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Good afternoon.

This is President Taup.

I'm calling the board's special meeting to order at 4.31 p.m.

Please note that this meeting is being recorded.

We would like to acknowledge that we are on ancestral lands and the traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

For the record, I'll call the roll Vice President Briggs.

Here.

Director Lavallee?

Here.

Director Mizrahi?

Here.

Director Rankin?

Here.

Director Smith?

Here.

Director Song?

Here.

and this is President Taub.

It is nice to have folks back again after last week's long meeting.

I have just a few housekeeping announcements and we'll jump right into our agenda.

The first one comes from the student representatives.

I want to mention that applications for School Board student representatives open Monday, March 23rd and will close Monday, April 20th.

We're looking for two upcoming juniors and one upcoming senior to join the board as student representatives.

This is a great way to ensure student voice is heard on important decisions that we make for Seattle Public Schools.

The student representatives will be out in schools helping to recruit student future student representatives and I know last year board directors had a role in helping with that recruitment.

We've asked our student representatives if they would like our help again this year and if so there may be some asks coming out in that short time frame to board directors so be on a lookout for that to help us recruit the other sort of housekeeping item I want is we have selected our June retreat and I know it feels like we just had our retreat but our June retreat date so it is in folks' calendars is June 13th again June 13th will be our our June board retreat date just flagging that but you should have a calendar invite as well the next thing is just I am very appreciative of our dialogue we had at the last board meeting I think it's really great to hear to actually, I think, delve into a few more discussions, at least from my time on the board, we actually had more discussions than I've seen previously.

It did require additional meeting to get through some of the content, but again, one of the reasons why, as board officers, we do try to set an agenda that we can get through, so it's important if there is something you want on the agenda, you get it to us as soon as possible.

With that, we are going to just go through our agenda today, but we're starting with the adoption of the K-5 English language arts instructional material.

I appreciate the amount of work that has clearly gone into this process and the time staff, educators, families and committee members have invested in getting us to this point.

This is a big decision for us, for the district.

It touches every K through five classroom.

includes a significant financial investment, so I am looking forward to a good discussion from board directors here.

And with that, I'll pass it over to Superintendent Schuldner for introduction.

Thank you.

Hello.

Well, thank you so much for those wonderful words.

A ELA curriculum adoption is one of the most important things that a school board and a school district can do.

It's really important that we set the stage for learning and for teaching in the community and I'm really honored to be part of this night today because before I invite the great C&I department up to sit next to me, is I just want to explain to the community as well as the wonderful people in the audience is that Washington has a special rule around how curriculum is adopted and really the idea is that there needs to be an instructional committee.

what's interesting is that instructional committee and how it's devised and how it's created the superintendent can in fact have roles but I think anybody who's been paying attention knows I'm new here and I just got here and so I actually had zero say in how it was created but I was really impressed by the wonderful people on it you had teachers you had administrators, you community, like there's so many people that had a say in this and what's also interesting that you'll note is that the way this works is that the committee is going to make a recommendation to the board.

the superintendent actually has no say in the matter which is a kind of fascinating situation but in some respects it makes a lot of sense because if all these amazing people are putting all of this time and effort into this why should necessarily the superintendent be able to kind of block that and so I'm going to be watching the presentation along with the board and the community because I know how much wonderful and hard work has been put into this and I really am happy to introduce up our wonderful curriculum team.

Dr. Starosky, you're behind me.

I love it.

Please come up if you want to sit next to me, and if there's anybody else that you will refer to, please do as well.

Board, thank you again for this time, and I'd like to turn the microphone over to the head of the Curriculum and Instruction Division.

Thank you, Superintendent Scholdiner.

With me tonight, first of all, I'm Mike Starosky, Assistant Superintendent of Academics.

With me tonight are Kathleen Vasquez, who is our ELA and Social Studies Program Manager, and Cashel Toner, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction.

I'd just like to give a brief statement just to kind of set the stage for our discussion this evening, which we are really excited to share.

the review process, but also the discussion.

The board action report that has been written proposes adopting a new English language arts instructional material for our kindergarten through fifth grade students.

This adoption serves as our district's commitment to high quality, equitable, standards aligned, literacy, as well as informed and grounded in the science of reading.

In tonight's discussion we will cover why our system is looking to shift to a new instructional material.

We will incorporate an overview of the adoption process where appropriate, including community engagement and how the selection committee reached a recommendation and illustrate the key features of the proposed material.

One thing that is very important for our community to know is that we want to acknowledge what was guiding the instructional committee's, adoption committee's work.

First and foremost was policy 0030, which is our educational and racial equity policy, and policy 2015, selection and adoption of instructional materials, which Superintendent Schuldiner referenced just by his role or no role in the process.

What we wanna make sure is that when we're talking about policy 2015 that it provides the framework in which our system identifies materials and that they are aligned to state standards and are reviewed through a formal committee process.

We formed the Adoption Committee last March, consistent with Board Policy 2015. One of the things that we wanna make sure is that you're comforted in the fact of the details of all the policy meetings, which are public and are on our website.

But I would also like to acknowledge that there's been some thoughtful concerns raised in community.

both inside and outside of Seattle Public Schools, about just literacy in general, which we are thankful and grateful for.

there is broad agreement on some very important issues.

One is that the importance of teacher training and professional development for our educators and that a pivotal part of that or an important part of that is literacy coaching and a comprehensive reading plan and a curriculum that allows our teachers to be able to have the supports and the tools that they need to address the learning needs of all of our students.

So, since we've been meeting throughout this last month and in our two by twos and you've asked some great questions of our team, I think there's some things that I just wanna make sure that we're centering since even the last time that we met.

Now, first is that The curriculum that the committee is recommending is evidence-based and it's aligned to two very important things.

One is, first and foremost, the science of reading.

And it's also aligned to House Bill 1295, as we're referring to it, the basic requirements of that, and we can speak in some very specific terms to both of those.

also for our teachers, that the teacher support is embedded within the curriculum and that we are committed to our teachers having all the resources and supports that they need that scaffolds their skill and the interventions and progress monitoring available for their students throughout the curriculum is also embedded.

We also, we've referred, and because this process is very process-driven, we can say is that our teacher-led pilots in the district review process was followed.

the strategic timing of why now we will address, but also this is essentially from beginning to end an 18 month process for us.

And at the time that we started, we didn't even have a new superintendent yet, but we anticipated the need, which we will discuss in detail here in just a few minutes.

But I think the most important thing is that the impact on students.

Currently right now for our students, approximately 60% of our students in Seattle Public Schools are at or above grade level in reading in elementary.

And we need to do better by them.

And one of the things in how we can do that is giving our educators the support and the tools that they need to be able to do that very important work with our students.

And so in short, we believe and are very thankful for the committee's work, the educators, the community's work in helping guide this process and make the recommendation.

So with that, we are here to answer your questions and be a part of what we anticipate is a very important discussion.

So we're going to open it up for discussion.

One of the things I hope directors saw a little bit differently is that we didn't get a full presentation of all the materials.

I think that's by design and ask only because we want to get into discussion.

We want to be able to spend maximum time being able to and ask some questions.

I think we all had an opportunity to review the slides and also have a two by two if we wanted.

So with that, I wanna open the floor for director questions.

Vice President Briggs.

I guess I don't have any questions about the curriculum itself that hasn't already been answered, as I communicated in the two by two, I think my concerns about adopting this are just how brand new it is.

The relatively short pilot window that we had to test it out in our schools and the fact that our new superintendent wasn't in any way involved in the process, which is nobody's fault, the timing is what it is.

But I would personally feel better if I would feel way more confident in voting yes to spend this money and adopt this new curriculum if none of those things were the case.

So I guess my question is, is there any, what does it look like to just wait a year to do this?

What if we just stuck with the curriculum that we had and then revisited this when there's at least a year of data around the use of this curriculum in other school districts?

Is that something that's possible?

What are the pros and cons of that and is that doable?

I can speak to some of that and welcome others as well.

So yes, it's possible.

What we would know is that we would have to go back to the instructional adoption committee and they would have to begin their work anew again.

So that would be not just a year from now, we'd be resetting going back 18 months.

would be just the reality of doing that.

We'd also, you know, it could have some advantages of being able to do more longer field testing, but I think you'll hear some of the feedback that we received from the teachers who were doing the field testing during this current process felt very confident about what they were seeing and learning from the various curriculum.

So those are, That's one issue.

The other issue is the time and effort that the people who, the 30 plus people who spent on this would be very difficult to go back to.

