School Board Work Session - September 3, 2020

I'm now calling the board special meeting to order at 2.01 p.m.

Thursday September 3rd 2020. I will be chairing today's 2020 reopening work session reopening update work session as chair of the Executive Committee.

For the record I'll call roll and begin with Director Hampson.

Here.

Director Harris.

Present.

Director Hersey.

Here.

Director Mack.

Here.

Can you hear me okay.

Yes.

Director Rankin.

I'm here.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Present.

And this is Director DeWolf.

I would like to also note that the superintendent is also present as well as staff who will be presenting as we move through the agenda.

This meeting is being held remotely consistent with the governor's proclamation prohibiting meetings such as this one from being held in person.

The public is being provided remote access today by phone and through SPS-TV by broadcast and streaming on YouTube.

To facilitate this remote meeting I will ask all participants to ensure you are muted when you're not speaking.

There is not a general comment general public comment opportunity today and we will not be using the chat feature in Teams.

Staff will be working to administer the meeting and may be muting participants to address feedback and ensure we can hear from directors and staff.

So today's reopening update is on Building Use and Child Care and we will begin with a staff presentation.

Today's presenters will include Chief Operations Officer Fred Podesta.

Chief Financial Officer JoLynn Berge.

Chief of Student Support Services Dr. Concie Pedroza.

Chief Academic Officer Dr. Diane DeBacker.

Chief of Equity Partnerships and Engagement Dr. Keisha Scarlett.

Director of School and Community Partnerships James Bush and Chief Legal Counsel Greg Narver.

Thank you to those presenters as well as the additional SPS staff joining today to help answer questions.

After the presentation we will move into our director's questions and comments.

So with that with our introduction everything taken care of I will now hand this over to Chief Podesta to begin today's presentation.

Thank you Director DeWolf.

We have a lot of material to cover so.

Our game plan is that I'll provide an overview of the multiple uses that we have going on in our buildings at the start of school.

Some are ongoing and have been for a number of months and some are new.

And then we'll get into a bit of detail about some of those uses and then try to preserve we'll try to do that efficiently and preserve as the majority of the time to get into deeper discussion about child care.

And so we'll try to get through this first part in about 10 minutes.

So James are you driving the slide deck.

Thank you.

So the multiple use you know while our buildings are not highly occupied we do have a number of things going on in a majority of of school buildings and these uses include on-site instruction for select students where it's deemed that not all their needs can be met in a remote learning model.

We are continuing as we have since mid-March of this year to distribute meals at starting tomorrow at 40. school sites up from the 25 that we've been employing during the summer.

We are later in the month we'll be standing up technology resource centers where families and students can get end-user support to assist with technology that will drive remote learning and other educational aspects in the 2021 school year.

And we have and this number is changing daily and has changed since this slide was created.

We currently expect 46 childcare operators operating out of 45 buildings.

I believe there'll be 2 at Stevens.

And we're expecting the health centers to start opening up that have existed at 30 schools to start opening up later in the month of September.

So we will drill into each of these or some of these topics in a little more detail.

And but first that's fine.

Please go to the next slide James.

I wanted to talk a little bit about since we do have multiple things going on in buildings we wanted to plan how we were going to prepare the buildings and operate them to try to reduce any risks associated with the COVID pandemic and just manage different types of operations than we would have during a normal school year.

And these this planning really because COVID-19 is an airborne illness.

We really wanted to understand and we all know that you know ventilation is important and fresh air is important.

We want to understand how our buildings were situated for that and then think about you know how people move through the space how they enter the space how we will if we in the case of there were a confirmed case how we keep functions as separate as possible.

So if there is a need to do contact tracing or or close down a particular operation in a building we don't necessarily have to close everything down that goes on in the building.

So if you could go to the next slide James.

And the work product from that planning this is just illustrative of some of the planning that's going on in in one building.

This is South Shore as an example.

process of doing this level of planning started months ago or you know started while the district was still contemplating a hybrid model that would have had as many as 30,000 people in our building in a physical distancing environment that would have used every square inch of our school buildings and is frankly kind of overkill for the remote learning model where the occupants occupancy load will be much lower.

But we've decided to proceed along this path because this will position us well in the long run as we try to have more people in our buildings and we'll ensure that what we are doing at the start of school is is well-planned and thought out and safe.

So again this was with regard to the and you can keep it on there James for a minute on the picture.

With regard to the air supply and our HVAC systems we what we're trying to assess is some guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and the American Society of of Heating and Ventilation Engineers.

And the similar to the physical distancing you know what the CDC has advised us is to increase the supply of fresh air in buildings.

And we tried to get a you know a true objective standard from OSHRAE which is 25 cubic feet per minute per occupant in a building.

And this again this planning this planning started when we were looking at having much more on-site instruction and is similar to the physical distancing.

It all depends about how you know how many people are going to be at the in a building at any given time.

Even with the five uses I've outlined we're talking about fairly sparsely populated buildings.

But we still will continue to assess this so we can know in any given classroom if we're using it for child care or using a common space for child care or for special education that we can supply that elevated level of fresh air.

Our building standard now is is 15 cubic feet per minute for per occupant.

Again it's elevated during this pandemic and just as we're doing things like keeping physically separate that will change as restrictions ease.

But we're going through building by building to man to assess the ventilation systems assess the fresh air supply in places that will be occupied.

And then also to separate functions as much as possible to make sure there are separate entrances where possible that each function has a separate access to restrooms and that any attestation or screening that occurs by different functions are understood where people come in where they come to try and where this will be different on a building by building basis.

Keep things localized in different parts of the building so if there is a need to do any kind of contact tracing or investigation after a confirmed case we can localize that to one function and that something.

What's going on in buildings attached to the

My deck is a layout of those uses that I laid out per building which appear in which one.

And again child care is a little bit dynamic as we're working with operators to get agreements and but the others are fairly fixed.

The meal distribution while we've been doing it for a long time.

Things will be different after remote learning starts than they were since last spring and the weather will also change.

We've been doing this in nice weather all the time so that program will probably evolve a bit and we'll probably assess you know where we can meet demand if there are other ways to meet demand for meals.

But as of now I think we've got a good solid plan for the start of school.

And I think we can drill down into individual cases and if you could advance the slides James I'll turn it over to Chief Finance Officer JoLynn Berge to talk about the technology resource centers.

Thanks Fred.

So this is a slide that just talks about we're trying something new based on the feedback that we received from our volunteer support line.

last school year we heard a lot of requests for additional family support.

So we're trying a new idea.

It's called a Pop-Up Resource Center for Technology and we're opening those up on September 14th in 8 locations throughout the district.

The locations were chosen based on some data that we collected about who has devices who is accessing Schoology some of those types of data points were used.

We do have 3 current sites and they're listed on the slide.

I just want to say that those sites have been up and running for staff.

So that's where we kind of have a depot for laptops and equipment are in John Marshall South and Mercer.

And staff will still be able to go to those 3 sites to get technical help or swap out a machine that's not working.

We'll also be offering family support at those sites along with five others that are listed on the slide.

We will have YALE support in the top couple of languages that are most often used in that region.

And we are hoping to have volunteers as well come sit with us and help our families as far sit with us I mean social distance sit with us but help our families with the software that they're using Seesaw Schoology and other educational resources.

That would conclude my remarks and I believe that Chief Concie Petrozza is next.

Yes.

Good afternoon everybody.

So I'm going to give everyone the update that we've been giving families and community members regarding special education services.

Just to remind this team that we actually have a work session too later on in September.

One of the things just to share with everybody is that the IEP the Individual Education Programs will drive remote and in-person learning.

The IEP will be the driver this year.

So and that we will be needing to have staff review the IEP's in the month of September.

All staff have been in professional development.

In fact today the directors of special education both of them presented to the entire Seattle Public Schools staff and they presented to principals and assistant principals and they will be over reviewing the IEP guidance for staff as well as inclusionary practices for remote learning.

Students are not making meaningful growth on their IEP's then IEP teams can convene to determine if additional supports or trainings are needed.

And IEP meetings will be conducted with families and students and school staff.

If in-person services are determined by the IEP team.

After a review of data the IEP team will coordinate with the special ed department and health services to determine that the appropriate health and safety guidelines are in place.

for in-person services and then that will require us to coordinate with transportation nutrition etc. if that is needed.

And then finally just wanted to share especially because we're talking about community daycares or child care.

If student if a student is enrolled in a child care at a Seattle Public School and if the IEP determines that there is support that's needed in that care then we will do that coordination with that team.

And I will pass this on to Chief DeBacker.

Thank you Concie.

A request was made to add some preschool information into this presentation so we've included two slides here.

The first slide shows you the the landscape of preschool in Seattle Public Schools.

You'll see that there are really three areas that we have preschool in.

our own Seattle Preschool Program our Early Childhood Special Ed Preschool and Head Start.

