Seattle School Board Meeting August 29, 2018 Part 1

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OK.

My name is Leslie Harris.

I'm the director number six president of Seattle School Board.

We are starting two minutes late because I was running my mouth.

What a surprise.

We do have a quorum here.

We are missing Director Burke who is doing business in Switzerland.

Director Pinkham is ill today and Director Patu is on her way.

Can we have the roll call please.

Director DeWolf Director Geary present Director Mack here Director Harris here.

If all could stand if you so choose for the Pledge of Allegiance.

There are no recognitions this evening and there will not be a student performance.

I will now turn it over to Superintendent Denise Juneau for her comments.

Hello.

All right.

Well hi everyone.

It's good to see you.

We I'm just going to run through a few of.

my recent activities and what I've been up to and kind of some good news about the district as we roll through.

So these are just the super comments for the day.

So on August 20th I took my official oath of office and so I'm officially your superintendent now.

So I'm going to sort of put these into different categories.

This is about students and families and as you're tweeting out there we have a hashtag called SPS connects that kind of show our partnerships around the city and what we're up to.

So I use that a lot.

So I visited the skill center classes including this culminating event which was lunch with Tom Douglas at one of his restaurants along with Seattle Public School students.

He did a lesson on rolling sushi.

He took him on tours of his restaurants.

He talked with so they got to kind of preview all of the different aspects of the restaurant industry and then hear from some people who work in the industry.

So it's pretty powerful stuff and we're really glad to have partners like Mr. Douglas to help students get a real life dose of what's happening.

I went to Olympia Hills jumpstart for incoming kindergarten students.

Our schools did a really great job of making sure they were prepared and trying to get the students prepared for kindergarten and they were very very cute.

Here we are practicing spelling our names.

And here we are making Play-Doh making letters from Play-Doh.

And also the one of the girls told me that I had a funny nose so we had to make a Play-Doh nose.

But they were so excited to be in school and they're so looking forward to their first day in kindergarten.

And again our students are amazing from the young ones entering kindergarten to our high school students.

This group joined President Harris and I to break ground on the new practice field at Cleveland High School just the other day.

So that was pretty exciting.

Always glad to be around people who make me look tiny.

And so thank you to our community for this BTA IV and BEX IV levy funded project.

It's good to see it coming to fruition and people doing good work and things happening.

And then our second one is around staff our school leaders spent three days at the school leaders Institute.

Some of you were able to attend that.

We were at West Seattle High School learning from each other and learning from central office and I'll play a little video at the end that kind of captures things that went on at SLI.

I joined the new to profession teachers at South Shore pre-K to 8 school brought and when I walked in that room I really it brought me back to the feeling of being a first year teacher and all the jitters and nervousness and you know so I know how what they're feeling and how they're feeling as they began this entry to the best profession there is.

And I think they're super excited about getting into their classrooms and making sure that they're ready and they're ready to really help shape the future of our city our state and our country.

We trained over 200 new to the profession teachers during that time.

I met the C 89.5 radio crew over at Nathan Hale High School which is another cool kind of opportunity for our students to get engaged in real life career related fields.

These students showed me around the studio and showed me what they're up to and the work that they do.

I have to give a shout out to North Seattle College for hosting our CTE teachers.

I was able to visit with them as they embarked on their professional development days.

I also visited with the librarians as they were gathered for their professional development days at Nathan Hale High School.

Here's some more librarians.

I visited the Jane Addams middle school principal and the principal Montgomery showed me around her school.

The custodial crew was very busy making the school ready for students and staff so it was good to see everybody at work.

You know we played a game of squash later on.

I also got I visited the PE teachers at Pathfinder K-8.

And I was so amazed at their dedication to their profession they were playing games outside and games inside and teaching each other about different ways.

There was a really strong adaptive PE teacher there who was helping the other teachers kind of learn how to do that work.

We trained over 450 new to Seattle teachers in a full day of foundational beliefs.

related to cultural responsive instruction and institutionalizing racial equity.

And so I think this kind of shows all this work that's going on and this was just a little tiny bit of the work that was going on across the district.

Just again demonstrates how proud we should be to be a part of this Seattle Public Schools team and the work that happens here.

And then finally community.

I've also been out in the community and what I'm learning is that every a lot most of the groups want me to want Seattle Public Schools to be successful and so it's really great to see that support across our community.

I did go to the Rainier Beach back to school bash and I met Detective Cookie who as you know is going to get a park named after her down in that area because of the work that she does to help students come to our young people come together around playing chess which is pretty awesome.