It doesn't mean it's insurmountable, but the people who did put those time and effort in to make the recommendation I think we would and I'm sure certainly would come back with clear answers about the why we're doing it.

So it's a possibility.

I just have a question.

Would you like additional information that we do have about the material or its vetting or would that be helpful?

No, I mean, I think the thing that I really wanna see is the thing that we can't show.

So, but thank you for the offer.

The one thing, and Superintendent Shoulder might disagree with this, but I'll put it out there, is his involvement in the process, as currently as the policy is constructed, would still remain pretty much the same.

His involvement in our leadership helps guide us and makes us know that how, if we're aligned, the things that the committee should assume on the front end that could help give direction, but as soon as that process begins, he's out of that process until they make their recommendation.

So I don't think that would change necessarily so much, but he would be able to help provide the direction that all staff are going in under his leadership.

Can I just ask a clarifying question about that?

So I understand that, yeah, that he wouldn't be able to be part of the process, but is he allowed at any point, including now, to weigh in to the board and tell us what he thinks of the curriculum, or is that also not allowed?

And if so, that seems so weird, honestly.

So I'll answer the question of I guess what I'm allowed to do.

Look, the nice thing is I can say whatever I want and then you guys can fire me or not.

But the way that it works is I will happily give my kind of thoughts to the board, but the issue is that I'm not part of the process itself, but to what Mike was saying, where a superintendent usually has a lot more say is when they set up the structure and the direction, and that's why I definitely do not disagree with what Mike said, but if a superintendent is in the room at the beginning, the entire structure can be led by the superintendent.

So I think the point, and I very much appreciate the trust that this board has given to me, and yes, if we started anew, the thing might look different.

The scale, the way that we're looking at the gradings, all of that is a possibility that I could help discuss with the team.

But I think that you had 30 incredible people that worked really hard but I just want to be transparent about how the process works.

And so I am legally allowed to say whatever I want, but I don't have the vote you do.

The wonderful people on the committee, they're the ones that make the recommendation, not me.

That bypasses me.

So like you all know with bars and stuff, this would be one of those things where it doesn't matter if I sign it or not.

that it would go to you.

So, Mike, you agree with, yeah.

I would personally still be interested to know what you think.

Yeah, and I think that when the vote is being taken next month, it's probably very appropriate for me to weigh in.

I'd be more than happy to weigh in after even the conversation today, but I don't want my my beliefs about it to be affecting the questions that people might have on it, but I'm happy, certainly, if the board would like for me to talk about the curriculum, but I think it's important for the board to ask the committee and the team questions so that you feel comfortable with the work that they did, because I would never want to take, you know, kind of the legs out from underneath all the hard work that was done.

So, yeah, but thank you, and I'm happy to talk about it afterwards.

We go Director Rankin.

Hi can you hear me okay.

Yes we can hear you.

Okay great.

When does the kind of related to what Evan was asking when does the current K-5 adoption expire

Can I would you like me to address that?

Hi Director Rankin.

So we adopted our current instructional material in 2017 and typically school districts adopt or refresh instructional materials about every seven for eight years.

So we're definitely at the end of that cycle.

Technically speaking, the publisher of our current material does not produce it anymore.

And so this year we have a one-year extension for them to continue to give us access to it.

But let's talk about...

Sorry, that's the current school year?

Yes that's the current school that we're in right now and you know things have changed since 2017 right so the current material we've outgrown it as a district in a couple of ways one it doesn't it doesn't necessarily have the features that current instructional materials have.

It isn't as aligned to science of reading as we would like it to be and it would probably present some challenges with the new expectations around 1295 with our ability to meet those expectations.

Okay, thanks.

That was more of a curiosity yes we unlike maybe years past or in other subjects we do want to have curriculum that meets the current needs not the needs of a decade ago but I was just curious about that so I saw in some notes that were provided to us about piloting this the Spanish language portion of this would that be an additional purchase and that's I mean I'm assuming so this is a new curriculum for this company, but they didn't just spring up out of nowhere.

It's a replacement of a curriculum that they've had.

But is there development of the Spanish component just behind the English component?

And if we are participating in piloting that, what does that look like?

And then would that be an additional purchase?

And then what about other languages that we say we provide dual language instruction in?

So that's a great question.

We are we asked the publisher if we could sign on to the pilot and that would not incur an additional fee because it's a pilot how pilots work is they try to get districts to sign on, field test it.

They benefit from it, so they provide the professional development, they provide the resources, so it wouldn't be an additional cost.

We've also spoken to Michelle Ota, who's in agreement that it would be great to pilot this resource.

The nice thing about, it's called Juntos, which means in Spanish together, right?

Juntos, emerge.

And it dovetails, it aligns beautifully with what we're using in K-5.

And in dual language, they have an hour in English and an hour in Spanish.

so our teachers would get professional development in English in the English version and also professional development from the publishers in the Spanish version and that would not cost the district anything else.

Did I answer all your questions?

And then ongoing, so if we pilot it for one year and we purchased the English curriculum for nine years, seven years beyond the pilot the Spanish would be then get to continue using it?

I believe so because they'd be providing all the materials for the full year.

So I don't think just as they did with this current adoption all of the vendors provide materials gratis because they want us to test them out and I don't come and take them back.

Right so something I think is important for people to know that we may not all know is that our current curriculum for dual language is mostly created by the teachers themselves we we haven't adopted multiple language curriculums in the past is my understanding so dual language schools are basically modifying and translating the English curriculum so just having a Spanish curriculum would be really nice and I'm still wondering what about the other languages and then our ALEs I think the only ALEs that we have that are K5 is the online component for Cascade and then of course the in-person component for Cascade they are an ALE they have a totally different model and the online is a totally different curriculum I just want I guess confirmation that they still as an alternative learning experience have the flexibility to do the curriculum that people go there for and that meets their schedule.

Those classes aren't every day and the online.

And then I'm also wondering about our students in distinct classrooms who typically are not accessing the general curriculum.

They still do need curriculum.

K-5 students with disabilities need curriculum.

at school and I don't think this provides that.

So what is our district going to provide to those classrooms.

I can I can address that Director Rankin.

So our typical practice is to purchase the instructional materials for all of our students regardless of what what school or classroom they're in.

And so just some nuances there with that.

So we do purchase for everyone.

And then if modifications you know your question for distinct there still are funds available at the school level that are designed and their purpose is for teachers who are working with IEPs and such to be able to make decisions around specific materials that specific kids might need.

So in summary we purchase materials for everyone and teachers have the opportunity to use them and generally speaking we talk about you know teaching them as they're intended for most of our classrooms.

and then we have some flexibility where that makes sense, like the classroom or the situation you were describing with distinct and we have a combination of opportunities to do that with site-based funds and then if it's appropriate to use some components of the curriculum then the teachers have the flexibility to do that.

Okay, so this is maybe more of a comment for our superintendent that what I'm hoping that you heard from that was that programs and schools with students with higher disability needs don't get support from the district they have to buy separate materials and curriculum from from building funds and we control where those students get to go to school and who places them where and that should be supported centrally and it's really a shame that it's not and then same with like why I don't we shouldn't purchase a curriculum for cascade when they're purchasing a digital curriculum for the remote program, that it's a very specific and alternative program, we also shouldn't purchase it for them for the in-person because they have a separate curriculum and they are designated as an ALE.

Duly noted.

Thank you very much, Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Director Song.

I have three questions.

One is a process question, one is a more of a curriculum student population question, and then a finance question.

just so I'm clear on the process it is we as a school board are voting to approve this particular curriculum so it's not necessarily an option that we could choose a different finalist.

You're approving what the committee is bringing forward so it's a yes or no on eMERGE.

but because when she was asking it sounded like if we voted no then we would have to restart the entire process.

So that's what I wanted to understand.

OK.

Thank you.

What I think for the public understanding what was it about Emerge that you felt like it was going to serve our special education students and our multilingual learner students in a way that other curriculums are not able to because when we look at the data that is really where we need to accelerate.

So I mean a couple several things.

One the committee really looked hard at foundational skill instruction because we knew of this pervasive problem that we've had over the past few years after the past for a long time around moving students in those early grades and getting them very strong in reading in order to move into third grade where they are not we're not teaching reading so much.

We're not teaching kids how to read.

They are reading to learn for the most part.

So we've known about the problem.

We've been addressing phonics and phonemic awareness for quite a while.

But what the committee knew is that the district was very interested in focusing on early learning opportunities for kids.

And the committee also you know I want to say a word about the committee.

We had we were very fortunate to attract a very high caliber group of teachers.

We had reading interventionists.

We had reading specialists.

We had special educators.

We had literacy coaches.

