School Board Meeting 2272019 Pt. 2

We're ready for public testimony.

I can't whistle anymore.

So come on.

OK we are back in session in accordance with board policy number 1 4 3 0 and corresponding board procedure 1 4 3 0 board BP.

One person speaks at a time.

Comments need to be addressed to the board.

Please adhere to the time limit which is two minutes at one minute 30 seconds you'll get the yellow light so you can wrap up your time and it read.

Finish your sentence if you would please.

The focus of the comments should be on the issues and solutions and the majority of the speaker's time must be spent on the topic that he or she has indicated they wish to speak about.

No racial slurs personal insults insults ridicule or threats will be allowed.

No comments regarding personnel matters and we are most appreciative of you taking your time to come down and learn us up.

Could you please read the testimony list three at a time.

Thank you.

First up for public testimony we have Nathan Polanski followed by Andrea Monte Carlo and then Chris Jackins.

Hi I'm Nathan Polanski.

I use he him pronouns and I attend Nova High School.

Before this year I actually lived in North Carolina where I was bullied and called a lot of slurs by students and teachers alike.

Mostly because the fact that I'm not straight or cis so I'm in the LGBT community.

A few years after a few years of being bullied I started I actually dropped out of school and my mom and I started looking to move away for a safe and more accepting place.

And one of the more one of the most talked about ones with Seattle and Nova was actually the most prominent school that talked about an exit a safe and accepting space for no matter what you identified as.

So we came to visit here and as soon as I walked into Nova I was.

kind of surrounded by this sense of like family and support and not being treated like all that mattered was my test scores.

And they really focused on what would help each person individually.

And as soon as we got home we started packing to move here.

And Nova has not only helped me feel safer in my gender identity and how I present myself but actually more confident in my learning and what I would be doing in the future because it helps a lot with planning.

And yeah.

Thank you.

Hi my name is Andrea Monteclaro.

I am a senior at Franklin High School and I'm here to give a testimony about the cutoff of librarians.

What is a library without a librarian.

If it weren't for my librarian I wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn about the new technology that we have in our library.

Our librarian is so important to Franklin.

He's a trusted adult around our school.

It would suck for him to be gone for half of the week.

I think it's unfair.

that student to students and librarians if their hours were cut.

Students are the future of this world and if we didn't have anyone to guide us through things and teach us we wouldn't we would be ignorant to the new beginnings of this generation and we need librarians to be there full time as another trusted adult and adult resource for us students.

We are so lucky to have a librarian who cares about us.

Thank you.

After Chris Jackins, we'll have Dr. Carol Simmons, followed by Sarah Sense-Wilson, and then Janice White.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4 on the yearbooks contract for points.

Number one in the past smaller schools paid more essentially subsidizing larger schools.

Number two all four of the original bidders in 2015 were national companies.

The district has policies to promote consideration of contracts with small businesses that are minority and women owned.

Number three to help out.

I provided contact information to the district for a specific local small printing business that is minority and women owned which you will hear from in a little bit.

Number four please delay action on this contract until an attempt has been made to follow board policies.

On the district headquarters freezer contract three points.

Number one the cited contract cost has dropped by over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Number two however the board report now states that the district will self-perform a portion of the work and that other contracts will be issued outside of the construction contract.

Number three what is the new total cost of the project.

On amending board policy 2024 and 24 20 two points.

Number one these changes claim to promote equity by preventing wealthier students from shopping around for out of district courses to boost their GPAs.

Number two but students in other districts can still shop around.

There is a feel that the district is trying to stop students from learning and protect the Seattle brand.

Please vote no on the purchase of library collections.

What portions of the collections are accessible to blind and sight impaired individuals.

Also please reopen the African-American Academy and Indian Heritage High School.

Thank you.

During my 34 years in education as a Seattle Public Schools teacher counselor administrator and university professor I have experienced the critical importance of high school grade and credit marking policies.

Research has demonstrated the inequities of grading and credit awarding due to the realities of everything from teacher fatigue to teacher bias.

The disproportionality task force recommendations included the need to replace the E failure grade with the N no credit earned yet grade.

The E failure grade should be eliminated for all courses and replaced with an N.

No credit earned yet.

It has been well documented that more underserved students receive E failure grades than white students.

Native students are among the most underserved students in our schools.

We pay homage to Native American land at the beginnings of every school board meeting and then after the board meeting ends continue to leave out and push out native students.