You'll see how many classrooms we have there.

We have 62 classrooms spread throughout the district.

We have a capacity of about 1,200 and 1,200 students and we have a total staff of 171. It's important to keep in mind that those 171 staff members are all SEA represented.

Right now in terms of enrollment we are holding steady in terms of pre-COVID times with our preschool program and our early childhood preschool.

And Head Start is approximately at 55 percent at this time.

Next slide please James.

On this slide we just wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of what a preschooler's schedule looks like.

So you'll see that along the left-hand side.

And then also along the right-hand slide we thought it would be interesting to let you know what we are preparing to get to all of our preschool students so that they have all of the materials that they need in order to to do their work at least at the beginning of the year.

At that that concludes the preschool information and I hand this over to Dr. Keisha Scarlett.

Good afternoon.

I'm going to share about just a start of the child care partners and then quickly transition over to Director Bush.

So over the past six months our child care partners I always say have been the MVP on the MVPs on the front line of this pandemic.

As you see in spring 2020 we served 21 sites approximately 150 to 180 students a day.

You will see that 90 percent of those students were essential workers and also there was some intersection with students from low-income families.

Over summer 2020 we were able to stand up 35 sites and serve 900 students each day.

Next slide James.

Thank you.

And it's also important to note that I think we can learn a whole lot from child care providers who kept students safe.

They never closed during the pandemic.

And so if you look at the guidance they follow strict guidance from the Department of Children Youth and Family Services which included health checks upon entry.

Strict and stringent cleaning.

Social distance social distancing and also communication.

to families and further communication when there needed to be a closure plan.

And while there were some occasional cases or exposure of COVID-19 that led to temporary closures there were no outbreaks at any sites during the spring and summer.

So I think our school sessions systems can really learn about what our child care providers did.

So I'm going to pass this to Director James Bush our Director of School and Community Partners.

So similar to what Diane shared on the SPP slide this is a slide that just kind of shows what a typical school day would be for many of our sites.

It's not it's not exactly perfect for what everybody's doing but it's kind of give an idea of what providers are having to do.

And I know we have some partners that are going to be on later but they've been able to pivot from doing a before and after school program to being able to provide full-day programming during COVID.

that is radically different from what they've provided in the past.

And that includes all the health checks and and also keeping focus on the learning and the social emotional needs of our students.

And understanding that many of those students that have been in our programs over the last few months have families that are essential workers and are suffering from economic insecurity and all the other things with this dual pandemic that's been brought on by the pandemic the pandemic.

So I wanted to share a little bit of context on the history of the oops sorry.

So with the we've been working directly with the facilities department nutrition services curriculum and instruction team to kind of figure out how to best serve and meet the needs of our our kids within our child care programs.

And working with the providers on a really regular basis we've had regular meetings weekly meetings to update providers on kind of what's happening within the district.

And we've also had weekly meetings with facilities curriculum and instruction and especially the early learning team.

We've also had bi-weekly meetings with a bunch of the youth development providers that include school schools out Washington youth development executives of King County Boys and Girls Club and deal to kind of figure out how to best manage kind of the next steps.

First it was managing how do we manage summer.

Now we're working on kind of what is the best what are the best moves that we can make to kind of make sure that our kids are having the best integrated child care and educational environment possible.

And so we've been working with all of these people for since the very beginning.

This slide which I tried to skip over to was I want to give a little bit of history on the Community Alignment Initiative.

The Community Alignment Initiative started in 2001 and it began as a partnership between SPS the City of Seattle Schools Out Washington and other community-based organizations and providers.

It's a the Community Alignment Initiative is a framework that guides how schools partner with the school-based licensed child care providers community learning centers and school-based health centers to collectively support academic pursuits social emotional development over well-being of our students.

All of this work is guided by Superintendent Procedure 4265 and Policy 4265. that states the board believes it is vital to engage families and community members in the life of the school as a community center of learning.

And it encouraged us the board encourages us in that policy to pursue partnerships that increase access to academic and non-academic supports.

Everything that we're doing now in this pandemic is like how do we work together to provide those supports.

This slide here I wanted to make sure I shared with the board kind of the step-by-step process of beginning with how do we select the providers and then how do we navigate if we had to eliminate or switch providers at a site.

So each provider actually has to go through a competitive process in the very beginning and outset which is includes both school leaders community partners family members to actually figure out what the needs is and folks have to compete to actually be the provider at a school.

Schools then interview the providers that they make sure they can meet the needs of their student population.

Each school is different and so each provider is going to have to kind of meet those needs.

The annual climate agreement and the renewal process is something that happens every year.

It's typically in June.

This year with COVID and not knowing kind of the not having clarity on kind of what school would look like in the fall we had to postpone that until 2-3 weeks ago.

So we are a little delayed in our normal process but it is our normal process for renewal.

And in last academic year with the new strategic plan we made sure that we embedded the work that we've all done as a community to make sure that we're focused on the students of color furthest from educational justice.

That is in our alignment packets and that's something that any every provider is going to have to respond to as they do their work.

And when there are issues that come up like that will happen between the school and the provider we have Susan Hall who's our alignment coordinator who works to support everything alignment works as a liaison between providers DCYF OSPI the City of Seattle and public health.

But she is there to help navigate mediate and solve any problems that are that come up.

If we're not able to resolve a problem and the decision is made to switch switch out it starts the whole process again where the school then works together to figure out what's going to go into the RFP and Susan actually helps manage that from beginning to end.

So in the spring and similar in the summer we asked providers to make sure and for fall programming this year We've asked the providers all to prioritize families who are receiving housing nutrition supports.

We have asked them to prioritize students of color furthest from educational justice families of essential workers and we've asked them to prioritize SPS educators.

And per our community alignment agreements all of those providers have to support families if needed to gain access to state and city subsidy programs that is written into our agreements.

And additionally per the alignment agreement providers are responsible for their own enrollment decisions and all programs are are required to offer scholarships to families and prioritize those students we identified in the first four bullets.

So these are just some notes that we've heard from providers and and kind of where they're operating at.

So at this point All child care providers are operating at a loss.

Switching from a 4-and-after-school program to a full-day program there's inherent costs.

If you remember from 7 to 6 that's a long program day and staffing that takes staff and funding.

Social distancing rules actually has reduced our capacity to serve students by about half.

Some of the financial supports that have have actually gone away since Spring I'm not sure if anybody remembers I'm sure folks some folks do but SPP with with DEEL was pivoted from providing preschool programming to doing emergency child care.

This fall SPP is operating As normal as although we're going to be in a remote environment many of the CBO's have decided to go back to operate operating in-person SVP programming.

So some of those financial supports to do that full-day programming has gone away.

No child care provider like when we've kind of assessed and talked with providers is charging the full cost of care and the funding has been reduced and We did get a little bit of a range from providers and some of this is based on the ratios.

The cost of COVID care ranged actually from 2,000 to about 4,000 per student.

And that 4,000 comes from when you have some of the providers when they had really small ratios in the spring.

That's what it cost because they weren't bringing as many kids in.

And many of the providers have shared that they've spent down many of their reserves which have been used to provide scholarships and other kind of funding and supports to their programs.

The things that we are continuing to provide working with with Fred's team with nutrition services and and the custodial supervisors is we're looking at providing we are providing additional space when possible so that they can enroll more students to help their programs pencil out a little bit easier.

We are providing custodial supports in shared spaces.

And so those gyms and cafeterias are being maintained by our custodians.

And many of the providers have asked for stuff like if we had help with getting our garbage and stuff out.

So we've helped support with little things like that that actually are really important for a lot of our providers and it kind of eases their load.

And we're working with nutrition services to to best understand how to provide meals for the students.

And we're working through that like whether it's picking up meals at the schools or figuring out other alternative methods and just keep working until we get it right to make sure meals are not a barrier to kids getting access to their education and programming.

So this slide is I we just want to make sure that we address some of the risks for child for child care like as a system.

We've already started out with we we offered up 68 sites to open up last month.

As of today and you see the 47 is still on there like literally today we're down to 46 sites are opening and additional sites may shut down if enrollment is not high enough.

Many of our child care providers like doing remote learning is something that is not in their tool belt.

So that is a risk.

How do we make sure that they're having to have the resource they need to be able to do it effectively in partnership with the schools and school communities and the kids' teachers.

And student school attendance while in child care may be affected.

Some of the risks that we're trying to help mitigate is laptop access and JoLynn shared that we're working on all of that stuff.

We also want to make sure that we're providing looking at things like laptop carts to provide charging to some of the devices.

Another issue that we know that's going to come up with depending on space is having enough space for everybody to do the work that's necessary in order to support the kids.

So this slide is about the steps that SPS can take to support the child cares.

So we're looking at and providing simple trainings in some of our learning management system tools like TEAM, SEESAW, Schoology.