And so people the folks on the committee were deeply vested in ensuring that we got the structured literacy part right.

And so what emerge does have is explicit and systematic instruction in foundational skills.

That's something actually our old curriculum also had but it was not taught whole group.

It was taught in small groups which means that some students never really got to catch up at grade level.

And so this is a whole group foundational skill instruction model.

They're also this is also a curriculum that dives deeply into multi sensory routines which support students at risk of having dyslexia.

It is it has teacher corrective feedback our old curriculum did not have.

teacher corrected feedback.

It has supports immediate supports for students who are not accessing the lesson that particular day.

So when students are not you know when a teacher is doing their formative assessment really quick they can then take a group of students and move into what is called study groups or focus groups.

to provide more intensive support.

What we do know is that students who are struggling need multiple exposures in order for the learning to just take hold.

And our old curriculum did not have that it didn't have multiple exposures.

The curriculum also has learning routines.

They hear it.

They see it.

They say it.

They write it over and over.

And there's something about that in combination that helps students learn to decode automatically.

Right.

And so it has that.

It also has evidence based practices with assessment.

So there are assessments that occur daily at the end of a unit that will provide teachers with the the information they need for next step instructions so that we're not waiting too long before we're addressing it.

Also a lot of other things.

It's a knowledge building curriculum.

It is culturally responsive text.

I mean that was definitely a big target point.

authentic texts.

These were real writers writing about multiple topics.

The topics are very much aligned to the science and social studies instruction that kids are getting now and that is in the design of other the other curricula as well.

I really want to be honest and say that many of the things I've mentioned were true in the other curriculum.

I'm not going to say this is just you know an outlier because it's not.

It's but it's very strong and it did receive the highest highest point value of all three but they were all very strong.

They're also I'm just going to go on with dual language supports.

There's scaffolded vocabulary instruction sentence frames and structured language supports for multilingual learners embedded oral language routines that support that those students as well.

And so we there's oh there's also a multilingual framework at every grade level for every single unit so that teachers can provide more supports or even know what to do to support to better support multilingual students.

My last question is we're going to be using capital funds to pay for the curriculum and that would have been true for any of the three finalists but can you help me understand I guess is it a WAC or a budget provider like what is the mechanism that enables us to use capital funds to pay for curriculum and were there criteria that we had to meet in order to be able to do that financially?

Do you want me to start or do you want me to start?

Okay I'll start.

So several years ago when folks were planning for that specific levy ask.

Language was developed to allow for purchasing curriculum.

The intersectionality is that the digital component gives us a little bit more flexibility to be able to purchase curriculum that has a digital component in it.

So that's several years ago the planning was put into place to say you know it's challenging to hold nine or so million dollars of general fund right and we've had we had some challenges in the past with going down you know the adoption process and then not being able to have the funds you know several months later 18 19 months later and so it's not ideal for a district to be using you know levy funds to purchase instructional material that's sort of our reality right now but hopefully in the future we'll be able to have a more predictable budget and budget cycle so that you know we wouldn't need to do that so it's kind of a good opportunity for us but it also is challenging that a school district you know this is could be our most one of our most important responsibilities teaching kids how to read you know that we we need to make that purchase outside of general fund dollars that is unfortunate.

Yeah and I wouldn't add too much more except to say this isn't the first curriculum that we've done this with.

So there's precedent for it and also that was one of the things that we did on the very first when we were thinking about the potential ideas like we're in a budget deficit, how can we possibly be doing this?

What are the flexibilities that we could be doing?

and trying to get creative and consistent and meeting the spirit and the intent of funding sources is what we want to be consistent with and also aligned with Ben's charge for all of us.

So it's really just having a digital component that enables us and that point taken that other curriculum adoptions we've been able to leverage capital and money because there's a digital component.

I think in this particular curriculum what gives me a little pause is the kind of discomfort, I guess I would describe it, of kindergarteners, first graders learning on an iPad.

and so I'd love to hear from this team like what is the curriculum look like for our youngest learners that is not digital?

Here comes some passion.

Do you want to go?

Go ahead, please.

Sure, I'll start.

So I used to teach kindergarten in first grade and second grade.

Teaching kids to read is really, if you've ever had that experience with your own children, it's pretty exciting.

And there's something about that, getting to help kids learn that skill that once you have it, it's yours your whole life, right?

And it's yours to do with what you want to do.

It's really exciting, so I'm super passionate about that.

And I could not agree more that our youngest learners, we really need to be intentional about their screen time, and what we are asking kids to do on screens so Kathleen can elaborate on this a little bit more but from the outset of this project you know we had to grapple with that and say all right this funding source is a digital it has a digital component but let's be real about what that actually looks like and what we requested in the RFP which is the quest for proposal, which is how we go about buying things in a big organization.

And we were really clear from the beginning that we needed hands-on, real materials for kids to use, right, for the majority of the time that they're using or that they're learning in our classrooms in the early years in particular.

And so we, inside of this instructional material, you'll see very familiar things.

Anchor charts will be on the walls.

You know manipulatives for kids to use.

The digital component in the early years is pretty limited.

It's not the main instructional approach.

But here's something that's really important to think about that you know when I was up at TOPS visiting the DHH classroom that was one of our field testers.

and the teacher was utilizing actually Emerge.

And the digital portals that the teachers have access to inside of this instructional material is something we don't have right now for our teachers right.

And so there are mechanisms for teachers to keep track of what kids are learning in real time and that offers a real opportunity digitally for collaboration especially for a team of teachers that are working to support specific kids.

Right.

So you can follow along and see you know has Ben learned all of his initial sounds right inside that portal.

So that is the digital component that will be could be really powerful to promote collaboration for groups of teachers that work with and support kids.

So in summary at the early years most of the time kids are going to be using you know manipulatives that you would expect kids to be using and teachers will have anchor charts and the support tools available to them that you would expect.

And the digital part is pretty limited and it's for it's for monitoring student growth at their individual level right.

Kathleen what else would you add.

I think the biggest thing is the consumables.

What consumables have changed by the way you know because it used to be that consumables were kind of like a workbook but now consumables at least in this curriculum are the actual text that students are using.

And so what kids get every student in the classroom gets a consumable for every unit and the text is inside.

And what's wonderful and this is true of this curriculum and not the other ones was the annotation that kids are being asked to do as they're reading.

And I think about myself as a learner.

I am a big annotator in order to hang on to things.

We circle we underline we do things to make sense of text.

And so the nice thing is there's a consumable for every unit.

At the end of the unit the students take those home and the parent can continue to work with them.

Those consumables are also available online if for example goodness forbid that we ended up in a pandemic or something like that.

We also have those materials available digitally.

What Cashel was talking about is very real.

Kids are not on an iPad for, we have a two hour literacy block all but 20 minutes of that literacy block students are working with teachers using physical text all the time.

20 minutes of the literacy block is something that I described to you just a moment ago which is the study group and the focus group time.

And so when a teacher is pulling small groups of students other students are on the digital platform which is an adaptive learning platform.

really designed to target the individual students needs at that time.

So it's only 20 minutes of the day if that.

Director Lavallee.

Thank you, Director Mizrahi.

I wanted to follow that tech question up.

I had a very similar one, so thank you for answering it, and I'll try not to repeat it.

So there's kind of a two-directional thing on this, and I'm really glad you brought up the point of if there's some sort of crisis where we need to have kids learning from home.

the system is able to deal with that in a more tangible way than it potentially did in a past crisis.

Now on the reverse end of that if there was some sort of directive from the school board or the superintendent to limit technology usage in classrooms and especially in younger classrooms would this be flexible enough to be able to be used without access?

to technology like that for students.

Yes in fact it would.

Teachers will receive physical instructional workbooks right like or teacher guides.

The students there are a lot of cards associated with the curriculum in order to teach those early foundational skills they would receive that.

There are visual aids that come which is probably included the consumables.

And so students would have access to everything with the exception of the adaptive learning module.

And then and with assessments assessments can be taken online right.

Teachers can log that information online or they can be handled in just in physical form.

Okay, thank you.

The next question that I have is that this is for a period of nine years, I believe.

A lot can change in nine years.

And I think that's part of the problem that we're having right now with our current curriculum is that nearly a decade ago when it was you know brought on to Seattle Public Schools that our knowledge of how we were teaching kids to read was fundamentally different than it is and our understandings of it today.

So if there is more shifts and learning is there flexibility in some of this and how that can change and grow or will we just be stuck with something that's out of date very quickly that we still are paying money for.

can I just take one moment with this one sorry and I don't mean to monopolize but one of that's one of the questions we did ask for McGraw-Hill and it was the question that we asked when we adopted 6-8 ELA.

