School Board Meeting Date 10122016 Part 3

come through traffic down south as many of you know at this time of night.

So I wanted to say they are not here now but I wanted to say that I appreciated seeing them.

They were here to talk about some sort of upsetting information that has come out of the climate survey at that school putting Laurelhurst definitely in the bottom five of elementary schools, pretty much across the board in many of the climate survey areas being asked about.

And so I know they came here to bring that to our attention and I want to let my board members know that there is a packet that they brought and they ask that you look at.

And I just wanted also to invite them to come back perhaps at a time when the speaker agenda is not quite so long and the issues maybe aren't quite so heated.

So I just wanted to make sure that we recognize that they were here, that they went to a lot of effort.

I hope we will all take some time to think about that and what we can do to help them improve their climate.

I know that is something that we have all been working on within that community.

All right that was it.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ and Táˀc kulé-wit.

Thank you and good evening.

As I kind of think about today and this week and yesterday being Indigenous Peoples Day for some reason Gary Farmer and Smoke Signals come to mind if anybody has ever seen that movie.

where he talks to his son, it's a good day to be indigenous.

Are you feeling indigenous?

I'm feeling indigenous.

It is a day.

As Director Harris mentioned it's something that isn't just a one day thing.

We've got to be acknowledging our students and where they come from each and every day.

I want to thank the Haida heritage dancers to come out here and share their songs and just watching them and watching the younger ones.

One looking like probably just learned to walk maybe a month ago.

And this is where we start talking about where I teach a class on powwow traditions and innovations and Haida Heritage their group they don't powwow they do other types of gatherings more like potlatch but the thing that we talk about is muscle memory and watching those young kids.

again practice that muscle memory and yes they may be staggering in the steps but pretty soon they will be dancing like their older relatives.

So with that I also want to thank Gail Morris, Shannon Brown and Jeanine Tillotson for their work to continue to Put that since time memorial out there.

Yes we have that curriculum out there but we still need to provide the training for our teachers, our administrators, even our board up here I think we can use some training on that as to what that curriculum means.

And this then kind of ties in where it's a little bit unfortunate that since time memorial is in a sense specifically saying restricted to the federally recognized tribes.

You know for us I think as a board the resolution that we have brought up will bring attention that there are tribes out there that don't have that recognition or don't have access to their treaty rights and benefits.

And it brought me to a quote from Sandra Osawa who is a Macaw filmmaker and she has talked about her travels and when she made the movie Princess Anjali.

I had early been visiting a lot of Indian communities and doing a lot of Indian stories.

Here in Seattle I started to think about the lack of visibility of the local tribe.

And no one really spoke about them.

In fact you don't see anything about, you don't see anything that identifies that this is once their land.

On many reservations and tribes you visit you will see the immediate evidence of there being Indians nearby or some facts of knowledge of who these people were but not in Seattle.

I was talking about how funny it is that even the totem poles they have in the city here are from another tribe and another area.

So this film we thought we should do something local.

The more we got into it the more we found out that this was a very big story that had national implications because there are probably over currently 500 tribes that are unrecognized by the federal government.

The Duwamish is just one example of a tribe that has had been legislated out of existence and ignored for who they are.

That's what got us in and what made us stay was that more, was that the more we got into it the more we saw that this story had wide implications.

Here the city is named after Chief Seattle but this tribe isn't even recognized.

Excuse me I'm kind of getting quite a voice here.

But it is for me a personal emotional thing and so Cecilia Hansen thank you for being here.

I appreciate it.

I do also want to acknowledge that Claudia Kaufman was here she is the representative of the Muckleshoot Nation.

She is also an Espers.

I do know her well but I think another issue we need to look about here and again I appreciate the board here taking this resolution into consideration.

There are different stories to everything that we will see but I think this is the right thing for us as a board to do.

To provide that recognition.

do that federally but to encourage that others take on this kind of action as well.

I also want to thank Casey our student from Chief Sealth sharing her experience there.

She was kind of nervous saying I don't even know what to talk about.

Talk about your school, talk about what pride you'd have in the school.

Yes, all the board directors we have been inundated with emails, boundary changes, homeless camps, highly capable cohorts, bell times, transportation and I was on a trip unfortunately this past week and a half and when I got back hundreds and hundreds of emails so those of you that I haven't responded to I am getting through them.

It will take me a while but I am getting through them and I will respond.

I want to thank all the people that spoke tonight about those issues of concerns and that you present this in front of the board members, in front of the staff here so that we are not just concentrating just on the numbers.

There are people behind those numbers, families, students, parents and I know our staff they are working hard and your input helps put that face to those numbers.

Again just the passion of the speakers and sharing their voices tonight and I particularly enjoyed when they did mention yes there are people here who can't make it you know because of either transportation issues whatever issue it is and they took it upon themselves you know let's invite them and then we'll go share their thoughts as well and I appreciate that of other speakers tonight.

I also want to thank the Nesholm family and what they have provided for our students.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ, thank you.

And that led me to the opportunity with the Satterbergs.

And we see things at work, let's replicate it and get it working again.

If we can continue with that kind of idea and looking at what is happening at other schools and working at schools as we are Looking at a new math curriculum adoption.

Learn from our successes and also from our failures.

You know we have to admit as a district we are not perfect but we will learn from our mistakes.

Don't let those learning moments pass us by.

I don't want to be too long-winded here but I do want to let you know that my next community meeting will be this Saturday at 1 o'clock at Broadview library and then I will have another one in November on November 19. This one will be at the Northgate library at 345. And again I encourage people to reach out to me if you'd like to come visit your schools or your PTA meetings I'll do the best that I can but unfortunately the things that I've seen come across my email it's been asking when we have operations meetings, C&I meetings but I'll still try to get out there and share your voice the best that I can.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

Thank you.

I will start and try to be brief.

I had the pleasure of attending the Washington State equity and engagement conference the week before last and I wanted to give a shout out to an employee of Seattle Public Schools who is instrumental in organizing that event.

Addie Simmons has been working for the district for a long time.

She has gone away and then she has come back again.

But she and others filled We filled a large high school up in Mill Creek with huge numbers of folks who are all interested in the latest and greatest around family engagement and there were a number of different sessions.

I got the opportunity to lead one of the sessions.

And the feedback that I got not for my session but overall spoke volumes about the impact that one person and an idea can have so I just wanted to appreciate her for her leadership on that particular issue.

I also wanted to appreciate, though I didn't get a chance to hear all of the feedback that we got particularly around the boundaries issue, like my colleagues we are listening very intently.

I appreciate the complexity of this issue now that I've gone through it at least once before getting an understanding of how difficult it is to accommodate every Parents' particular needs is a challenge particularly as we are growing and we don't have sufficient capacity as is.

Hopefully we can accommodate as many needs as possible and I'm very interested in hearing some of the proposals around grandfathering.

So, all of that to say that we are definitely in listening mode at this point and hopefully moving into creative mode and can come up with some solutions that work best for everyone.

I also didn't get a chance to appreciate the Nesholm's but I have had the opportunity to talk to them before and to appreciate their longstanding work for Seattle Public Schools.

It is not the sexiest projects that they take on but because they have been committed over a number of years we are seeing some pretty impressive results at a number of our schools including one that my daughter attends so I get a chance to see firsthand the impact that philanthropy and collaboration is having with Seattle Public Schools.

I have a community meeting that is scheduled for this Saturday at 10 o'clock at the Douglas truth library and as always they are spirited affairs and so if you have the opportunity it starts at 10 goes until 1130 or until the last question is answered.

Whichever comes first.

Hopefully you will get an opportunity to come to that.

Then I would like to leave or end my comments by saying that where I was at the beginning of the meeting today was I decided that it would be of value for me to go to the press conference for the black lives movement that is happening, that was happening in the Garfield school complex and primarily because I wanted to show my support the event was happening in the community that I represent so I wanted to be in attendance and to lend my support to the issue.

Several people came up to me after the event concluded and wanted to know why I was there and not at the school board meeting and they also wanted to know my thoughts on the issue and what I shared.

was that I appreciate, profoundly appreciate given the fact that the board has been inundated with emails from folks both in our city, in the state and around the country Many of those emails have been very pointed and some quite nasty in referring to our students in ways that are just so disrespectful it just blows my mind.

And our teachers as well.

