School Board Meeting 212017 Part 2

Peters I will now turn it over to Superintendent Nyland where he's going to bring us his comments for the evening.

Nyland All right and I will thank you.

I will start with a proclamation and another presentation.

February 13, 2017 is national African-American parent involvement day and I think it dates back to 1995 as a carryover from the million man march.

So and we have with us tonight we have Kristin DeWitt from South Shore and as you'll hear when I read the proclamation South Shore has been our leader here in Seattle leading this effort since 2007 and last year they had I think over 200 African-American men who came on this date.

and made a very incredible impact on the students at South Shore and they had I think it was almost a daylong presentation with student panels and community panels and opportunities to visit classrooms.

The proclamation is in support of national African-American parent involvement day February 13, 2017. Whereas partnerships between families, schools, and communities are essential to advance student learning and eliminate opportunity gaps.

Whereas African-American parent involvement in their child's education is essential.

Whereas exposing students to the influence of African-American men and celebrating African-American diversity are key components in motivating students.

Whereas South Shore pre-K to 8 school has been a local leader in engaging African-American parents and African-American men since 2007. Whereas the number of Seattle schools celebrating diversity on National African-American Parent Involvement Day continues to grow and whereas the National African-American Parent Involvement Day is intended to be inclusive of African-American students as well as students and parents from our multicultural and diverse populations.

Now, therefore, Seattle Public Schools hereby congratulates and recognizes South Shore Pre-K 8 school and all other Seattle Public Schools celebrating National African-American Parent Involvement Day.

And further, that Seattle Public Schools adds our voice in the proclamation of February 13 as National African-American Parent Involvement Day.

So with that, I'd invite Kristen to wit up and if she wants to say anything she can and if she doesn't, she doesn't need to.

to the principles that came before me.

I simply inherited.

this wonderful event and last year I was wrapped around, the only thing I really did was open the doors.

The community, this is an important event to them, the community came in, they taught me how to run the event and they developed a committee called the 100 men which we have that meets every month at our school and is working on getting more African-American men in our school on a regular basis.

This year the goals are to be honoring the African-American women as the first teachers in their children's life and we will start with the same meet and greet that we've had in the morning where we will be high-fiving kids in, you may have seen us last year.

We will also be having our own Keisha Scarlett be the keynote speaker, we will have a community panel talking about why people come back to the Rainier Valley to come work and influence kids so that they can meet their potential and what are the challenges that are still before us.

We will be having some demonstration teaching from some of our teachers and some breakout sessions and then a healing circle that's going to be run by Sabrina Burr.

And last year our students didn't get to be involved in it but tonight I have my student body president here with me.

I'm going to let her introduce herself and also just allow her to say why she thinks this is an important day in our school.

Hi my name is Rena Mateja and I go to South Shore.

I think this is an important day because it just goes to show the students how the it's not just how society and how people think it's important for kids to get their education and to that they care about them.

Thank you.

And then yeah you should really hear her speak she may be presenting that day.

The other thing I just want to let you know coming up spontaneously and I think many more schools than just South Shore this Friday stand up for all children is happening and it's been something that's kind of been very similar to South Shore's Napa day in the sense that social media has made it take off so we've invited our entire community to be standing outside with welcome signs and I'm sure that it will be happening in many other schools as well so I just wanted to give you a heads up to watch for some other public positive press about Seattle schools.

Thank you.

All right and we will invite the board down to do a picture and we will give you the plaque and get a picture and then we will take the plaque back so we can copy it and send it to the other schools as well.

I was so embarrassed that I was in non-school clothes.

Thank you.

So if you're available come to South Shore on the 13th or we can probably let you know about other schools that are maybe in your neighborhood.

A very very impressive and moving event and incredible to see the student faces light up as they come to school.

Tonight my comments, I'll try to be briefer than I have before.

Comment on our strategic plan, some of the critical issues, good news and our community engagement piece.

So our strategic plan has three major goals, first of all student learning, second systems improvement and third community engagement.

And I'll just highlight one or two things under each of those categories.

The Seattle alliance of black school educators held an event on January 21 at Mercer middle school thank you.

Incredible event, they do this every year.

Last year they had a standing room only event and this year they invited many of our staff as well as some others to come and make presentations.

So Eric Anderson from our research department presented our information both on the gaps as well as on our outliers and then we were able to present some of the information that we've been learning about eliminating suspensions and some of the things that are working for us.

So it was a really great day, good representation of parents, good representation of teachers, good representation of parapros and we had some great student voices actually from South Shore.

So one more example of a great community partner that works with us to help figure out together how we can eliminate opportunity gaps.

Under systems improvement this year is shaping up to be all budget all the time.

And we have three major messages around the budget.

One is we are trying to communicate as well as we possibly can with parents and staff our concern for each and every person and the great programs that we have in the district while sharing the bad news about budget cuts that we hope won't happen but that we have to plan for.

Second, the board has been engaged in numerous, sometimes it feels like endless, work sessions in terms of how to close a $74 million gap.

That's 10% of our budget, it's huge so thank you to the board for continuing to work with us to figure out how to do that.

At this point in time we do have a plan, a worst-case budget for how to close the $74 million gap and the next part of the work will be figuring out a restoration plan.

