It's about children of this district.

There is a song from the movie Frozen called Let It Go.

My hope is that this racist dog whistle choir can let it go and particularly stop recruiting students into this choir.

Accept accountability for both the decisions made and the ones not made.

To quote someone famous, this is your homework.

The task is not done.

The journey is not complete.

We can and we must do more, end quote.

Let us move on in solidarity that we tackle the pressing problems before us that threaten the high quality education we want in this district for our students.

Our students deserve it.

Those are the end of my comments.

And I need to ask the staff, I need an escort out of here tonight.

Because when a person, particularly a black woman in this city, is bold enough to stand up and call racists, racists, and racist dog whistles, dog whistle whistlers, the dogs come out.

And they come out hard.

I don't want to be arrested.

I don't want to be questioned.

I want to be respected for the job that I chose to take as a volunteer to serve the children of this district.

That's why I ran.

And if you don't like it, run yourself.

Do it.

But you know what?

Leave me alone.

Leave me alone.

I'm trying to serve to the best of my ability.

I'm a public servant twice.

That's what I want to do in this district.

SPEAKER_28

I'm just going to let us sit with that for a second.

SPEAKER_46

and I'm not an angry black woman.

Don't do that dog whistle.

SPEAKER_28

Yes.

So, um, To add to that briefly we have a lot of very very difficult decisions coming our way and we have to stop pretending that they're not going to be difficult and we have to stop pretending that expecting people to honor their word follow the law and uphold policy is bullying.

It's not.

It's accountability and it's literally the job that we were elected to do and took an oath to do uphold the law.

state and federally and provide direction to the superintendent through policy as adopted by the majority of the board.

In service of improving outcomes for students.

All right.

Do we have any other board comments or liaison updates.

SPEAKER_31

I can go next I guess.

Just a quick liaison update being the liaison for the families education preschool promise levy.

We held our first meeting of the year.

This was just an introductory meeting where we went over the work plan for the year and talked a little bit about.

the goals and the role of the oversight committee.

One thing I just will note is that we will be visiting some of the school sites where the funding is going.

And when that does happen you know I would love to have other board members join as well.

The other thing I would add is I had my January committee meeting or community meeting excuse me.

I think it went.

Well, it was well attended.

There was an acknowledgement of the tragic loss of the SPS student to gun violence and sort of an echoing cheer, or an echoing of needing to have our schools be a safe place for students to grow and learn.

You know, we must work together as community to end gun violence and it's a community effort in order to do that.

Some of the other things that we talked about were just school funding.

Obviously, it's a big thing on everyone's mind and wanting some clarity there.

and just communication challenges with the district or the themes.

I'm holding my February community meeting.

This one will be online to allow some easier access for folks who can't come in person on February 22nd at 6 p.m.

So those are my updates.

Thank you.

Oh and you're all welcome to attend.

SPEAKER_28

Great and I think Director Topp and I talked about this a little bit but I'll just share that something I'm hoping for us to implement is you know we have various things where one of us is somewhere we go to invite are invited to a PTA meeting or something and as we are looking at our practice as a board I would I would like us to develop a system to report back to each other.

You know like.

I went to Genesee Hill PTA and they invited a bunch of other PTA members to talk about school funding and legislative advocacy.

And if we look back in six months who have we as board members engaged with and who are you missing.

Be really helpful to see like.

Oh gosh we really you know just just who are missing and you know that in addition to developing some two way opportunities with the full board.

But that's something that I think would be really helpful that I'm going to try to ask us to do.

Director Briggs.

SPEAKER_29

Yeah I just wanted to mention that I am scheduled to meet with the interim director of Head Start later this month in my role as the liaison.

SPEAKER_28

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_29

Yeah.

So I don't have anything to report other than that is in the works and taking it on.

And a reminder, I mentioned this last meeting, but I'll be at the Sandpoint Elementary PTA meeting on the 13th of February and would welcome anybody to join me.