So I wanted to demonstrate some solidarity but I also shared with the person that I was talking to that as much as the symbolism is important, wearing a t-shirt saying you are in support of the recognition of black lives matter, it is incumbent on our teachers and our administrators our families, our community at large, our leaders to go beyond the symbolic acts and take action.

We were just having a brief conversation about how important it is to go beyond the words and do some actions and I know from research that I've read and research I've participated in that changing perspectives about the ability of children to learn and grow in schools is the key work that needs to be done so I'm hopeful that all of our teachers as they on the day after the event that happens next week that they spend some time actually reflecting on their own practice and the practice of their colleagues and how it can be improved in order to make the words Black Lives Matter really mean something not only for the black students in their schools but for all of the students in their schools.

And so I wanted to share that with the folks that were in the room and I believe it is something that we should all be thinking about.

Thank you.

Director Peters.

I want to start off by thanking the student who joined us tonight and that was Casey and also Clarice who was our first speaker of the evening from Chief Sealth.

I was very tickled by the fact that she spent time listing her teachers and her counselor and giving a shout out to her teachers.

It was very touching but it also shows you that the school is obviously doing something right if the teachers mean so much to the students.

I would like to also thank the Haida Heritage Group and the family that was with, many of them were members of a family, for their presentation today and to honor not just Indigenous Peoples Day but the month and beyond.

The people that originally lived here and whose land we are currently on.

And I also wanted to thank the writer of the book.

We were each given a book to take home by one of the performers who is also an author.

The issue of growth boundaries we knew was going to be a hot topic tonight so I want to thank all the parents who came out here.

I can tell for some of you this is probably your very first time that you are coming before the school board with a concern.

And I know how emotional that is.

And I remember being in your position.

So, as my colleagues have said, we are now listening to what you have to say.

And you put forth some very interesting and compelling ideas on how we can adjust the plan to be less disruptive for our families.

And so that would be my request to staff and to the superintendent, let's do the least amount of disruption possible and let's try and make this Less of a growing pain but more of an adjustment.

In fact it is true our city is growing and thankfully we are opening new schools and we have to direct students to those schools but if we can do it in a way that is organic, rolling them up, doing grandfathering, any of those options that makes this adjustment less painful for families I think there would be a lot of support here on the board for that.

Certainly painful when you hear of families who are going to have to send their children to two different schools and just the logistics of that can be quite the headache.

And then yes we do need to take into account the HCC pathways, we need to talk about middle schools, who is going where and what is going to happen to Whitman because the numbers will go down for a bit.

And so I believe this will be part of our discussion later on.

Oh the other point I wanted to make about our indigenous people's day presentation discussion was the whole discussion around the since time immemorial curriculum.

I would love to have a chance for us to get some training for the board to get some training in that.

So whatever it takes to bring that together I would certainly support that.

And if principals are not aware of it then yes we definitely need to do more outreach and PD for our principals.

I also want to give a shout out to Gail Morris and her team and the teachers she had with her.

You were all so passionate and knowledgeable and it's so wonderful to see staff who are just so engaged with the work they are doing.

It's contagious.

Thank you so much for that.

We had a work session on advanced learning last week and you know there is a lot to cover and you know we didn't cover everything and we didn't necessarily come to any kind of conclusions.

We continued a conversation, there is certainly a lot more to sort out.

I just want to remind people that in terms of HCC that is a state mandate that is defined as basic education for some students and so what that means is we have an imperative there and we have also an imperative to address the needs of all our students.

And so it's really important that we challenge and engage all of our students.

I know some people like to use rigor or they talk about acceleration.

I would like us to be more focused on the idea of engagement and challenge.

And I also want to remind everyone that every student has the right to be nurtured and to grow.

So whatever choices we make moving forward I want us to keep in mind that we should not allow any child to stagnate.

So I did have the opportunity to visit Queen Anne Elementary with Superintendent Nyland the other day and as he mentioned we had some tour guides with us and that's an interesting school.

It's a school in my district and it was very fun to see the kids interacting with each other.

are focusing on digital citizenship and digital literacy and so I'm very interested to see what they come up with in terms of how to teach children to be very careful and responsible with using modern technology and all the data exchanges that are involved and any wisdom that they develop from their experience I would love for them to pass on because this is something that we are all grappling with.

Not just in our schools but in our homes.

Regarding the transportation for athletes I would like to see that matter resolved if it is just a one-year fix before we switch to two-tiered bell times then let's find out a way to do that.

All right, my colleague Jill brought up a couple of really interesting ideas from WTAG and beyond and I just wanted to lend my support to a couple of those.

The student bill of rights regarding assessments is actually something that I've toyed with and I have a draft if anyone is interested in taking a look if that seems like something that we as a board would be interested in.

It seems like it is again something that is relevant to all of the demands of our state and federal mandates and how we balance out our requirements and also quality of education for our students.

And the idea of ASL as a language sounds fantastic to me.

So I do remember, I mean I know that there's ways to communicate with pre-verbal babies using sign language and I remember doing that with my own children and it's just amazingly liberating to be able to communicate in that way and it is a rich language that would be well worth considering as an option for other kids.

Alright I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion recently about charter schools.

I spoke as myself, I didn't represent the board.

My position was not in support of charter schools as you might imagine.

What I found interesting was the pro perspective brought up the fact that charter schools in her example had a waitlist and that their test scores were above the state average.

But I was able to counter and say well you know Seattle public schools also have wait lists.

In fact last year 86 of our schools had wait lists.

And typically every year Seattle's public school students outperformed the state average on test scores by and large.

I know it's not all of our students but by and large.

So just an apples-to-apples comparison with charter schools, you know our traditional public schools are doing quite well.

They are not perfect though so that is one point where I agree we need to do better and there are places where we can do better but privatizing is not the solution.

Anyway I thought you might be interested in some of those examples.

Let's see.

I always have all these notes and I'm afraid I'm going to forget something.

My community meeting will be this Saturday from 11 to 1 at the Queen Anne library.

I think I'm going to be competing with about three of my colleagues so if you want to do some quick lightning rounds you can catch about three or four of us this Saturday.

I wanted to say something about the topic of social justice and racial justice and black lives matter which has been in the news a lot.

We need to help our children make sense of their world and we are living in very turbulent times and so I applaud teachers who want to connect what is going on in the world with what is going on in the classroom and making things relevant to students.

After watching the last debate, presidential debate, I was very troubled by the various issues that came up with that.

Our country still has issues with gender as well as race obviously.

So I think we have a rich opportunity for many discussions.

I only ask that these discussions be done with care and sensitivity and done in a way that is age appropriate for whichever students you are talking to.

And you know beyond that I am hopeful that these conversations will lead us to a better place and that we can educate our children and also listen to our children.

Because these are not conversations that we are bringing to them, they are bringing many conversations to us as well.

And we can help them out by listening and learning from them as well and helping them understand what is going on in the world.

Thank you.

All right sorry I am back again.

With comments from my colleague Rick.

All right he sent them to me to read tonight.

He is sorry he cannot attend the meeting tonight.

He is in Suzhou China presenting at a work conference which was scheduled last year.

So this is from Rick.

In my absence I still want to thank the community for your thoughtful feedback by email and to those taking the time to testify today.

The heartfelt personal stories, innovative ideas and data analysis support help us all.

Directors and staff to raise the bar for Seattle Public Schools.

I also want to thank and appreciate Director Pinkham and staff for the work on the Duwamish resolution engaging with other tribal communities to refine the language in support of treaty rights and benefits for the Duwamish nation.

Rick's next community meeting is Saturday October 29 from 11 to 1 at Fremont Public Library.

The Lincoln high school community meeting is posted on the district calendar Thursday, October 27, 630 to 830 at the Lincoln library.

And here is a description of this meeting.

Join Director Burke and SPS staff for a community listening meeting about Lincoln high school scheduled for opening in the fall of 2019. We have exciting plans for the site renovation and restoration with the academic programming and the student assignment plans are still developing.

Come and share your concerns and ideas to help make Lincoln's opening a successful start for a vibrant school.

Representatives from teaching and learning, international education, enrollment, capital projects, Facetti architects and the school design advisory team, SDAT are expected to be present.

Thank you.

I would like to actually to have a heartfelt thank you to the Nassau family for their commitment to the children of Seattle Public Schools and we definitely see amazing changes in many of our schools that they are actually being a part of.

I also want to thank Chris Carter, Mia Williams and Jeff Clark for being present and actually sharing with us the tremendous things that Nassau family are actually doing in terms of our children.