So we have written into our contract that if they make changes to the curriculum we always receive those changes because that's what we didn't do in K-5.

So you know our current curriculum did move on.

They reinvented themselves a bit.

We do not have access to that and they've corrected I would say or improved what they've done but we don't have access to those new materials.

So we got smart about that in the last adoption.

and asked in the contract are they willing to provide us any revisions.

Well our 6A ELA adoption has started to revise and we've already have access to those materials piloting them right now because it is written into the contract.

So it was hindsight is 20 20 often.

Thank you.

the next two and I'm going to try to keep this as quick as possible so within the process we Actually, I'm gonna skip that one for now, excuse me.

We have a long history of not having any science of reading sort of knowledge within our district, and that's not just from the curriculum end, but this is also within kind of the expertise within the district, obviously we have some, but we can improve that greatly.

So if this curriculum is science of reading aligned and our current one has a lot of gaps in that area, I know the superintendent as he's been doing school tours, we've all been able to see classrooms that are actively using queuing systems and queuing strategies within their classrooms.

So within just changing the curriculum, is there efforts within here to also bring in more science of reading expertise both within the trainings that we're giving them and within the district as a whole as a strategy and this is slightly curriculum also might be more directed towards our superintendent here.

and I'll defer certainly to Mike first but what's really good about most of the modern curriculums that I think we're looking at is there's gonna hopefully be a lot of professional development around it and so my hope is that if and when anything's approved, there's gonna be a tie-in, and in fact, I'll tee the mic up.

I think there's some ways that we can actually utilize some wonderful people that we have currently in this, but I will say, as you all know, because it's been great to visit schools with all of you, our teachers and our principals care so much about our children's deep learning is that they out of their own budgets have been purchasing science of reading curriculum that's not our current curriculum and I'm okay with that if you're actually moving towards really good stuff so you know the hope is that whatever is approved will actually do that but that it'll be tied to high quality professional development that will then be able to kind of bleed into social studies and science and history because the way that we teach reading, the way that we teach knowledge and understanding is in all of our subjects.

But, you know, Dr. Trotsky, do you want to talk about some of that stuff?

Yeah, that's a perfect segue.

I think we definitely have some strong leaders, both at the school building level, central office level, who are expertly trained in the science of reading, who we can build off of.

And for many of our educators, this is a welcomed focus.

but also as Ben was talking about, I was thinking about our sixth grade math goal and the opportunity for us to be able to scaffold the reading strategies that our students are learning for their early learning, the foundational reading, how that could be impacting intentionally if we're doing it correctly, our math teachers in ways, and our science teachers in very specific ways, and then also if we're looking for our life ready goal, and preparing our students for advanced coursework with a solid foundational goal, science of reading background.

I know some of our educators who are outside of the elementary level are yearning for some strategies.

They're yearning for some guidance.

I think that would be a great district-wide strategy and focus that could cut across any content area.

And I'd love that our elementary teachers, principals, educators, our students could be leading the way on that.

If I could just follow up our plan is you know if we're moving forward with implementing this new instructional material then what we've learned over time implementing new things is that we need to give our educators the support they need and the training they need to be able to do the new thing well.

In this case that would be shifting from a balanced literacy to structured literacy.

That's a huge shift and we're going to need to support our educators to give them some Velcro to stick that new thing onto.

Right.

And so we've been talking about some required science of reading training for K-5 teachers.

Oftentimes you'll see folks just do K-3 but really that needs to be a full shift right at K-5.

and it needs to be required so that we have kind of a ground floor that we can expect that you know everybody has working knowledge around some basic some shared learning right and then that way when adults are trying something new they have a mental model to be able to understand what those shifts are in the instructional material to be able to teach as intended or teach all of the components of the material Anyway so we have a three year professional development plan that does include standalone science of reading training but also embedding and sort of signaling to when we're even doing initial use training.

This is the kind of why behind this component of the new material right and linking back to science of reading principles.

we have plans to train not just our educators but if we're really going to be successful with this implementation it needs to be more of a collective effort.

So what does the central office component of training look like?

What does the training look like for school leaders so that they can support the change?

those plans are in the works.

Anyway, if that's helpful.

Thank you.

Can I make one comment or add on that?

Just very quickly, how powerful would it be that when you're doing these walkthroughs with the superintendent board members that if you knew what you should be listening for and looking for in a classroom because you're alongside with us, knowing about what our educators are learning about and what they're supporting and how you can support them by walking into a classroom and recognizing if the science of reading is alive and well or if it's not, what is going on.

So I think that's the opportunity for all of us.

It's the elementary teacher's role in this and I just wanted to say this publicly.

Ben and I were having a discussion and he was saying, so who's responsible for making sure that happens?

And I just think it's all of our responsibility for making sure that it happens.

And one of the things that we have right now, what we haven't had in a good long while, is just a focus on supporting instruction at the classroom level is what matters most and how do we do that in a systemic way.

if it's not this curriculum, it's gotta be another curriculum.

We gotta give our teachers the tools that they need for our students.

This is about process, about what we're talking about.

But this is also about our vision about how to support our educators and our students effectively, consistently, and in budgetary times.

This is the most important thing.

So we're all responsible for doing it.

So just, I'll get off my soapbox on that one.

You made me think of it, so I blame you.

But thank you.

Thank you.

Director Mizrahi.

Yeah, so I think, first of all, appreciate all the time you spent meeting with us one-on-one and answering questions over email and in those meetings.

I wanted to ask about process.

One thing I noticed when we went from feedback round one to McGraw-Hill scored the lowest at 74% and then in feedback round two when it was with the smaller adoption committee it was sort of tied with the Amplify or whatever in roughly the same position.

So wondering what the reason was for that delta between those two phases.

Yeah I know exactly what the reason was at least I think I know.

What happened was in the RFP we asked for every grade level we asked the publishers to send every grade level because one year when we did K-5 a long time ago we used to do physical texts and they couldn't send us everything so we just used to just ask for grades one and four just to give a sampling while what we didn't see was the rest and some of the rest caused us some problems in terms of the texts that were not authentically written.

And so we knew we wanted to see everything.

and unfortunately there was an old line from probably the past one that said submit one grade level so that there was a contradiction in that verbiage.

McGraw-Hill only sent third grade and that was part of the problem.

Our our committee couldn't see it all.

And finally we just kept asking and asking but it was the very last day that we were able to see everything and they weren't able to catch up.

So I think that some of the problem was definitely that I could attribute it to that because they just couldn't see it all.

And so they couldn't score it high enough because they couldn't trust that it was there.

And that probably is on our end in terms of just not scrutinizing those documents well enough because there were two different messages every other curriculum provider provided everything and so I think that's why.

The other thing that happened definitely in field testing was that McGraw-Hill soared.

I think our teachers you know all 10 of the field testing teachers rated it the highest.

So during the testimony where our field testers provided specific information on what happened we use that too as evidence in the process and I think that their testimonies kind of increased those values as well.

Is that if that is that helpful.

Thanks.

Any other questions Director Smith?

Okay I have a few questions and actually just following up I think it's a I don't like the stand.

Following up on sort of the process of getting the community feedback and the different rounds.

I've also heard some questions around the bias screening both in terms of some calls for more transparency around that which I know that there was an email shared with that had some more information for us directors but I think it would be helpful for the public as well.

And then also just how that fit in it was really great to hear that there was such strong positive feedback from the pilot teachers so it's not like the bias screening was the only thing you were going on but I think that there's maybe we could use more clarity on how that worked just for transparency.

Absolutely.

And just in terms of transparency I just want to say on the K5 ELA adoption website is our minutes from every single meeting.

And so when I answered that question I just went to that to that meeting and pulled the information because we really worked hard to be completely transparent.

That said.

the website is very hard.

You have to kind of scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll till you get to the very bottom to find it.

So I do understand that in terms of transparency and how that process was run.

We began with just reading articles with the committee began by reading articles about bias and sensitivity in children's books just so they could all be grounded.

One of the challenges is you have to get people on the same page in order to see what they see.

We then turned to OSPI develops a very lengthy tool and what we do is we work with the instructional materials committee to truncate that so that the tool only reflects what is what you can see in an ELA adoption because the tool that they develop is for every curriculum so you really have to work to make sure that it's truncated.

so we worked with the instructional materials adoption and I sent that to you.

You can see that it's sort of blessed by them and then we move into screening and every vendor or submission was reviewed by two different groups and so that after they reviewed each vendor they the two different groups came together.

They shared their scores and then they did some calibration and then they reported out to the whole committee.