This guy does American history travel American African-American history traveling museum.

He's also at the Rainier Beach back to school bash and he's also on the African-American male advisory council.

I attended the Roadmap Institute with other superintendents and so we continue to strengthen our family engagement and our connections across the region.

And so it was really good to meet with other school leaders who have similar issues as us going forward.

I spoke at the creative advantage.

This is a great partnership with the city to support arts education for all Seattle Public School students.

They've invested for 10 years and so it's really nice to be visiting these partners and seeing the work that they're doing with us.

Teachers again here were engaged in professional development at the Seattle Art Museum.

I met the city year leaders.

We have 92 full time AmeriCorps members serving 4600 students in 10 southeast and southwest schools and so just want to thank them again for the work that they do with us in the partnership we have.

Here's the creative advantage power team.

This partnership is so successful because it bridges across multiple Seattle departments strategy and partnerships native education P.E.

as well as multiple city departments.

I met with the Vietnamese Friendship Association.

They support our English language learners at Seattle World School.

They help coordinate over 20 partners engaged in supporting the students there.

Seattle Public Schools committees continue to meet over the summer.

And so I met with the equity and race advisory committee ERAC and President Harris also attended.

So I'm excited to really dig in and learn and engage with our committees and task forces and see what's been going on see where we are in the present and where we're going to go in the future.

I we went down to Seattle University and we have a middle college classroom on the campus and so learned about that and also they provide outreach to a thousand plus neighborhood youth and families and so another really great partner in our community.

And then last night started my official launch of my listening and learning tour as you recall is a part of my entry plan.

And so we had met with the African-American community and heard their desires and dreams and hopes for their children.

And as you all know.

What we're learning from these community meetings will lay the groundwork for the strategic plan as we move forward.

President Harris was also in attendance at that and it was a really great night and great conversation and so I was proud to be a part of that as well.

And then finally as I said earlier there was a video that was created for SLI.

And so this is a really short one but I think it really encapsulates the good work that happened there.

and just to see the full progress that has been made.

So thanks to Erin Hill for pulling that together.

But I think it's just a really it's a good show and a lot of good work happened there.

And just for my time spent with our school leaders I know that they are pumped up and ready to go and really ready to dig in this year and get some good work done.

And finally as summer ends and school begins we've been informed and this is not such great news but we've been informed that students at several of our schools have either been injured or have passed away over the summer.

And our thoughts are with the families our students and our staff who are impacted by that and we continue to provide wraparound supports for those families and students in the schools as as we move forward.

So thank you Madam President.

And that's wraps up the superintendent comments.

Thank you.

We have.

We have come to a time check of 428. It's time for directors reports because excuse me board committee reports.

Thank you.

Mr. DeWolf you are going to stand in for Director Burke chair Burke of the C&I committee since you attended.

Please.

Thank you.

All right.

So our last C&I meeting was held on August 21st.

We discussed several items being introduced this evening actually.

We also discussed two areas of broad interest that I'll talk about now which are around instructional materials and technology policies.

So first as part of our instructional material sequence we were presented with a proposed timeline for high school science adoption and Spanish language adoption.

But because of the need for more board staff and public alignment around our science adoption a Q&A grid was proposed as a method to get everybody's questions in the same place.

So this document will be sent to directors shortly and we'll have some more details around that.

But we have a scheduled work session on September 26th around instructional materials adoption and that will include.

More discussion related to the questions that are coming up and some and from the feedback from directors.

The other part that we just that I mentioned was around technology policies so the technology policy revisions will be divided into two parts.

The first phase of the policy work will focus on policy 2 0 2 3 which is proposed to be retitled digital citizenship.

And this will focus on high level aspects like student digital literacy equitable access responsible usage usage and educational value.

We'll be sharing this policy with the ITAC otherwise known as the information technology advisory committee this month for feedback and then we'll come back to the C&I committee meeting in September.

And then just lastly the second phase of our technology policy work will be scheduled to follow later this year once we have the foundation established with the policy I was just mentioning policy 2 0 2 3. As for as we're moving forward next month we're going to work on policy A02.00 which is performance management and it's a joint project between the C&I and exec committees.

This is actually really critical policy which governs how our schools are provided autonomy and support to a performance framework.

We believe it's outdated and we are working on weighing in over the next few months around that.

But as always please know that all of our committee meetings are public meetings and we we do genuinely enthusiastically welcome public educators and school leadership to attend and those meetings are posted on our Web site as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have an operations report Madam Chair.