We certainly hope that we don't have to make that $74 million in cuts.

It seems, I won't use an adjective I might get myself in trouble.

But it seems really challenging at this particular juncture when we are under court order to spend billions more on schools and we have a growing economy and we have a growing teacher shortage that we are faced with the levy cliff so that's the third message is that this is a manufactured crisis.

And, it's partly due to the $30 million that the legislature has determined that they will take away from us, money that's already approved by our local taxpayers.

And secondly, the $40 million or so, actually it's far more than that, but our shortfall of $40 million associated with compensation, which the Supreme Court has said is a state responsibility.

We had staff here, well I guess at the state level we appreciate our delegation supporting us, we appreciate the house that voted 62 to 35 to delay the levy cliff and at least let us continue with staffing without making so many disruptions to schools.

And I guess there is a small glimmer of hope, we do appreciate the fact that the Senate Republicans have released a budget so we at least know what they are thinking about.

They did call us and talk to us about it so that we would have a little bit of advance notice.

We had staff here over the weekend working to figure out what the impact would be on us.

We were in Olympia testifying on Monday, Dr. Geary was there and representing us along with our staff.

And we've been working today with trying to fully understand what the impact of the Senate budget is.

So I won't say too much in public but it doesn't appear that there, yeah it doesn't do much to close our gap for us.

So it looks like there would still be a huge gap for us.

So more to come on analyzing that.

Community engagement, just highlight one of many many many many, the community engagement task force, Director Harris and chief engagement officer Kerry Campbell have had many many many meetings with our community engagement task force.

They've been helping put together a plan and toolkit.

The plan is available, the toolkit will be posted to the website soon.

And I had the opportunity to be at their last meeting and thank them for their work.

And they were looking at a communication platform that would allow us to better interact with our families throughout the district.

So more to come on that.

Hot topics, the Nesbitt homeless encampment proposal is kind of one of the issues of our time in terms of the challenges of homelessness and how the city is trying to address that issue and be responsive and helpful in the process.

The director of the homeless programs came out and walked the proposed site with our district staff and so we appreciate that partnership with the city and so we do recognize I guess this is another one of those radical middle where we are trying to assist or at least the city is trying to assist with the homelessness issue and we are working with them and they are working with us to make sure that in the process we are keeping our students safe.

President Trump's executive orders with regard to immigration and the Mexican wall have caused many problems around the nation but particularly for Seattle Public Schools incredible angst and anxiety amongst our parents.

So we have partnered with the city of Seattle on two events already we will have others We've been working with parents to have them let us know what their emergency contact information is out of their fear for being deported and where and how their children will be cared for.

if that were to transpire.

So we continue to work with our families to do what we can to let them know that we are here first and foremost for them and for their children, our students and we've done several things along those lines.

So we have worked with principals to say if right now it's not the federal government's policy to come to the school with immigration issues.

But if that were to transpire we have directed that all of those requests will go through our legal department and we will make absolutely certain that there is appropriate legal authority before any intrusions would happen on our campus.

We have taken other steps, we will continue to do what we can in regard to that.

And there was a communication that went out this week to all of our parents.

One of those related items is that on February 11 Saturday, next Saturday we will be hosting an identity safe schools teach-in at Garfield and this is a collaborative effort with our teachers as to what are the things that we can do.

to make sure that our students feel safe around the current immigration crisis that we are having but every day for our students particularly our students of color we want students to feel great about coming to school and sharing their culture, sharing their identity and participating in a great education.

There is circulating a video of a preschool teacher that was at one of the rallies and identifies herself as a Seattle preschool teacher.

We have researched that every which way we can that is not a teacher in Seattle public schools.

Good news, too many to mention I'll just do the highlights.

Microsoft has provided Garfield high school with up to $120,000 in donations to support a creative learning and music project.

It's really an exciting project and one that I've been a little bit more involved in than some of these others but I'll stop.

Nathan Hale, senior Michael Porter Jr. was named a McDonald's All-American and last Friday Nathan Hale, number one in the nation, played Garfield high school number two in Washington and won by four points.

The governor was there, Mack Lamar was there, coach Lorenzo Romar was there.

It was quite the event and if Nathan Hale wins out they will be invited to participate in a national championship.

Leschi elementary school is one of seven North American schools selected to receive a $10,000 grant to purchase new technology.

Congratulations to Leschi.

There is a new attendance look up tool that is updated and posted to our website.

Families can now look up attendance for their child.

Finally the Seattle Public Schools athletic department has announced the creation of Seattle Public Schools athletic Hall of Fame honoring our outstanding Seattle Public Schools high school students, athletes, coaches, administrators and that will launch on February 16 so another exciting opportunity.

Community engagement highlights, special education having a, looks like had a Northwest regional meeting on January 31 at Ballard high school.

Leadership development, Many of us at senior leadership here had an opportunity to participate in an ongoing series of workshops that have been held as part of the board support for smart goal number five which is community engagement.

So this is an effort to provide skills and opportunities for district level leaders and school leaders so that we have more problem-solving tools at our disposal to hopefully interact with the public earlier and more often and be able to resolve many of those issues at the school level and have fewer of them that cause consternation for parents and or end up in the appeals process which then we know that we've gotten behind on in the past.