It's at that point at the whole committee share out that the committee made a decision as to whether or not to eliminate so there was a very lengthy process and then in fairness there were two that we were concerned about.

We had a longer discussion.

Some of the concerns had circulated but we really felt that one of them had a dual language component and we thought we need to continue to evaluate it to make sure that you know maybe we're just being reactionary.

So we were cautious when we eliminated just two.

But it does sound like the bias screening was part of the process but it wasn't just a we screened it with the bias screener and in a vacuum that eliminates things it was considering everything altogether.

No.

So let me be clear that Seattle Schools has recommended we begin with bias and sensitivity screening so that we focus on things that we would potentially adopt.

What I will say is in the two eliminated I would say the bias and sensitivity issues were egregious.

And so I want to make sure that it wasn't just oh there were a couple of articles right.

All of that when we don't we're not looking at two or three things it had to be patterns that we saw and so we did see those patterns and they are removed.

We don't then apply the rest of the criteria to those.

Thank you.

So another question.

This is kind of following up with Director Lavallee's concern about how we'll train teachers or provide professional development and support.

And so.

I thought that it was nice to see sort of like specific numbers about how the purchase of this curriculum translates into funding for training and development and then also to add on how we'll ensure and track the fidelity of adoption what checks are in place.

Sure I can begin with that one but the team might want to help too.

So we when we implement instructional material of this scale we need to have some sort of mechanism for continuous improvement.

And so typically what we do is partner with the research and evaluation team to study our implementation and usually that's about a three year research study and we learn as we go.

Right.

So in.

after our first year there will be some lessons learned and then we'll take those take that learning and incorporate it into a continuous improvement cycle.

It might be that teachers are taking up some part of the material right and not taking up another part and then we would ask ourselves why is that happening try to get to the root cause of that and then make an action plan to address it.

so that that's one part.

The next part is to think about how do we support you know if we're asking folks to do something new we need to give them the right level of support to be able to do it right so that gets into the three year required professional development space and then also you know thinking how can we partner with the school leaders to be able to make sure that they have the tools they need to be able to support implementation as intended.

So that we're really kind of taking an approach from lots of different points of influence.

So that's our thinking at this point.

But I'll be honest with you, we don't know all the things that we're going to need to know in this process.

We're going to need to learn them as we go through and then be honest with where we are with our implementation or what we're learning.

and then be able to have a mechanism for course correction or continuous improvement.

Thank you.

I just want to sort of close with a comment in response to Director Bridges.

Sorry, I just mispronounced your name.

Director Briggs.

Your initial question about whether, like what is the, can we delay the adoption?

And I just, I don't know if anybody else has a kindergarten, first, second, third grader, but as a parent of a kindergartner, I definitely feel a little bit of that urgency that it's like well if we delay the adoption that is for my kindergartner but for all kids at that level it is one year delay before they get a hopefully better curriculum for better learning to read.

Appreciate that.

Director Song did I see you had one more question.

Is there a reason why it needs to be a nine year contract?

Is that typical for curriculum adoptions that we do nine year contracts?

Or maybe there's like a systems reason for why it should be nine years.

I don't know.

Yeah, where I think we're all doing the math in our head of our most recent adoptions.

Cashel, I'll defer to you just because of how we came up with the nine years, if there is an answer.

My best answer to that would be setting our kind of system expectation that this instruction material will be used in whatever it is the committee picked that we would use it for a duration of time.

Is nine years the right duration?

I'm not sure.

That is what we landed on in this particular process, but we're open to feedback moving forward in the future if that's a decision that we'd like to change.

I think it's to set the expectation that this will be the, we've had some challenges with, making sure that all teachers use the instructional materials that we purchase, right?

So just setting the system expectation that this is the adopted material and this is the duration of time that we're committing to it to be utilized in Seattle schools.

I think that was the thinking.

And seven, you know, I said before seven to nine years is somewhere, you know, usual adoption refresh.

So I think that that was part of the thinking as well.

One last comment.

So in our language immersion schools we're not providing direct instruction in the target language.

And so I would just say that the fact that there's Spanish curriculum available is not something that I consider like terribly that's not like a bonus in my opinion because the kids when they're spending time in their target language are learning math.

they're not learning direct instruction in their language so I'm pretty sure that there wasn't a dual language immersion teacher on the adoption committee so I just kind of felt that this conversation kind of went there and I just wanted to clarify for my colleagues that I don't think that that's something that should make this curriculum an edge.

Can I just add that there was a dual language head teacher from Concord that sat on the committee and was a very strong advocate for dual language schools.

So just so you know.

Other questions or comments from directors.

All right seeing none.

Thank you to the panel for being here.

We'll take a five minute break here five minute recess and we'll hang on.

Thanks.

Yeah, my understanding was that our superintendent was gonna weigh in with his thoughts when our conversation was over.

If you're willing, I'm all ears.

First of all, no, of course.

Thank you.

I have to recognize, however odd this might sound, the responsibility that I have when I speak here, because I do think, at least in one month 18 days I've been here, people are starting to believe that I might know something about education, so there is a weight here with what I'm going to say.

I want to give a lot of credit to the wonderful educators that spent 18 months putting this together and I think that that alone has to be a huge part of any sort of decision because staff are the people that are doing the work and if staff comes out with a belief that one curriculum is better than all the others that has to be part of the calculus in deciding it.

I also think that certainly from what I have seen, there is an understanding that this curriculum does hit the kind of legal requirements that I know some people were worried about when it comes to things like science of reading.

I also know that McGraw-Hill has been in this biz longer than I have been alive, and they certainly have had a good run of some solid curriculums throughout their years, and they've had some stinkers, but that happens to all of us, and certainly the fact that they're a well-known name that has a great track record and the staff picked them, I think that's important.

That being said, I think there are some concerns that I have.

I think you wonderful board members hired me to always be transparent and always be honest and always be open.

And I think that the reason why I appreciate that this was the introduction so that now we can have this debate and discussion to then have a couple of weeks to really kind of talk about it and think about it and come back to the table will allow me to feel comfortable with wherever we go because again, since I was not part of this, I wanted to make sure the presentation was public so that we can talk about it.

So what are my, so the strengths I think is that it The teachers liked it.

I think there is science of reading.

I think that it is well structured.

I think that it understands kind of what a curriculum should be.

My concerns are some of the ones that you've mentioned.

One, a nine year contract is very long.

That is not typical in kind of education because the world changes really, really quickly.

I'm not sure that buildings of schools are gonna exist in nine years in the current state that they are.

I think a nine year contract is quite long but I think that again in the next three or four weeks to understand why and then are there outs, right?

A lot of times you can sign a nine year contract with the idea that after two or three, you can say thank you, we're both gonna move on if there's a problem.

The problem with that is that you don't wanna do that because you really want folks to buy in.

So I'd wonder about that.

The second is certainly the Spanish language issue is that I appreciate that we're gonna pilot it.

I think that's terrific.

But if it's piloting, that means that's not the curriculum.

And since we do have a relatively large multi-language learner, population as well as dual language programs, as well as sheltered language programs, et cetera, et cetera.

I just want to make sure that the non-English part of this is strong.

The other concern that I've had is for HC or advancement.

One of the things that I think we have to be really attuned to is that if we are gonna create a curriculum, then you wanna make sure that the curriculum has advancement and if this is a K-5 curriculum, if we have kids that are doing let's say two grade levels above or one grade level above, then if you're in fifth grade, well what is the sixth grade curriculum?

So that's something to think about and certainly if you're in you know, a third or fourth grade, what does advancement look like?

Again, I think that the curriculum probably has an answer, but you know, you were asking kind of my thoughts on this.

The other thing, and this is really the concern I would have just as a consumer, you know, is that there are certain organizations out there that do reviews and in my experience in the 25 years that I've been in education leadership it is really helpful to have other people tell you if something is good or not.

Probably the gold standard where it comes to curriculum is something called Ed Reports.

Everybody loves Ed Reports.

They're kind of like the consumer reports of education.

And I think the concern I would have is that this curriculum has not been vetted yet by Ed Reports.

Now that doesn't, and I want to be very, very clear here, that doesn't mean it's bad.

It actually might be the single greatest curriculum ever, right?

And I think our teachers and our curriculum folks are telling us that it's really good.

But you hired me as a superintendent to kind of almost be the person to point out what might be a problem, right?

And so the fact that there isn't a real review in the kind of normal sense of things just means, again, we have to rely on the teachers, which I'm always happy to do, and the committee.

So I do wonder about the question that you had around, can we wait?