Thank you to Casey Kono for being here with us.

I know sometimes when we have a student up here they get pretty nervous being around all the board members that are up here but they actually do a very good job of actually talking about what they are all about and we thank her for telling us a little bit about self and what is it that amazing things that they are doing.

I also want to thank you to the amazing performance that was done by the Haida Heritage group.

I really appreciate the young kids that actually how they train them up to actually to be able to learn about their culture at that young age.

I mean he was moving faster than the older adults were doing.

And I think he looked like he was about one or two years old.

And it was amazing how he kept with the tune a lot better than most of the older kids.

So I really appreciate that and thank you again Heider Herridge for your tremendous performance.

Tonight as I think about all the comments that were made in terms of our boundary it really gives me pause to worry when there's a lot of comments about how equity is not being distributed in terms of how we move certain families into certain areas.

And that is a very for me it's not a very good thing because we talk about trying to close the achievement gap.

and we are moving families into different areas that is not familiar to where they need to be or they are there because we are trying to balance out what we are looking at.

I think that is the wrong thing to do.

We need to look at overall of all the schools that we are moving from one area to the next and decide whether is that a good thing.

I hear parents you know we have been to these schools for our kids have been attending these schools for many years and we are part of a family I know what it is like when you been a family of a school for a long time and I think that as a district we need to think about that.

That it is important to keep our families together in terms of how education is actually being for those kids and how is it that that is part of their home.

And so as a board we are really giving a lot of thoughts into what is happening with our boundary changes.

and we want to make sure that it's not going to be disruptive for families especially for our kids.

So we hear you and we are listening and we thank you so much for the comments that were brought in tonight because sometimes as board directors we hear a lot of different things but when you come and tell us exactly what's going on and help us to really to look at the actual problem that's going on and able to make well you know decisions that are going to help make that a better decision other than just saying okay we are going to move in this direction.

So thank you so much for coming down and letting us know your thoughts.

I also was a little concerned when Matt Walker had said that you know when you have to build a relationship with kids, when kids actually trust a teacher or someone within the school that they have been for a long time and then all of a sudden you move them out of there.

That is really heart devastating because this district actually one of the main things that we are looking at in closing our achievement gap is having every teacher build a relationship with every one of our students that is in our schools.

And to build a relationship with the students and now all of a sudden grab them and take them away somewhere else that is not a good thing.

And relationship is very important to us.

We feel that if you build a relationship with our kids you open them up and you be able to give them that confidence that there is going to be always support there for them so they can be able to have the best excellent education that they can have by being able to give them that support.

We need to look at that and figure that out also in terms of when we are moving schools and kids around we need to look at all the different areas that are going to affect the students because after all we are here because of our kids.

And if we don't make the right decision in terms of moving our kids in the right direction then we are losing it.

We need to be able to make sure that everything that we do looks at how it is going to affect all 54,000 kids in the Seattle Public Schools.

Because that is what we are here for.

I feel that every board director that is sitting up here up here has a heartfelt in terms of wanting to make sure that every student at Seattle Public Schools get the best education and doing everything we can to make sure that happens.

So thank you so much for being here tonight and we really appreciate all the comments and hopefully that we can continue to do the work and like one of our board directors says There is so much to do and we can only do so much but thank you for your support.

So now we are going to move into our action items.

And our first action item tonight is resolution 2016 slash 17-1 mineralized support of federal recognition of the Duwamish nation.

What is it?

Treaty rights and benefits.

That's not on my script.

May we have the most current title please?

Okay.

The resolution 2016-17-1 memorialized support of treaty rights and benefits of the Duwamish nation.

Is that it?

Okay thank you.

I move that the board adopt resolution 2016-17-1 memorializing support of the treaty rights and benefits of the Duwamish nation as the original people of our area and increasing the emphasis on native education within our schools.

I second the motion.

This item was reviewed at the executive committee meeting on August 17, 2016. The committee reviewed the item and moved the item forward to the full board with a recommendation for approval.

Is there any comments, questions on this issue?

I would just like to say that it takes me great privilege to support this resolution.

I believe that this is actually a tribe that deserves recognition.

And as we said that, you know, this land that we're in is actually Duwamish land and it's been a long time and we feel that this is a great thing to do is actually to recognize the Duwamish tribe.

So I am actually very well support of this resolution.

I just wanted to thank Scott for bringing this to us and bringing it to our attention and the timing is perfect this week as we are honoring indigenous people in general.

And I look forward to supporting this.

Since no more questions and comments, Ms. Ritchie roll call.

Director Blanford.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion passed unanimously.

Our second item is elementary feeder school grant from the Satterberg Foundation.

I move that the board authorize the superintendent to accept the elementary feeder school grants from the Satterberg Foundation in the amount of $300,000.

Second the motion.

Any board comments, questions?

Director Burke isn't here.

Did someone else read it?

I'll read it.

This motion was discussed at the curriculum instruction policy meeting on September 12, 2016. The community reviewed the item and moved it forward to the full board with a recommendation for approval.

That was my first time.

Any questions or comments?

Ms. Ritchie.

Roll call.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion passed unanimously.

Okay our third item approval of the tri-settlement with Seattle Education Association.

I move that the school board approve execution and implementation of the settlement agreement between the district and the Seattle Education Association attached to the board action report.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

This motion was discussed at the Audit and Finance Committee meeting on May 12, 2016 and action was delayed pending the board's independent investigation into this matter.

The motion was then discussed at the October 6, 2016 Executive Committee meeting and moved forward to the full board with a recommendation for approval.

Any questions, comments?

Director Harris.

This is a real wart on the school district.

However, from a lessons learned perspective I think that this has shown where some of our systems broke down.

And I am especially appreciative to staff including but not limited to Assistant Superintendent Codd, General Counsel Noel Treat, the superintendent and the deputy superintendent and helping us fix this and do right by our employees.

I hope never to see this sort of thing again.

Director Peters.

Well I share Director Harris's sentiment about this.

This was not handled the way it should have been.

And what we did once we were made aware of it, the board and staff, was do our best to investigate, find out where things went wrong, and now bring it forward using the proper channels, proper methods.

So it has now been considered by the board and committee and here we are to vote on it.

I want to make clear that the issue with this item has nothing to do with the merit of paying our substitute teachers their fair due.

We recognize the work they do and we want to compensate them fairly.

Our issue is with how this was processed and how it was handled.

And we did our best to look into it and to rectify it and to bring it forward as transparently as possible which is what we are trying to do tonight.

And I also thank staff for helping us with this and we had the full support of staff and Superintendent Nyland in approaching it this way and trying to correct something as best we could somewhat retroactively.

But let this be a lesson that we don't do this again and that we tighten up our protocols in the districts so that this cannot happen again.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

In the interest of full disclosure for those who aren't in the loop around this issue I'm wondering if Dr. Codd can give us a brief synopsis of what has transpired and why we are taking the vote that we are taking tonight.

Yes I can do that now I was prepared to do that.

It might not be as brief because in the spirit of transparency I wanted to make it as complete as possible to provide history and context on this item.

On June 11, 2014 SEA filed a grievance on the issue of whether long-term substitutes were entitled to time, responsibility, and incentive, tri-pay under the 2010-213 CBA.

TriPay is compensation made to teachers for considerable time teachers must work outside the normal classroom hours for things such as parent conferences, report cards, curriculum nights, etc.

Following a step 3 grievance hearing on December 17, 2014. The district's former Director of Labor and Employee Relations conducted discussions with SEA about resolving the grievance.

In the spring of 2015, he reached a verbal agreement with SEA to pay a portion of the tri-payments sought by the union.

In winter of 2015, SEA worked with the Director of Labor and Employee Relations to draft a settlement agreement to document and implement the verbally agreed upon resolution to the grievance.

To this end a settlement agreement was executed on February 19, 2016 by the former director of labor relations which purported to agree to pay a portion of the equivalent of TRY for substitute teachers who worked longer than 90 days during the 2014-15 school year, 2013-14 school year and 2012-13 school year.

The director of labor relations executed the settlement agreement without prior notice or approval of any other district leadership member and it was not presented to the board for approval prior to execution as required by board policy 6220. During the final processing of the tri-payment called for by this agreement it was discovered that the settlement agreement would cost the district approximately $766,498.