SPEAKER_09

I don't have anything to announce but I would like for us just quick simple plug as we are scheduling our appearances at PTA meetings like if they're already scheduled the likelihood of us folks with full time jobs is going to be low to be able to join you.

And I, for one, would love to join you.

And I think that a simple email message saying, hey, this is in the planning process, that would be great.

Plus, it is also a goal of our board to have at least two or three board members just for accountability purposes at some of these things.

And so it is a best practice.

Just want to remind us.

This was something that got brought up and it's like, you know, we would love to come but like that Schedules and things like that.

SPEAKER_28

So right now we can only do two because we're a board of five That's right, which every every other we're the only board in the state that has seven.

So we're now functioning the way I mean, we're also the largest district which is why but so Two is fine.

Three is a quorum.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah.

Yeah

SPEAKER_29

Yeah, so I'm glad you clarified that I remember you saying that before and then and I checked with you president Rankin about that and Got the impression from you that I should just go by myself or that it was fine for me to go by myself Which I'm happy to do and it was a pre like they were having a PTA meeting on this day and asked me to come But is it?

SPEAKER_28

That's totally fine.

SPEAKER_29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but if we, I guess how, when we're invited to come to a PTA meeting, are we, is it, well, how would it work if they, in another scheduling way?

Do you know what I mean?

Sorry, that was a very inarticulately worded question.

SPEAKER_09

No, no, no, no, no, I totally understand the question.

So we had a whole committee on this for like three months last year.

SPEAKER_28

And we're gonna, we're gonna, yeah.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, so one of the opportunities there is for us to look and see, so like the PTA meetings typically happen on every, the same day of the week, so like every third Thursday, right?

And so this might be a good opportunity for us to have a work session and see, like, can we schedule out proactively so that folks can get more bang for their buck and not necessarily have to reach out for us.

And this is not on you.

This is not on you.

This is not on anybody.

This is just me saying for board culture, I want to be responsible.

responsive to all of the work that went into the community engagement committee around like coming up with best practices right to be more thoughtful around like how are we doing community engagement as a full board and not just individuals because things that happen in a silo very rarely benefit those that are outside of that silo.

So just want to.

Yep lift that up.

SPEAKER_28

That's exactly we need to define board engagement which is an event that the board would be inviting the public to attend for two way engagement board outreach would be somebody going to a PTA meeting and then we also need a feedback loop exactly what Brandon is talking about so that just.

Oh you talked to some.

Oh I didn't realize that.

Oh we talked about that over here you know.

But so we do.

That's something that we are missing.

And one of the loose ends that I would love to tie up in a work session together the work from the community engagement committee and put that actually into a framework so that people aren't so that we know that we're all on the same page and that the public understands when and where they can engage with the board and how.

And yeah.

Oh so I do have to make a formal announcement that the annual board director and senior staff ethics disclosure forms are completed and posted for public viewing.

They're on this agenda.

That is a so we make annual we file annually as elected officials to the Public Disclosure Commission which is a Washington state agency that doesn't go through the district at all.

There's no sharing of information that's our personal disclosure as elected officials.

to the state.

We also internally then share annually.

Possible conflicts conflicts of interest and those all are shared publicly annually and art is what is in here.

I would like to very quickly do a legislative update but it looks like Director Muthu-Soma do.

Oh no.

OK.

So can we just like super quickly go to these slides, and I will let people look at them more at their leisure.

But basically, we're about halfway through legislative session.

We passed the first, what's called the policy cutoff, and then the fiscal cutoff.

So bills that were being heard in committees have to have made it out of policy committees by sometime last week.

And oh, yeah, I have it.

Look it, I have it on my slide.

This is my first PowerPoint.

It's not the most attractive.

But so we're about halfway through the short session.

It's 60 days.

It started on January 8, scheduled to end March 7. All the state runs in a biennium, so it's a two-year cycle.

So bills that passed last year are law.

Bills that didn't pass still carry forward.

Sometimes they get abandoned.

Sometimes they'll get picked right back up in this session and move through the process.

