Part 2 Seattle School Board meeting Oct. 4, 2017

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We are now going to move on to the business action items.

So let's see.

OK our first item is adopting new school board policy number 4 2 1 8 speakers of diverse languages.

Do I have a motion?

I move approval of this item which would adopt a new policy to fulfill the rights of parents and guardians to access information about the education of their child in a language they can understand.

I second the motion.

This came to the executive committee on September 12 where it was advanced for approval.

Does anybody have any questions or comments about this item?

Director Geary.

Thank you.

During my meeting with a person who is recognized as an advocate in the deaf and hard of hearing community she raised some issue around this policy with regard to whether or not American Sign Language should be called out specifically within the policy given that the policy discusses what to do when you're making oral language translations and it talks about what to do when you are making written or written interpretations and so or translations but it doesn't really address that distinction between what happens when you're taking an oral language to a physical language like American Sign Language.

And so I did communicate with Jesse and I would like to have him come and speak to that issue and let us know on the record where those provisions are covered in our policies.

Because with a quick result the idea that it's for special ed services would mean that a student who doesn't qualify for special ed but has a parent who is deaf or hard of hearing might not necessarily have an be represented in policy.

I do understand that as a matter of course we are pretty good and we do see that those services are provided regularly.

And so I'd like to hear from Jesse on that issue.

Again good evening.

Jesse chief student support services.

So I will begin by referencing policy 21 62 and specifically it's around 504 and the guidance on that would be the Rehabilitation Act.

And as it calls out in there around our requirement to to engage parents around parent involvement.

and around accessibility.

So those general rights that families are afforded around engagement to get accessibility to their students education is something that we would be covered on that does not explicitly cover out any of the language actually in that particular policy but it does call out obviously the need for parent engagement and the accessibility of that information.

I will also note we do have under the superintendent procedure for 4221 that we do talk about interpretation services so staff can see that it's not just about one around bilingual families or further that that has to be something where it's oral to oral.

And I know in the beginning of it it does talk about that as we've had that conversation.

Director Geary but is also around just making sure that we do have those interpretations for ASL and we do do we do do that.

We spend well over as something we've brought up in the past to you is you know our contract is well in excess of $250,000 around those services that we do provide obviously both the students and families.

And I know one of the things that did come up and my last point would be what do you do in the case where ELL.

on top of ASL and we actually have that here in Seattle Public Schools.

And so right in this auditorium one of our parent engagement opportunities we had both two interpreters at that event for a family for both in Spanish and ASL.

It's one of the more fascinating moments but it was quite lovely and they engage with that family.

Peters Are there any other questions or comments about this item?

Ms. Shek the roll please.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

Item 2 approval of a one-year extension to the strategic plan.

I move that the board approve a one year extension of the 2013 18 strategic plan so that it remains in effect through the end of the 2018 19 school year.

Pinkham.

I second the motion.

This item was heard at the executive committee on September 12th where it was advanced for approval.

There has been one change since it was introduced.

see we did make a change to some of the language per the recommendation of Director Blanford.

Director Blanford did you want to speak to that change?

Blanford.

Sure.

I talked earlier about the fact that I see the strategic plan as a compact between the school district and the community that helped to develop it years ago.

And so I felt that it was critically important that we affirmatively reach out to all the participants in the prior planning process as well as our current partners and anybody else individuals who were in any way involved so that we made sure that they knew the reasons behind this extension and we could move forward in a spirit of cooperation and goodwill.

Peters Thank you.

Are there any questions or comments about this item?

Shek the roll call please.

Director Geary.

Yes.

Director Harris aye Director Burke aye Director Blanford aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

Director Pinkham.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Item 3 office of superintendent of public instruction OSPI beginning educator support team BEST grant approval.

I move that the board authorize the superintendent to accept the 2017 18 BEST grant in the amount of two hundred seventy five thousand dollars and to implement the provisions of the grant.

I second the motion.

May we please hear from the chair of the curriculum and instruction policy committee.

This came through curriculum instruction September 12th and was moved forward with a recommendation for approval.

Are there any questions or comments about this item?

Seeing none Ms.

Shek the roll call please.

Director Burke aye Director Pinkham aye Director Geary aye.

Director Harris aye.

Director Patu aye.

Director Blanford aye.

Director Peters aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

Item 4 Rainier Beach school improvement grant SIG year four funding.

I move that school board authorize the superintendent to accept the SIG year four funding for Rainier Beach High School.

I second the motion.

We please hear from the chair of the Audit and Finance Committee.

This came before A&F September 11 for approval.

Are there any questions or comments about this item?

Director Pinkham.

For the funds in this can any of it be used for facilities or is it more for training of the teachers and staff.

Students.

It could be.

Michael Stone director of grants.

It can be used to enhance classroom.

So technology pieces but not physical structure of the building.

No.

Harris.

Thank you Mr. Stone for sending those of us that were not here when the SIG grant was initially put forth responding to that request for that grant.

Much appreciated.

You're welcome.

Interesting reading that.

And just to clarify that point so what this does is extend the existing grant by one year with all the same stipulations of the existing grant is that correct?

Yes.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

I'm just kind of curious do you have a timeline like when Rainier Beach will have updated CSIPs in or is this going to be an ongoing process?

So there they've already updated their CSIP which was approved last at the last board meeting.

They will make updates with what was approved for the plan which still we're waiting for approval from OSPI and then we'll update that and get it notified that it has been updated and loaded up to the public web page.