Given that this is well above the $250,000 threshold needed for school board approval the superintendent and the board were immediately notified because the payments for the 2014-15 and 2013-14 school years had already reached final processing it was not possible to stop the payments before they were issued on May 2, 2016. And 2013-2014 payments have already been processed and paid to employees.

The 2012-2013 payments have not been made and are on hold pending board review and action on this matter.

That amount is $105,425.

After being alerted to this issue an independent attorney with significant employment law experience was hired to investigate and report the findings directly to the board.

The superintendent and staff fully supported this approach and collaborated each step of the way.

After extensive document review and interviews of a number of witnesses, the investigator concluded that the staff member who negotiated and signed the agreement acted without the knowledge of any other senior district staff.

The staff member failed to follow district protocol and did not obtain legal review, cost analysis, or approval by his supervisors or the board before negotiating and executing the agreement.

Other than a failure to perform his job properly, there was no evidence that he acted in bad faith or that collusion occurred.

It appears he entered the settlement agreement with good faith belief that the district would not prevail in an arbitration if the grievance proceeded.

While the district had prevailed in a similar grievance arbitration in 2011, the investigator determined that the settled grievance was substantially different than the prior situation.

The investigation determined the grievance settlement was not entered to and to quickly but instead was a product of multiple conversations and email exchanges over the course of two years between the former director of labor employee relations and SEA.

The former director drafted the settlement agreement on his own, did not alert any other staff to the settlement during this time and did not obtain any approval to execute the agreement.

In light of this issue new controls and other steps are planned or have been taken already to prevent an incident such as this from occurring again.

These include we will notify all of our labor partners in writing that any settlement agreement with a cost over $250,000 requires board approval in order for that to be a valid or binding to the district.

I have communicated to HR staff that for every settlement or related agreement staff are required to Have any wages or compensation calculated by payroll prior to signing the agreement.

Review the responsibilities in our contracts and other agreements matrix.

route all settlement agreements and MOUs regarding personnel pay or compensation to me the assistant superintendent of human resources for review and approval prior to signature and then in addition to that the payroll payroll staff will be required to check proper routing and approval forms before changes are made to compensation as a result of an MOU or other agreement.

As to tri-payments for substitutes in the future, the collective bargaining agreement between 2015 and 2018 moving forward does provide for long-term substitute tri-pay in the form of a stipend for the term of that CBA.

The new language states that if a substitute working more than 90 days in a position is ineligible for a leave replacement contract that substitute will receive a stipend equivalent to tri-pay they would have received if they or the position had been eligible for a replacement contract.

Therefore following the board's independent investigation into the background of this matter this bar seeks authorization for the superintendent to execute a settlement agreement with material terms substantially the same as those agreed to by the former staff member.

This will provide the needed board approval for execution and ratification of the settlement.

District leaders and staff do take this seriously and the failure to obtain prior board approval in this matter We are committed to taking appropriate measures to ensure that it cannot happen again.

Thank you.

Any more comments, questions?

Ms. Ritchie roll call.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Abstain.

Director Blanford.

Reluctant, aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion passed 5-0-1.

This is our last action item we are now going into our introduction items.

And our first introduction item is 2016-2017 board conference priorities and superintendent goals.

And this actually was discussed and introduced at our executive meeting.

So tonight we are introducing the board governance priorities and superintendent goals for 16-17.

We started discussing these goals about six months ago and have had conversations at several meetings since then.

March 12, 2016, board retreat.

May 24, 2016, work session.

June 4, 2016, board retreat.

June 15, 2016, work session.

June 29, 2016, work session.

June 30, 2016, work session.

10-2016 board retreat.

The proposed goals are aligned to the three strategic plan goals.

The five superintendent SMART goals being introduced are multi-tiered systems of support, MTSS, ensuring educational excellence for each and every student.

Two, eliminate opportunity gaps.

EOG and students access transforming adult attitudes, beliefs and actions.

Three, inventory of offering, program mapping and review.

And four, budget slash funding.

Five, engagement slash cooperation.

Three of these goals Numbers 1, 2, and 5 are carried forward the work from 2015-16 goals.

Each goal has an attached rubric that includes the key elements, a baseline and a target.

It also includes in which committee the goal will be discussed throughout the year.

There will also be full board check-ins.

The goals will be evaluated in June 2017. This motion was originally reviewed at the executive committee on September 8, 2016. On September 8, 2016 the executive committee moved the item forward to the full board for consideration pending the discussion at the September 10, 2016 board retreat.

Because additional revisions were requested at the retreat the revised documents were brought back to the Executive Committee on October 6, 2016. On October 6 the Executive Committee moved the item forward to the Food Board for consideration.

Dr. Nuland do you have anything you would like to add?

Well I'd like to thank the board again for the continuity especially around the three goals.

That really makes a huge difference.

I think that's part of the success overall of the trending test course, goal one.

Goal two is our eliminating the opportunity gap and that as I've shared before that allowed us to do our first districtwide professional development day and we're seeing impact throughout the district.

And then the community engagement one is an inquiry goal of love and persistence I think.

We keep working at it and I think we are closing in on something that will be seen as more responsive to our community.

So thank you for keeping the focus on those.

budget are certainly timely.

We either have the opportunity to go forward with McCleary funding and do the work that we are so eager to do but haven't had the money or if McCleary doesn't materialize we may need those reviews to help figure out how to tighten our belt once more time while we wait for the legislature to do their job.

Does the board have any questions comments on this?

On goal one MTSS I hope that we can figure out a way to frame this in a simple fashion and to show what it is exactly that we are talking about, how we measure it and how we sell it and what parts of the city and which cohorts are already trained and which aren't.

It is I think critically important work but I think it is full of edgy jargon and a lot of detail that is not very clearly explained and I think that we can get more folks on board if we do a better job of that.

I've heard from some community members what the heck are you talking about and what has happened in nine years that you've been doing this.

Well I think probably a lot of things have happened but I don't think we are explaining ourselves worth a darn.

That would be my ask.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

My comments have to do with goal 2 and it's not a critique necessarily but it is a remembrance of work that we were doing last year around our gap closing work.

And a recognition, kind of a theory of action that said that as we are asking our teachers and administrators to change their practice and their belief systems about a student's ability to learn that we have to model, we the board.

and senior staff have to model that same inquiry base and interest in learning.

So we took responsibility for at least one of our board retreats and several sessions, work sessions where we delve deeply into our achievement and opportunity gaps and our understanding of race and equity in order to provide appropriate guidance to the types of decisions that we are making.

I believe that that Those conversations were fruitful and had a huge impact on the board members that were serving at the time.

I also note the fact that several board members, a majority of the board that currently serves was not serving at that point so there is some value in revisiting That theory of action may be refining it in some way but it seems to me that it's incumbent on us as the leaders of a billion-dollar organization that we should take some responsibility for increasing our understanding of a very complex issue that of our achievement and opportunity gaps and our role in either addressing them appropriately or potentially exacerbating them.

Any other board comments?

Okay we are going to move on to our second introduction item.

Approval of 2017-18 implementation amendments to 2013-20 growth boundaries planned for student assignment.

Can we get a report from ops chair?

This item was heard by the operations committee on September 15 and moved forward for consideration.

Good evening.

So you have before you the proposal for the growth boundaries plan student assignment.

There are a lot of attachments associated with this, quite a few maps, quite a few considerations.

I did allude to some of the high points that we are looking at so I just want to go over a couple of those quickly again and then I will have our director of enrollment planning Ashley Davies talk much more about some of the other details.

So as you've heard tonight and as we hear almost every year when we get ready to do growth boundaries there are always challenges and we are certainly in a position where we have our schools that are overcrowded, we have capital projects that are coming online, we have class size reduction, all of these things are hitting us at one time that are really challenging our capacities.

We've seen and heard from numerous people at many community meetings and through emails and just conversations.

We've had several dialogues with school leaders, we've spoken amongst ourselves as staff and been communicating quite a bit with superintendent clearly.

And we've heard a lot from board directors as well individually about thoughts and comments.

We take all of that into consideration and I wish there were always a really clear path that gave a win for everything but ultimately we know that there is not.

It doesn't mean that we can't find pathways or solutions that work the best for the most amount of people and that is ultimately what we are trying to figure out.

All that to be said we are looking at I think kind of a couple larger areas.

One is having to do with grandfathering, one is having to do with kind of the Northeast area, Cedar Park, Olympic Hills, John Rogers.