Indian education held their first culture night at Lincoln high school well attended on January 23. The African-American male advisory committee met last week on the 26th.

And the options school choice fair was on Saturday so I didn't count up I think we have about 20 schools that were there as far as I know they were all there.

Thank you to Director Harris for coming by and attending.

So, other than the fact that I don't have time I have lots of notes from the schools that I visited and as always I learned lots of cool things that the option schools do that I know a lot but I didn't know at all so it was a great event and extra effort by those schools to be there and enrollment and others to set up and welcome our parents and our public there.

So there's more pages of community engagement that I won't take time to go through but they are available at the back table and they are available here for a second.

The website is being refreshed and if you want to help us out you can go online and complete an online activity that will give us feedback on how well we are doing on the refresh.

And the nutrition services department has a survey underway and we've got 300 responses so far.

And then finally school visits are always the highlight for me and I had an opportunity this week to be at Alki, James, Madison and Lafayette.

At Alki as you walk into their building they have this big sign up that says collaboration communications and respect.

And the principal has an interactive actually a mail slot right next to her door there where she is taken and responded to 100 notes from the students that has led to their plans to modify their recess and start a newspaper.

not rehearsed, the principal didn't know about it either but one of the teachers was using a book called the Severing Westmore the story of an African-American student who overcame obstacles to become successful and students were busy taking notes and doing all of their literacy work in terms of How do I make a case and how do I use evidence?

So it was what evidence do I have of the kinds of obstacles that this student overcame in order to become successful.

So one of those great ideas that we want to capture and replicate and share and sounds like a really good resource.

And I was I'm always interested in the library but the librarian at James Madison is over the top in terms of, I'm sorry not choked up over the librarian.

a little something in my throat there, sorry.

For Valentine's Day they are doing a blind date with a book, so she's wrapped up all of these books and has the kids come by and check out a book to be introduced to a new genre.

And for March they do their March Madness final four.

and the students vote for all of the pairings as they get on to the final four.

And so she asked me what do you like to read and I said historical fiction and so her recommendation to me was the boys who challenged Hitler, Danish students that were resisting the Nazi during World War II.

So I've got a new friend to go look at, a new book friend.

And Lafayette had all kinds of good things underway in terms of recognizing students, kind of their leopard prints, paw prints that they do to recognize students and up in the lunchroom the recognition of the character traits of the month all signed by individual students.

As I always say when I get the opportunity to be out in schools 99.9% of everything that's going on in Seattle is awesome work and good things are happening and students are being educated in the schools and so that's my report.

Thank you Dr. Nyland.

So this is the part of the meeting where we normally have student comments but unfortunately we don't have a student guest tonight so we move on to our consent agenda.

So we have reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda, may I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move that we pass the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

Do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda?

Seeing none, let's now go on to the roll call.

All in favor of the consent agenda?

Signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

Okay the consent agenda has passed.

All right it is just after 5 o'clock and public commentary doesn't begin until 530 so we can now move on to director comments at this point.

Are there any directors who would like to speak at this point?

Director Harris thank you.

Thank you.

Shout out and huge thank you to Salmon Bay and their performers and their staff.

They did an awesome job and it just shows what a difference the arts makes.

And it was a beautiful thing.

Fifty three million five hundred thousand dollars is the today's total of the McCleary fines at one hundred thousand dollars a day.

And I find that astonishing and shameful.

A shout out and a thank you to our own director Jill Geary who is a rock star she can be seen on TVW testifying on behalf of the district also to Deputy Superintendent Nielsen and to folks from the Seattle PTSA from Washington paramount duty and for soup for teachers.

It was impressive testimony in 90 second bites.

And the disrespect shown to limit folks to 90 seconds is distressing and I hope the folks will call their.

legislative representatives.

Huge shout out to the folks in enrollment planning, all the service providers in the district for the very very successful option school fair.

The attendance was amazing, over 300 folks and what was really terrific was to see the two newest folks present Cedar Park option school right inside the front door, beautiful table with encouraging and gorgeous information in several languages with the absolute embracing tone.

The other was my personal favorite or one of my personal favorites was middle college high school.

Becoming an ALE school, an option school, remember we had over 500 folks in 2009 enrolled in various campuses and Jennifer Kneasley, Helen Young, Michael Tolley, Thank you, thank you and thank you.

I'm also looking forward to seeing middle college high school work more closely on the closing opportunity gap issues.

There's a great deal of opportunity there and they are very excited about working more closely and I see that as sort of a Venn diagram and overlap.

It was it was just beyond fabulous.

Every table had terrific handouts.

The vibe and the tone was just marvelous it was welcoming and this is what we are doing and this is who we are and this is why we want you to come here.

A fabulous thing and I learned so much just having conversations with every table and you know I picked up every piece of paper in the place.

Also a big thank you to PASS and SEA representation who met with us last week and was working with us on the elementary ELA K-5 adoption.

I think it was a rich discussion, I think that folks have a better understanding of the stair step approach that's all contingent on the budget and a huge thanks to CFO JoLynn Berge who has figured out creative legal ways to get this into the schools with respect to title I dollars, district title I dollars and with respect to capital dollars which aren't harmed by the 74 million dollar deficit and it just hurts to say those words every time.