I can't give you a timeline on that until we get information back from OSPI.

Thank you.

There are no more questions or comments.

Check the roll call please.

Director Geary.

Director Harris, aye.

Director Blanford, aye.

Director Burke, aye.

Director Pinkham, aye.

Director Patu, aye.

Director Peters, aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Okay item 5 resolution 2017 18 – 6 immediate request to the city of Seattle.

To incorporate Seattle Public Schools SPS uses as alternatives to be considered in the Fort Lawton redevelopment environmental impact statement EIS.

I move that the school board adopt resolution.

2017 dash slash 18 dash 6 as attached to the board action report.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

I second the motion.

Okay because this is an intro action item.

We have not spoken about this previously in an official board meeting format.

So I would like to turn to Director Harris who led the work on this to give us a little bit of background on this please.

Excuse me.

I referenced after community testimony Why I believe this is the right thing to do at this time and place.

Dealing with the federal government.

The Department of Education.

The U.S. Army.

Funding sources.

Politicians Department of Housing.

And probably another half dozen bureaucrats is is hard left.

But this is an opportunity we cannot afford to look the other way on.

And we need to dig down double up collaborate and preserve this once in a lifetime opportunity.

This is not the same process as the Federal Reserve building that was not successful in 2014. This is a different process.

And I again will publicly state my deep gratitude for members of the public that refuse to give up.

I've heard various things as far as reasons not to do this.

One are we ignoring our staff and our staff's recommendations.

I don't see it that way.

I see it as an opportunity for more collaboration.

I see it as an opportunity for very clear communication of expectations.

It is not disrespectful what we are doing to our staff.

In fact I think it's highly respectful that we are making it as clear as humanly possible that we want to move forward on this opportunity and we want to make best efforts and extreme due diligence.

I've heard why would you want to put a school in rich white magnolia?

First of all if one perceives Magnolia as rich and white I would beg to differ.

That neighborhood is changing dramatically.

It is aging out.

We have Expedia coming.

The Seattle Public Schools has to rely on five year forecasts and we have some new tools so hopefully we'll get better at that.

But these are not These are not regular beige bland same old same old times.

Our our city is growing very very quickly.

We need to take care of those capacity needs 10 20 and 30 years from now.

And in the interim with all the great minds in this room and in our district we can come up with creative uses.

We could put an environmental science center there as to where Some of our less endowed schools could come for day field trips at the edge of the jewel of this city.

Discovery Park it's got beaches it's got forests it's got meadows.

We can think big and we can think creatively.

There's a lot of Title 1 schools that don't get to send their fifth graders and fourth graders to Islandwood and Bainbridge Island.

They don't have the money.

Heck they don't even have a PTA let alone decent playgrounds.

But it's a whole lot cheaper to send them across town in a school bus for a day in service with environmental science.

And I have to believe that there are partners in this city that we can work with to make that happen.

Maintenance facilities.

This is not tomorrow we need to have 50 million dollars in the bank.

This process can take years.

It's worthy of the investment.

And and again we're doing this for folks when we won't be here.

Thank you very much.

Director Blanford.

I was going to make a point of order in that but I chose not to.

In that we normally get information about a referral from a committee and on my agenda I don't see any referral from a committee.

Has no committee vetted this proposal?

That is correct.

No committee vetted this proposal because many of us sponsors believe that this is an urgent scenario.

And I think that the mayor's letter today points out that urgency.

Director Burke.

I want to thank my colleague director Harris for her enthusiasm and the sort of the kick in the pants for the that helps us take this issue from a conversation where it's been for the last several board meetings to something that is I'll say more substantive.

I'm proud to have been a part of that dialogue and helping with the language.

I'm hugely appreciative of also of the community and the innovation that they've brought to this the ideas which have helped us and I and and hopefully the city as well think beyond maybe where we have been thinking previously.

And I'm also a huge supporter of the idea that this is this is not an affront from one government organization to the other.

I think people could people could put a narrative that the city excluded the district.

People could put a narrative that the district is strong arming a land grab from the city.

People could put all sorts of narratives.

But if we take those narratives away and we think about what are we going to have there we're going to have a community.

We're going to have people in their houses with their kids and we want them to have a robust community.

We want them to have housing we want them to have parks.

We want them to have schools.

And when we think about it in the in the ideal of what would things look like if they were perfect.

It feels to me like there's some things missing.

So that's my enthusiasm behind this conversation.

The slight contradiction that I'm actually going to offer as a motion and I will make a motion to officially convert this from an intro action item to an intro only item to be acted on at the subsequent board meeting.

And making that as an action I would look to see if any of my colleagues would be interested in seconding that.

Thank you.

Director Blanford has second.

We now have a motion on the table to amend the current motion from intro action to intro only for action at the next board meeting.

Would anyone like to speak to this amendment?

seems appropriate that I'll just continue briefly.

And I think Director Harris teed it up really nicely that we we we deal with a conflict here that there's a sense of urgency.

But we also have our due diligence when we think about collaboration.

It means let's put an idea on the table let's put a series of ideas on the table and let's create some space to talk about those ideas.

And I'm going to start with a couple of things that two weeks is not enough time to talk about it.

There has been a lot of time but it hasn't included everybody.

It would be great to get everybody in the room to try to talk about some of these alternatives.

After talking about an idealistic vision maybe that's too idealistic to think we'll get everybody in the room in the next two weeks.