And I think the issue, of course, is I don't want to wait, of course, for Director Smith's child, as well as every other child.

I want to make things better for everybody.

And I think that what Dr. Strausky was saying would we have to go through the entire process again or is there a timeline that we could say we'd like to get some other reviews of this or we could pilot again or something like that?

I think the answer is probably no.

And I think that the issue for me as a superintendent is We have to make a decision for our children today, which is good for our children today, and I have no indication is this not being a good curriculum.

My concerns, again, are, hey, there isn't necessarily this third-party validator that, in my experience, I would just always use.

If you had said to me, hey, Ben, what kind of requirements would you want out of a curriculum that we're picking, I would have a conversation about making sure that EdReports had a report about it.

but we're also in some respects lucky.

We got to a curriculum that might be unbelievable and we wouldn't have been able to choose it if that was one of those rules.

So I think over the next three or four weeks, our board meeting's in April sometime, is that we wanna really think about those topics and to make sure that we feel really comfortable when this does come for a boat.

What I love about this process is instead of being up there, we're here, we're collegial, we're talking about this.

I have amazing colleagues to my left and to my right and I think they did a really, really good job addressing your concerns and I think what you're asking me is like what are the things that I'm thinking about?

Those are the things I'm thinking about.

How does it deal with language?

How does it deal with HC?

How does it deal with the fact that we don't have kind of third party validators.

I of course want to give props and respect to everybody that brought up around special education.

But again, I think that there was a robust answer there other than the fact that this central office should probably do a better job and I appreciate Director Rankin's point and we'll get there.

So again, I think that we're in a really interesting position which is a decision should really be made because and time is nigh and we gotta make it positive for our kids but are we positive about this curriculum and I think that it has a lot of really good things to it because our teachers who are going to teach it said it did and I think that that has to weigh on us but as a superintendent I certainly will have my concerns just like I have my concerns probably with other ones.

So I mean I appreciate the question.

I think certainly we should spend more time discussing it and really make sure that there's a good solid strong answer by April because we want to make sure that there's training for our staffs that we'll be able to get them to rock and roll by September 1st or whenever the first day of school is for that.

So thank you, Director Briggs, for teeing it up for me and for allowing me to give my opinion.

But really, the best opinion I can give you is I am really proud of our team.

I'm proud of the teachers.

I'm proud of the community that voted on it, that had their saying in it.

and that the fact that we're being more transparent, we're being more open about what we're doing and showing that we're taking in the community's advice around science of reading, about being transparent, about articulating these things.

So I think we've got a great and wonderful three or four weeks ahead of us and then I look forward to being back here taking a vote.

I don't get to vote, I will watch the vote, but thank you.

Director so follow up from directors and I see Director Rankin has her hand up.

Thank you.

Yeah I just want to quickly appreciate the thoughtfulness of this conversation.

I really appreciated the questions of my colleagues and our focus on the process and the oversight role and not diving into you know every little piece of the actual curriculum, which none of us are experts in.

So I think this was a really healthy conversation.

I wanted to just ask Ben, following up on your comments in the next three or four weeks, something I would like to know in that time at some point is as you are refining your recommendations for our goals and thinking strategic plan-wise, I would like to know if you feel like this curriculum will be a helpful tool in making progress on our goals and if it's something that can be a successful piece of the whatever you're thinking in terms of strategic plan.

I wouldn't want us to adopt something that is going to be run counter to the overall what we're trying to do.

So I just wanted to put that out there.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

It's a great question.

Thanks.

Director Lavallee.

Yeah, based on what you were saying as well, I want to clarify, and this is a general question to the vote we'll be taking next month on this curriculum.

Are we approving the committee's endorsement of this curriculum and the money that's proposed for it and then can the superintendent or anyone else still renegotiate that so if something's happening can there be you know any sort of changes of like hey we'd actually like seven years and this flexibility with that contract or is exactly this nine-year set with this exact option that's being presented to the board

I'll take a stab at it.

I think based on the feedback that we received tonight, some of the ideas that are coming tonight, I think we would definitely be, and I'll have to defer to the committee chair about how they're going to communicate with McGraw-Hill about what are the opportunities for flexibilities and give McGraw-Hill opportunities to address some of these concerns and ideas.

So I think the question is really well taken which is what are we in fact voting on and that will be up to how the vote is taken and what is written and so as it stands it would be to approve the money and the whole process and what have you but again the great thing about is you can always amend anything you want from the dais or previous, unless of course it is a board policy, which then there are other times for.

So right now, what is being introduced is certainly the approval of what the committee is sending to you and the nine years and et cetera.

But I think again, over the next three or four weeks, we can see what is possible we can have that conversation.

But I will say that if the board does approve any curriculum, I would want it to be for a long enough period for two reasons.

One, you want to give a indication to the staff that this is what we're really believing in and we're gonna believe in it for a long time.

And two, it allows us to budget in the time of a difficult budget crunch.

But I do think that there is always ways to negotiate things like ways to get out of things or different tack areas.

So I appreciate that.

Director Mizorahi.

Very quick point on that.

So reading what the recommended motion would be, it might be helpful if there were an amendment to say Right now it says not to exceed nine years, or $9 million, and then lays out the year for you all to get information from McGraw-Hill to say, okay, what would a seven-year contract look like, eight-year contract?

Because I imagine it's not just one million less.

Maybe it is, but that's not always how contracts work.

So what that amount would be, should it be an eight-year, seven-year, whatever contract?

What I will point out, which is true, is the contract that I think the last page, as Director Mizrahi is correct, it says nine year bundle at this unit is this year.

It is unclear if it was seven, would it just be seven ninths of that or would it be something else?

Exactly.

All right.

Looking to other directors.

All right.

Thank you again.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Just a helpful hint to my fellow board directors as well.

If you're looking to do an amendment, our board staff is there to support you and help you in the process with the correct timing and posting of things so that we are all aware of those things and we're not clashing up to deadlines and making sure everyone has the information.

So they are there to support that process.

So thank you all.

Okay, we will take a quick break.

We'll be back at 6.05.

online.

But the second item on today's agenda is the annual approval of schools.

And again, I'm going to hand it over to the superintendent for the introduction.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, President Topp.

It's always an honor to bring up staff.

And so for this wonderful board action report, it is going to be Ted Howard.

Ted, if you want to come on up.

Thank you so much.

I will certainly let him do almost all the talking, but these are one of the roles of the board where you kind of, every year, it's an annual approval.

I want to make sure that certainly new board members kind of see these kinds of actions that we have to take, as you can imagine, a ton of bureaucracy when it comes to public education, especially in large districts.

But this one, in my experience, is not too difficult.

But please, please feel free to ask lots of questions, because this is one of those things that we're going to have to do every year, and I want everybody to feel very comfortable with it.

So without further ado, Mr. Howard.

Good evening President Taub.

Good evening Board Directors and Superintendent Schildiner.

My name is Ted Howard Chief Accountability Officer.

I'm here to introduce to you the annual approval of Schools WACC 18016-220.

What we really are approving is five things.

First thing is all schools in Seattle Public Schools are authorized to operate for the 25-26 school year.

The second thing is each school has required school improvement plan what we call the CSIP or SIP as required by state law and schools with alternative learning experiences ALE designated also to meet approval requirements.

The fourth thing is the district is in compliance with the Washington State Administrative Code and then the fifth thing that you are really approving is the district has verified the required planning monitoring and document documentation exists.

exactly and actually you know because Ted is such an expert at this and you want to just give a little bit about what this is I mean I don't want to belabor the point because I know we have a lot of things to go through but I certainly want board members to feel comfortable kind of with what we're doing here okay

So the CSIP is really the continuous school improvement plan that sits down with the BLT with the communities and the families and they align their budget they align their time their interventions what they're going to do to make a difference and help close that achievement gap if there is a gap in certain areas to help students succeed.

This is not an easy task.

You work on this throughout the year and you review data on a regular basis to take a look at that.

when we get to a point where we're doing it excellent you'll see triangulated data and you'll see that every 30 to 45 days to make shifts and changes throughout the system.

Right now you probably see what we look at which is a map data which is a lag data and we're making decisions that way but there's room for improvement.

We'll get to that point where we are actually shifting that practices across the system the whole system K through 12.

and these are just kind of the bureaucratic things about asking the board to approve these but you know not that I will ever try to make my job even more difficult but just as a reminder these five things are about which schools we have and then are we doing our you know all the rules and regulations around that so yeah and you know it's pretty perfunctory but I want to make sure that people if you have any questions asked but we're certainly asking for your your approval so that we can in fact run a school district because if you don't approve it we cannot.