Community engagement task force, what a thrill, we made lots of progress, fabulous people, look forward to presenting our work and getting an ongoing community engagement group together.

Again many hands, all boats and making the circle wider.

Excited about the upcoming high school boundaries task force that associate superintendent Herndon is currently working on.

The sooner the better so that we don't end up with no time left and angst and we can have thoughtful terrific conversations.

I look forward to working with former president school board president Sherry Carr in moving the Seattle Public Schools foundation along.

It's high time we had our own foundation so that we can help supplement and that work is ongoing.

Excited about discussing and in some small part tomorrow safe zone resolutions with respect to our immigrant and refugee families.

We've reached out to the city and hopefully we can leverage their good information.

I'm excited about the March 4 board retreat when we'll be addressing legal boot camp part one and we'll also be getting training on the race and equity tool.

Terribly important work and all public meetings and I hope you join us.

We usually feed you as well.

Community meetings, I'm having a heck of a time finding space in West Seattle.

I hope to be able to schedule Saturday, third Saturday from 3 to 5, keep you posted, take a look at the board webpage.

It does look like I have a March meeting at one of the libraries which is exciting.

and I've started something new I am currently camped out in the board conference room over here at 7 AM on Wednesday mornings to have conversations with folks and folks can learn me up if they want to get up early and I will be here at 7 AM on the Thursdays as well that we have executive committee meetings.

Unfortunately meeting in the middle of the day is disastrous to my other life, my paying job.

So and if it's a big issue I'll buy a cup of coffee over the weekend, I'll come to you.

So again it is an honor and it's really hard work and the budget issues are terrifying.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

Would anyone else like to speak?

Director Blanford.

I'll start off my remarks by again thanking Mari Offenbecker who I first met 15 years ago when I was working for the district.

She was nominally my boss as a employee of the district though we had a shared grant with the Stewart foundation and she managed that grant and so I got to know her and learn of her passion for alignment between community-based organizations and school districts and have been a huge fan of hers ever since and so I appreciate the opportunity to hear the good work that schools at Washington is doing and to congratulate her on her many years of service to Seattle Public Schools children.

I also would like to thank the fabulous presentation that we got from the Salmon Bay K-8 thespians.

Their presentation of much ado about nothing reminded me of the fact that when we first read that I didn't get it back then and to a certain extent I still don't.

But it was great to see it acted out.

I am planning to introduce a resolution around immigration.

I'll talk about the fact that I was at the national school board association conference this past week but while I was there there was a huge amount of conversation about resolutions that school districts around the country have taken to take a strong affirmative stance against the type of bullying and intimidation that we are seeing.

And before I left for that trip I had a phone call from someone that I've known for a long time who works in one of our schools who again shared The climate in some of our schools has really shifted as a result of the election and the inauguration and I believe that we like many other districts around the state and around the country many in the Puget Sound area but many around the country who have taken very affirmative stances saying that it's not okay in our buildings and on our property for this to be happening and so I believe that Seattle Public Schools should be taking such a a similar stance and will introduce legislation or a resolution to that end.

Blanford.

During the time that I was at the National School Board Association meeting at their advocacy training session that started on Saturday of this past week and just ended yesterday.

We had the opportunity to meet with newly elected or newly chosen Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and I also had the opportunity to meet with the important staff person or the key staff person for Senator Murray who handles her education issues.

Senator Murray yesterday was giving a very blistering oppositional response to the Secretary of Education designee.

and as a result was not able to attend our session and we welcomed the fact that she wasn't able to because she was on the stage or in the room in the meeting room at the time giving as good as she got and so I was very supportive of that notion.

But while we were there we had the opportunity to talk about three primary issues.

The first being some relief for school districts around the state and around the country for the regulations that have been proposed around child nutrition that are causing great difficulty for us in Seattle Public Schools and other locations.

We also had the opportunity to advocate for full funding of IDEA, the individuals with disability and education act.

At present there is a lot of peril to the existing funding on that issue.

And so the National School Board Association, the Washington State School Board Association and we as individual board members took a very strong stance saying that that funding needs to be preserved and enhanced if at all possible so that we can continue to serve all of our children that are enrolled in our special ed programs.

And then finally because we have not fully funded or we have not appropriated money for our CTE our career and technical education programs we also took a similar stance advocating for strong funding of those programs.

And so it was a very in my mind a very successful trip, made great connections with lots of other school board members around the state and around the nation and I look forward to future events.

I have a community meeting that is scheduled for this Saturday.

I missed the last community meeting because of death in the family so I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to share my perspectives and learn from the community.

The meeting is scheduled for this Saturday again at 10 o'clock and going until 12 o'clock and it's scheduled at the Douglas Douglas truth library at 23rd and Yesler.

And I'll end my remarks by thanking the folks that came from South Shore and the recognition that the superintendent gave them around African-American education.

And one of the things that happened while I was at the conference when I got away from the conference I went to the African-American museum and it was a profound experience for me as an African-American man but I encourage anyone for any reason to go there because it is the new Smithsonian institution that's on the mall and it is fabulous.

Tickets are not very easy to come by but it is well worth standing in line it seems like they are getting it easier to get a ticket.

At the basement so you go into the place and you go down into the basement and it's like you were very intentional in setting it up like you're going into a slave ship.