Deep breath.

Good evening.

Operation committee has lots lots lots going on.

We have a good number of work sessions coming up as well.

Our last operations committee meeting was August 22nd.

That agenda is posted so you can see all of the stuff that was there as well as the.

What we've started a new process so that we can keep people informed of all of the public meetings that are coming up which is also included on the agenda.

So at that meeting we discussed our work plan and.

A number of special attention items kind of starting to understand the process for boundary changes and student assignment plan updates etc. as well as getting an update on how we're going to add new members to the BEX BTA oversight committee.

We're lacking a few members and we need to we're getting that process started soon.

Our next meeting is coming up really quick because of the condensed timing of the summer schedule.

So it's actually next week on the 6th and we'll be only having a few board action reports come through around our building projects.

But one of them is the facilities master plan.

So a full draft of that will be presented there and conversation ongoing.

The facilities master plan is as you may know is a document that needs to be approved so that we can make decisions around BEX V. So over the summer as well the facilities master plan task force has been working really really hard and we had our work session.

Also on August 22nd around BEX V and an update there.

I will encourage you to look at the materials posted because I think there's about 150 pages of data and the initial task force recommendations and lots of other great information.

There that I won't try to summarize but the process is moving forward.

The next work session for BEX V in which we expect to be narrowing the project list will be on the one September 26th.

We also have a work session on boundaries coming up which is.

August.

It's in two weeks I believe August.

September.

Sorry.

So many meetings this one's actually not on the agenda yet.

I think it needs to get put on there.

But it's.

two weeks Wednesday where we'll be talking about the boundaries updates for the 20 19 20 school year since we start planning for those in advance and.

I think that sums it up.

Take a take a look at the agenda when I post for the committee meeting.

It'll post on Tuesday.

And again all these committee meetings are open to the public and welcome to have folks there.

OK.

Do we have a legislative liaison report by chance.

That's me as well as well as Jill I think I'll let Jill know.

The legislature is not in session at the moment but we will be starting to work on our legislative agenda for the district in the coming weeks because we'll adopt that sometime in the fall.

I don't know.

We don't know exact timing but just so that you know that work is going on in the meantime as well WASDA which is the statewide superintendent School Directors sorry School Directors Association in which I sit on their legislative committee.

The legislative assembly is happening on the 20th through the 23rd.

And I plan to be there and I believe Director Geary will as well.

And that is where the WSSDA sets the legislative agenda for WSSDA.

We'll be participating in that and sharing Seattle's perspective on the various positions that we'll be moving forward to that body.

And as we move forward with the legislative session That'll start in January.

Part of that will work the process of setting our legislative agenda and staff will be supporting that effort and looking forward to that.

OK.

Jill did you have anything to add.

OK.

Director Pinkham the chair of Audit and Finance sent this in for me to read for the record.

I can make my phone stay on.

Audit and finance has not met since the last regular board meeting but the quarterly audit meeting is September 4th and the next audit and finance meeting is September 10th.

Both of those start at 430. They're back in the boardroom might not be as the word I want philosophically interesting but we all know that we need to follow the money.

And we invite you to attend and those are noticed and as soon as those agendas are up please feel free to read.

Please feel free to send your questions comments and concerns.

We are listening and we hugely appreciate that.

On exec we've been meeting with Superintendent Juneau with respect to working through her contract issues including how she will be evaluated.

At the last executive meeting we added material to that to address race and equity and thank you Director Geary for that much appreciate and we'll be addressing that after public testimony.

Additionally we have started something new this year and that's what we've invited our labor partners to come speak to us not necessarily about collective bargaining but the heads up and having deep rich conversations.

Ted Howard the principal at Garfield High School is the new president of the Principals Association of Seattle Schools PASS and Spencer last name.

Spencer Welsh thank you attended last week and we had a really good conversation and brainstorming.

One of the things that we asked for from PASS is to alert the principals that board directors would very much like to be added to their school's email list so that we know about events coming up.

If we don't know about it.

How can we attend and support.

How can we cheerlead.

And I would say for the record to those that are watching and or will look at YouTube tomorrow.

Same would go for the PTSA's.

Loop us in.

If we don't know how can we help.

And we're supposed to be partners together.

So it was a rich and a little bit rowdy discussion and those boys the best kind.

Anything else to add Jill please.

Do we want to let people know we do have a retreat coming.

We do.

September 15th.

We will be spending three hours on communication between superintendent staff and the board.

We'll also spend an hour talking about the board's race equity and cultural competency training.