Questions from board directors.

Director Rankin.

Thank you I Mostly just wanted to thank, I don't know what your title is, Chief Ted, Mr. Ted, Mr. Howard, former Principal Emeritus Howard, for continuing to work on this.

As you mentioned, Superintendent Schultener, this is one of those perfunctory required items.

It's something that, I don't know 10 or so years ago I noticed as a community member like there's this thing we have to approve and it was very much treated as oh this is just like don't worry about it this is just thing just this thing that we have to approve and I started asking questions about well if the state is insisting that we approve it perhaps there is something that could be useful from it and if it's something we have to do anyway why don't we try to align it to you know why don't we try to make it relevant is it possible it could be relevant and so I just I wanted to both point out that Ted has done a lot of work in this area as have others but also to you superintendent that as I'm sure there's something similar in Michigan.

I don't know what it looks like.

But again, with the strategic plan and as we do monitoring, that this is one of those structures that we already are required to do.

And I imagine it could become even more useful and aligned to what we're doing in terms of progress monitoring and that hopefully it continues to evolve to be something that is useful and is not just like oh yeah we do our real work over here and then there's this other thing we also have to do if there's ways for us to look at data and look at evaluation and things that are tied to the CSIPs more meaningfully, I think that's a good thing to do.

So I just kind of wanted to highlight it for you that it looks different even now than it did five years ago, 10 years ago.

Absolutely, and I appreciate you saying that.

And that's the thing is the reason why I wanted Ted and even just to engage in a little bit of conversation is to highlight that these are actually and can be important things, but they're treated perfunctory, right?

They're treated as like just vote on it because if you don't, you can't have a school district, right?

But the idea is that I think the more that we might have conversations about what continuous school improvement plans look like and how they can be more useful, you're exactly right that as we have our goals and we have our mission and we are really moving the district forward, this is one of those tools that's kind of rarely used but can be used to move the district forward.

So I appreciate that point.

Well and I think it can also be a useful communication tool if we sort of help parents understand like when you look at it why should you care about looking at your continuous school improvement plan and what might it tell you about what's happening at your kids school as well.

Thank you.

Other directors.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on.

Moving right along.

Our third item for introduction today is amendment to board policy number sixty two one five warrant certification approval and cancellation.

And again Superintendent Schuldner you have the floor.

Thank you again.

So I assume this is the next on the docket, which is going to be Dr. Kurt Buddleman, who I assume I can see behind me.

All right, wonderful.

Thank you, Kurt.

Again, not that you need me to introduce any of these things, but one of the big things for me, and we actually did this in Lansing, is really moving towards the modern way of paying people.

The fact that we literally write millions of dollars of checks is not what a large school district should be doing.

And so if we can make our systems a little bit more modern and move things forward, I think there's some really good things here.

But again, I am not the head of budget and finance.

But I think you did a great job.

That's the introduction.

I am Curt Petelman, Assistant Superintendent for Finance.

With me is Christy Maggia, our Director of Accounting.

to riff off of Ben, how long?

Chrissy's been with us, 716 days.

So she has made it a part of her work to move us into the 21st century on payments to vendors and eventually to employees.

So today we have this introduction item to allow us to do that per board policy.

I do want to note in the packet of materials that was presented, the existing board policy is not in there.

I have copies of that if people want that for the discussion.

We'll make sure to include that when this comes back for action at the next meeting.

And we're happy to answer any questions.

Like I said, Christy is immersed deeply in this process and we can answer anything you want to know.

Director Smith?

Is there any reason why we wouldn't want to make this change?

From my opinion, no.

Unless you like paper checks in the mail.

There are people that like paper checks in the mail.

I'm going to exit stage left.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

Moving right along.

The fourth item on today's agenda.

Nope.

Yeah, the fourth item on today's agenda is approval of the Seattle School Board sponsorship for proposed Washington State School Directors Association WASDA positions.

And this is sponsored by Director Rankin.

So I will pass it over to Director Rankin to give a little bit of an introduction.

Thank you.

Yeah, so every year we have the opportunity as members of WASDA to submit positions to the membership that we would like the full body to consider.

A couple of years ago individual board directors could submit things and as you can imagine they were things that were really they could be things that were really not in line with what you know even one board really wanted much less the boards of Washington and so it just created a lot of positions so they changed it to requiring board approval and submission on behalf of a board to consider new positions.

And that has worked out pretty well the last few years.

So once we submit the positions WASDA collects all of them and if there's ones that are submitted from different districts that are really similar or duplicative they will the resolutions or the legislative committee of WASDA will look at them and reach back out to sponsoring districts to see if people are willing to combine.

And then once that's done, all members get an updated catalog of positions that are available for WASDA members to vote on.

And then we send a delegate.

Our representative is Director Song.

So our delegate goes to General Assembly in September and votes on our behalf and positions that receive majority vote become new WASDA positions and influence what WASDA as an organization advocates for in the next legislative cycle.

So I had one given what we've been experiencing recently in Seattle and is unfortunately experience of way too many communities in our country is what happens when children have access to firearms.

and so WASDA has an existing position to advocate for gun violence prevention and my proposed position would add well it cleans up the language a little bit to align it with some of the other existing positions but the most critical piece is it adds language specifically about advocating for children not just not to have access to guns.

in that gun violence prevention position.

I didn't put it together yet, but in the time since I submitted this, I had some people reach out to me about being interested in a cell phone position, which I said I would be happy to take suggestions and put it into something for us to consider.

which I could add to this before the next board meeting when we actually take action.

And I know also that we have concerns in our community about AI and just screen time in general.

So I just have for now introduction on paper, the gun violence prevention one, but I am gonna try to do some wordsmithing to bring something from our community members on those two other topics before we take action so if anybody only one or two other people so you don't have a quorum but if anybody's also interested in working on that that would be great.

And then of course if anybody has any other total totally other positions they want to add to the motion.

And that's it and if there are no well yeah I'm happy to take questions if there are any.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- All right questions from directors.

All right.

Thank you, Director Rankin.

All right.

Those were the items for introduction.

We're going to move now to some just updates and discussion.

So the first one is a grant process update.

So I will pass it over to Superintendent Schuldner to lead the discussion.

Absolutely.

Well, first of all, thank you again.

I will say that a week ago at the Horseshoe we had a really wonderful conversation around the way that we are allowed to spend money.

And one of the things that was tasked to the district was to change our website and to make things more clear.

And I'd like to bring Dr. Buddleman back up here.

But what I also want to point out, and this we will try to take a bow for, is, I know historically the district might not have moved with great alacrity when the board has asked for things or when the community has asked for things and so I want to give Curt the ability to tell you what we've done in the very brief time that we have been working on this, and also just to say how much I appreciate this board being so clear about what it needed, it allowed us to do what you wanted us to do.

So Kurt, if you wanna just tell everybody what you've been working on and what you've already done, that'd be great, and then I will add to that.

Sure.

As Superintendent Schulter said, we did update the website late last week to include some more clear information, more succinct information around this topic.

Today we communicated to all the principals, sort of how the process might work, and we sent them the information, we sent them sort of the background on what's going on.

and we sent them a template for them to work with their PTAs to fill out, to bring things forward to this group if they have donations of over $250,000.

So the first chance that we'll have to do that is April 22nd.

So we have school principals who could do so to work with their PTAs to get those to us by March 31st in order to meet your deadlines.

As Ben was introducing me just now, I was communicating with the BFDA, or PTA Vice President, so she has some concerns around this April 22nd, so trying to assure her that we can entertain these requests on another timeline.

We're just trying to get that first round that is pending through as soon as we could.

So there will be opportunity for more types of things like this in the future.

and we're working in the staffing arena process currently so having schools sort of estimate what they think they're gonna get from their PTA which is what we typically do and so if there are schools who do have capacity to raise more than $250,000 we're working with the principal to make sure that we can take advantage of that in the coming school year in September and I think in one of my notes to one of the PTAs I reminded them and all of us that school doesn't start for another six or eight months so we've got some time to get this sorted out if we need to.

and I just want to again thank Kurt, his team and the board and the community is The board makes policy and the district enacts it and makes it so.

I have seen in the one month and 18 days I've been here is that that doesn't always happen.

And so I just hope that people are seeing that the board, the district, the superintendent, all of us are trying to work really collaboratively to listen to the community but also the will of the board and moving quickly.

the reason why this would have to be at the next board meeting is because the board would have to make an act but of course and to be very very clear a PTA like I said last time is not a school district entity so a PTA if they wanted to could raise 200 million dollars If you could do that, please let me know.

That would be amazing.