Help support the staff at the programs in teaching and learning trainings on like how to kind of do classroom management.

Because it is going to be a little bit of a classroom operating in a normal enrichment providers.

And how do we set like expectations at schools that they're working directly with their providers.

And so we're working with principals to kind of help support some of that navigation to kind of make sure that we have a community at each of the buildings working together to support our kids.

We will continue to provide the custodial and meal support.

And one of the things that.

We as a district would be able to kind of jump on is how do we how do we support the childcare providers in getting access to more city state and federal dollars to provide their to support the programs.

And emergency funds and long-term funding for childcare those all go with that that funding advocacy.

And also working with the child care providers as we look at what it looks like when we go back to school.

And that's our slide deck.

Thank you for your time and please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks team for pulling this together.

Thanks board members for your support.

Thank you James.

I'd like to make sure we hand this over to Chief Greg Narver.

Yes.

Thank you Director Chief Scarlett and thank you Director Bush.

I'm my this is Greg Narver Chief Legal Counsel and I'm going to follow up a bit on some of the things that Director Bush was just discussing with the Community Alignment Initiative and with leases with community organizations for child care.

And Director Bush mentioned the policy and procedure that govern this I did want to highlight an issue we have with our current policy and procedure that I think requires some cleanup and probably some supplementation so that we can be clear on the oversight role that the board has when it comes to the oversight of these arrangements for child care leases.

Director Bush referenced Superintendent Procedure 4265SP relating to school and community partnerships.

That's the one that explains what the Community Alignment Initiative is.

It lists leases for child care among the programs that are covered under it.

But then confusingly that Superintendent Procedure which dates back to 2011 says that school board policy E51.00 supports this partnership.

The problem is we don't have a policy with that number anymore.

We have now policy 4260 and that policy says this policy does not apply to child care leases under the Community Alignment Initiative.

So we have this ambiguity or conflict on what we find in our existing policy and procedure on the board's role in oversight of this and so what And I want to thank Director Hampson for flagging this issue.

I've been discussing this with Chief Podesta among others as to a path forward for clarity.

And I'm going to make some suggestions here but obviously would like direction from the board on next steps for staff to take.

First of all we just need to clean up a moot or an outdated reference to a policy number.

But then we need to fix this problem about being referred to a policy that then says it doesn't apply to the very program that was covered in the superintendent procedure.

As part of this cleanup what I'm going to suggest we do because oversight of these leases especially at a time of COVID and especially at a time of great need for these programs there are a lot of important issues involved.

And what is the board oversight role going to look at.

Chief Podesta and I suggested and which I'm going to suggest to the board is that it would make sense as part of this policy amendment cleanup process to come up with a list of guiding principles possibly even a model lease that would be approved as part of the revised policy that would guide these relationships for childcare spaces.

The board in the substitute resolution that it passed a couple of weeks ago noted the importance of making full use of the community alignment initiative spaces.

So this work follows from that direction.

But we just need to be clear on how the what the oversight role is going to be.

This is something I think that needs to be fast-tracked because we need to clean up the existing ambiguity in our policies and it's an important issue that's facing us right now.

When I say that I recognize I'm probably taking on a lead role in getting some revised policy language out to the board and working with among others Chief Scarlett Chief Podesta Chief Jessee and their teams on what suggestions for what these guiding principles are and it would be a lot in line with the presentation that Director Bush just made.

But this is something I would.

plan on working and working with those chiefs and with the board to try and get some revised language before the board very quickly to to make it clear exactly what the board's oversight role is and what principles the board wants to see encompassed in these leases.

I apologize for not having a slide on this.

I was kind of a late addition to the agenda but I'd be happy to follow up with a written communication to the board citing these policies and procedures and what the problem is.

That's the presentation I was going to make.

I would I know at this point it goes back to the board for questions and I'd be happy to answer any questions of course on this on this issue.

Thank you Chief Narver.

And thank you to staff for the comprehensive presentation.

I'm going to start with Director Hampson we'll move down the line with questions and comments on your presentation and and any of the comments captured therein.

So Director Hampson you first.

Thank you.

I just want to point out Director Bush one of the things that I appreciated most in your presentation was the bullet about the connection between child care encouraging the connection between child care and the school buildings.

And I think that's one of the fantastic things about the key community alignment initiative.

It's a I think because a lot of our leases roll over from year to year it's a it's actually kind of a little known program and has has left been left to as policy indicates hasn't been as well kind of followed up and supported over the years.

I know Susan Hall's done an incredible job kind of managing this this program almost single-handedly and and we're all super grateful to her for that.

And I mean it was something that we knew was important to include in our reopening resolution.

And we aim to create space for those connections between childcare and schools.

And so my I know that a lot of board members are going to have questions and I want to keep this going so I'll focus my questions on on two items and then if if some of those don't get answered I'll I'll I'll have hopefully the opportunity to come back around and ask them.

So my my first question I'll ask both of them and then let let staff weigh in is the one thing I'm not hearing is any kind of time frame for when these different entrees into buildings are going to take place and how we're going to coordinate the oversight.

My belief and preference for policy would be that that should be the principal who is the person who in fact is supposed to sign off on the that particularly the childcare piece but instead what I'm hearing from principals throughout the district is that they're they don't even know who's coming into their buildings.

And so my question is first of all what are when are principals going to be fully involved in this and have the ability to coordinate and and then have some oversight in terms of what's happening in their buildings so there is a centrally coordinated function.

And what are the different timelines for when each whether it's special education services or child care is going to actually start or technology whether that's going to start in the building.

So that's the first question.

And the second question has to do with how we support.

I have so many questions but I'll just stick to two for now.

How whether or not we'll specifically be able to support them by providing cleaning in shared spaces.

I think I mean in not in shared spaces but in child care spaces.

My feeling is that and I'm curious if we can if we have an answer to that cost.

I know that that is a cost that they're having to bear and I'm concerned about providing our ability as a district to provide consistency in screening and cleaning in our buildings without common oversight.

And then having any expectation as I think we would like is that if any educators want to or administrators want to be able to go into those spaces to support the children that are in care then you know how does that we're not if we're not providing the cleaning we're not providing the consistency.

And so that's one of my big requests and questions.

And then there's the other question about equity which I don't think is actually I didn't see it as fully written into the Community Alignment Initiative but you said that there were some updates that happened.

I just didn't I didn't find it but somebody else can ask about that.

So I'll just leave it at those two questions for now.

Chief Jessee will you please address the first part of Director Hampson's question about notification of principals.

Hi Wyatt Jesse Chief of Schools and Continuous Improvement.

So we work in partnership with each of the principals about the especially the longstanding you know some more dedicated daycare sites and then also the health centers.

Those are two and then also the technology resource center.

So we've we've communicated with the principals on those particular you know services or programs that are at their locations.

We've been doing walkthroughs.

continue to do walkthroughs as more of those sites and our partners come online based on the determination of what they can uphold.

And there's also just the hours of operation.

So we've been working on them.

We have our our own SPS attestation and safety protocols specific to the health centers.

and also to the technology resource centers.

And so we have specifically identified staff to further enable and support those particular sites to make sure that we're following the health protocols that we have in place.

I believe Director Bush could answer the question the best about the side of The other part about when we have other CBO's coming on board to news sites he'd be the best to help answer that question.

Okay.

So that actually doesn't answer my question.

My question is about the timing and it's not I can I've talked to 10 different principals who've told me that they haven't the specific application for CAI did not require initially it was was due with in less than a week after it was originally sent out and it said On page 2 it says talk to your principal.

On page 3 it says don't talk to your principal.

Just send it in.

And so what I'm hearing from principals is that they don't know who's coming into their buildings and they don't know the time frame from when they're coming into their buildings.

And so I'm trying to get confirmation about what those how it is that they're that the control of their buildings is going to be turned over to them so they can assure some sort of consistency.

Hi this is JoLynn Chief Financial Officer.

I'll just answer for the tech centers.

So for the tech centers they start September 14th.

Right now they're scheduled for 8 weeks.

We will have a separate COVID site supervisor for those outside of the school.

We're trying to find different entrances if we can to go into those schools.

So it'll be ran as a.

separate activity the principals will know that they're a tech center and will know the room that they're supposed to be in.

But otherwise we'll be running that with other staff that are controlling that process and maintaining the health protocols.

With that I will pass it to Chief Pedroza.

Yes and I will share with you that what one of the first things we're doing in terms of IEP's this is going to be an ongoing work that we have to do and we'll have to coordinate really close the health department our Department of Health that we have in school districts.

We are actually working with staff right now to start initiating IEP meetings with IEP reviews for all of the students.

And so as you know those happen.

within those start that that starts ticking the first day of school.

So we're hoping that we can get the majority of our IEP's reviewed at least before the end of the month.

We actually have some coordination to do with the health.

We are not we're starting first with remote learning first initially.