But I believe that for us as a board to bring an issue like this up without the consideration of the rest of our city and recognizing that we have a lot of infrastructure planning levy planning a lot of existing relationships with the city and other partners.

I truly believe that it sends the best message that we're both committed to collaboration.

but that we're also very serious about our desire to be included in this collaboration work.

So that is my intent in making that amendment.

Director Geary.

I have so many questions about this that this process doesn't allow us to have answered in the way that we normally do business.

So I don't know what the cost of this resolution would accrue either to us or the city to be included on the EIS.

I don't I don't know long term what that means.

What are we asking and what is the cost?

Have we run that then once we know what that actually involves tangibly have we run it through our equity analysis to figure out if that is an equitable use of resources be it district or city.

Then once we have that information do we put it out to the community to help us make that decision.

We certainly seem to ask our district to do all these steps when they bring something to us.

And so I'm feeling very uncomfortable in that I don't have that information in order to make a decision.

I know that we do have land at Webster and we have land at Magnolia Elementary that we have yet to develop.

So that is land we currently have.

I guess we could consider it free unused land.

And then I don't know if the free land position that everybody talks about is actually applicable to something that is either an interim or alternative use or a down the road use.

It's my understanding that maybe that is not the case but I don't have that clearly explained to me.

And then we have our capacity issue which turned out to be quite different than what we were all anticipating when the numbers came down this year.

We were hundreds short last year were even short by greater amounts this year.

When we talk about Magnolia and Queen Anne is one that also makes me nervous because we've just gone through a distribution of students for Magnolia Elementary and the Queen Anne families were very clear that they did not want their children to have to go over the inner Bay split.

So that piece hasn't been resolved in my mind in terms of what the long term use of this this process is.

So I guess there's just so many questions.

Now I also know that at some point we were probably going to be looking to go to the city and asked to be included on an EIS with regard to the land over the reservoir in Roosevelt.

Are we using any of our capital on this for a piece in exchange that we won't have it when it comes time to look at a piece of property that is also in a capacity crunch area but is extremely accessible physically because it sits on the I5 quarter which is something that many people travel along and has other routes coming up both sides of the I5 quarter that are main highways that allowed a great amount of mobility.

And finally my concern about this is that in terms of an overall plan my district has the housing at Magnuson.

And it has Sandpoint Elementary.

And what has happened with the opening of that school is that as the people in the housing have sent their students to that school the people who live around it who have the money and alternatives and the option schools to send their kids to have taken advantage of that.

And as we heard Chandra Hampson testify tonight they are struggling because families leave because we are not able to support that school that has so many needs that has opened up right next to a housing development.

And so I just am not I'm not convinced that this is the direction that we want to go in and I'm not convinced that we've done enough work to start down something that actually may have tangible costs.

I don't know if everything is free in this whole process.

I'm not convinced of that.

I'd like to jump in here.

So what we're talking about is some land in Fort Lawton site in Magnolia that is currently potentially available for city use and possibly district use.

But it can only be available for district use if the district asks for it.

All we're asking for with this resolution is to ask.

So we've been told that there isn't much land out there to handle our capacity challenges.

And so we need to turn over every stone and take a look at every single opportunity.

So it is within reason to take a look at this opportunity.

and not let it pass by.

As far as the capacity numbers that Director Geary was referring to I want to point out that we cannot constantly look at capacity numbers that are at the end of our nose.

We have to take a look five years out 10 years out.

And so yes this year's projections were off by quite a bit.

Well 2 percent but that doesn't mean the district isn't growing.

All right.

So the numbers that were off were just the projections and The district is still growing and we have to look beyond just this year last year next year.

So what we're doing with this resolution is simply asking the city to include the concept of a school or school use on this property in the EIS which is the study that needs to be done.

The city can tell us no if they want.

We haven't really committed to anything here.

We're just taking one step.

And if we don't take this step then that opportunity closes completely.

So I see this is not a very bold move to be quite honest.

I feel as a rather modest step and a reasonable request.

point of procedure.

The discussion right now is really around the amendment.

Peters OK good good point.

So well then I'll tie what I was just saying to.

So in terms of the urgency I've got to flip my card over here.

Thank you for the reminder.

Has to do with the timeliness of this.

We've been given three different dates for when the EIS is going to be finalized.

We've had one as far out as March 2018. We've had one as recent as sometime in the end of fall which could be coming up soon.

And then we have the mayor telling us we might be too late.

So that just tells me that we don't really know.

And it worries me that we're in a point of possibly losing out on this opportunity.

And so that is the reason for acting on this right now in an intro action capacity.

So that's speaking to your amendment and why I don't believe that that is the best way to go.

Anyone else like to speak to the amendment?

My points were to the amendment.

I think it's some additional time as a group and to make this issue now known to the greater public is how we have really strived to operate.

And with all those questions that I tried to raise I think it's only fair that we give our constituents some time to think about it and weigh in.

Director Pinkham.

And in regards to the amendment to and I think in particular with what we got from the mayor today basically saying hey we're already too late and if we delayed another two weeks that's not going to make us any sooner.

And so I see the urgency of this and that we get that ask in now before two weeks from now we may get a no from them.

Oh it's already been submitted.

So right now since they're saying they're still apparently considering including us I say we need to ask now and see if we can add to the EIS versus two weeks from now.

Peters Are there any other comments or questions about the amendment?

Director Patu.