And because our plate has been so very very full this last year we are behind our modeling the behavior that we asked for from our own staff.

So we're going to fix that and we're going to talk about ways to do that.

Superintendent Juneau and I and other board members have already started those conversations.

I heard something at the ERAC committee though this last week which was distressing to me.

We didn't know that those retreats were open meetings.

Having been sometimes oftentimes the lone constituent in this big room in years past.

Please come on down.

It's an opportunity to meet with staff to meet with the board to see us in our jeans instead of heels or suit and tie etc.

We feed you and we welcome you to the circle and as we've been talking about bigger and longer tables.

And we need your help.

No question about it.

So.

So do come on down.

And you know if you have questions raise the flag.

Ask.

We're here to help.

We're here to partner.

And most of all we're here for our students.

Let's not have the adult issues get in the way.

Anything else.

OK then.

We are at a time check of 4 40. Public testimony starts at 530. We could probably go through board reports presently and then we could step out for closed session on collective bargaining until 530 which was publicly scheduled not necessarily statutorily required closed sessions for bargaining but we want to be as transparent as possible so we can take board comments presently And I want to remind my colleagues that we are not talking about collective bargaining agreements.

We are under the cone of silence out of respect for our partners.

We'll do that next.

Thank you.

Who would like to go first.

Jill.

I just want to welcome everybody as we're getting ready to start our school year.

Very exciting.

This year I have a daughter entering Eckstein middle school.

So I am now leaving Laurelhurst after 16 years and so that's a really poignant moment for me but really excited to be going on to middle school with the last of five leaving elementary school behind.

It's been a while since I've been here but have been busy since over the summer.

Had the pleasure to meet with Dave Lennox of Special Olympics of Washington a couple of times to talk about how we can improve the unified programs here in Seattle Public Schools and first met with Tara Davis at athletics and then with Superintendent Juneau and Associate Superintendent Flip Herndon.

to see what we can do as a district to support it.

And while many of us think of Special Olympics as the sports the games we had this summer and congratulations to our families and our athletes who participated and to all of our volunteers who came out.

That was an awesome event.

We need to continue to do that work here and they support our schools through the unified program.

And while many of us think of it as purely athletics it has increased and they are looking for what they're calling unified champion schools.

And so those schools will have three components within them to support our students with disabilities and to make them integral parts of their school communities.

Athletics of course as we know but they must also have opportunities around youth leadership and whole school engagement.

And the idea being that it is to encourage all kids to participate that it is it is not just the partnering of the unified athlete and their partner.

But to create clubs where all kids can participate and be leaders but that kids with disabilities will be there to help set the agenda create the message have a very inclusive environment.

So while we do have the athletics department supporting the unified sports piece of it it's important to me that we create the partnerships here in the district to support the other leadership.

pieces because our principals already have so much on their plate and we need to give them the support and respect around this really important work to make all of our families know that their students are going to have a full experience in our schools.

So that was really exciting and thank you superintendents for for joining me in that.

I also attended the school leadership day and I was invited to Eckstein's tri day one of them and I did that yesterday morning and I went to the MTSS training at the Mountaineers club invited by Wyatt Chessie and what strikes me.

You know I've said this before I go to the National Council of Great City schools and people ask us you know what are you doing there.

We're now identified as a top performing urban school district and what is the secret sauce or the magic.

And honestly it is the magic in bringing people together in those rooms and letting them create relationships and you hear it over and over and over.

The first thing that goes up what is the most important thing.

And it is the relationships it's the relationships of our professionals in our buildings.

It's their relationship to our students.

It's our relationship with our families.

And so we need to continue to break down whatever silos we're experiencing here in downtown to get out make those relationships with each other in our schools everywhere.

But I think that's it.

I mean I don't think it's a big secret.

I think that it is doing that work and giving everybody an opportunity to sit at tables and get to know each other because that's I spent three great days seeing that actually more I think four or five.

I met with Barbara Casey at the center school and I'm just so excited and proud of her growing the center school and its opportunity around arts programming.

It's going to have a music program this year and my biggest concern for them now is that once we've added music that's just going to open the floodgates of students wanting to participate and take part of that really unique setting and great curriculum.

So I think it's an opportunity for us as a district to look for ways to partner with other organizations within the Seattle Center.

And so on a whim I went into the Vera project and I talked to them and they were so excited about all the work that they do with the center school and how they work with the students around arts and and music silk screening and all that stuff.

And they said but you know we're really having a hard time figuring out what to do with our space during the middle of the week.