Native students have been left out of the strategic plan the alliance for education grant Their native school indigenous people's days assemblies after school activities adequate learning space and are pushed out of schools by being disproportionately disciplined suspended and placed in special education programs.

You say you are discouraged always hearing the problems and you request solutions.

There is a solution that exists.

Restore Indian Heritage High School and and provide the human and financial resources and culturally competent leadership to make it successful.

Thank you.

Good evening.

We're here tonight representing UNEA.

I want to thank you for holding off on taking action on policy 2420. We have several concerns with emerging issues related to Indian education UNEA partnership agreement the strategic plan and Native American student data.

For the record we are not in agreement with the selection process for the strategic plan steering committee.

No representation from our community no representation from our socioeconomic cultural background.

There was no transparency no consultation no reports on committee meetings and these meetings were closed to the public.

The entire process undermines the leadership of grassroots CBOs.

and communities of color.

Does this lack of inclusion reflect the core values and the philosophy of Seattle Public Schools.

Is this truly extending the dinner table.

We want Seattle Public Schools to include Native Americans as in the strategic plan priority.

We want Seattle Public Schools to include culturally relevant and responsive curriculum including mandatory STI and ethnic studies as a priority.

We want Seattle Public Schools to prioritize community partnerships CBO's and family engagement in the strategic plan.

Community based organization partnerships are vitally important to bridging resources and support gaps experienced by marginalized students and families.

We have concerns about the alarming 13 percent Native students suspension and expulsion data.

How does this how does Seattle Public Schools account for the spike in disproportionality in disciplinary action.

Disproportionality and Native American students identified as SPED continues to be a significant concern due to the lack of resources advocacy support to meet the Native needs of 39 percent Native students enrolled in special education.

We strongly encourage and suggest Seattle Public School leadership host a full day retreat with Native American community to address the plethora of ongoing issues impacting Native American students as one step towards mending wounds growing trust and inspiring collaboration and cooperation.

Thank you.

After Janice White we will have Dr. Jim Simmons followed by Blaine Parse and then Mohamed Asma.

Thank you I'm Janice White.

There has been concern among parents in the special education community about the fact that special education is not mentioned in the current draft of the strategic plan.

When the draft was presented to the special ed PTSA at its last meeting no one in the room disagreed with the need for the district to focus on the gaps experienced by African-American male students.

But the concern was that based on published data the gaps experienced by special education students are just as large if not larger and yet they are not mentioned in the plan.

For example graduation rates based on 2016 data Seattle's overall graduation rate is 80.6 percent.

The graduation rate for African-American students not broken down by gender is 70.3 percent.

The graduation rate for special education 58.2 percent.

The school to prison pipeline also applies.

Did you know that 50 percent of children in our state juvenile justice system are IEP qualified.

Our special ed students need to be explicitly mentioned in the strategic plan if there is any hope of bringing about real change in their educational outcomes.

If special education students were called out as deserving of focus there is no way the transportation department could have a policy Requiring students who receive door to door transportation to opt in during a one week window for a snow road pickup location relying on bus drivers to hand out the opt in forms.

They would receive that snow route location automatically like everyone else with an opt out option.

If special education students were called out as deserving of focus then when the district reports annually on students who've been restrained or isolated in school they would also be reviewing whether those students had appropriate positive behavioral plans and whether staff in those schools had received training in evidence based positive behavioral support.

Please consider please reconsider excluding our most vulnerable children from the top level of Seattle's strategic plan.

Thank you.

All set?

Okay.

My name is Dr. Jim Simmons, teacher, principal, central office administrator, Seattle Public Schools and University professor, retired.

I'm well aware you must constantly struggle to meet the many needs of students and families and staff in your seriously underfunded situation.

I'm here today to speak not only to Amendment 2420, but also to the school environment which massively influences the students' academic achievement and how this affects the academic achievement of Native American students.

In my experience as an educator, it is clear that to the degree which students do not feel an emotional trust in the teacher, do not feel respected for their ancestry and as a person, and do not feel respected as a member of a school community, academic achievement and the grades that go with it will be seriously diminished.

For hundreds of years, Native American students and communities have been lied to, betrayed, displaced, and shunned aside by local, state, and federal government agencies.

Such neglect and mistreatment has also been inflicted on the Native American students and communities of Seattle Public Schools.

At present, the needs of the Native American students at the Licton Springs School are once again being shuttered aside in an overcrowded school environment in which only one classroom is provided for 45 middle school students, no staff room exists for Licton Springs teachers and supporters, teachers trying to teach in school hallways and nooks and crannies, open and funded positions seemingly stranded in the human relations department, and space to expand and let the program grow does not exist.