I just believe that when you have an opportunity to get something for free I don't know whether it's freely free but as we know that even though that our capacity has got down in various areas but we also have to remember that Seattle is a growing city.

And before remember the district sold a lot of properties to the point where we had to look around to find what's available because of our capacity that we've had two three years ago.

And right now we're OK.

But yet at the same time you have to realize we are a growing city.

So when you have opportunity to actually to be able to get a property and utilize it for a school why not take the opportunity because it might not be there when we actually need it for the future of our what's happening with our capacity with our school.

Peters All right if there are no further comments then we will now vote on the amendment which is to change the timeline of this motion to introduction only today.

So Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Blanford aye Director Burke aye Director Geary aye Director Harris no Director Patu no Director Pinkham nay Director Peters no.

This motion is not this amendment has not passed with a vote of 4 to 3.

Peters So that brings us back to the original motion which is intro action for today.

Would anyone like to speak to the original motion?

Director Pinkham.

I think we heard from our commenters today from public that we need to get this ask in and it's not just coming from I see just me as a board member but also from the community saying we can't let this opportunity pass.

We have to at least again we're just asking right now we're not saying we're committing ourselves but if we don't do anything now we're going to cut that opportunity off and that's what I don't want to see happen.

We've got to keep this opportunity still viable for us.

You know as Director Geary was saying yes there were some concerns what happened with Sandpoint Elementary but hopefully we can learn from that if indeed we do go ahead with the school on the site.

We're not saying we're going to go ahead with the school we're just asking keep that option still open for us.

So that's why I was in support of being a co-author of this resolution because I don't want to see us closing the door on this opportunity.

Peters.

What is the ultimate cost of being included if we're allowed to be on the EIS?

What does what cost does that entail to us?

Harris.

I think I would ask Associate Superintendent Herndon up to tell us what the immediate costs are presently.

The resolution says there are no immediate costs presently.

Other than staff time which of course is of great value.

But that has to be weighed against the return on investment.

Good evening Flip Herndon associate superintendent of facilities and operations.

The immediate cost would depend on the extent of what we are planning to do.

So a delay in my conversations with the city a delay in the EIS for the city.

would mean that we are bearing part of the cost of the delay of that EIS.

They didn't give me a dollar figure they just said it would be delayed.

So I think it would have to be a calculation that the city would give us to say if this is delayed it's going to cost the city X amount of dollars.

If that is a delay because of a school use then SPS would have to bear part of that cost but they didn't give me a dollar amount.

They just said You know if it were to be delayed then SPS would have to bear part of that cost.

Director Harris.

What would be the delay because the resolution is extraordinarily specific that this is housing and school use not supplanting not getting in the city's way.

So where would the delay come from?

Who said this?

When and is it in writing?

With all due respect to people that work extremely hard on the city side and the SPS side and our community Factual answers are very difficult to come by.

That is one of the reasons that we're trying to collaborate to put whatever force and effect this board has to backing you up to getting real numbers and real timelines.

We're trying to support your efforts.

I appreciate that.

My conversations with the city have been directly with either Lindsey Masters, Steve Walker or Kenny Pittman.

So those are the staff members in the city that I have my conversations with.

They had spoken about the reason why the impact would delay the EIS is because the use of the school and the traffic associated with that and the environmental impact of that function changes the possible uses of the property in total.

So currently with no school on some of their options they are already calculating here's what the impact is on the number of people and or the amount of traffic that might be in that area.

So to introduce an additional function onto the property that's what delays the EIS.

Then you have to go back, redo traffic studies, redo the impact on the environment.

That's my understanding of what would be the impact on the EIS and adding this to that.

Any chance that any of this is in writing and we know when these conversations happen?

I can search and see what I have from them in communications to see if I have something in writing.

I'm trying to remember if the original letter from Steve Walker in the Department of Housing outlined that as a possible impact on the EIS.

But in my conversations that's what I've heard.

I will see if I can find something in writing.

Do you.

Worst case scenario.

What do you see the outside risk being.

For a price tag on the EIS.

See this is exactly why we're trying to do this is is to solidify this relationship.

Right.

And when you give us a number tell us what it's based on if you would please.

Yeah I'm trying to basically look at what our own EIS is cost.

So we have an EIS process that we do for programmatic review for instance BEX V. And then we do a specific project EIS for each project.

So none of our projects are at the same scale of 29 to 30 acres.

So we don't have that same price.

And usually the scale is associated with the price tag is usually associated with the scale of the project.

So I'd have to do a comparison on what we have.

I could probably get that to you within the next 24 hours to give you an estimated cost but I wouldn't want to put a dollar figure out there and then have it be wildly off either dramatically over dramatically under.

But I could do that comparison because the EIS work is very similar.

It's done by people who estimate the impacts on the environment and then we could take a look and see if that is close to the cost that we as we assume when we do an EIS on our projects.

I hate this process because it feels like we're in conflict and I don't really believe we are in a long term goal.

But why isn't this part of the FAQ's that we've been asking for and we received today.

cost of the EIS.

I never have a dollar figure from the city of Seattle on how much their EIS is costing them.

But wouldn't it be something to consider?

I feel like this is blindsiding again and it hurts.

Yeah.

Well again their request the city's request of us was to ask before they would even consider putting it on the EIS whether or not we would qualify through the U.S.

Department of Education.

That was their initial question to us.

So that's what we did.

We explored whether or not we would qualify for a school.