We have one having to do with pathways and some highly capable pieces and then another area that really has to deal with a couple of other boundary tweaks and lines on where things are.

As that kind of a big umbrella I'm going to have Ashley Davies talk about some of the details in there and then we will be open to any questions that you might have.

Hi good afternoon or good evening at this point.

I'm Ashley Davies the Director of Enrollment Planning.

I'm going to go through a short presentation that talks about the growth boundaries plan for 17-18.

The amendments that we are proposing at this point in time summarizes some of the feedback.

But before I do that I just want to take a moment.

to acknowledge all the parents, principals, students, staff and school communities that we've interacted with throughout this process.

We had many here but this is not even a small fraction of the amount of families we've seen throughout this process and we've really appreciated the solution-oriented mindset that families have come to us with in terms of wanting to work together and partner around as Dr. Herndon mentioned creating change that allows us to be able to accommodate all of our students in environments that are best for student learning and that means having schools that aren't overcrowded but also trying to minimize the impact of that change as it happens.

And so through all of those conversations, engagements we really are aligned in wanting to ensure That again our students have a positive learning environment and experience at whatever school they are at.

So today I am here to talk about again the changes for 17-18 and this all comes from the larger growth boundaries project from 2013 that was approved by the school board.

During that time there was extensive community engagement around the boundary changes and those boundary changes started from 2014 and had yearly implementations through 2020. A lot of that aligned with capital projects that were anticipated to come online at different years from again 2014 to 2020. So just briefly shows kind of where we are along that span.

This year for the 17-18 changes this is the most impactful year for Seattle Public Schools in terms of these boundary changes.

We have a new elementary school opening.

Cedar Park, we have Olympic Hills moving into a new building that's going to be double the size of its current building and then we have two middle schools opening Robert Eagle Staff and Meany Middle.

And so in addition to bringing on this additional capacity that helps to alleviate overcrowding, reduce the use of portables across the district, we also have the additional pressure of reduced class sizes as we take on the additional funding from the state with McCleary.

not to mention the enrollment growth that we continue to see as our city grows.

So in terms of what this process looks like and has looked like for us for this particular year.

So in January we began the data review in terms of looking at the 2017-18 changes and aligned with the most current enrollment data and projections that we had for the schools impacted as well as schools that may not necessarily have been impacted by those changes.

So that began in January.

with our February enrollment projections and then we continued to monitor that enrollment throughout that time until the summer.

In April we hosted community meetings around the city to talk about the changes as they were approved in the 2013 plan.

And at that time we received much feedback around the changes.

Many, much of that feedback is incorporated into the amendments that I'm sharing here again continue to monitor enrollment and collect feedback throughout the spring and summer and then we are here now presenting the amendments and any changes in addition to responding to additional considerations for the 17-18 implementation.

And so we had again three meetings in April to talk about the approved changes and then we had an additional five meetings over the past two weeks after the growth boundaries board action report went through operations committee to talk about those changes.

In addition to the districtwide meetings that we had across the city, many schools hosted their own community meetings and we had representatives from many of those school communities come and talk about the impact of these changes on their communities.

And so to the extent possible we had district staff join at those school-based community meetings to kind of support any questions or comments that came up as well as just hear directly from families around the impact of those changes.

And so now I will just talk about the amendments to the 2017-18 plan.

And just for the record want to explain that the growth boundaries plan for 2013 that happened in 2013 for implementation in 17-18 had already been approved by the board.

So any changes to that plan come in the form of an amendment.

So here we are talking about amendments that the district at this point is proposing and then anything outside of that would have to be an additional amendment to the plan that was approved by the board in 2013. So the first is retaining the Kimball elementary attendance area in Mercer and I have maps to walk through all of these it's also within the packets.

Retaining the John Muir attendance area in Washington, retaining area 20 in Bryant, 25 in BF Day and 103 and 104 in Sandpoint.

And these are all a result of both community feedback that we heard from these communities as well as a review of the data around the enrollment and projections for these particular schools impacted.

I just have the maps here that walk through these changes.

And so again just to explain this amendment would be such that those boundaries do not change for 17-18.

In the 2013 plan those areas were supposed to change.

With this amendment they would not change.

The students who are currently at those schools living in those areas would remain at those schools in those areas.

We are recommending to retain area 11 in Daniel Bagley and align that with the middle school feeder which would be Robert Eaglestaff such that all of Daniel Bagley feeds into Robert Eaglestaff.

And then retain area 84 in Northgate and also align that with Eaglestaff such that all of the elementary feeds into Eaglestaff.

And these are those two maps.

So in addition to those amendments we have two additional pieces that we are adding to the growth boundaries plan for 17-18 as well as a separate amendment for the Cedar Park opening.

And so the first is expanding Thornton Creek's geozone.

This doesn't have a pointer but the green area includes two affordable housing units which will be three and in conversations with the Thornton Creek and Sandpoint leadership and community they wanted to expand access to Thornton Creek now that it's in its new building.

has expanded capacity to be able to allow more families particularly families who live in those affordable housing units access to Thornton Creek through school choice.

So again Thornton Creek is one of our option schools families have to opt in but if they do not live within the geo zone they do not get that extra level of priority during the school choice process.

So again this expands access to students who traditionally haven't had access to that experience.

And then the next.

Could I ask a question here in terms of access to option schools.

What if we did do a tiebreaker for lower socioeconomic to give them a step up.

What would the implications of that be?

So that would be a change within the student assignment plan and we are not able to do that based on race and so you know I can't say offhand what the implications of that would be but we would have to definitely look at that from an analysis standpoint to see how that would and also get community feedback around that change.

Thank you.

But I think as we look at the geozones themselves we can think about how they are drawn to provide access through that means.

So the next is to restore the Sanislo Elementary attendance area within the Denny elementary, within the Denny middle school feeder pattern.

So Sanislo was traditionally in Denny and then moved from Denny into Madison in 2015 based on what we anticipated those projections to be.

And so now we are seeing current projections as well as getting feedback from those communities.

We are proposing to put Sanislo back into Denny and also align that with the Chief Sealth theater.

Is it fair to say that that is non-controversial and being embraced by the community?

This return to the historical pattern?

Yes.

Because that is certainly what I have heard from District 6. Thank you.

Director Blanford.

My question goes to the earlier question that Director Harris made.

I am just wondering if your suggestion relates to the amendments that are being made or are you asking staff to run the numbers on changing our policy around that issue?

I'm asking us to think out of the box and to use because we can't use race as a factor to instead use socioeconomic numbers as a factor as one of those ways we can bump up opportunity for folks that might not otherwise have it.

And we talked earlier tonight about ideas of making Cedar Park potentially an option school opting in and thinking out of the box because frankly what we've been doing historically hasn't been working so well.

Good evening, Noel Treat, General Counsel.

I just wanted to mention one thing relevant to the conversation about use of socioeconomic data.

As you might know, our free and reduced lunch data as it applies to individuals, under federal law we're strictly limited in how we can use that.

We're pretty much only supposed to use that for nutrition program purposes.

So whether we could use free and reduced lunch data as to specific students for an assignment purpose is something that we need to take a look at pretty closely.

Just wanted to highlight that for you.

Does that prevent us from collecting other data during our enrollment process?

No it doesn't necessarily preclude that.

Thank you.

And that brings me to the next amendment which is around the Cedar Park boundary.

So tonight we heard a lot of feedback around that particular boundary and we had some individuals who were part of the race and equity analysis work that we did and extremely grateful for them and all their insights and the passion that they brought and the perspectives in the work that we were doing together.

So I'm just personally grateful for the opportunity to have that experience with them throughout that process.

After reviewing 12 different scenarios for Cedar Park really recognizing as we looked at a lot of different data and to the point about you know not looking at race or free and reduced price lunch but we looked at percentage of English language learners, special education students, we looked at numbers in different ways.

And then again really had the perspectives of the families and communities who are currently at those schools and the leadership at those schools to give us more insight around what these changes would mean.

recognize that there were a lot of limitations and there was not one particular solution that really fit everyone's needs.

So at this point in time we are recommending an amendment to the current plan for Cedar Park.

Originally the red area that is currently part of John Rogers boundary was planned to be part of the new Cedar Park boundary and we are recommending that that red area remain in John Rogers.

And so this would allow for a right sizing of Cedar Park.