The continuing disrespect and neglect of the needs of Native American students and families in this situation is obvious.

If you are serious about raising the grades of Native American students awarded by the current or newly adopted grading system reestablish a Native American school with the space and resources to grow and where trust and respect for Native American students and families and community and staff can thrive.

This was done in Seattle with the Indian Heritage High School.

The example that we had worked well for a number of years then the school district let it collapse by, I guess, benign or perhaps malign neglect.

But it could be reestablished, and it should be.

Thank you.

Hello school board members.

My name is Blaine Parse.

I'm an enrolled member of the Four Peck Tribes.

I'm also a graduate of American Indian Heritage class of 2000. I am currently a parent and caregiver for four students in Seattle Public Schools and as a parent volunteer of Licton Springs K-8.

I am also the PTO co-chair.

I would just like to bring to your attention our community has been requesting a space audit from several of our board members here and scheduling staff and we have not heard from a few of you guys.

The space audit would give us the opportunity to prove improve our learning environment and bring cohesion to our community our school community.

Also as a community member I would like to bring forward to the table the inequity of pressuring Licton Springs K-8 which is a majority marginalized families is hypocritical of the district's promise of being more equitable.

Also as a as a graduate of Indian heritage I am also thank you to everyone who speaks up about having a Native focused high school.

I'm I'm really supportive of that in any way that I can.

Just to keep my time short I would also like to invite all of the school board members to our Licton Springs K-8 PTO meeting which is March 11th.

That's a Monday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Thanks.

After Mohamed Azmath we will have Anne Cheran followed by Tina Buster and then Tuz D Chambers.

Hi, my name is Mohammad Azmuth.

My wife is Nikhat Azmuth, and my kid.

We came here to talk about some yearbooks you guys contracting for the East Coast companies, nationwide companies.

We are, by the way, I give you guys all the folders.

So you can see we are minority-owned business locally.

Been here 30 years next to the UW.

And if anybody go to UW, they at least come to my store at least one time.

So we provide the curriculum books for the UW, math, pre-calculus, biology, manuals, and everything, et cetera.

But the yearbooks, we wanted to be advertised to come to us.

And it's local.

And price, cost, whatever you guys have.

To meet the contract, we're willing to work with you guys and provide a better quality service and better every area, the books cost.

From shipping from East Coast to West Coast, it costs a lot of money.

You guys all knows.

And in sprinting by, even say if you want to talk to somebody, you call the Eastern time, not like your Western time in local here.

So, I'm just come to introduce myself, my business, and I'm a minority owner.

I'm looking for any how to get in to the school system to get some work.

I have five families work with us locally.

second generation 40 years been in the business and if you guys give us a chance we will prove you guys like all good and give you good quality service and price-wise and That's it.

Thank you

Hi thank you for postponing the vote on policy 2024. Instead of talking about that policy I would like to talk about special education students who qualify for and are cognitively capable of advanced placement in honors courses.

in our high schools.

These students are known as twice exceptional and while there are variations that usually means creative big bright and way above average brains and very low output and processing speeds.

These kids have 504 plans IEPs and their LRE is often the class that is going to be at their cognitive level.

Why then are most high school AP and honors classes defining these students out of the curriculum opportunity.

Most of these classes revolve around and are defined by student capacity for volume and pace.

Exactly the capacities that impact our twice exceptional students.

The result is that our students think about it.

A whole class of students is systematically excluded from courses at their cognitive level just on the basis of disability.

This is on our taxpayer dollars.

Mine and yours that Seattle Public Schools is condoning this and this is discrimination.

I'm hard pressed to find anybody from my principal to his executive directors of schools to the Office of Student Services who will step up on this obvious equity issue.

And so school board directors I ask that you press Superintendent Juneau and the new CAO to mandate that no AP or honors courses can be offered in our district unless they can be designed inclusively with neurologically diverse students in mind instead of these one size fits all courses.

Whether it's the policy 2024 the strategic plan or AP and honors classes we do need leadership to make sure that policies plans and courses are designed with our students with disabilities as visible and meaningful stakeholders.

Thank you.

Good evening my name's Tina Buster.

I'm the teacher librarian at Emerson Elementary and though I love my Eagles I'm here tonight to speak in support of all students and all SPS libraries.

I provided you with two handouts.