And I was like well that's so funny because we may need to find more space in the middle of the week for our students.

And so you know it's it's something that I think we need to continue to look at and I'm going to just continue to explore it.

It's not creating a new initiative but just trying to make sure that we're finding opportunity for our students to engage in the kind of programming they want to be part of.

Went to the Rotary Club I think it's number four downtown branch one of the largest I guess in the nation one of the oldest.

And they did a summer luncheon to celebrate school leaders.

So that was a really great opportunity for our school leaders to get the benefit of being asked by Rotary what can we do to help you.

And the speaker for that was Judge James Robart who was there.

He was the U.S. district judge that blocked the immigration ban.

So really impressive speaker.

And the only thing I will say that I could go on and on about how impressive he was but the one thing he did call out is to make sure that we are providing a robust civics education in our schools to make sure that our students understand how government works and how to participate in that.

So this year lots of exciting things looking forward to doing reaching out to our our civic and business leaders making connections with our families our staff our schools our students everybody.

And I will continue my Tuesday morning coffees from 8 to 9 30 at Zoka on Blakely and most Tuesdays check my Facebook page in the morning to make sure that I'm holding it.

I'll have an event there.

And if for whatever reason something's happened and I can't attend I will also make that known there.

So welcome again to the new school year.

Director DeWolf please.

Thank you.

I just have a few things.

So welcome back.

Very excited to be here.

I'm going to miss the summer but really excited to dive into this year.

Just some updates over the summer.

was able to work with native education program manager Gail Morris and we were able to visit Muckleshoot again last week to participate in their welcoming new teachers to Auburn and Enumclaw and then also just being a guest there and thinking about ways to collaborate with the Muckleshoot and the resources they have out there and also just making some connections with the Enumclaw and Auburn communities.

The.

We had a few student homelessness work group meetings this summer and those will begin at the end of September.

Just looking at the data in our schools particularly again the number that sits with me pretty heavily is four thousand two hundred eighty students were identified as experiencing homelessness in our 16 17 school year 125 of those were unsheltered and 708 of those were unaccompanied.

And then lastly began a role as a representative from Seattle School Board with WSSDA on their government to government task force which is really looking at relationships between sovereign tribal nations and school districts and the state government.

I'm really excited as a fan and fan of reading myself starting just a monthly book recommendation and so September I'm really excited to recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates book Between the World and Me and those will be available that recommendation will be available on my web page on the Seattle school board section.

And then lastly next week I'll be visiting the Black Prisoners Caucus with Principal Mark Perry from Nova.

Just to hear some perspectives on what are the ways that the school schools could have been better support and serve serve those folks better.

And then lastly looking forward to the October 2nd central region listening and learning session with Superintendent Juneau on October 2nd at Langston Hughes.

So that's all I have.

It's kind of hard to be back after having a few weeks off getting my brain back into all of the work in front of us.

I honestly feel really overwhelmed because there's a lot of work that's happening and ongoing and it's really really busy.

I failed to mention that there's two ribbon cutting events going on tomorrow for buildings that were opening.

Oh well goodness good.

Thank you for letting me know.

Next week see I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around everything that's going on.

So next week there will be two ribbon cutting events for Roxhill and EC at ECU's and Loyal Heights.

Today we are.

Doing a number of final acceptance which is celebration of a lot of our buildings for me that we're doing such great work with getting buildings open and I have not scheduled yet my community meetings.

I apologize for that.

I will be working on that in the next week or so to get some on the calendar.

We are the PTA representatives are currently also working on scheduling the listening meeting in our district in District 4 with Superintendent Juneau for some time in September.

That's being worked on but there's no date set yet.

And I want to extend a ditto to the comments that Superintendent Juneau made at the end of her comments around the fact that we have a good number of losses of students over the summer and most recently one in my district.

And I know that there are families and students and community that's grieving all across our district.

And I want to extend my heartfelt condolences and concerns and know that our staff and teachers and administrators will be ready to support students on the first day of school around these issues and.

heavy heart with a number of tragedies this summer.

And I think that's basically all my updates at this point.

Thank you.

OK.

Last hopefully never least but certainly the shortest in stature.

It's been busy.

Who said there was a break.

I want to know.

Yesterday breaking ground for the Cleveland High School field was a delight.

I'm a graduate of Cleveland High School and back in the 70s it looked as bad as it did a month ago.

And I want to say shout out and way to go to.

Dr. Herndon Richard Best athletics and your teams and please be assured there will be no crumb rubber on that field.