They didn't ask about interim use.

They asked that very simple question at the beginning of this process would SPS qualify for that land for school use?

Peters Superintendent Nyland.

Sticking to the cost issue but expanding it a bit beyond the EIS I don't think that the cost of the EIS is the major consideration.

We've determined that we don't qualify for quote unquote a school in terms of the Department of Education requirements.

Therefore if we're going to that's why the city asked us to meet the meet the requirements.

So and this process resides with the city not with the school district as has been compared with Spokane.

So if they are the moving party so then they would have to go in and they would have to try to make a case to the army I guess to say that they want to put.

a school on there or some interim use for a school on a piece of property that we don't qualify for with regard to a school.

And I forget what those rules are.

Those rules are that for an interim use you don't get the free free.

So it's still not.

I think the EIS is somewhere probably less than a million dollars.

Cost of the interim piece is more significant.

And do you remember what those numbers are?

I mean it's a cost of we have to pay a portion of the cost of the land.

And then we would have to actually do what we said we would do whether that's build a maintenance facility on it or put a soccer field on it or whatever the proposal was for interim use.

In the conversation between the city and U.S.

Department of Education that we had on Tuesday morning speaking with the U.S.

Department of Education that discounted rate would depend on what we are using it for and the extent of our use of that particular land.

So it could be it wouldn't be 100 percent interim use is not 100 percent.

It could be 80 percent it could be 70 percent it would depend on whatever our proposed use would be and the city's approval of that proposed use.

So they couldn't give me an exact figure because it would depend on what it is.

So if I may keep asking questions.

So kind of the bet.

So we had this conversation with the executive committees.

Flip and I had this conversation with the executive committee two weeks ago I think.

And said well okay what can we do to pursue the interim use piece so we have been pursuing the interim use piece with the city and trying to figure out okay what would that interim use be recognizing that we wouldn't be, we can't make the case under the education department rules And I hear you.

I agree that there probably will be a time when we want the wanted and can show need but we cannot currently show need under the Department of Ed rules.

So then we are into the interim use.

And so then what interim use could we show a greater need for and our determination was that the greatest need that we have is playing field soccer fields that we don't have enough of between the city and the school district.

So we could make we think I don't know what the rules for that would be but we think we could make and add a good faith effort to say that there is a true need and then we would have to deliver on it and build it.

So in that case we would be talking about building a soccer field at some expense maintaining it using it and paying whatever the discount non-discount portion of it would be 10 20 30 percent of the cost of the land.

And I guess to further complicate it that's what the city plans to do with their application.

So I'll stop there.

There's there's more to that thought stream but I'll stop there to kind of absorb that piece.

So I think we're basically talking about the cost of a soccer field and some non-discounted rate maybe in the range of 5 to 10 million.

Director Harris.

Superintendent Nyland you just said you threw out the figure of one million dollars.

Isn't it.

Isn't it approximately one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for the programmatic BEX V EIS.

Isn't that a big difference.

I believe it's more than one hundred and twenty five.

Again I'd have to take a look.

I don't have that off the top of my head.

I've got it on my phone from your esteemed associate Richard Best.

Best That could have been recent if you're talking about the BEX V work session that we have.

He may have mentioned the cost of the programmatic EIS during that time.

We are analyzing 21 schools for our BEX V programmatic EIS for $125,000.

Hope this helps.

Are there any other questions or comments about this item.

The original motion.

Director Geary.

So then if a sports field we're doing this for a sports field is what we anticipate would be probably the most likely interim use that will pay for land for.

But has anybody my reading of the purchase letter is that they're planning on doing the sports fields.

And so would it be duplicative or would we not be allowed to do a sports field?

I don't.

I think in either case so I'll walk down both of those pathways so if the city goes forward with their proposal the way that it is and it's approved and all of those kinds of things happen the end of the mayor's letter did say that they would see if there was some way to memorialize the idea that we could talk further When and if the school district could meet the Department of Education requirements.

So after we build out Magnolia the area continues to grow.

We have population growth and at that point we can go forward and say hey we meet the requirements now we within the short term horizon we have an enrollment need and we have funds in hand.

I think we heard that from some of the testimony earlier that during that 30 year window the city in this case since they are the moving or receiving party that they could go back to the Department of Army and reopen.

I assume we have to do the SEPA we have to do the EIS we have to do all of those steps and say we want to use it for a school.

So that's one avenue.

The other avenue if we are successful in requesting from the city that we be added to the EIS for interim use and the city agrees to that and we go forward and the Army and whoever else has to vet that.

we would be under the same requirement in that we would then have that land potentially I mean I don't know what term to use.

It's given to us but it's given to us under this 30 year open ended lease.

And we would then have to do the same thing.

We would have to if we wanted to use it for a school we would have to go back and reopen it.

Do the SEPA do the EIS and go through the same I think the same process that the city would.

Is that your understanding?

I think that's yeah that's my understanding.

Is it your understanding that this lease this 30 years expires and it somehow reverts back to the army?

Because that's certainly not my understanding it reverts to us at the end of the 30 years.

Right the 30 year plan.

So that's being.

muddled in its explanation.

The 30 year plan is really just the 30 year time frame of the identified use that you said you would have.

After that time it does not revert back to anything and then you can change the use after that and you don't have to worry about either a penalty phase or the US government saying we are going to take the land back because those are the two options they have.

If you change the use or something happens to violate that 30 year period they could either assess you a penalty or they could take the land back.