And as you come out of that exhibit You experience what it was like during the years of slavery and then emancipation all the way up to the civil rights movement on the basement floor before you move up to the second floor and the third floor and the fourth floor.

And I just have to share the fact that realizing where African-American people were and getting to the top floor and seeing the huge impact that we have culturally and athletically and in so many different ways on not only on American society but impacting the entire world.

It's a pretty incredible thing that we have gotten to the place that we have gotten to.

And I think the curators of the entire museum did a brilliant job at one point by saying that one of the key leverage points was the fact that we work together and collaboratively.

But they also spoke to the fact that we value education.

and there was a section of the exhibit where they talked about the history of African-American people in education going all the way from the days where we weren't allowed to read books to the time of Brown versus Board of Education until now.

And as I was walking through and just so proud of the path that we have taken as people and as African-Americans I was struck by how important it is that we continue to advocate for not only for public education but for access to high-quality public education.

Because I believe in my mind, I believe in my heart of hearts that that is the primary leverage point.

Not only for African-Americans but for all oppressed people in our society.

And so I just wanted to end my comments with because it was so fresh I was there this time yesterday.

Wanted to end my comments with a recommitment to that advocacy.

Again not only for African-American people but for all people who do not currently have access to high quality education.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

That's a tough act to follow but I want to I want to try to follow that by highlighting how amazing it is to be surrounded by the people that we are surrounded by you know on the dais, staff, community, presentation from schools at Washington reminded us of you know what our community-based organizations are doing and how many points of how many touch points our students are getting that help them on their journeys.

I also don't get out that much so I really appreciate the performance from the Salmon Bay team and it's I'm trying to think when the last time was that I actually went to a play so this was this was my cultural exposure.

On back to the theme of what a great group of people we are working with here, I wanted to put a special shout out to the enrollment services group, Ashley Davies.

She took the time to sit down with me and constituent Kathleen Zagers from Olympic view to really try to hash out what are the boundary challenges that they are facing because they've been bounced around a bunch of times and trying to understand how the concerns of the individual families and the commonality of the groups and how that dovetails with our desire as a district to build a kind of a sustainable system and continuity and Ashley and Flip Herndon were great in terms of synthesizing that information and bringing it forward and being able to provide a recommendation.

And I recognize that that's probably going to be an ongoing topic of conversation so I look forward to hearing from the community on that.

A couple of other points that are becoming, there is starting to be more traffic and more concern around the Loyal Heights community and the families that are being served by the nurturing knowledge childcare program.

I just wanted to reaffirm that when I made my decision or statement about the Loyal Heights building and that site.

We were given assurances that the nurturing knowledge program could successfully implement their services in the multiuse spaces and so my ask to families that are involved in that is that they engage with the building leadership and potentially even the design team to understand how that building is forming and figure out how to hit the ground running when that building opens up that they are really maximizing the use of their multiuse spaces so that they can serve kids at the same high level that they are serving them now because we hear such positive things about them.

Another point that I just want to touch on around the highly capable cohort and advanced learning, this has been an ongoing topic of discussion among the board, among the staff, among the community.

the disproportionality in highly capable and how we address that and how it flows into our advanced learning and how it dovetails with our general education.

And so I just wanted to be really clear that that is a topic of concern and it's a topic that's being discussed on C&I.

the curriculum instruction committee and board directors are having that conversation as well.

And the idea it was raised by a colleague of mine Director Geary about making it a smart goal.

And I think that that is a that's also something that we're hearing from the community as a request if we're going to really reduce disproportionality and really figure out how to leverage our advanced learning programs and get better you know have it be a component of our closing opportunities gaps work that we should make it a smart goal.

And I just want to emphasize that for this year we do have a smart goal for MTSS multi-tiered systems of support.

And I want to emphasize that advanced learning is an integral component of that.

And so while I don't envision that we are going to make advanced learning a dedicated smart goal this year.

I do believe that we have extremely high leverage points working through the multi-tiered systems of supports planning to establish advanced learning, advanced learning strategies and proven teaching methods of acceleration for all of our students not just ones that have a particular label or a particular score but how we can get that to all of our students.

A couple of upcoming events tomorrow there's a high school education funding high school and education funding panel discussion that I was invited to sit on tomorrow February 2nd 730 PM Ballard high school hosted by the PTSA I'm excited for that.

And then I have a community meeting on Saturday February 18th 330 to 530 at Fremont Public Library.

Hope to see you there.

Thanks.

Director Geary.

I'd like to start with thank you to schools at Washington learned about that program several years ago and was immediately struck by the important work that they were doing all across our state as well now to learn about it more within our district.

It's so important to have a resource like that to serve the needs of kids during the summer to make sure that they are staying on pace.

So thank you to all that great work.

Thank you to Salmon Bay and their theater performance.

I thought they did a remarkable job of bringing to life Shakespeare which is often unaccessible when done professionally and these are middle schoolers and it was hard to, I had to keep reminding myself of that just as I often have to do with some of our musical performances that we have students of such great talent and teachers that are fostering it.

It is truly great to see.

Congratulations to Nathan Hale basketball.

That's just, that's so exciting.

I think that's awesome.