I would like to make sure that we distribute that around the district.

However, the fact that you could raise that is on you as a non-profit 501c3 entity or whatever, however you're designated.

The issue is if you want to give that money to the district, if that money is over $250,000 in order to accept it, the board would have to vote on it.

So if there are PTAs out there that want to do things Feel free.

I'm not supposed to tell you what to do.

You are the PTA.

You are your own entity.

When we accept the money, if you so choose to give it to us, then that's where this kind of starts.

So I think there's just been a lot of misunderstanding, to nobody's fault.

These are complicated things.

And so the more that we can just all be in alignment, the better.

But within a week, they were able to create a new system, a new structure, a template.

The principles are being told today.

And we think that we will be ready and able to accept anything if the board so chooses in April.

But again, this can happen every month because you can bring it and we can bring it to the board and it is then of course up to the board because of course the district gets grants all the time over $250,000 that we would still bring to the board.

So thank you to Kurt and to everybody and to the board and I will not belabor the point.

Questions from directors and I'll start with Director Song.

Just a question, two questions.

One, you've got this template and so from there the principal submits it to the grants office and then at what point does it get put, like what's the movement to the board agenda?

They'll work with their regional executive director and Dr. Torres Morales's office who will present them to the board so it'll follow our typical bar process with the grants office sort of providing support along the side.

My second question is, I kind of vaguely think there's a deadline for displacement, so what is the timing of the displacement and us being presented grants, et cetera?

Sure, so I would certainly defer to the great Dr. Pritchett, but I think it is May 15th.

So I will invite the head of HR to give you that answer.

But there are union requirements in terms of when somebody would be informed of something, and then there would be about how displacements works.

But the good news is that we're always able to kind of override it.

It's like that's why you have those reassessments in June, in August, et cetera.

but I'll turn it over to Dr. Pritchett to answer specifically.

And the question was on displacements specifically.

So we are in the process right now of budget and staffing arenas.

Those will finish next week and that is actually the deadline that we need to know when schools are displacing their staff so that we can then do an analysis to see how many vacant positions we have versus how many displaced staff we have and start making matches in that way and then also provide them the opportunity provides staff the opportunity to start to do internal hiring.

We have phased hiring that we do before we open positions we want to make sure that we have no one that needs to go into an actual position in that particular category for instance.

So if we have math teachers that are displaced we need to make sure that we don't open any math positions until we put all the folks into jobs that we owe jobs to.

What the May 15th deadline is if we were to non-renew So if we were looking at a reduction in force, we would actually need to notify staff before the May 15th deadline.

And as both doctors are saying, I'm the only one without a doctor here, is that if the school is telling us they think something might come, we can certainly budget accordingly.

and certainly the board would tell us one way or the other but there is some flexibility but to what HR's point of course is gonna be is as we do these budget arenas we're starting to staff them for next year so if we don't know that they might keep these folks then we would have to to tell them that there's a displacement.

But there is flexibility here, which will allow us to do it.

But of course, what HR would want is as clean a process as possible, and that's why the two doctors to my left and my right talk all the time, so that they're like, oh wait, not that person.

Oh, this is coming, et cetera.

Just as a reminder too that if a staff member is displaced they have the right to return to a position.

So if money comes later on then we can also ask them if they'd like to return to their position.

So they would have that right to return.

And I think that's the great safety net for all of this, right?

So it's, what, a year and a day or something?

Yeah, basically you have a right to return for a while.

And so in this case, if it's a vote in April or whatever, they should be fine.

If they want to come back.

It's up to them.

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

I want to appreciate the swiftness which this was responded to as you pointed out that we're not known for moving very quickly as a system and I really appreciate that and also your statement that our job is to write policy and the problem that we're having in a lot of places is that the policy is actually okay.

and it's not being followed.

So PTA isn't even mentioned in this policy and somehow, at some point in the system, PTAs are treated differently than other grant making organizations in a totally inappropriate way.

And so I don't think it's, you know, worth trying to figure out how that happened or why that happened as much as it is worth making sure that it doesn't continue to happen.

Because there's nothing in here that is the board's direction that says, you know, grants and awards and revenue producing agreements will be handled in this way unless it comes from PTA.

It just simply does not see that.

But I do want to point out too that It also doesn't say that just because anybody raises money, we have to spend it the way...

If the constraints on any kind of a gift are such that you, the superintendent, find it at odds with our goals as a district, it doesn't matter what the amount is.

By my rate of this policy, you would have the right to say, thank you so much for the offer.

We will not be, you know, training McClure Middle School students in hand-to-hand combat or something.

You know, I don't know.

I'm just making up something ridiculous.

So I want to make that clear, too, that this to me matters a lot for all grants because when we accept the money, we're also committing to the expenditure.

and all grants have been treated very much outside the rest of our budget, which is bizarre.

So as we kind of continue, like I think this is a good fix for right now and this policy needs to be continued to be worked on so that we're very, very clear about just what's in line with what we're doing and what's not and it's not a mystery or a surprise.

and I always have concerns when staff is being hired outside of our budget system.

So I would really like to, as we move forward, we should be considering all grants as part of our budget and see that in the approval of the board's approval that we're also approving the expenditure of grants within the budget is my opinion.

But I appreciate the quick fix to this for now.

All right, other questions?

All right, thank you.

We are moving right along to our board goals.

This was a deliverable from our retreat.

Our board goals actually don't have a vote, but we get to discuss them, align along with them, and I'm going to pass it over to Director Smith to run through our proposed goals.

Great.

So we have the goals proposed and we also have, just to start, in our discussion about the goals, the self-assessment that we did before the retreat, it was a non-onerous process for the directors.

I didn't see the planning side of that and it seemed like a very effective way to assess where we were.

So we were also kind of recommending or proposing that we continue with that same self-assessment going forward next year.

And then with the new committees, we also chose to kind of propose some goals would be led by the different committees, kind of aligned with what we think they might be doing.

Again, this isn't something that the board will be voting on and adopting, so it's kind of up to the committees if they agree with that and say, yes, this fits with what we want to be accomplishing.

And so kind of falling to the policy committee perhaps as well is looking at our self-governance policy in order to update it to align with what we're proposing here.

So the goals that we chose from the self-assessment, there was a very low standard deviation on what our weaknesses were.

So that shows that hopefully we're aligned on these things.

And there were, a lot of them were related to communication, budget, and accountability.

So we're trying to cover those topics.

The goal that we chose for the full board would be publicly recognize the efforts of schools in improving student learning.

The goal that we chose for the policy committee is ensure the public is well informed of the roles and responsibilities.

The goal that we chose for the operations committee was ensure a high degree of coherence between the district plan and school improvement plans, which is kind of interesting that we just had the intro item on the approval of schools, including the continuous improvement plans.

That's cool.

And then finally for the Finance Committee, we proposed provide guidelines for budget development, including a clearly defined expectation for a reasonable ending fund balance.

And additionally, but also possibly a choice, depending on how the Finance Committee chooses to proceed, would be that the process includes seeking public input.

So those were things that we thought would be would make us very happy if we could improve on and hope that that might align with the committees.

That also kind of lets us get a few more things in that we'd be improving instead of the board as a whole having to tackle a lot of different items.

Thank you Director Smith I personally really like the publicly recognized the efforts of schools in improving student learning I think that's something we'll start to see in April and maybe a little bit more performative way but I know that Superintendent Schuldner has discussed how we'll really try to focus more on academics as we move into the fall So that is something I'm particularly interested in.

I got to participate in the creation of these and really we were looking at where did we score the lowest on this self-assessment and where could we see some improvements quickly.

So thank you Director Smith.

But looking to other directors for questions, discussion.

general agreement, like this sounds good.

I'm seeing some shaking heads.

Director Mizorah, he did have to jump off, but he gave me a sort of thumbs up on his policy committee as he's chairing that committee.

So, all right.

Seeing none, I'm excited.

We have some goals and things to work for, and I look forward to seeing if our scores improve on these things at our next assessment.

So, thank you.

and that's the last thing on our agenda so our next meeting is April 22nd we have spring break in the middle of that so I wish everyone a wonderful spring break and there being no further business on the agenda the meeting stands adjourned well wait just a second before that I know also a lot of committees are meeting in between that time so you should have All directors should have all the calendar invites for all the committee meetings.

Obviously, you don't need to attend all the committee meetings.

You can attend any committee meetings that you want to be part of those discussions.

So if you don't have those, please see the board office.

But with that, there being no further business on the agenda, the meeting stands adjourned at 6.38 PM.

Thank you, everyone.

Have a wonderful evening.