And what our goal is is to be able to start in-person services somewhere starting no later than September 28th.

And so we'll be coordinating with the department Chief Jesse's department to make sure that we have all of the attestations in place all of the PPE in place.

We have to really ensure that everything is needed for staff and students and families to feel that this is an appropriate way to have the student enter into the building and we'll have to work with coordinating the building.

But I wanted to share with you that that is our current timeline and we're working on We'll get working on a protocol to ensure coordination between all of the departments.

Can I jump in too.

Thanks Concie.

So this is James.

So there's a couple of things that I want to make sure that I address and so in terms of child care's are responsible for their own sign-in help checks and screening and that's laid out in slide 11. They They are responsible for doing their own temperature checks and health health screenings and all of that because they actually have to report that and say that for D.C.

the Department of Children Youth and Family Services so they actually have to do that on.

Anyways so adding another level of scrutiny if they have a separate entrance it's really just cleanest to actually have that managed by the child cares.

What we have communicated to the child cares in the updated COVID notice for the alignment agreement is if any kid has a case or test positive they need to alert the custodian the custodial supervisor my team the principal and email the health information line so then we could then coordinate together.

But in terms of day-to-day operations and managing the attestation child care providers have been doing it since March and it's gone fairly well.

And so I just want to address that piece.

And the other piece in terms of when programs are starting like each program starts differently like they do the onboarding for staff.

Some folks may not start for a few weeks.

I don't have a clear thing in front of me letting me know who's starting on like next Tuesday who's starting two weeks from now.

I don't have that in front of me and once I have that I can make sure that I pass along to the board for as a as as needed.

The.

My concern was about principals being at the community alignment process requires the coordination with principals.

And so given that.

that they weren't part of necessarily not always but that they weren't in many cases part of that initial sign-off.

I'm wondering when are they going to know when.

And it's I hear what you're saying about child care in the past but now we're putting a whole suite of things in these buildings so it's not the same situation.

And it's not like what they've done historically after school because there there are other things going on.

It's not sole use of those spaces.

So there's bathrooms there's you know those are going to be all the shared spaces.

So I don't see where the who's doing the number crunching on on making sure we don't have too many people in the building.

How is that all rolling up.

So the principles like once we start going into because right now it's the dedicated spaces the gyms and cafeterias like we're not going into we have not got to the point where we're actually looking at additional classrooms.

And once we get to that point that's where we need to figure out with with Concie's team the SPED teachers The ELL team the tech we have to go do a whole new process to actually figure out how we can expand.

Right now it's the providers are in their currently licensed spaces.

We haven't gone beyond that at this point.

Providers would love to be able to go beyond their currently licensed spaces because it helps them pencil out things better.

And we will continue to work with YS team to make sure as information comes up the principals are are in the loop and made aware.

Yeah this is Wyatt Jesse Chief of Schools and Conditions Improvement.

So we have a start of school team we meet every twice a week.

Has cross-departmental staff so that we have a clearer understanding I think some of the things that Chief Podesta put up there around the mapping for example is just what is available at each of the sites.

What's the count.

What's the layout.

What's the entry point.

What's the main entry to each of those buildings.

We have identified that.

We did a clean sweep of every single school last Friday including myself about just where the entries are and the attestations.

And then we work through each of the sites depending on who are and the number of services Director Hampson that you're pointing out.

You know there's more than more one particular entryway.

Then we need to know who's there who's doing the walk-in or doing the check-ins.

So we do that for all our health centers is by appointment separate at a station.

So we walk through every single detail with the team.

Facilities is there on the call about what they're cleaning.

And then we also know we have capital there about looking at some of the technical parts which have been mentioned in previous work sessions around HVAC.

Director Hampson do you feel like you've gotten your two questions answered.

I want to make sure we can get to some other directors as well.

Not entirely but we need to keep going.

Can I. You have one other question I want to make sure I get to it real quick.

The only partners that are in the buildings moving forward at this point are just child care providers and the school-based health clinics.

Anything else other than that I'll have to work with Fred Wyatt and everybody else before we start opening up to more programming outside of what we've laid out in those first few slides that on this presentation.

Okay.

Thank you James.

And we have we have to sorry.

Okay so next we'll go to Director Harris.

Thank you.

I have several questions.

For Fred Podesta how many buildings of our 102 or 104 have been reviewed for the HVAC issues.

For Dr. Pedroza Getting a lot of social media that IEP issues for private schools are due on September 9th and the website has not been updated.

For Mr. Bush well appreciate your presentation and the community alignment agreement.

And I would ask again like I have done consistently for four and a half years.

At what point does the board get the Excel spreadsheet with our community-based organization.

And I would like for Chief Counsel Narver to address potentially doing an alternative dispute resolution with our community partners when we update the policy 4265 And I still would like to have an explanation about UNEA and the Washington Middle School Trailblazers Program for which we have never received a good explanation and it has cost a great deal of trust in the community.

And hopefully excuse me hopefully if we build in alternative dispute resolution and a feedback loop for the directors I think that it would help us all.

Thank you.

I'll go ahead and start with the ventilation assessment question Director Harris.

I believe we've done the detailed analysis in 30 buildings.

And again that analysis really is looking towards if the building were fully occupied as assignments are made by the near the end of the month for particular classrooms for special ed.

We can prioritize those rooms.

The way we're doing this now we're trying to get to all 4,000 classrooms and we would like to understand the whole system.

And we're going through methodically starting with elementary schools.

But we can pivot very quickly and assess any building once students are assigned.

Again we're not expecting even 15 students in a classroom.

So most of the HVAC analysis is fairly manageable.

And this is this is Chief Counsel Greg Narver addressing Director Harris's question about alternative dispute resolution.

The proposal I was making was to bring along as part of the amendment of the policy perhaps as a new board procedure to accompany it the general principles that would guide leases with these community organizations and that could include that the lease should should include as one of its terms provisions for alternative dispute resolution if if issues should arise under the lease.

That's absolutely something the board could make part of its uh, guiding principles as part of this amendment process.

And hello Director Harris.

This is Concie Pedroza in response to your question.

We do have a special education supervisor and program specialist that oversees private schools.

I will go ahead and make sure to work with my team to make sure that those timelines and information is updated and communicated.

That's typically an annual review but I'll make sure that private schools are communicated with at this time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Hersey.

And I just.

We have about an hour.

Excuse me.

I have yet to hear something about the Excel spreadsheet for the listing.

Director Harris.

Director Harris I asked each director to send questions two days ago.

You didn't send any.

So I want to be thoughtful that we have an hour left.

We still have a panel to go.

You've asked four questions.

I want to make sure we get to other directors.

If we have time I'll come back to you.

So Director Hersey.

Hey okay.

So my first question I want to back up a little bit to the meal site discussion.

There's been some chat especially over at one of our middle schools in my district around what are the metrics that were used to determine the addition of sites.

Because we talked a good bit about adding sites but we did not speak on what sites will no longer be functioning.

So just can you give us a quick rundown of what sites will no longer be serving meals per these changes.

We I think discontinued at 6 sites that were serving.

We were looking at kind of 40 or below on an average daily basis as the cutoff to see if there were based on the anecdotal feedback we were getting from people there was another site in the neighborhood that served more where we could spread our staff to to cover more sites.

overall and then also tried to backfill with bus routes as possible.

Again you know since the remote learning schedules are a bit different and there are other changes we are going to watch very closely you know what what the throughput through all the sites are and adjust as necessary.

But but basically we were trying to hit places that had larger demand and not allocate staff to do just a few dozen meal a couple dozen meal packages if they could be more useful elsewhere and allow us to open more sites overall.

Yeah that makes sense to me.

I think my question again is just like what sites were transitioned and then some of the frustration that's been coming from community especially in my district is that there hasn't really been any communication.

that's gone out to those communities who have been depending on those sites that those sites would no longer be serving meals.

And so I'm just wondering could we go an extra step in making sure that at least for those communities that we are utilizing a little bit more transparency around those decisions.

And I'm sure that we have been doing that in some capacity but at the end of the day we still have frustrated folks who are who are advocating to to continue to get food delivered or continue to have those sites be operational.

And I'm excited about and very appreciative of the quick response Fred that you gave to my email earlier this week around this issue and just want to be clear that there are some solutions such as delivery and other other possible solutions that can be used to stop gaps in some situations.

Is that correct.

And we have we have some ideas in in mind.

a new partnership between nutrition and transportation that could make some meals available in a different way without complicating things at buildings and not stretching our staff too thin.

So we'll try to we've heard from a couple neighborhoods and we'll try to figure out how to tailor the communication.

It's a little tricky because it it's not necessarily the school community.

It could be others that aren't enrolled in that school that we need to communicate with.

But we'll work harder to make sure that Communities at the 6 schools where we're no longer serving meals are are informed.

I think we tried to make announcements on the 22nd but it is not necessarily easy to get the word out.