The first one is has a banner entitled Big Victory for School Libraries and it's a two sided one.

And the other one is a copy of page 17 from the 2019-2020 gold book.

Through the advocacy with our state legislators, the Washington Library Association was able to amend a library's materials change into Senate Bill 6362, which passed and was signed by Governor Inslee last year on March 21st, 2018. The amendment added a line item clarifying that 20 dollars of the state allocation was to be spent specifically on library materials.

In our district those funds did not reach our schools.

or at least they were not allocated directly to libraries.

It was up to principals who were not informed about 6362 by the district, by their supervisors, by anyone except the librarians working in their building.

That's that was disappointing.

However it's sort of understandable the timing was not great.

The gold book had already been released.

Most schools had already finished their budgeting process by March 21st.

That's not true this year.

And yet when the gold book was released on February 15th I scoured through it looking for any mention of the $20 per student allocation.

It's not there.

There is no mention of 63 62 and I went to my principal again today and she still knew nothing about it except from me.

That's unfortunate.

I love my principal who's incredibly supportive and does everything she can to make sure that our very tightly stretched school has enough money to provide our kids with books.

But not everybody gets that and you can fix that.

Please do.

Thank you.

After Tuesday Chambers we will have Amy Arvidson followed by Rebecca Winecoop and then Brian Terry.

My name is Tuesday Chambers.

I'm the Ballard High School librarian.

I cede my time to Lauren.

Can I move it.

Is that a thing.

Oh OK.

Hi my name is Lauren Nguyen and I'm a senior at Franklin High School.

I'm here today to talk about our library at Franklin.

Our librarian is an essential part of not only the library but to our students and building as a whole.

Our librarian and the library fills in the cracks that may not be able to be covered by classroom budgets alone by purchasing necessary textbooks and resources.

Our librarian stands as a support system for many clubs and organizations at our school.

He's an advisor to chess club and VR club and even helped me start a puzzle club.

He also introduced me to our robotics team and has continued to support our team by coming to competitions and recruiting new students.

And to add on to what Andrea said previously about the technology at our school Mr. sorry our librarian has provided our library with resources such as a laser cutter VR headsets and a 3D printer.

Most students at our school would not would have never had the access to technology such as this and he's constantly working towards introducing students to STEM related material and careers.

I couldn't imagine our community without him and the opportunities that come from him and the library.

Every school deserves to have a library open five days a week and a librarian that truly cares about their students.

Thank you.

My name is Amy Arvidson.

I've been a middle school language arts teacher for 12 years at Washington and now at Robert Eagle Staff.

I'm here to ask you to fund libraries first because libraries are essential to our mission to reach every student every day and to close gaps.

It's a matter of equity.

First students need libraries because libraries are student centered spaces for all students.

The library is a safe place an oasis where students can restore and recharge themselves before going to their required classes.

Libraries are the one place where students can pursue what matters to them and librarians can personalize learning to what they're interested in.

Most importantly libraries are places without judgment and without tests.

Librarians have no agenda other than to meet students where they are and to open up the world of possibilities to them for every student for their needs.

Second libraries are necessary for teachers because libraries and librarians provide essential curriculum materials and expertise for us.

My job as a language arts teacher is to make sure that every child is a reader and writer.

These are tested skills.

Yet there hasn't been a middle school language arts curriculum adoption since I've been or materials adoption since I've been in the district.

We use a readers and writers workshop approach in middle school to reach every student every day and to close gaps.

I need up to date culturally relevant curriculum materials And the librarians are the ones that know and can help us provide the materials that reflect the experiences and interests of my students.

The books my students are reading for language arts are in the library.

It's an equity issue.

They need access to those every day not half the days of the week.

We need librarians the ones who really know the books to help us point each student to the just right book that's going to light them on fire.

We also need teachers to curate the materials for us.

And so without librarians I wouldn't be able to provide all the materials I need for my students.

Libraries and librarians are essential to students and teachers to.

Reach every student every day.

We need librarians.

Thanks.

Hi I'm Rebecca Wynkoop I'm the librarian at Eagle Staff.

I'm here to ask you to prioritize librarians first in restoration and cede my time to Gabby.

Hello my name is Gabby Masmela and I am also a senior at Franklin High School.

Besides being one of my librarians teacher assistant I am also the vice president of my school's ASB.

Today I'll be speaking on behalf of the funds for libraries and the librarian.

By continuing your funds for the library not only are you supplying our school with books and laptops but you're essentially being another resource for so many of our Franklin students.