I drive by the Southwest Athletic Center complex every day and it is beautiful that new field and it was like watching ballet.

These guys putting it in and gals and it's exquisite.

It's beautiful and it helps our kids because athletics keeps our kids in school teaches them good values etc etc.

Other things we've been up to.

Superintendent Juneau mentioned the equity race advisory committee on Saturday.

We dined with them.

Good thoughtful deep conversation.

And anytime we talk to each other we win and we we move the dial as it were.

Some of us were fortunate enough to join John and former Justice Bobby Bridge at their home with folks from the Alliance for Education and a number of community leaders as they welcomed Denise Juneau to the city.

And I enjoyed myself immensely and I could not have been more proud to talk to previous board leaders about how this board came together and hired our new superintendent unanimously.

If you had told me three years ago that I would be spending a half an hour talking with former director former President Don Nielsen and enjoying every minute of it.

out of choked but I did.

I also enjoyed immensely speaking with folks that are working on the Seattle families education preschool promise levy and needling them about the fact that they have yet to come out from behind the curtain to address whether or not any of those funds will go to charter schools.

It cannot be a surprise to anyone that this board and previous boards have gone on record as suggesting that charter schools take money from public education.

It is my hope that the mayor and the council and the FEPP levy committee We'll make a statement either yes or no and be transparent about it because I think that the voters have a right to know that and I think we need to know.

Whether or not funds that perhaps voters think would be coming to Seattle public schools might be going to charter schools.

Please also recognize that the last charter school initiative is still before the state Supreme Court and was argued in May 2018. A decision has yet to be rendered.

Had the honor at the invitation of Superintendent Juneau to sit down here and be a part of a talking circle with a number of folks throughout the district.

And it was powerful and it's my understanding it was videoed and will be used to launch and leverage tri training.

Again anytime we can talk to each other and know each other as human beings as opposed to titles and baggage we win.

James Bush the.

Director of community partnerships and I were invited and attended the Southwest youth and family services poetry and written word slam a couple of weeks ago and mind blowing profound performances.

And again if we know about it and we can carve out time from our families schedule our work schedules will show up.

And we want to following up on Director DeWolf's comment about going up to Monroe he'll be joined by Director Geary and this person.

And I started my legal career a few decades ago doing civil litigation work for incarcerated folks.

So it's.

A subject close to my heart and I am so proud of our staff and our schools for making those connections.

It's it's not usual throughout the country that people walk their talk like our principal at Nova does and other folks in this district.

Director Burke and I got to join the Boeing company and Washington first at the seafair races.

I don't think I've been to the seafair races since I was 10 years old and my what a difference a few decades makes few emphasis on few.

But Washington first and their robotics program was mind blowing.

We made great connections.

They're already working with several of our schools.

And then we brainstormed and brought them to table at SLI.

And thank you Chief Starosky for helping make that happen.

I came straight from that event down here to beg and was rewarded.

And.

My community meetings are usually held in West Seattle libraries Delridge West Seattle and Southwest can't have them in South Park because they don't have a meeting room at South Park library.

It's very small.

And I can remember two decades ago fighting like the dog that I am that made sure that they were added to the library levy.

wasn't completely successful in getting it big enough.

Anyway we try for the third Saturday of the month at 3 p.m.

and every third meeting and I'm not going to tell you which one.

One out of three I serve lasagna.

They're rowdy.

I've been bringing lasagna down here so that I control and reel in staff to show up.

Principals are showing up.

Teachers are showing up.

Parents are showing up.

Students are showing up and we invite you keep an eye on the board page for that.

Last.

We talk about crises an awful lot and the phone calls that I get usually from Assistant Superintendent McEvoy late at night.

are heart rending when there's been a death when there's been a shooting when there's been an accident.

But what you need to know is behind the curtain there's a 4 1 1 team in this district of senior staff that gets together and deploys psychologists counselors communications and and turns to and Imagine losing a child.

I can't.

I won't.

But we do ourselves proud when a crisis happens and and it is a team Coordinated heartfelt difficult difficult job.

So if you have the opportunity to say thank you to these folks please do so.

It is an honor and a privilege to serve.

And I am beyond delighted to go into the next school year.

We have the opportunity to do great things.

Director Patu you just walked in.

Would you like to wait until after board comments to make yours.

OK.

At this point the board is going to go into the boardroom for a closed session.

until 530 to discuss collective bargaining.

We'll be back at 530 for public testimony and to continue this meeting.

Thank you.