So we'll I appreciate the suggestion and we'll we'll keep working on trying to get that clear.

Yeah absolutely.

And again just one more time if the board could be let in on what schools those 6 schools are so that we can do our part in terms of being representative to community and helping out with that transparency piece I would be greatly appreciated.

Sure.

I'll send I'll send the link on the website because it lists the new sites and the discontinued sites that are done today.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I have a couple of other questions really quickly on the on the pop-ups for technology really excited that we're going to have translation in I heard a couple of languages depending on the area.

I received a question from community the other day around just specifically anecdotally a parent being sent to the site and then not having translation services available for them in some capacity.

So I'm just wondering if we do have a person a family show up to a site for support And they do not speak one of those languages that is being supported.

What what happens then.

Like how do we how do we support that specific family.

Because what I don't want to happen is to have you know one of our most marginalized families show up to a site and not be able to get support and then have to come back.

So I'm just wondering what what safety net do we have in place.

Hi this is JoLynn.

So we'll use Linguistica if we don't have one of the interpreters in the home language.

on-site so we will use the Linguistica tool that's available to us.

We're I believe you know we can get on the phone and have a translator help us out right there.

Great.

Okay.

That'll do it for me for right now.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Director Mack.

Yes.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

I'm going to also second kind of the questions that have been asked by Director Hampson and Jersey around the specificity of what's going on at the sites where and communicating that out more effectively.

I appreciate the answer on the meal sites and that that information is available.

But I and I appreciate that as along with this packet we did get a spreadsheet with all the schools listed and whether or not they have a tech resource center a meal pickup site a child care site or a health-based or school-based health center.

So that's helpful.

But I I have asked as Director Harris also has asked for a really long time and in public meetings multiple times and in the email specifically to this work session to have clarity around specifically who are the child care providers in which buildings and how many slots and space is being planned for at this time.

And so I appreciate that Director Bush was clarifying that at this point there's only They're only being allotted or provided their existing spaces that they had previously under the original agreement.

However that still lacks clarity on who specifically is in which buildings which CBO's.

Is it Boys and Girls Club at Lane.

Is that who's who's going to be where and how many slots And what spaces are they using.

I understand this is all it's it's a lot and it's complicated.

And getting that figured out and making sure as Director Hampson mentioned that the principals are looped into that process as well as is a challenging thing especially in this remote environment.

And I would like to understand I think the board needs to understand the current plan for the start of school which CBO's are going to be in which buildings and how many slots do they plan to have.

And we still haven't gotten that information.

And that's pretty I mean the the the question that or the issue that Greg Narver brought up and illustrated that we presently as a board don't have the approval oversight over the leases and that you know the conflicts in our policies of how these community alignment initiative agreements have been handled historically and et cetera.

That's all true.

However these are not this is not what the community alignment initiative was for after school time and enrichment activities and using spaces in our buildings.

This is different.

What we're doing now is different.

So I would I would also like to say that you know I think the board oversight of approving these leases at least having at least having the list of the CBO's and the number of slots and how much space they're using in each buildings presented to us is necessary.

And I think it's really important that we understand that and that that communication about what the plan is for each of our buildings that will have child care.

How many students are they planning on trying to enroll.

What's the current state of affairs.

I would I I I'm seconding Director Harris's request again for the list of CBO's.

Now not all CBO's are the same.

The ones that have lease agreements actually have physical space.

Some of our CBO's don't actually have a lease agreement they have different types of agreements because they're doing different things in our buildings.

At this point this work session is about that question of what's actually happening in our buildings and how do we ensure that we are putting the systems in place to make sure everyone is safe.

And knowing that we haven't gotten that information yet I know that no one can answer that question perfectly now.

I would just like to request when can we get that list the number of slots and where they're expected to be for the timeline as Director Hampson asked for.

Can I jump in Director Mack.

Yes.

So on our website we currently have all of the providers are on their COVID response and a child care link so all of our sites we update that as changes happen.

with if it's available if there's availability at each of the programs but and it's divided by regions of the city.

So that's all on our website.

I am happy we have a master partner list that I'm happy to share with with you all that has all of our partners throughout the district.

We also have our partner portal that has all of our partners that you can and I'm happy to walk anybody through if they want to walk through but we have an online resource that we actually are updating now that has all the partners that we we have in our system.

In terms of the question around slots that's a more complicated question because it depends on the amount of space that we're actually able to give the providers.

They would be able to tell us how many slots they can do in their child care spaces with a 6-feet social distancing.

But many of them would also want to be able to gain access figuring out how much space they would have in a gym and cafeteria.

That's kind of a walk through that would have to happen and we would we won't have that until we can kind of determine what facilities kind of what's available.

And in terms of the other — Director Rivera-Smith.

I'm sorry.

That's what you just said actually really even confused me further because we have when are the do we have child care sites that are ready to go next week.

And they have their spaces but the ones that are already in place are going to be continuing but then there's new ones.

I mean that's the timeline that I'm having a hard time understanding and then it still is a question of how much space is available.

Like at this point it feels like we should actually be clear on here's the space that you get to use and tell us how many slots you're planning to serve.

But we don't have that clear information.

So I can work with the providers to gather that information on what they have so that can that I'll add that to my list of items to ask them next week and I'll talk with Frank and Fred to kind of figure out and confirm kind of how much space it's Because I don't the level of detail and kind of when we start going to shared spaces like with these all the other programs we have to make sure we're not giving up the whole cafeteria if there's other stuff that needs to happen and we need to make sure things are socially distanced.

So we have to be very very diligent.

And so that's why that numbers are way more complicated than than their previously existing kind of what they have on their lease agreements.

We have those.

their lease agreement is a previous space allotment which is they have this classroom or whatever but that's that's the question of like how far are we at in determining that for all of these CBO's and it sounds like we haven't even completely got there.

There's still a lot of questions.

For the 40-plus we're ready to open all of those next week.

Okay.

And in terms and I just want to make sure that I also kind of gave Wyatt's team some Wyatt did send out in the FAQ to all of the principals all the slides when we were at 55 a few weeks ago.

That's all been communicated to to the principals and Rivka and my team we also hosted a Q&A with the principals if they had questions about child care in their buildings last week.

I just want to make sure I pointed that out to the as a point of information and And Director Mack the last one that you added had as a question was the other partners that are not licensed in school-based health clinics.

We have not even began to entertain opening up beyond child care and school-based health clinics.

So all of those building-level agreements those all have to be revisited.

No other partners should be in the building unless they have been approved through central office.

So it's just child care school-based health clinics and any one-off stuff that we work with and get agreement from Fred and Wyatt and everybody else.

Okay thank you.

That is helpful actually.

If you could if you could follow up an email with to us with a Friday memo with the actual information about that that you said it's here's the link on the website.

Here's the.

about all of that information that you just said.

I would love to follow up later.

I had a couple of questions around that I'll try to make really quick.

One is that it sounds like.

Sorry.

You could do it in two minutes.

That'd be great.

I will.

I will do my best here.

Director.

It sounded like that the attestations are all being managed separately.

And I still don't have a clear answer on who's going to be courting that coordinating that at the building level.

It sounds like there's some process and procedures but it didn't sound very I don't feel confident on a systems level at each of those different different functions in the building are necessarily going to be talking to each other in a way that makes me comfortable.

So I just want to put that out there that it still feels a little uncoordinated for the attestation side of things even though individually each each of the places are going to be doing it I'm still a little nervous about the actual coordination between them.

For special education the remote environment is incredibly different.

And so I appreciate the reviews around whether or not there's necessary in-person instruction.

But I'm wondering if there's been any kind of push out about here are some accommodations that are typical for students with these types of IEPs that we need to support because it is remote learning.

Has there been any proactive assessment of say we need to offer text-to-speech for these students and that sort of thing.

Or is that are we still just waiting for the IEP meetings.

I'm sorry, that's directed for you.

Yeah and I was I'll let Wyeth go after me regarding the attestation but we actually just I just did this on Twitter today.

Actually we met with all the general education teachers and the special education teachers all staff today regarding inclusionary practices and best practices and we provided some resources and guidelines today.

So no we were we are being proactive and really supporting.

That's been our goal.

That's been the feedback we've received from families.

is really ensuring that students in the general education setting as well as the special education receive suggestions and supports.

And that was the focus of our session today with all staff all Seattle Public Schools staff today.

Okay great.

Thank you.

I have one additional question after that but Mr. Jessee if you wanted to.

Actually you know what we've spoken about the attestation thing in the past and I just.

If you could just hold that I want to make sure we get to the other directors and we still have a panel and I know they're patiently waiting.

So if you do have those questions please tag me in an e-mail and make sure they're in the Friday memo.

Director Rankin.

Thanks.

I have some similar questions to what other directors have asked about timing.