We recognize after actually having Olympic Hills in the Cedar Park building that the capacity we had initially anticipated for that building was not going to be suitable and then that area below 125th that is to remain at John Rogers would also allow John Rogers to retain some additional balance in terms of their population of families.

Director Blanford.

Can you speak to the criteria that you used to come to that recommendation?

Yeah so during the race and equity analysis work that we were doing you know we ultimately understood that we weren't going to find a solution that would balance the diversity of the schools across all the different factors that we were looking at but we wanted to understand that in each of the potential situations that we were looking at for scenarios for Cedar Park.

If there were any particular students who were negatively impacted with a specific focus on students who were traditionally underserved how would we mitigate that if we couldn't necessarily do it with physical boundary lines.

And one of the factors too in terms of thinking about Cedar Park as a new school and similarly goes with Eagle Staff and Meany wanted to ensure that when those schools opened they could be successful for the students who were going to be there.

So we wanted to ensure a viable cohort of students meaning that enrollment was at a level that was sufficient for them to have all the programming that they would need but not too high that it would leave them at a place where there wasn't room for growth.

So from a capacity standpoint those are the factors that we looked at and again similarly looking at those numbers for Olympic Hills and Cedar Park with the understanding that Olympic Hills was going to be in a new building as well with a greater capacity.

as we looked at the demographic information amongst all the different schools and got the perspectives from the families.

We tried to the extent possible to see what we could do in terms of each of the school communities being able to maintain as much of that diversity as they could and not create any school or any particular scenario that exacerbated any of those demographics.

So, again, just given where certain students live in this particular area and how densely populated just some of the streets are, it made it very challenging as we looked through all the data.

But, you know, we looked at particular areas, looked at different scenarios, and we looked at scenarios even outside of creating an attendance area school with a defined boundary.

And then that brings me to the grandfathering recommendations.

So per passport direction grandfathering recommendations were to be reviewed prior to implementation.

This year in particular as we look to 17-18 with additional reduction in class sizes as well as the opening of new schools and wanting to ensure that they had viable cohorts of students when they opened so that they could have rich programming given their numbers.

The recommendations for grandfathering at this time were limited.

Also thinking about the reduction of portables per passport direction.

We have many of our elementary and pretty much the majority of our middle schools have a significant amount of portables and a lot of the planning that was done in 2013 was contingent upon the idea of actually removing portables with the boundary changes.

And these last two slides just highlight information that we have shared in our presentations around the elementary and middle school impacts and the grandfathering recommendations at the elementary levels.

So this information is the same as what was shared at the operations committee as well as the information that was shared at the community meetings that we've had.

But again we've been having additional discussion about ways that we can minimize the impact of these changes.

So just thinking about next steps so again across all our community meetings in addition to the meetings that schools have hosted for themselves we've been receiving feedback via email, we have hundreds of comments and feedback from families hundreds and I know the board probably has others that maybe I haven't seen either directly so between us we've probably got a good bit of feedback to kind of sort through.

So as Dr. Herndon had mentioned There are some large buckets of things that we are considering and working with the board specifically around and that is one seeing how we can expand grandfathering recommendations, review impacts of particular change areas.

So we have gotten feedback beyond the grandfathering recommendations but about whether certain change areas should or shouldn't be implemented.

And then again some points around the review of the Cedar Park boundary plan and then aligning the highly capable cohort planning with the boundary recommendations.

So traditionally those pathway recommendations have been part of the student assignment plan changes.

which are to begin very soon.

That will go to operations committee at the November 17 meeting but conversations are happening with advanced learning as well as those communities around those pathways.

Director Harris.

Is this the place to ask for what our next steps are, what the path is, what our expectations should reasonably be?

Between now and amendments being drafted and asking for data, modeling.

It appears to me that you all have been living down here except for when you have been out at the schools talking to folks.

This is scheduled for a vote on November 2. That last slide represents an enormous amount of work and I guess I am trying to figure out A how that is going to happen and B if we are talking about advanced learning and some of those other pathways that we have talked about hooking up is that even realistic and I do understand that we have to get this figured out so that we can get the RFP out for transportation and start planning for enrollment.

So I am confused of what happens next, how it happens, what the expectations should be, whether you want people submitting amendments.

So I think this is the right forum for us to talk about next steps.

In terms of the pathway conversations I do not anticipate that those would be defined by November 2. Just because there are still conversations that need to happen with those communities.

And that would be a really short window to really have sufficient engagement to finish those conversations.

But in terms of the other amendments and the additional analysis around grandfathering and some of the plans and considerations for Cedar Park one of the pieces of feedback that we have gotten from the community In light of the 2013 plan and some of that process and the way amendments came about I think we want to do as much as we can to be in close conversation such that we can give community members as much time as possible to understand what are the potential amendments that are moving forward and we have sufficient data to be able to share with them around those amendments.

in addition to the conversation about amendments and kind of steps.

Having gone through this process through a few years now the earlier you can work with us on ideas that you might have for amendments which is what has happened in the past that gives staff the opportunity to analyze what the impact can be.

It makes it very challenging if amendments are coming in the night of or the day before and then you are scheduled for a vote and we can't tell you what the impact is going to be so we kind of live with whatever the result is and then there sometimes isn't enough time to realize what all the data might be saying.

Now not all those, not every analysis can take in every single variable and factor and I can't give you a 100% guarantee that we are going to know.

whatever plan we have is going to be implemented and executed exactly the way that we thought and it will turn out just as we are imagining it but the more lead time we have the better.

Director Geary was at the capacity task force meeting last week where the suggestion was that board directors shouldn't do any amendments because then the community knows that but we realize that is a function of what you as board directors have the authority to do.

I'm just requesting if you have that in the spirit of transparency that I know the board is trying to work with, if we get those early enough, like if we get them a week ahead and we can do the analysis or even sooner, if you have ideas that you have already known we can start working on those.

That means we can get at least those amendments posted as soon as possible along with the other materials so that the public can then see what that is and they know what you are voting on just like we do for all the other items for the board meeting.

So that is our best opportunity but we need them before they are going to be posted.

If you come out afterwards again your prerogative but it doesn't allow us to turn around the analysis and get that done and posted in enough time.

Director Blanford.

If I remember correctly from 2013 and I wasn't a board member but I was watching the sausage making really closely anticipating joining the board.

There was a similar request for enough time to do the analysis of any amendments that were coming from the board.

And as I was sitting there watching it I was thinking that it might have been more useful for you to say or for the person at that point to say the minimum amount of time that you need in order to do a sufficient analysis.

So that would be helpful for me to know if I'm thinking about doing an amendment.

It is a little challenging to answer that question completely because one it depends on the complexity of the amendment and the amount of analysis needed and two is the number of amendments that people might have.

So if every board member has two or three amendments then we are talking about 18 to 21 amendments you know that is a lot going on in a short amount of time.

I am hoping that we don't have that many so I am hoping that given the input that we've been hearing, the collection we've been hearing, the comments that we've had tonight, some of the discussions that we have, I'm hoping that we can look at any other tweaks that we might think of and then also hear from directors about possible amendments they have.

I would love to touch base with people this week if they already have some ideas so that we can get going on some of these analyses.

But if some board members need more thinking time, something tonight has raised some new challenges and they just need to think through it, that's great too.

it's hard for me to answer how much time because I just don't know yet the level of complexity or the level of analysis and the numbers.

So the sooner that I can receive that from board directors the better.

I just ask the question because I wouldn't want to slam you with a bunch of amendments at the last minute you know and think that I was doing the right thing and then discover that All of my colleagues are thinking the same thing and you all of a sudden have 20 amendments you've got to analyze.

Yes and some could be interrelated to other departments so given that and given the fact that our staff size is also limited and you can't just kind of hire on extra hourly staff to help us do analyses.

There are some interdependencies and I really like my enrollment.

planning staff and love working with them and I know this has been a real challenge and they are dedicated to the work.

They want to get it done and they are trying to do the best that they can so I just want to be able to respect their sanity as much as possible.

Director Geary.

Okay I have some questions.

Just for general knowledge, at our option schools in the north part of the city, how are they for enrollment?

At capacity, under capacity, waitlisted?

So our option schools in the north end, they all have waitlists for the most part.

And all that information we actually, you on our enrollment planning page one of the questions that was asked by one of our directors earlier I think Director Burke who is not here with us today was kind of what attendance area schools are some of those option schools attracting families from and so we make all that data publicly available every year you can see that broken out for every option school what communities those families are coming from.