Director Geary.

And then would there be since the other thing that we've talked about in facilities and operations is the need for a northern spot to store a rather large quantity of school buses that we could potentially use that land for.

I don't know if the people of Magnolia have thought about that but is that something that we could use that land for if we were to receive it and do would the community want some input on whether or not they want buses running in and out in terms of that type of land storage?

We have not considered that particular function out there.

We could certainly explore that but the amount of acreage for the for buses is pretty large.

I mean we probably need between six and nine acres and there is a considerable amount of traffic impact associated with that clearly if that's where your bus storage is going to be.

So we haven't done that.

And the traffic pattern would definitely be different than That of a school the number of buses we'd probably be looking on that is you know in the couple hundred two to three hundred range And clearly a school wouldn't have that many buses coming and going throughout the day It's It's certainly a possibility of a possible interim use.

I believe I don't know for sure.

In the conversation with the U.S.

Department of Education they had I think four or five different possible interim uses.

They weren't explicit about what they were but anything that we would think about as an interim use we would need to make sure the U.S.

Department of Education would approve that as an interim educational use.

Superintendent Nyland.

Do we know anything about the Department of Army and how much more land is there and whether the land is any place where we would be able to access it.

I guess I mean access in both senses of the word access in terms of can we get to it physically drive to it develop it.

And second Do we know anything about starting the process on our own in which case the army would be talking to us and we would be having a different conversation.

We could have the two three four year conversation and by then we may meet the qualifications for growth.

I'm not aware of any future plans.

I know for this particular chunk of land it was the army determined that they were going to surplus it and not use it anymore.

There is certainly more land that is controlled by the army there.

We haven't engaged with the army directly on that.

As we're not a lead agency but you would be correct.

That would be very similar to the process that happened in East Valley over in Spokane is that they engaged directly with the U.S.

Army and negotiated issues with that particular set of land.

Harris.

I'm sorry but I think we ought to know the answer to that by now and not bring it up in the context of this resolution.

I just want to follow up on a couple of things.

So to the idea of the land possibly being available to the district at some future date for us asking for it later on after this whole process has happened without us being a part of the process.

I'm a little bit worried about that.

This is a fast growing city.

Land is getting scooped up.

I'm wary about betting on the promise of an interim mayor.

by simply asking to be a part of the study where we will be there and on record as showing an interest in it.

Now you know I'm really concerned about the past and past decisions we've made as a district that predate all of us here and predate you know Dr. Herndon Dr. Nyland but I know in the Queen Anne Magnolia in the northwest northeast part of town there are buildings that used to be schools all over.

And we have major gaps in our district where we don't have schools anymore.

Think of West Queen Anne Elementary.

Queen Anne high school and we're still reeling from the sale of Queen Anne high school.

A lot of what we're grappling with is that that that absence of space for our students.

The Wallingford school University Heights you know the Phinney school.

I mean they're all over.

that part of town buildings were sold.

So we're still scrambling to make up for these holes in our capacity for our students.

And I know Dr. Herndon's actually been doing a really good job looking everywhere and we are putting other schools back online whether it's Webster, Magnolia, So in the spirit of that I don't understand why we wouldn't do the minimum effort to just see if this could also be an option for us.

Leave the door open.

And again you know what this resolution amounts to is simply asking the city to consider including a school in this study.

It seems like a reasonable request to me.

Director Geary.

And by that ask are we committing ourselves to do anything if they say yes.

What is our commitment if we ask and they say yes.

What have we committed ourselves to.

I'm still unclear.

Can we at that point say it doesn't really work out for us or have we committed to something hard.

I believe we have committed to a process to work with the city where it's codified as opposed to these.

Well we called these folks sometime and we left a voice voicemail message for somebody.

This way it's on the record.

It's public our public who has already done a fair amount of due diligence has a place to step in and ask for that respect and collaboration with the city.

And we can get creative with all the bright minds here and figure it out.

All we're doing right now is asking to open the door and to save our future potential.

Director Blanford.

I pulled up Mayor Burgess's letter to us and there is a sentence in it that I want to read and then inquire from either of the two doctors as to what you believe the rationale is for this.

And the sentence is towards the end of the document where he says We hope that the Seattle school board will not seek to delay the city's preparation of a draft EIS as determined at the conclusion of the scoping period this past August.

And I find myself just wondering what the reason for that is.

If you can channel him or if you have inside knowledge as to why he would make that statement why he would not want us to take the action that's being proposed.

So I believe that it alludes to what we were speaking about before about the possible delay of their EIS.

So you go through the draft first.

That's what you look at after the comment period closes.

So you look at all the comments.

You have that time to say are there any pieces in here that we received through public comment that we might want to include as alternatives to this.

So that's what that draft EIS period was.

That's why the city of Seattle asked us for that.

They wanted some analysis from us.

They gave us till the end of July to do that.

We gave them a response.

Then they moved to their draft EIS process which they're in currently right now.

So that was another communication I received from the person who's running the draft EIS for them asking basically for the same information.

So I forwarded the same information that we gave them based on the questions that were being asked.

So based on that I think that's what they're they're looking at is is there anything beyond this scope that we're looking at that would delay us.

So inclusion of a school.

They have the comments they receive the information from us on a school.

They said OK it looks like you're not going to qualify based on the U.S.

Department of Education.

We're going to move on.

Again we weren't talking about interim use at that point.