And specifically with special education once it's determined by an IEP team that a student will need to have in-person services I'm wondering either if you can tell us now or if it's just part of the process that that will be happening that families have some idea of what to expect in terms of timing between when the determination is made and when they will able to when they will be able to start receiving services in buildings.

That's one question.

Second question is also about principals.

It feels a little bit chicken and egg with the answers that were being given about space and childcare providers and that we're sort of saying at the same time childcare providers want more space.

We're working to determine how much more space we can give them.

And then at the same time saying that well they have to wait to know how many slots they can offer.

And it all just like.

Who is the ultimate decision maker and how is that getting determined.

And I want to what I would like to see is for principals to have sort of a toolkit or framework about here's how many people can be allowed in your building at a time.

Here's some guidelines to follow and then allow principals to actually be in control of their building instead of sort of being the middleman between you know unknowns and central.

That doesn't seem very efficient or very responsive to communities.

That's the second question.

And the third question is we seem to be putting in a lot of work into making childcare providers serve students as educators during the day.

And I am wondering what happened to the kind of consensus that we reached at the beginning of the summer to prioritize certain groups for in-person care.

And at what point do we make a transition from childcare providers to actually serving groups of students in a limited in limited numbers in our buildings based on need and based on those groups that we identified.

Because right now we're in a situation where we're giving space in our buildings to providers who are having to scramble to figure out how to cover a full day.

We're giving them resources to being partners in education and then families have to pay for it.

And we already have free public school and teachers and I know that not everybody wants to go into buildings but some people do and will.

So at what point do we make the transition from childcare providers being in buildings to those high priority groups being actually served with educators in classrooms for the full day.

So.

Those are my questions.

Yeah I'm going to answer the first question regarding special education.

So as I stated before we've asked all teachers and staff to review the IEPs and to conduct to conduct an IEP review within 30 school days.

So that is the request of all teachers.

moving forward.

So families are all part of families.

Of course the student if appropriate and staff are part of the IEP team.

And if needed special ed staff can be part of those teams as well.

We have many students and also family situations that actually many families will opt will not want to go into any-person services.

There's also the we also have to review the work from last year and the IEP currently because it could be that the IEP might need to be amended for remote services.

It could be that the team decides that they need to improve either enhancements or provide a paraeducator in the schools.

There might be things that we can do to support a more robust remote learning experience.

So I just want to call that out that it's not automatic the default that the IEP team is going to go into direct in-person services.

But it could be that that is determined.

So for example I'll give an example.

If there is one goal area that the team determines is needed it could be a related service or it could be an academic goal.

Then the team will make that determination and then at that point the special ed department will coordinate with the school staff and transportation and human resources to ensure that those in-person services and the health department to ensure that those in-person services are executed that there's a start date that it's clear the timeline the schedules all of that.

So I just want to be really clear that these are IEP decisions.

That last part was really my question is how you know letting families know what the expectation is between.

Yeah.

Determining that they will be receiving in-person care And then that they're not just going to be left hanging kind of wondering when it's going to start.

That we have a process.

No that'll be communicated and supported and that we're working on.

And I know that a lot of things have to be coordinated between you know the determination and the actuality.

Absolutely.

Yep.

And we're working on those.

I think we'll alleviate a lot of stress by letting families know that.

Can I can I add something about the ratios that came up again if I can add more clarity.

So one of the things with our CBO struggle it's not just about the square footage and the amount of the building they have.

They also each individual provider also has their own program model and staffing structure.

Some CBO's are mom-and-pop working in maybe one or two sites.

Their funding and their capacity is different than maybe a system partner like a Boys and Girls Club.

So we have to rely on them to tell us within the constraints we have which is the amount of square footage they have like tell us what your capacity is.

Another variable that they have to determine is they were just given the kind of the go-ahead at the additional sites less than a month ago.

They they have to turn around and hire staff so so the ratios are going to be some might have to hire more staff staff up train their staff get them ready to go so.

Ratios are going to similar to all the other stuff.

It's going to be something that's going to be a very dynamic.

It's going to be change here and there.

And as we get information we'll be able to update you all.

We'll work with providers to make sure we prioritize that.

So I just want to make sure I gave you that information.

It's really not a simple simple and I know it feels like it should be but it's really super complicated.

Well it doesn't necessarily feel like it needs to be simple but also ultimately who does the decision lie with.

That's what I'm worried about is that there's going to be back and forth of well the district says this many spaces while the provider wants this many spaces.

And I'm just worried that the principals are not being given the information that they need to actually lead their building and help with those determinations and have control over what's happening at their school.

So the providers and so it's all of the currently licensed space.

So it's so so the principals and the providers know what space is available.

It's not necessarily about that and we're not in a space where we're actually we would love to be able to talk about additional space but we have to figure out kind of the current space first.

And once we get to there that's a that's the next level of conversation but we're still at first step which is like.

Okay I'll jump off.

Okay thank you.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Wait wait wait.

My last question was actually super critical.

Please quickly.

No I already asked it.

I have three questions.

The third one was we're spending a lot of time and energy and trying to figure out finances for families to have to pay to have their kids be in our schools during the day.

At what point do we transition to serving the groups that we all determined at the beginning of the summer were priorities for in-person learning and have educators do it so they don't you know because that's already we already paid for that.

Thank you.

So Director Rankin this is JoLynn Berge.

As as you know as we talked about the bargaining process there'll be we will be looking at health and data information and measuring that timeline.

So right now I think our best bet is that it would probably be a couple of months until we stabilize.

So getting back going figuring what's going out on and then working through the data sets as public health continues to change their data sets that's part of what's causing the question in everyone's mind.

And so we know that those are priority situations and we are doing our very best to try to figure out exactly what those trigger points will be and then we'll work with the board on that as well.

That's only sort of the question because the other question is we've already got all these kids in buildings.

We're paying providers to teach them instead of having teachers.

Thank you Director Rankin.

We can follow up in the Friday.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Director Rivera-Smith.

I'm sorry about that.

Can you hear me now.

I'm sorry.

Yeah I hope I can get comparable amount of time for my questions considering I know we're almost out here.

So please can I have that please.

And my first question is regarding I thank you first of all for all the information.

So much is covered here.

I really appreciate the work that's gone into this especially in the buildings getting our buildings prepared.

I wonder are we Are we looking at or have we considered I really hope we do allowing our child care providers to use our playground spaces outdoor playground spaces because I understood that that was not going to be part of what they are given access to and or being helped with the obviously cleaning for those.

So can I know what the status of that is.

No we we intend to make the playground spaces available to the child care providers.

Wonderful.

And will that be something we take on the responsibility of cleaning of.

We're we're not cleaning playground spaces.

The there's cleaning in the smaller dedicated spaces but with the the district playground hard equipment in the like jungle gyms and those types of things are not something that gets cleaned.

Okay.

I wasn't sure if they were wiped down at all but.

All right well so that was my first question.

Some questions regarding the again similar to the use of playgrounds on-site spaces and outdoor spaces.

Has there been talk or looked into about having what kind of classes we can aside from the ones that are required by students IEP's I understand that those ones are the ones we are planning on but is there any exploration of any kind of outdoor classes that can be done around the schools like such as physical education music anything like that.

Are we preparing or talking about those.

This is Diane DeBacker and at this point we are we're waiting to see what happens with the task force around that.

And so we don't have anything immediately planned but we're we're ready to begin those talks.

All right and those talks will include who.

Well we'll start with educators and then we'll look at who's on the task force as we as we tee that up.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

And then I'm sort of in that realm of just overall our planning.

And as we do look at our buildings and get them assessed what is the transition plan to reopening.

Do we have that or I'm wondering what the I don't know if this can be answered here completely but what are the benchmarks for that and how long would it take to reopen.

Maybe we can on Director Rivera-Smith.

Just because I want to focus on child care and building use.

Okay well this is kind of overall building use but yeah I understand this might be a question for another work session.

I'm just trying to I know families are very curious about what are we doing in the view of reopening at some point.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Yes apparently we do have a work session.

We do have a work session coming up about that so we will definitely be talking about that for sure.

All right Sherri did you have something.

I was just going to add that we could certainly get that kind of information in an upcoming Friday memo and just real quickly we think depending on staffing that it would take us a good four weeks to turn back on.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

I thought I heard a number at some point in some meeting but thank you for reiterating that for me.

I really appreciate that.

Second as far as these sites be I know they're the childcare sites are responsible for their own enrollment.

Are they are they allowed to have volunteers come on if space allows.

Because I know we do have you know just community members who would like to come in and help out with they've emailed us about volunteering to support students.

in the remote learning process.

Is that something that we clearly up to them to coordinate but do we are we allowing that.

Is that something we can do.

Yeah.

Hi this is Wyeth.

Right now we're holding off on that.

There's also additional training we would want to have for volunteers to make sure that they understood not only just about the safety protocols that we're upholding but also the process.