Okay and then last Monday did go to Olympia to testify before the Senate, Stephen Nielsen thank you to him he testified about the GOP plan.

I testified and asked them to please prevent the devastating impact of the levee cliff.

I see Serena Burr out there shaking her head yeah she was out there along with our parents from Washington Paramount duty.

And I want to say thank you to all the Seattle public school parents that showed up.

Several of them with children in tow.

And you can tell that that is impressive to the senators that are there to make the decisions because they know it's impacting families and yet it's so hard to convey to them the devastating impact that this money is going to have if it is taken away from our students.

It's hard to sit in the audience and not just think that it's such an easy thing.

I mean it's the right thing to do to let us have access to that money for our kids and I have to say as I was sitting there even within my 90 seconds I could just feel just the injustice of it and the anger.

So I hope it was heard.

I hope all of our voices were heard.

We have to keep talking to them and encouraging them to do the right thing.

I think we are going to see more and more that education is the bipartisan vote changer and that we need to encourage all of our families to stand up for kids and do what is right for our kids.

And I hope that isn't violating any type of anti-lobbying policy.

So, I continue to do my Thursday morning coffees, please come by that's at Zoka on Blakely behind University Village.

I just set up my computer and wait for people to show up so even if you have 10 or 15 minutes you can pop by before work please do so.

My next community meeting will be on February 11 at 345 at the Montlake community center until 515. I did hold a similar meeting last weekend and I was joined by a young man from Garfield high school who was there to tell me about the honors for all program and how he really appreciates how their school is offering honors education to all of its students.

And he wants to see that duplicated throughout our district.

We talked for a while he was adamant about that being the right thing to do.

And when I suggested that it would be nice to hear from more of our high school students he made it very clear to me that we need to ask all of our high school students not just our highly capable students about the highly capable program.

And so It was great and I told him that and I will tell anybody listening that I want to hear from our students.

I want them to come and talk to the board, I want them to show up at our meetings and let us know these are our kids, they are so smart we've done such a good job educating them we need to listen to them because they are the ones that understand the world they are going into.

And we need to listen to them about what they think that world is going to look like and how we can best prepare them for it.

So thank you for showing up to my meeting and I hope more of you do.

And that pretty much concludes my comments.

The one thing that I do want to remind and I spoke about this last time and I think we all need to remember it.

There's layers of anxiety in our school district right now we have this huge financial deficit we are facing and our parents know about it and it's appropriate that they know about it and then we have all the turmoil on the national level and we have to remember that some of our children cannot cope with our anxiety and do the jobs they have to do by going to school.

And if we are contributing to a level of them feeling unsafe it's going to impact their education, it's going to impact their ability to deal with their peers.

And so while it is a very anxiety provoking time and there's lots of big issues please be mindful.

of how that is affecting your children, our students and their interactions with their peers because I've been hearing how kids are acting in ways that people wouldn't expect them to and I would think that that is because there's a really high level of anxiety and it is all of the adults jobs to remember to try and protect those kids from the adult problems that we have to work on solving.

Thank you.

Okay thank you Director Geary.

We will continue board comments after public testimony.

We have now reached the public testimony part of the evening.

It is I would ask.

Let's see.

Sorry I'm reading the wrong part.

The rules for public testimony are on the screen and I would ask the speakers be respectful of these rules.

I would note that the board does not take public comments on items related to personnel or individually named staff.

I would also like to note that each speaker has two minutes to speak.

And when the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

Ms. Ritchie will read off the names of the testimony speakers.

Thank you.

Ferro Yoder, Chris Jackins, Greg Giles, Ferro?

I think, is our first speaker here?

No?

Okay Chris Jackins is our second one.

My name is Chris Jackins, Box 84063, Seattle 98124. On the construction cost increases for three projects, Jane Addams, the roofing projects and the athletic field.

Two points, number one, together these cost increases amount to $10.4 million.

Number two, please try rebidding.

If no school district rebids then all districts will overpay.

Please vote no on these cost increases.

On the school bus contract, two points, number one, there was only one bidder.

Would a one-year contract make more sense?

Number two, the district says it cannot afford healthcare coverage for people driving 20 to 30 hours a week.

But the district is seeking external funding to support two tiers.

The district should also seek such funding to cover healthcare.

On the Magnolia racial imbalance resolution, three points.

Number one, to obtain state matching funds the board must certify that constructing the school will not create or aggravate racial imbalance.

The district analysis indicates that this is not true.

Number two, the district changed the language to instead assert that the project will minimize racial imbalance.

This is not the language of the state law.

Number three how embarrassing for the board and superintendent.

This should have been an opportunity to address the reality that the district's student assignment policies create and aggravate racial imbalance.

Please vote no.

Thank you.

My name is Greg Gillis and I'm here to support the Olympic View community.

We've been working with Director Burke to try to find a solution and we appreciate his work.

We also remember that at the January 11th board meetings you indicated that you needed more information before you can make an informed decision.

And you have before you tonight we put together a packet with the information that the community has worked very hard to collect and to gather to try to really express what the problem is for our community.

in your packet you will find this map and I think this really illustrates the issue that we face.

This is the Olympic view attendance area and you won't find this map anywhere on the district's website but you are in fact dividing our community not just at one point but right down the middle and no one in the community believes that this makes sense.