They didn't ask about interim use.

And so that's what they started their next phase of that process.

So I believe that's what he's referring to is if you're looking at interim use that would change what they were looking at in the scope in the scope of comments that they had received.

That's my best channeling that I could do for them.

Director Burke.

I just want to play this out sort of let my mind play out publicly because this is this is essentially my basis for this decision.

And as I know the value of hindsight is that it's not that you can regret the decisions you made in the past or you can complain about them but hopefully you can use it to make better ones in the future.

And it looks to me like the city has been working on this project for a decade.

And I want to be really thoughtful and deliberate about that.

That the city's been working on this project for a decade.

But we haven't been hand in hand for that decade.

So as part of the city's thoughtful community engagement process.

My understanding is that the community.

Raised a significant concern around.

Wow what about a school infrastructure as part of this housing growth because.

Maybe 10 years ago Seattle wasn't worried Seattle Public Schools wasn't worried about a capacity crisis.

And it wasn't on the front of people's minds.

But it is today.

And it's on the it's on the minds of the directors the staff and our community.

And so this is the new information that that was interjected into that process at that time.

The question came to the district.

Do you have funds available for a school?

Do you have immediate need for a school?

Our reply honestly legitimately from our analysis is no.

We do not have earmarked funds.

We don't have an approved BEX.

We have a potential BEX which probably has a lot of other priorities but it's not funds in hand and we don't have an immediate need We can justify a long term need.

We can look out at capacity projections and make a really strong argument for wow we probably at some point will need educational seats in that region.

And this would be a great way to to capitalize on that.

But the question that was asked of us I believe that the district gave an honest and authentic answer.

But I believe the wrong question was asked.

The question wasn't how can we strategically partner to ensure long term success of this community that includes education.

And because that wasn't the question that was asked that wasn't the answer that was given.

And so that's what I believe puts us in this position right now that looks confrontational but really it's how do we kind of connect the dots from the questions of the past that might not have been quite the right question and therefore weren't quite the right answer and so we miss checking a box or somebody asked the wrong question.

And that's the reason that I'm going to be supporting this because I do believe that as we move forward having those conversations around what does this community look like from our perspective as an educational establishment and from the city's perspective as you know housing and services provider.

If if we can't continually remind each other the district in the city the city in the district that we are partners in this.

Then we're not doing our our constituents a good service.

And so that's one of the reasons why I'm supporting this along with the fact that I think it would be really great to.

Understand how that plays into our long term planning.

Harris.

In terms of the public comments during August is it your understanding that by far and away the number one issue in the public comments for the city's EIS response was schools?

Or have we even looked at the public comments?

I don't know the full extent of the public comments that the city received and I don't know if their public comment period went all the way through to August.

I think it ended in June and they were just going through and analyzing all the public comments.

Have we dug deep and looked at the public comments do we know what's behind the curtain?

Because I agree with Director Burke.

We answered the question that was asked but we didn't do our due diligence and look deeper look harder and and find out about the interim use issues.

And thank goodness our folks have collaborated with us so that we have that opportunity now.

I've said enough.

Thank you.

I'd like to jump in and follow up a lot of things here but to the question of what would happen next if we ask and the city says yes and to interim Mayor Burgess's point that they've already done a draft at least of the scope.

I've got a document here from Lindsay Masters from the city.

And she says that the draft EIS will be completed later this fall.

So the process is still going on.

It's not done.

So it does it does sound like we could jump into this process and not be stalling anything.

But I also feel that it has to happen soon so we don't stall anything which is again why we're coming back to the intro action timeline tonight.

But her email also says that this draft will then be followed by a comment period and a public hearing.

So there will be an opportunity for not just the Seattle Public Schools public but the greater city public to weigh in on the whole package.

So that sounds like a very valuable time that a lot of us have been hungry for and I do value the points that were made by my colleagues to the right of me about having the public weigh in on this.

So it sounds like the public would have a chance to weigh in on that and not only that she says we will then incorporate those comments into a final EIS.

So public input will be part of the final EIS.

So there will be an opportunity.

So again the way I see this is we are simply asking humbly asking the city you know to please include considerations for school in this EIS and then we don't exactly know where it will go from there but we just want to have this opportunity rather than to miss this opportunity and run the risk of asking to be a part of it a couple of years down the road when it will be too late potentially and the land has been committed to something else.

And by the way Amazon wants to build another tower in this town the tallest one of the tallest towers in the world.

You know with Amazon employees there will be families there will be growth.

Director Harris.

Director Geary.

So are we asking for a school or are we asking for interim use land?

We're asking for the school district to have a chance to use this land for a purpose that it needs.

And I think we're talking about keeping the door open to a school.

But if we can use it for the land for a field for some other purpose you know we would do that as well perhaps as a placeholder.

Again this is just a request.

Director Burke.

I don't want to be presumptuous but I really want to acknowledge Director Geary's concerns that we have to recognize that we are stepping into something that is 10 years of planning and you don't come into something that is 10 years of planning and throw a couple of weeks of planning in and say all of a sudden it's a systemic plan.

And so what I'm hearing as a request is how does our resolution and request for collaboration build towards something in the long term.

And I think in my mind it's clear that immediate use is not viable.

So the question then becomes hello city.

Is there a pathway from where we are to where we want to be in 10 20 or 30 years.

And what does it look like.

And is that a field?

Is that a maintenance facility?

Is that a bus barn?

Is that something else?