So we're looking we're looking into it.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Awesome.

Thank you.

No other questions.

Thank you.

Okay.

I will go quickly here because I know we need to get our panel so I'll just do two questions.

Is there no intention to do a tech site in the Northwest or near Ballard area or up into that side of the city.

Seems like they're missing a chunk out of the out of the map.

Not at this time.

How we got those sites.

So we use data to say where are students furthest from educational justice.

Who did.

who asked for a device who so where is the device is more limited where they may not have one and been using one before.

And we also used who's been on Schoology and accessing Schoology.

So again we try to target the resource centers in those areas where we felt like people weren't accessing or didn't have a device to access before and that's how that's how we determine the sites.

Okay.

I'm going to forgo all my other questions just because I know we're running out of time.

So Director Hampson and I will we'll move through this next part just with our community and partner voices.

So we will now hear from some of our partners.

These these guests have been invited to participate in this second part of the conversation.

Again this part is not open for public for general public comment as this is a work session and we will not be using the chat feature in Teams today.

So as we begin this panelists as we begin this quote unquote panel I'll just ask folks to mute themselves until they're introduced to speak and then turn mute mute again when you're done with your remarks.

And so now Director Hampson I know you will be introducing our our guests and then I will finish off with a round of questions from directors starting from Director Rivera-Smith and going backwards on the second round.

But I'm going to turn it over to you because I know we have about five or six guests with us and I'm and I know directors would be really grateful to hear from from these voices.

So I'll turn it over to you.

Hi.

Yeah.

We'll just start with our parent representative.

Adele are you on the call.

I am this is Adele.

Okay.

And I know you have a cold so appreciate you being willing to talk but I know that you have a lot to.

Tell us about your own experience as a parent leader in your school community as it pertains to our topic today and so we'll be happy to hear from you.

Thank you.

I am a parent.

I have a son who's a 6th grader at Eckstein Middle School and a daughter who is a entering 3rd grader at Bryant Elementary.

My son currently has a 504 and my daughter is on an IEP plan.

Also both of my students are African-American.

There's two things on my mind today.

The first, LASER is a childcare program currently operating in two of our elementary schools, Bryant and Laurelhurst, as a parent and a PTSA board member at Bryant and Eckstein.

I'm going to speak more to the situation at Bryant.

LASER throughout the spring offered full-day childcare.

It was for up to 15 students at Bryant, and the cost was equivalent to $20 an hour per child.

This fall, they plan to serve up to 110 kids in our building with a ratio of 1 to 10 adults.

adults to students.

LASER does not partner with Seattle Public Schools for school subsidized breakfast or lunch.

They do not have scholarships available nor do they waive the registration fee.

But they have begun accepting DSHS and City of Seattle Assistance Program support.

It is extremely challenging to find that information out that they accept those and their standard application doesn't make it readily available or help you understand how to use those things.

Historically our janitorial staff does not clean the spaces that LASER uses.

And LASER has a history of not communicating very well with our admin, even being fairly disrespectful to them.

They behave as if they own the space.

LASER is not an equitable option for families and should not be the program we continue to partner with.

LASER being in our building with up to 121 people does not make a space that is safe or healthy for our admin, teachers, librarians, or other staff.

It does not make our space safe for our SPED students and the staff to use.

From my understanding, our principals and librarians would need access to the building to do their work.

Also from my understanding, several of those people in Bryant are immune compromised.

My daughter will be found unable to learn remotely based on my experience with her in remote learning through the spring and also through summer staircase based on the space, but this space would not be safe for her or her one-on-one IA to be in.

Should we be in a place that some or all people Should we be in the place where some or all people are returning to one-on-one learning this year we would need to stop using the building and clean it or quarantine it.

Would that mean shutting everything down for 14 days.

It brings me to the second thing on my mind.

As I spoke in my testimony to the last board meeting my daughter is on an IEP.

She has supports in PT OT speech reading intervention and a one-on-one IA for the entire day.

I have attended hundreds of hours of therapy with her.

I've attended numerous psych evaluations through Rehab Psych at Seattle Children's and through Seattle Public Schools.

including hearing the results.

With all of this knowledge and the practices, as well as being on an FMLA that allows me to stay home with her full-time right now, I am not able to help her learn new material.

I was able to help her maintain her level through the spring, educationally, but her mental and emotional condition deteriorated significantly.

I was unable to assist her in maintaining or growing through summer staircase.

It seems our plan to watch SPED students fail for the next 30 days.

We seem to plan to want to watch them struggle mentally, emotionally, and educationally.

Once we prove they have failed or are unable to make meaningful growth, then we'll take action.

This is what it reminds me of.

When a child comes out of surgery, if their pain isn't managed moment by moment, what happens is you get behind the pain.

This results in much higher doses of pain medication needed and longer times in the post-op.

At times, my daughter had to be given max level of pain meds to be able to get through it.

and it impacts your ability to recover.

This is exactly the same as what we are doing right now in our schools.

There are not services that you are going to be able to offer that will be enough to help kids when you let them get behind and when you willfully and negligently allow them to fail for 30 days.

Students with IAs and extensive services need those students to be honored starting day one.

That is what their IEPs have promised them.

Not two weeks in like we normally do, and not by September 28 like we're planning this year.

Please start IEP services immediately and make one-on-one learning available to them.

Please ensure our buildings be used in an equitable equitable way to serve our students and our school staff needs.

Thank you.

Thank you Adele.

Okay so now we'll hear from Susan Brown from Kids Code.

Hi.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you James everybody for.

Speaking on behalf of child care.

Wow after hearing that paratestimonial I feel terrible and there are lots of good options out there.

Continue communicating with your program.

There were so many questions that were asked and maybe we could have fully answered them a little better.

First I'm probably one of the few people that has a 30-year history with Seattle Public Schools.

Going back to the first capital levies that were passed that were bringing dedicated child care space into the schools back into the early 90's late 80's early 90's.

So I do know the history of everything that was going on but I can tell you that there were quite a few levies that specifically stated that the funds would be used for dedicated child care space because the school district had a vision that to support students and the families child care onsite at schools was a vital service.

And that vision has continued although I understand that there are challenges to make it possible.

It was a good vision then.

It's a good vision now.

KidsCo is a non-profit child care organization.

We award over $500,000 a year in scholarship support to families either who cannot afford their co-pays through Working Connections or the City of Seattle Child Care Program.

We operated 3 emergency child care sites when schools first closed for free.

and received no compensation whatsoever for that along with I believe 18 other programs.

I don't have the exact number.

We did have some understanding that we might be reimbursed through ESSER funds but have recently learned that that is not a possibility.

So we did stand up for our community and did what was right even with what feels like a little bit of an unfulfilled promise.

KidsCo operated 6 summer camp programs using the priorities for care that meaning essential workers health care providers first responders families in most need etc.

For the school year of the 11 child care sites we operate in Seattle Public Schools normally we will be only operating at 6. That's at Adams Bramhill McDonald Queen Anne Decatur and Magnolia.

Among all.

Six of those sites we are able to serve 83 kids and that is based on the space that we previously used during the school year and accommodating for 6 feet of physical distancing between kids and staff.

So pre-COVID we were serving about 800 kids in Seattle.

During COVID now we're about 10 percent of that.

Any additional space that can be given to Kidsco in those buildings will increase our ability to take families off of the waitlist.

I forgive me for not having those numbers of how many are on the waitlist but we do have them.

The other reason for having additional space is so we can have because of the cohorts that we have to keep which is one of the reasons we are unable to use volunteers in our programming besides the licensing requirements that have to be met even by volunteers.

We're trying to minimize.

different germs coming into the facility.

So we're taking into consideration all of the CDC and Department of Public Health safety and health protocols which are also requiring that we shorten our hours from 7 to from normally would be 7 to 6 now down to 8 to 5 so that we can have cleaning from 7 to 8 in the morning and cleaning from 5 to 6 in the evening.

Seattle Public Schools could find it in their budget to provide custodial service for the spaces that are dedicated to child care that might free up some resources to be able to extend our hours.

And again as you heard James mention every provider is operating at significant losses.

Many of us are trying to make it through the next school year so that we can be here when hopefully the day comes when there is a normal situation that we you know whatever that new normal is but hopefully it's more similar to what we're used to.

But bottom line child care and all of the coalition members that I work with in child care are supporting families in the best way that we can with the resources that we have.

Although those resources are dwindling fairly quickly as a consequence of lower enrollment and all the new demands that are placed upon us including You know having to purchase PPE which is getting costlier and harder and harder to find.

So that's my quick and dirty presentation from KidsCo.

I'm happy to entertain questions if you have them.

Glad to be of service to kids and families.

We've been doing it for 30 years and continue to we'll plan to continue to provide this service for 30 more years to come.

Funding being the primary impediment to being able to do that.

Thank you Susan.