94% of the community still wants an amendment at this point, this late point in time and 84% feel that feeding all of these students into Jane Addams makes the most sense.

Now one of your concerns was what are we going to do with the busing costs?

But all of these kids are already bused either to Eckstein or to Jane Addams so there is no new busing costs.

You might save money for the state by having these kids walk to Robert Eagle Staff but it's not going to save any money for the district because it's reimbursed by the state.

So we don't feel that that's a valid issue of why these kids should be moved.

And another concern that we have is that all of these kids are in fact in either the Roosevelt or the Hale walk zone.

So for these reasons please consider what we presented and take further action.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next we have Brandi Flood followed by Anna Marshall and Terry Yoder.

Hello board thanks for having me.

So my name is Brandi flood I'm born and raised in the Rainier Beach area, graduated from Rainier Beach high school.

I'm here to address the budget cuts and really ask you guys to keep Rainier Beach going and Rainier Beach alive.

I'm asking that you eliminate any operational or staff cuts that you have in mind for our school.

We've been gaining momentum, our graduation rates are going up, we have an IB program that has access to all students, all students can be a part of that program.

It is really important that we keep our staffing, instruction, support staff, maintenance staff, our academic programs.

We have been a school of distinction for two years running.

Like I said our graduation rates have gone up 82%.

I know that you guys have some heavy decisions to make with this budget cut.

It just makes no sense, it would be a shame if you cut any programs.

It won't support your efforts to eliminate disparities in our school district.

I especially wanted to speak to some of the support programs.

I myself graduated from there in 94 and if it wasn't for programs like upper Brown I would have never gone to college.

I would have never gotten my graduate degree in social work and right now my daughter is in the ninth grade and she goes to Rainier Beach and one of the reasons I wanted her there is because of the sense of community.

Because of the way they wrap their arms around our children and make sure they have the utmost success.

So I know none of you guys would be here doing this work if you didn't love the work that you do.

In the words of one of my very favorite authors.

Justice is what love looks like in public and so I hope that you make decisions not just based on your intellect but based on your heart when you think about the cuts that you're going to do to the southeast district schools.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi I'm Anna Marshall.

Oh am I too loud?

Too soft?

Let's move up.

Okay.

So I'm here to talk about Olympic View reference area.

And by now you probably know the deal.

A small area of our community is being sent across the freeway to join a new community.

Olympic View Elementary School is one of the few schools in Seattle that doesn't feed into a single middle school.

We've been advocating about this issue for over three years it's a really small area so we've really struggled to be heard and at the last meeting we were so excited because there was some discussion about it and it sounded like you guys really were looking for more information and were looking for a solution for us.

But you didn't have the information you needed so we went back and we spent even more time and we gathered it and we provided forecasts and we've touched base with our community and we've confirmed that everybody is still really on board.

We want to go to one of the Northeast schools and mostly we think it's appropriate for us to be sent to jams with the rest of our neighborhood and the rest of our school.

I want to point out that the small small cohort of kids who would be sent to Robert Eagle staff would likely be sent back really small group for high school because we are in the walk zone for both Hale and for Roosevelt.

So we basically did what you asked and now I'm really hoping that you know you'll do your part and not let this issue go down as just a remnant or an afterthought of what's been a really messy boundary process.

So thank you to everybody and please just make what we're asking for is a really considered conscious decision.

Thank you very much.

Next we have Terry Yoder who will be followed by Lori Hiltz and Debbie Gruba.

Terry Yoder.

Lori Hiltz.

Hello my name is Lori Hiltz and I'm the president of the Seattle special education PTSA.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight.

There have been tremendous changes made in the parent engagement in special education this year.

After a long period of the district and parents being locked in a somewhat adversarial position it should be known that parents and special ed leadership have endeavored to build a positive working relationship.

Parents have been included in system and policy changes.

We bring problems to the attention of the district and participate in the difficult work of addressing these problems.

It's my hope that this will be useful information for you the school board so when there are policies and concerns about special education brought in front of you there are places that you can go for the parent perspective.

The four parent organizations that I'm about to describe are deeply involved in the work of the special education department.

First there's a special education PTSA.

We are a district wide PTSA serving all students who need special education.

The board is comprised in addition to myself Jennifer Dabona Linda Casey Daniel Hall and Ariane Fowler.

We have a focus of outreach and community building and have been the parent leaders in the building of this partnership with the district.

The advocacy function of this group is identifying parent concerns and bringing them to the district's attention.

SEAC or the Special Education Advisory and Advocacy Council is comprised of staff community and family members associated with special ed services.

The advocacy function of this committee is to advise district staff on issues of special education as systems policy and process changes are being made.

The special ed task force is comprised of teachers and related staff from both special and general education, SEA representatives, special ed administrators and parents tasked with visioning the structure and delivery of special education districtwide.

And finally the parent partners program is a district program designed to assist special ed parents to navigate Seattle Public Schools special education.

It connects trained parent partners with other parents who need more support in the IEP process.

And so finally I'd like to say that there is a crossover between these groups to build cohesion and PTSA board members are associated with each of these other groups as well.

I've emailed you this information and please contact us as needed and as would be helpful.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

The last name on our list is Debbie Gruba.