So there was also a record number of new bills introduced, record number for a short session of new bills introduced this year.

So where we are right now is the policy cutoff has happened January 31st.

So bills had to move out of like early learning in the Senate or early learning K-12 education or the house education bill.

They had to have been heard and voted out by that committee.

into a fiscal committee, which is in the House, it's appropriations, in the Senate, it's ways and means.

So bills have to have moved into, or sorry, out of one of those committees to still be considered live.

So February 5th was the fiscal cutoff.

And so bills that weren't heard and voted out of fiscal committees are dead.

And unlike bills that were dead last year that get picked up this year, since this is the second year of the biennium, bills that are dead are dead.

If similar legislation comes back next year, they'll get a brand new number, a brand new bill number, because the biennium is over.

All right, next slide, please.

So I will just kind of quickly explain this and let people look at it more in depth on their own time, but I went to the WASDA, WASBO, WASA, which is, yeah, WASDA is the School Board Association, Washington State School Board Association.

WASA is the Washington Association of School Administrators, and WASBO is the Washington Association of School Business Officers, which is typically like your CFO.

So we have all these statewide organizations.

Annually we have a legislative conference together.

So and I really would love for more like more of us can go.

I went this year but more people can go so be really cool to have more people.

from Seattle their superintendents come and it's a chance for us all to just talk together about common common issues and develop a list of hot topics and then advocate and go talk on the Hill to legislators.

So as part of this the Chris Reykdal the state superintendent from OSPI came and gave a presentation and this is just a quick so.

This one just shows that Washington's investment in K-12 education as a percentage of the gross state product is consistently been below the U.S. average for other states.

Next slide, please.

This is spending over time in dollars, which you can see it's a bigger number.

It goes up.

But then you go to the next slide.

And it's adjusted for inflation, the value of those dollars.

So the number is going up, but the value of dollars is less.

So the actual overall investment is not growing the way some may say it is because the number is bigger.

It has not been accounting for inflation.

It is actually going down.

Next slide.

This one is a messy.

I didn't make these slides.

This is like three different figures in one.

So this is like adjusted share of the state budget.

People love to say, oh, it's 50% of the budget.

Well, in 2018, 2019, it was 52.4.

K-12 spending was 52.4% of the budget.

But now it's 43.1% of the budget.

Which still is a lot, but when people say, you know, legislators are like, you know, we don't want to hear about this anymore.

You have 50 percent of the budget.

What are you complaining about?

Well, we have less.

We have less.

It's declining.

And the amount per student in terms of adjusted for inflation is declining.

Next slide.

Similar things said in a different way.

Next slide.

So there's links here to our adopted priorities for this legislative session and the WSSDA adopted priorities for the legislative session.

And the next two slides are just I kind of did a capture of bills that are still alive after the policy cutoff that are connected to our priorities.

Please read them at your leisure.

It's been a long day, so I'm gonna not go through them all.

But I do want to note specifically, so I kind of chunked them into two pieces.

This chunk is, there's ones that have more to do with funding, and then these ones that have more to do with policy.

One of which, Director Muthuswamy testified in Senate Ways and Means in support of the fentanyl and substance use, Prevention Education Bill, which was really great and we appreciate it.

Do you want to share anything about that?

You don't have to.

Just it was it was really it was very cool to to get that set up through cliff and see him representing us on the record and I have no doubt that he represented us really well and it passed out of committee so So yeah, that's that it's kind of looking bleak in terms of funding for k-12 there were two possible levy, local levy, increasing local levy authorization, which again if we had more time I would go into, but that were somewhat hopeful that would have brought us, would have really helped us with our deficit for next year, those bills are both dead.

So doesn't mean there's no more money, but like that was kind of the big ticket item.

So you know, there's still positive things happening.

But nothing is saving us from difficult financial choices ahead, as expected, honestly.

Yeah.

Any questions?

Well then there being no further business to come before the board the regular board meeting is now adjourned at 8 27. I was going to try I tried to get before 8 30 8 27 p.m..

Thank you all.

Good night.