And we're going to hear from Angela Griffin now from LAUNCH.

Hi.

Thank you so much for having me on.

I am first wanting to acknowledge the parent that spoke earlier because I think it's important that we take into consideration the experiences of all children as they are in our school buildings and being served through our community.

So thank you so much for sharing that experience and launch and particularly the services that we have been providing have been provided for over 40 years only in Seattle Public School buildings and a few community centers.

And so we have been a dedicated partner to the school district and continue to plan to continue being so and taking into consideration feedback as we heard from the parent earlier to make sure that it's high quality and safe for all kids.

I also want to recognize the school board.

I thank you so much for pushing for these partnerships and for all the staff who shared how you are looking for ways to partner.

James shared really great next steps and it what resonated with me is that all the conversations we've been having over the past several months every single week I heard articulated clearly.

I have been questioning whether or not we were being heard but today it was very clear that we have been heard and that there is acknowledgement that these next steps need to be taken into consideration in order for us to continue to serve families throughout this next school year.

I want to reiterate that child care in Seattle Public School District is not your typical daycare or babysitting.

And I think that sometimes it's downplayed as to the priority for our services when that is the perception of what we're providing.

So I'm thankful that to hear today that child care has been prioritized in the buildings and that additional space is being considered.

Training is being considered.

Janitorial service supports is being considered and so forth.

Where I think we need support right now as we move forward is what we we received in a letter from the school district around advocating for the city state and federal funding.

I understand the school district received $10 million of the ESSER funding and had priorities of how to use that funding that didn't directly include childcare but I want to believe that There were some of those resources allocated in a way that do benefit us maybe through technology or training or whatever that looks like.

It's just not clear.

But if we can get that support moving forward as we are trying to increase our our our revenue to continue and sustain the services that we're providing that will be helpful.

Because I can guarantee you we will probably be providing emergency services again And we are providing them at a deficit as an as organizations across this district.

And we're we're going to do provide the service because we just believe it's the right thing to do for for children.

But many of us can only sustain that service for so long.

So just continue to thank you and ask you to consider all the additional requests that are out there around space.

janitorial services and dedicated space technology support paraeducator support and spraying the word as to the services we're providing and the value that they are for the academic outcomes that the school district is looking to achieve.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Angela.

And that last will go to Rainey Hartford-Swan ED of PASS.

Rainey are you with us.

Yeah I'm here.

I just wanted to introduce myself.

Sorry about that.

Hello.

Thank you so much for including me.

Appreciate the opportunity to be here.

My name is Rainey Swan.

I'm the Executive Director of PASS which is the Principals Association of Seattle Public Schools.

I first want to thank you Director Hampson for reaching out to me in an effort to build a relationship and foster a better understanding as to how our assistant principals and principals are feeling and what their needs are during this complex time.

I really appreciate the work that you and your school board are doing to build a more cohesive and collaborative body.

I also want to thank in particular Superintendent Juneau Sherri Kokx Clover Codd Wyeth Jessee Mike Strosky directors of schools Misa Garmo and for now our lone coach Vicki Sacco for their efforts to understand collaborate and support our assistant principals and principals.

These central office leaders and others have made tremendous efforts to be available to PASS and to me and although our communications can be frustrating as things change quickly we do appreciate their efforts to collaborate and partner.

We have regular meetings with these leaders as an organization and we'll be meeting again collectively next week.

Director Hampson and I spoke with leadership on the PASS Executive Board and a few principals yesterday.

We had a complex conversation around child care in their schools.

They raised a number of specific and general concerns.

However it was determined that there is a real need to build a stronger relationship between the school board central office and the PASS organization in order to truly have open dialogue.

We believe that building administrators are the people who actually figure out on the ground how to make things work.

So ours is a critical perspective for your board to consider in any decision you make and we appreciate very much being included in the conversation.

Open dialogue requires trust and a true foundation of genuine communication and collaboration.

I have experienced our leaders in central office and all of you on the school board working and showing up and building these relationships.

However it will take time to create an environment where PATH SCA SCPTSA central office and our school board can truly partner in this complex and important work of providing a.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Hmm.

Hello.

Bye!

I have been talking you know individually with many principals so I would I would definitely be interested in furthering those conversations in a more formal group group setting.

And I just will end by saying that the theme seems to be the need for really really clear frameworks for principals to be able to have to have what they need to be able to lead their buildings really confidently.

That's it.

Thank you.

Director Mack.

Yeah I had one remaining question around kind of and I'll just I'll just put it out there and it can be followed up on but I had a question around whether or not we should consider doing things like reducing the collection of garbage and recycling at buildings that are not going to be used and whether or not we're actually trying to be financially responsible at this stage when we're not utilizing the buildings in the same way that we did in the past.

As well as the questions around the costs of the needed custodial and other services and what what the impacts on our budget are to those things.

This would like to get some clarity on that going forward.

And I also I do I appreciate the panelists coming and getting the different perspectives from all of all of you because there's so many different stakeholders and perspectives and everyone is in this environment.

We're all trying to figure out how can we how can we make this massive shift in education.

in this environment and and serve serve our students.

And so I'm deeply deeply appreciated to the child care providers that have been committed to supporting not only our students but our community at large because that's you know it's a community-wide problem it's just not just the Seattle schools challenge in this environment.

And I appreciate you continuing to work and raising issues and questions with us the board and trying to find ways to work work these issues out so that we can serve our students.

And I also appreciate the Executive Director of PASS speaking to us.

I'm not sure what the appropriate kind of process going forward on that is but I want to give voice and acknowledge the fact that principals and building leaders in this time in particular have been just handed an almost insurmountable amount of work to get everything going.

You know because everything is building-based and it all kind of falls on the principals to manage.

From text distribution to supply distribution to getting the schedule that all of these things are really complicated.

On a normal year it's hard.

It's even harder this year because the remote environment And so I want to give a lot of grace and respect to our principals and building leaders that I know are trying really hard to do all of this in a you know a time-constrained a resource-constrained environment and appreciate PASS as an organization continuing to try to work systemically to work with the board and the superintendent and staff to put our systems in place that help us serve students.

I look forward to get getting the clarity from staff on what the current map is for the number of slots and who the child care providers are and who is expected to be in which buildings.

And thank you very much for this this excellent work session.

Really good information.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Mack.

And I know that Lieutenant Juneau is on the call so I'm hoping she can give a commitment to giving a timeline on some of these answers as well.

Director Hersey.

Hey I just want to say thank you to everybody taking the time and coming on especially to our parents who have been very vulnerable with us and sharing those experiences.

I don't have any questions but just really looking forward to addressing some of the things that we've discussed today and getting a hard timeline down.

I know that I would be very interested in continuing this conversation with PASS and building a closer relationship.

So I'm 100 percent on board looking forward to working with folks on this and yeah I'll end it there.

Thank you very much for the time.

Thank you Director Hersey.

Director Harris.

Again many thanks.

I'll echo my colleagues.

I will say however and and Chief Counsel Narver We probably need to amend our website because I don't believe that the panel was publicly noticed.

And whatever we need to do to fix that is important.

Anytime that we can share information with affected parties and stakeholders is a good thing and a win by me.

I just hope that we can do a better job of putting that up on the website and making sure everybody's on the same page.

And Rainey I think I think you're awesome and I hope to be in person with you again and having portions of our executive committee meetings just conversing with our labor partners because I think that's a beautiful thing and we haven't had that since COVID-19.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

Director Hampson.

Yeah I think my only question would be I do I would like to know if and I don't know who can answer It sounds like we really need to seriously consider this notion of cleaning within the spaces that childcare providers are using and I'm wondering first of all you know what what is the perspective in cost savings for for childcare providers and then what is the the amount to the district.

And you know we don't have to answer that right now but I would like to know very soon what those numbers are and and how we can support that so that there is that we know that they can continue to function in those spaces.

And thank you to all of you for being willing to come and and provide more of a 360 view for us.

It really is helpful.

And I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Hampson.

And I don't have much to say other than just to thank our guests again.

Thank you to our parent to Rainey and as well as our partners.

Really really grateful to you for spending your time with us today and just kind of illuminating and highlighting just much of the conversation that we had prior.

And thank you to the staff for your for your presentation.

I know that these reopening work session update reopening update work sessions are a little bit quicker timeline so I really appreciate y'all kind of leaning into this work.

I'm just going to share a couple of quick announcements from folks.

So obviously school does begin tomorrow September 4th for 1st through 12th grade students and preschool and kindergarten will begin on September 8th.

And then the last thing I'll mention is that the next 2020 reopening update work session much like this one will be about attendance and schedules and that will be held next Thursday on Thursday September 10th from 3 to 430. Hope you will join us there.

As there is no further business on this agenda the meeting does stand adjourned at 401 p.m.

Thank you all for joining us.

Have a great rest of your Thursday.