At Franklin where we accommodate to many different diversities of students is easy to come across a student that doesn't have access to the Internet at home or needs a space to hang out.

The library gives us that space to do both.

To add on what my peers Andrea and Lauren have already said the library itself is its very own community.

It's not only a space to read or do homework but it's a safe place where Muslim students student association can pray during Ramadan and a place where AP government classes can have debates.

It became a place where PTSA meets regularly and it's also a space where over the years I've gotten the chance to meet our librarian over the years of my high school experience.

Our librarian has opened me up to many different skill sets.

He became another adult I could talk to about anything at Franklin and I know for a fact that I'm not speaking for myself when I say this.

There's many different reasons why Franklin is so unique.

Our librarian and his commitment to the library and his students are just one of them.

Thank you.

After Brian Terry we'll have Joanne Sayers followed by Craig Seasholes and then Thomas Raymond Spear.

Good evening.

It's easy for us to say black lives matter but when the needs of white students conflict with those of black students our actions speak louder than words.

In our schools today a white student is 20 times more likely than a black student to be identified as highly capable.

District staff told me that this is because our program does not accommodate underprivileged students.

Although state law mandates that we serve students from all backgrounds.

Making the changes to do this would be disruptive to the mostly white students in the program today.

And so we neglect the black students.

We then take the mostly white classrooms that this creates and in many cases place them in mostly black neighborhood schools.

Black families have testified about the damage that this does.

Their students complain that even if they get straight A's they are stuck in the dumb classes because they are not white.

We are crushing the academic hopes and dreams of our black students.

District policy mandates that we end this racism.

But again changing the program would be disruptive to the students in it today.

And so the racism continues.

As long as we choose to neglect and to oppress our black students in order to avoid disrupting our white students we make it clear whose lives matter.

Please end the racism in this program so we can show we believe black lives matter.

Thank you.

We have several grievances with our UNEA partnership agreements at Robert Eagle Staff.

Recently this past spring Robert Eagle Staff leadership attempted to evict us from our site by eliminating eliminating our access to the facilities and thereby jeopardizing funds which go directly to our youth families and community members.

The district negotiated a compromise which is still tenuous due to the lack of access and adequate space for our multi-activity programming, tutoring, mentorship, cultural and athletic instruction and weekly activities.

We have experienced theft of our property rescheduling without notifying us.

Lights turned off for an extended periods of time and most recently an abrupt abrupt eviction.

The eviction was the most concerning given we had over 37 youth families volunteers and elders present families traveling from South Seattle West Seattle and the central area were told to leave and that we did not have approval to be there.

Many members of our community experience displacement, homelessness, poverty, trauma, and some youth are in foster care or institutions.

The experience was not only re-traumatizing but was A financial loss to those traveling to be there for services and activities and the financial cost to our nonprofit.

These incidences destabilize our community disrupt the consistency and continuity of our programs.

The Seattle Public Schools do training and trauma and force informed services.

How insensitive thoughtless and disrespectful was this incident.

We have not received an apology from Seattle Public Schools nor an explanation.

Given our history with Robert Eagle Staff the experience feels calculated and another example of disregard for our urban native students families and community.

Okay, Superintendent Juneau and Board of Education members, I appreciate your time that you give time and again, including during the snowstorm.

February 6th, you received a letter from the American Library Association.

I'd like to read it into the record now in part to know that President Lloyda Garcia-Febo of the American Library Association and Catherine Roots Lewis of the American Association of School Librarians care deeply about what are happening in Seattle.

We met in Seattle in January and they sent you this letter.

Dear superintendents and board members as presidents of the library association we recognize the irony of addressing you all in this board in the information and technology hub of Seattle at this critical importance of students abilities to navigate the vast and constantly shifting world of information and yet With the difficult budget decisions looming we strongly request that you consider both short and long term plans for Seattle schools students with the very information professionals your school librarians who prepare students for this endeavor.

For brevity I'll conclude that we understand that the responsibility for funding public schools rests not just on the board but on the legislature and Olympia as well.

And we support our Washington colleagues in their state advocacy efforts.

We also recognize that districts must prioritize spending based on evidence based practice.

We appreciate your commitment to educational justice.

We thank you for committing to an actionable restoration plan so that every student in Seattle Public Schools will have access to fully staffed libraries and that the district will realize its mission of ensuring equitable access eliminating the opportunity gaps and excellence in education for every student.

because for every student is the business of the library.