And then is it possible when this does come up anticipating some amendments is there a way to sort of split out the vote to get the non-controversial pieces off and I say that because I am personally very thankful for the districts in my or the schools in my district that were able to come up with regard to areas 103, 104, and 20. I don't think there is any controversy about that.

The principals were able to come together and that now shows up as an amendment that I think it would be nice, it would be nice in some ways to focus on what is in controversy and be able to move forward on those things that are not.

And I'm just wondering is there a way we can devise the vote when it comes up that way to get them off so we don't keep trying to amend in a picture that just has so many different moving pieces.

We are voting on so much with one vote when it seems that there are certain pieces of it that are disconnected.

Can we do that?

I mean I would have to ask on the procedural side but the way that it has worked in the past has been as each, so much like we have seen with other pieces of legislation the actual board action comes up, people submit their amendments, if those are voted on then they get approved as part of the overall action.

So if there were other parts of the original motion that you didn't want to approve you would almost have to break those out as well.

That is my understanding of how it has worked in the past.

If you are thinking about other things like You know kind of breaking off the grandfathering as part of the amendment and then some of the map changes versus some of the other pieces.

That's probably in a way to arrange some of the amendments maybe.

I don't know.

I would have to talk procedurally with some of the staff to figure out how we can work that out.

And it's a good question because I want to make sure we are framing the evening correctly so that people understand how the evening might flow.

Well it is just going to become so confusing because we will be asking to approve amendments that aren't in controversy but once you use the word amendment it becomes just hard to keep it all straight what is actually being voted on and what is moving forward.

Because we are going to be, we may be like we want the status quo of what you originally proposed as amendments and so it is, if you understand.

It is just confusing and I foresee great confusion.

So maybe one way to frame that right now is as Ashley has presented the current motion there are amendments to the maps and the movements but that is just one piece that is amending that motion as it is set.

So anything after that would be whatever the individual amendments are that would alter some of those pieces.

Right and we may be amending amendments.

Hopefully not but yes.

I wanted to make a comment that the.

The task force mentioned that it would be nice if there were no amendments because it was very difficult but I think that was under the assumption in some ways that a task force would have been put together sooner to work through some of this for us so we would have several sounding boards which was part of the request for the task force in the first place so I just want to say it's a little difficult for me now not to have the benefit of the task force recommendations when I feel like the request for the task force's creation came fairly early on.

And so it puts me at a disadvantage to some degree to have that extra sounding board.

And it's just that idea that we brought in a different level of public engagement about people who could help work the problem, who have been trying to work the problem, who have been saying that a problem is coming for a long time and wanted to be part of that conversation.

So I'm just expressing some disappointment with that not taking away at all from the amount of work that has been done and the outreach that is going on but I feel like we have done so much outreach and here we are with no sufficient time to really process it in a way that is going to create the trust that I think people want.

to be certain of that their input has been accurately processed and all these smart people that have been working this and sending us multiple pages of data saying the numbers are wrong the numbers come out this way we can't it would have been nice so that's sad.

And then I have to wonder if when this originally had come been voted on in 2013 if we just made the changes with grandfathering anticipating that people would stay where they are but then we'd be rolling they'd be firming up now but people would have had the three-year benefit of the grandfathering.

I wonder if that's a way to reframe this issue going forward with regard to things that are now, do we want to be in a bright line situation in 2020?

Or do we want to start rolling options between these two things out?

And I know there are transportation implications on this, but there are such huge implications all the way around.

And I just wonder, had we done that with grandfathering back then?

and everybody had the benefit of those years of grandfathering would we be with a room full of people now.

So I just throw that out as an idea.

Director Harris.

On the subject of concerns.

We had a board resolution where the board is going to be involved with program placement.

I have not heard one word.

about that resolution and the overlay for enrollment and I think that it matters.

I think it is a knit conversation.

The student assignment plan is going to happen and we were told August then we were told November and now we are told January and I appreciate there is lots on the table in order to do that.

But not having pathways I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that we don't have pathways yet we are moving young people around in and out of their communities and my personal perception is that we are doing a much better job in terms of different departments working together or blowing up the silos I think is the phrase here.

But this really feels a lot like cart before the horse.

And I guess I would feel a lot more comfortable if we understood some of the conversations that were going on right now about said pathways.

Or is this going to be the same song different verse in January and February.

I don't see the connection and the through line here.

And it is frustrating to me because it says to me system issue, system issue, system issue And to think that your very hard work might be upended when we put in pathways or we talk about HCC or ALL or SPED placements, et cetera, that there is a through line that is missing.

And I know that a great many folks in the community are very frustrated.

And I can tell you I don't feel like I'm doing my job if I don't point that out and ask for help there.

Thank you.

Director Peters.

Along those lines that is something that has been brought up to me as well by constituents and has crossed my mind.

I'm wondering, I think the fear is we will vote on something and then get us all locked into something and then six months from now we will be talking about pathways and options will be much more limited because of what we just voted on before.

So, but I recognize that you guys are having to juggle so many different pieces at once to even bring a bar to us for this.

And that to ask to add pathways is asking for some more complication.

However, it's integral to what we're doing.

I'm wondering if you at least have any kind of potential pathways, anything in your mind that you've sketched out just so people can start thinking about what are the options that could help us inform our decisions.

Yeah so I will start with the middle school highly capable cohort pathways.

So back in 2013 when the plan was initially approved the conversation was such that if needed EGLE staff would be used as a pathway school for that cohort.

And so based on the capacity that we see at Hamilton and the growth in that population plan to have that program at Eagle Staff and so right now the conversations are around exactly what that split will be.

So the anticipation at that time was such that Whitman would go to Eagle Staff and then anyone who lived in the Eagle Staff boundary would be at Eagle Staff if they were in that cohort and then for Hamilton remain anyone who lives within the Hamilton boundary and then McClure.

So we do want to have those conversations with those school leaders and also with that community before we finalize that pathway but that was the initial thinking in terms of those.

When we think about the elementary pathways we know that Cascadia is moving into its new building and the conversation has been around the fact that all of the cohort can't fit into the building given the growth that we've seen in that population.

So the conversations with that community in the north end is around where what that would look like if all of the school didn't remain together at one site and what a potential split would be.

So we have been involving the principal at Cascadia as well as the principal at Thornton Creek given the fact that Decatur is a potential site that could be used for that program.

I would like to speak to the subject of the split, potential split of HCC.

This predates you being with the district Ashley but the HCC group has been split and moved and put in interim buildings quite a few times in recent years and so well in the last 10 years and so they are very sensitive to the possibility of being split again.

And so that's why you're hearing a lot of interest in keeping them together and keeping them all in Cascadia in the new building.

You know whether or not there's enough room there.

It's not totally clear.

So I know there's talk of having them having another HCC location in the Northeast.

I think we've mentioned Decatur, I think Cedar Park has been mentioned.

I'm interested in the sorts of thinking that Leslie was saying about what if we make a school up there an advanced learning school that people can opt into and I would also take that idea and say well if we also have an HCC component to there could we also have a spectrum component.

What would it take to make people want to go to that school so that they don't feel like they are being kicked out of Cascadia.

And so I understand that somebody might, somebody I think on your staff might be doing some kind of survey of the HCC community at least in the north end who might be impacted by these changes and I really strongly support doing that and finding out what would it take to make people choose a different pathway.

In the same way that Ingram IBX was created to alleviate the capacity problems with Garfield.

It was an optional choice for the HCC students.

It was another way to meet their needs.

and enough students did end up choosing Ingram instead of the Garfield pathway that it did help to some extent.

Could we do something like that so that families don't feel like they are being pushed out but give them something that they would opt to go into.

So I am not going to ask you to answer that right now but that is the sort of thing that my mind and I think there is some interest in that.

Also if we could do the sorts of things that Leslie was talking about where we open up advanced learning more to other students I think we could address a lot of the issues we have all been grappling with lately in terms of equity and reaching out to different communities.

Especially knowing in the Northeast part where these schools are going to be located, we do have a lot of diversity.

We have socioeconomic diversity, racial diversity, we have English language learners.

People forget that we do have diversity elsewhere in the city and we have pockets of it too and that is one of them.

And that is why we had so much talk tonight about the equity aspect of the Cedar Park and Olympic Hills decisions, proposals.

So that's something that I'm interested in resolving and making things as painless as possible for people and make people want to do the sorts of things that help our capacity needs is what I'm pushing for.