Is Debbie here?

There are no other names on the list.

Peters If anybody else would like to speak they can come up and add their name.

Okay seeing none I guess that concludes our public testimony for this evening.

So we are now able to resume board comments.

I know Director Patu would like to speak and if anyone else would like to speak in response to anything they heard from public testimony you may do that as well.

Director Patu.

I would like to say thank you to Washington Out for a successful partnership with Seattle Public Schools because great partnerships are hard to come by these days and they have been partnerships with Seattle schools for quite a while so thank you Washington Out for all the work that you do for Seattle Public Schools.

I'd also like to say thank you to Semin Bay K8 for an amazing performance of Shakespeare which is usually a very hard act to follow.

You know you have to really be to know your stuff if you are going to actually perform Shakespeare and the students that performed tonight did an amazing job so thank you Semin Bay for a job well done.

I also would like to say thank you to Kristen DeWitt and Sabrina Burr for continuing the national African-American parent involvement day at South Shore.

We know how important that is and to continue on making that happen I think it's amazing for all our kids especially our African-American students at South Shore.

Congratulations to Nathan Hale for placing first place and also Garfield for second place It's kind of unusual, usually Rainier Beach is in first place but I guess this year you know what it's time for a change.

That's okay Rainier Beach will come back.

Also I really want to say thank you to Dr. Nyland and also Mayor Murray for supporting the immigration status that actually has been out there and I know that a lot of our parents are quite nervous and even some of our students in terms of what has been happening but I think that when we as a district stand out and say that no matter what We are not looking at no matter what ethnic group or what color or whatever status that you are, these kids are our kids no matter how we look at it.

And it's great that we as a district can actually step forward and say you know what we are going to be here for these kids and their families no matter what.

So I say thank you for you know having a heart to actually support these families and I know they are going through some hard times right now.

I think that it's a great thing that Seattle Public Schools is standing out and saying that we are here to help support these families.

So I think that we are starting our year off pretty good.

Even though that some things are not going in the direction that we want to go in terms of some of our schools.

But I think that you know visiting schools as a board director visiting schools has been really amazing because you get to see exactly what's going on in your schools when you're actually out there going through the different classes just watching the amazing work that is going on in various schools.

I think as a board director it helps me to understand exactly what's going on out there and how can I be supportive.

in terms of being a board director for that district.

So thank you to all the teachers in the southeast and the hard work that you do and also thank you to the PTA's and presidents and their continued support to all our schools to make sure that together we can bring out successful students.

Thank you.

Director Geary did you want to answer?

All right, thank you everybody.

I appreciate the comments that all my colleagues have made tonight and I would like to reiterate my appreciation for the public comment tonight and the presentation we had from Salmon Bay with much ado about nothing.

As well as hearing from South Shore what's going on from South Shore and being reminded of Rainier Beach high school and the good work that's happening there and the importance of sustaining the good work that's happening in all our schools.

In terms of.

minor housekeeping.

I got a next my next meeting is scheduled for a Tuesday February 14th from 1 to 2 30. I'm going to see if that time frame works for everybody.

It's been very hard to find some time on the weekends for some reason this month.

So this will be at the Magnolia library on Tuesday February 14 from 1 to 2 30. So please come and join me and bring any any issues that are on your mind.

So a lot of directors and Superintendent Nyland have been very eloquent in their reference to the mood of this nation right now in light of the changing of the guard at the national level and some executive orders that have come down that have really tested the metal moral and principles of this nation.

We are a nation of immigrants.

A lot of us have such ties and have history and some of those ties are still quite new.

My own family on both sides of my family are come from immigrant families.

I also have connections to a Jewish family.

And so what is happening within the nation right now is something that definitely resonates.

And we are aware that this is having impact within our own district.

Our own district is in a way a microcosm of the nation, we have 149 countries of origin represented in Seattle Public Schools, 143 languages and dialects are spoken by our students.

It's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

And so we as a district are committed to the education and safety of all of our students.

We are going to discuss in executive committee tomorrow a resolution that will address this so I'm really glad to hear how many directors are also interested in supporting a resolution.

This is something that has been done throughout the nation already.

school boards in Los Angeles, Oakland California, Denver, Minneapolis, Santa Fe New Mexico and El Paso, Portland Oregon as well they've all passed resolutions to the effect that they are saying that they have established safe zones in their schools, they will not allow immigration officials to come and take the children away and we are planning to do to create a resolution that says the same thing.

something similar so we do have a draft already so we are already going on that and if anybody wants to join us in executive committee tomorrow to further discuss it that's where it will go.

I want to remind all of our children and all of our families that they have 5th and 14th amendment rights that protect them and we will honor those rights.

You know this also brings to light the fact that education is so important and history is so important and it seems that people forget history and it is really frightening to see humanity make the same sort of mistakes that it's made in the past.

And so I'm going to conclude with a poem that I would assume everybody has heard before but at this point I no longer assume that people have heard things before or remember.

It is by a pastor who lived during World War II, his name is Martin Niemöller, he was a Protestant pastor and he opposed Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime during World War II.

And it goes like this, first they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

We are here and we will speak out for all the students in Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you.

Now take a 10 minute break and we will resume at 6 0 5. Thank you.