Is that a post you know a post agreement that isn't even part of this EIS?

I think we should all be willing to have a well thought out and well justified no this isn't a good idea at this time come out of this process.

Because I am willing to accept that.

I'm willing to accept a no.

But I've I've heard from our superintendent that good people with good information make good choices.

And I feel we've got really really good people all the way around this.

And what's missing to really come up with good choices is the right combination of information that everybody has and shares.

So.

What I hope.

Answers Director Geary's question is.

A strategy that the district and this and the city collaborate on that could be included in the EIS that provides a pathway.

To what we think helps improve our future of Seattle Public Schools.

I like the framing about collaboration and I mean and the challenge for me is part of a bigger conversation collaborating with city on everything from coming elections to other property issues to this property issue.

And I build briefing papers in my brain.

So what one is if we're going to ask quote unquote for a school.

I agree that's a really heavy lift for the city and I think that's maybe the concern that they're raising is that they may have to go back and do the SEPA and the EIS and do traffic studies and do all of those kinds of things for something that again we don't qualify for.

So I don't know that that's viable.

The interim use sounds like we can make the case for the soccer field.

If it comes to us then I think the cost factor and we we have I don't know that we have good information.

We have some information.

There's some cost to that.

I think in the five million dollar range plus or minus to pay for part of the land and to pay for the build out of the soccer field.

Or if the city goes forward with their process and they build the soccer field and they manage the soccer field then is there any way to memorialize that so that we can have this conversation further down the road when we do meet the Department of Ed requirements.

That's kind of the I mean I understand that we don't have full information and we're trying to Whatever we're trying to read tea leaves from the city standpoint So yeah, I yeah, I think that those are kind of the options and with more conversation We'd find out more about how viable any of those were and what costs came with them.

I

Director Geary.

Thank you everybody for the conversation.

I'm not hearing nobody's identifying a prohibitive cost.

I'm hearing that we can get land that we potentially can use for an interim use at a discounted rate.

And I'm hearing that we're not.

This is the part I'm not sure I'm hearing but I'm hearing somewhat that we will still have flexibility.

And I'm.

This is the part I'm not.

I don't know that we're not.

If we ask to be on the EIS and they say yes and we go through the process that we did it in the order that that allowed the community engagement as a community as a whole before we got so far down the road that we locked in an ultimate use.

But let's I'm going to back off on that and think of a soccer field because I think we can all use a soccer field.

We can use lots of fields and we can use space.

And that we do need an imperative to continue to engage in the conversation and potentially our resolution will create that forceful request of the city to engage and answer the questions we need answered in order to move forward.

So while it makes me very uncomfortable I will support this.

Thank you Director Geary.

I would suggest that once the EIS is drafted there will be a whole nother round of community input.

Also when it goes to the city council next winter You can be assured that the city council members voicemails and mailboxes will blow up.

So I think we actually do have several more layers of community engagement and.

And I think this is respectful.

I think this is far more respectful frankly than the city not inviting us to the HALA or MHA table.

And I don't I don't want to throw rocks here but frankly we were really badly dissed.

And I would like to think that operating as adults and respectful adults we get some jurisdictional respect out of this.

Thank you very much.

Peters Blanford.

I've heard a lot of conversation about the role of community engagement and I've been struck by lots of questions that are unanswered in this entire dialogue.

And you know I think good cases can be made for the urgency of the matter though I don't necessarily agree with all of them.

The urgency of the matter, the fact that free land is something that we desperately need, all of those are good fairly simplistic responses.

What I usually go to is what are the opportunity costs and what are the unknowns that will come back to bite us?

And I think there are many in this and so my hope is that Particularly as we get to a point where there would be community engagement that we have many of those questions actually answered because what I think we do at this service is when we go into our communities and say hey it's free land let's go for it.

Without a recognition that it then isn't free and something has to come off the table as a result of the illusion of free land.

And so I think it's going to be absolutely critical that at the point where we are going back out to the community or engaging with council members or the mayor or whomever that we have many of these answers too frequently as I've said before I think we go out with a half-baked solution that looks appealing on its face but then cost us a lot of money and a lot of heartbreak later on and a lot of disappointment in various communities.

Peters If there are no further comments, Director Patu.

I just believe that if we really are interested in this land that we really need to get the information from the city to tell us all the questions that we are asking tonight.

Where we stand and then you know either we go for it or we don't go for it but we need information We need to know exactly how much it's going to cost us as Director Blanford said nothing is for free.

And I realize that but I'm sitting here thinking you know as Director Geary is saying there's a lot of unanswered questions and I feel that It's a great opportunity but we need to know more information in terms of what is our cost that's going to cost us and how do we actually able to move forward on this and before we do that what is it that we are responsible for and what is you know we all know that we don't have any funds right now but at the same time it's an opportunity for us but we need to find out more information about what is our responsibility if we decide to move forward on this.

Peters If there are no further comments Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Blanford.

Of course.

I. Director Burke.

I. Director Geary.

I. Director Harris.

I. Director Patu.

I. Director Pinkham.

I. Director Peters.

I. This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you everybody.

So that now concludes the public portion of our meeting.

The board is now immediately recessing the regular board meeting into executive session to consider the selection of a site or the acquisition of real estate by lease of purchase as it so happens which is scheduled for 20 minutes with an anticipated end time of 833. Thank you everybody.

And the meeting will adjourn at the conclusion of the executive session.

Yeah.