A couple questions I have is, is it possible, so this is on a slightly different topic, is it possible not to split families?

We had some testimony tonight about families that are going to have to send their kids to two different schools.

Is it possible to somehow make some stipulation that says that we won't do that?

Or is that from a logistic standpoint?

I don't know if we could guarantee that.

Even in the student assignment plan you know that the first tiebreaker is sibling so that is meant to try and keep families together but it is not the guarantee.

Certainly we would love to keep families together.

As a father of three boys at one point when I had all of them in one elementary school for one year it was fantastic.

And for a couple of years when they were in three different schools it was a real challenge to get around so I definitely understand the plight of having children in different schools especially if they are at the same level.

So at the elementary level it does become a challenge trying to go to multiple curriculum nights and knowing all the teachers all of that is a challenge there is no doubt about it.

So trying to ensure that as much as possible.

That's what we would love to do and I think if we can push the grandfather as much as possible then hopefully that's where we would be.

And obviously continue to maintain the sibling tiebreaker as the number one piece in the student assignment plan so that even when the boundary changes take place when families apply for open enrollment to then have their children in that school let's say with their other siblings because they wouldn't necessarily be guaranteed with grandfathering.

They are at the top of that priority list.

So that's about as close as I could get to saying yes trying to keep the families all together.

Then tonight we had a lot of people testifying about Cedar Park and Olympic Hills and John Rogers and their concerns about the socioeconomic imbalances that will be created by these proposals.

And I was disappointed that there is still a lot of issues around that because I know that you went, your team went through a lot of effort to come up with lots of different proposals and you got a lot of feedback.

So I'm curious why it hasn't been resolved and if there's something we're not thinking of.

I mean someone said tonight that the equity toolkit has failed Cedar Park.

You know and it's distressing to hear that.

So why is it we cannot come to a better resolution there?

Okay I'll just sort of leave it at that.

So I guess I first would want to talk about addressing the racial equity toolkit and just think about the framework of that toolkit and the work that we did with that department and one of the biggest pieces for us as a team was understanding that Again we weren't necessarily going to come up with a racially or socioeconomically balanced three schools or 10 schools or 99 schools from that tool but we were going to better understand what the potential impacts were going to be on our most vulnerable populations of families and understand what we could do to ensure that they were supported wherever they were going to be and also supported if they had to make any transitions.

With the understanding of also wanting to minimize the transitions that those families would have to have.

So I do just want to highlight that was kind of our understanding and we all had to kind of come to that place.

Many of us thought initially well this tool will help us come to a racially balanced solution scenario boundary plan for these schools and that wasn't what was going to happen.

You know as we looked at that particular area and again the concentration of students in specific areas in that between Cedar Park, John Rogers, Olympic Hills.

As we look at not only the density but the demographics.

in those really dense populations.

We again recognize that some of the boundary changes and scenarios became really challenging if we try to include certain portions in certain areas.

So for instance one of the large pieces that you all may have heard reference to was the slice that is currently part of the Olympic Hills boundary.

It's a very, it's a small area but it's very dense.

We saw that there were about 170 students who lived in this really dense slice and it happened to be one of the most diverse areas in that particular neighborhood and probably in our whole city so we were cognizant of understanding the data behind it, the demographics behind it, the impacts behind it and we also looked at scenarios such as having Cedar Park as an option school, having it as an NHCC site and we recognize that a lot of those models also were very inequitable as we think about who has access to those schools, adding that additional barrier to entry for those families who live right there.

And so you know the boundary plan for Cedar Park also maximizes walkability for the families who live in that area by adding three schools instead of two you have more students who live in closer proximity to their school and you don't add that additional barrier to entry for families who have to go through that process.

Another consideration that was brought and continues to be raised is just around the physical capacity of the building and how it is small.

And so around the conversations about option schools one of the points there was that you know it allows us the ability to contain enrollment.

And so that is one thing that we were also just trying to talk about and think about the benefit of being able to do that but we also had to look at so what are the potential costs in terms of whether as an option school that would really allow access to all families the way we envisioned when it opened.

Also given the fact that we just wouldn't have a lot of time to be able to plan for what that would look like to be able to market it as an attractive school for families who live there.

Director Pinkham.

Yeah this is a very big lift I know to try to do all this but as I just listened to all the conversations sometimes I wonder are we trying to make the boundaries for our assignment plan or assignment plan fit the boundaries.

A difficult thing, I know but reading some of these comments that are in this report makes me feel a certain way.

It says although the district aims to grandfather whenever possible, given capacity strengths that many of the schools impacted by boundary changes.

impacted by boundary changes.

So it seems like we are doing something that is causing another problem.

So I think we need to definitely, something needs to change.

It seems like we are trying to change the boundaries to fit a problem.

Maybe we need to think about changing the assignment plan to fit the problem.

Not just take it through one view of drawn boundaries, okay that is it.

I think the assignment plan needs to be looked at as well.

I know this is also impacted by new schools coming online as well.

Other things that come to mind we know, we actually talked about racially imbalanced schools as we are bringing new schools online.

Is this creating a racially imbalanced school?

But then we talked about can we look at race as well?

Can we not?

Per state law we can't use race for a factor for people in schools.

creating a racially imbalanced school then is something we can't do either.

So when we look at that what about the socioeconomic imbalanced schools?

Can we take that into consideration as well as we are looking at making new schools?

I know our counsel came up and mentioned that we can't use certain things but maybe that doesn't prohibit us from asking certain things for the assignment plan.

And other issues I know they are going to be coming up too.

Homelessness here in Seattle, the mayor is trying to get more low-income housing and unfortunately that is going to again create a high density of low-income families in a certain area.

How can we work with the city of Seattle to make sure that we have the resources available to handle that potential again change in our demographics?

I guess I would just want to make one comment about the point you raised about the changes in the student assignment plan.

And ultimately you know we do want to look at and think at everything in respect to what's best for our students.

And a lot of that is driven when we think about positive outcomes.

We also need to think about the physical learning environments that our students are in.

And when we talk about the student assignment plan and the way it's outlined and the policies that are in them, they're also just considerations for us to be mindful of because we want to ensure that we are following our district policies and if there is something we need to revisit that is still something together that we have to do.

So a big part of as we communicate things is wanting to be consistent with our policies and if we are changing things have transparency around things that are changing so that people understand the things that are changing and how they are changing.

We would welcome suggestions that you have around the student assignment plan and we do anticipate having additional conversations around that with school leaders and communities.

So Director Burke also asked me to make a statement about this topic.

A number of these schools I think are in his district.

He has been heavily involved in this.

So it is actually a very long statement.

I am not going to read all of it.

I will send the rest of it to you guys and you can take a look and to my colleagues.

The feedback I have heard, so this is Director Burke.

The feedback I have heard clearly from my local constituents and families across the city is that the current plan creates systemwide disruption for school communities that our families and building staff have built through personal investment of time and resources.

At the individual level our potential action splits families from their established routines and supporting resources such as before and aftercare.

We are asking students to potentially reset their classroom and building level relationships at a new school.

Some of my specific points of discomfort include opening Cedar Park as an attendance area school is highly concerning due to the cascading disruption in the Northeast region and explicit creation of a disproportionate ELL, FRL and historically underserved population.

I would like to see more in-depth analysis of alternate enrollment models.

The strategy proposed for Green Lake Elementary mitigation doesn't sufficiently address the unique situation of an attendance area which also contains two language immersion option schools nor does it effectively leverage the available space at BF Day.

Shifting students to Bagley which is already crowded and will be transitioning to an interim site during renovation magnifies disruption for those families.

I have multiple concerns about middle schools and deferring consideration of HCC pathways.

The HCC student cohorts are large enough to have a major impact on utilization at Robert Eagle Staff and the current plan could leave Whitman vulnerably under enrolled.

There is an overwhelming community call for grandfathering, ideally to include siblings.

This comes with the recognition that grandfathering delays the relief which can come from boundary adjustments.

I universally support this vision since committed families promote healthy schools in a way that no board created policy can.

And then he makes some suggestions but I think I can send these to everybody.

Any more questions or comments?

The board is now immediately.

The board is now immediately recessing the regular board meeting into closed session as allowed by RCW 42.30.140 an executive session regarding labor negotiations and litigation which is scheduled for 40 minutes with an anticipated end time.

Thank you.

you