We serve one by one by one and every people and you know that and we appreciate your work and your work as well on behalf of administration.

Good evening.

My colonized name is Tom Spear.

I'm an appointed member of the Elders Advisory Council of UNEA and Clear Sky and a youth mentor.

On Thursday January 24th I entered Robert Eagle Staff Middle School for Clear Sky where James the Eagle Staff and Licton Springs janitor said that we had to leave the school immediately.

James himself had received a telephone call from the district office at 5 p.m.

with instructions to remove all of our participants until further notice.

Last fall I attended three meetings with Susan Hall Katrina Pearl and a district lawyer where SPS staff completed a document to ensure that Clear Sky had the dates in the SPS calendar and the school would reserve space for Clear Sky.

If a document was missing.

Why did the district allow Clear Sky to meet at Robert Eagle Staff School every Tuesday and Thursday evening for two years.

If there was a problem with the document the district needs to investigate their own staff.

On the evening of our eviction we had 37 volunteers elders family and youth present for Clear Sky.

We had no advance notice and no way to notify our students family staff or volunteers.

A lot of youth and families have not returned to Clear Sky since that evening.

Some of the participants are unable to be here today, and I'd like to share their comments with the school board.

Here's some remarks from witnesses.

Mrs. Margaret Quistad is a retired librarian.

She's also a volunteer and youth mentor.

Mrs. Quistad chaperones three Licton Springs students, none of whom she's related to.

She stated out of the blue the janitor informed us that we had to vacate the premises immediately on the way home.

The girls ask why Clear Sky was kicked out.

Mrs. Quistad told the girls that the janitor got his orders from the district but could not explain to us why we had met for two years at Eagle Staff School if some critical document was missing.

The girls were puzzled by what by what they experienced.

A parent volunteer and youth mentor stated these children are already disadvantaged.

She added that many of the youth are survivors of trauma both personal and intergenerational and several are wards of the state presently confined to a government contracted youth facility.

This eviction experience reinforced what our children experience day in and day out at Seattle Public Schools that they don't belong there that they can be arbitrarily removed at any time and that there is no accountability or apology from the school or from the district.

The impact of this incident compounds the mistrust experienced by our native community regarding the district.

UNEA and Eagle Staff School are supposed to be safe places for these young Seattle Public Schools students who happen to be American Indian or Alaska Native survivors of societal dysfunction and systematic racial discrimination.

The expulsion of Clear Sky tutoring was and is traumatizing for the kids and their families.

Being expelled was extremely disrespectful and humiliating to everyone present.

This cruel treatment violates the spirit of partnership between UNEA Clear Sky and Seattle Public Schools that has been successful at three different schools for the past 11 years.

It's shameful that Seattle Public School District treats native learners as less important than their non-native peers.

Why should they be made to feel as though they should be grateful for being allowed to participate at Robert Eagle Staff School where the Indian Heritage High School was previously located.

Shame on the district for traumatizing your own students.

Thank you.

Our next speaker for the evening is Alex Zimmerman and then Aiden Carroll.

Yeah.

Hi.

My name Alex Zimmerman, yeah.

And I will come right now and will speak every day when I can.

So last time when I spoke, President Sarkozy talked about freedom of speech.

So I want a little bit correct this sarcasm.

It's not sarcasm about freedom of speech that has existed for 250 years.

What is you doing here?

It's very simple.

You're acting like a pure fascist.

This is exactly who you are.

Look at your rules.

You correct everything, I repeat, everything what is in the U.S.

Constitution, state constitution, open public meeting act, and hundred court decision.

Why are you doing this?

This is how fascism goes, slow by slow, slow by slow.

It's happened before in history for last 5,000 years.

Nothing changed.

So by definition, you're very dangerous.

You're extremely dangerous people because you teach us children, for my understanding, only in Seattle there's more than 50,000 children.

You know what this mean?

Be nice and quiet.

Is this a nice and quiet?

Make from them a slave.

This not America about.

You understand my talking?

So right now I speak to everybody who listen to me.

Guys, start use word fascism because when you use word fascism in Seattle number one fascist city in America, everything will be different, totally different.

You will look everything different because fascism is always come to Gestapo principle.

Fascism cannot exist without Gestapo principle.

So that's exactly what is we have right now.

So I speak right now to everybody.

Don't be scared use the word fascism.

It's a classic fascism but as we have in Seattle with Gestapo principle.

So stand up and don't be scared.

Start use fascism and everything will be looking totally different.

Thank you very much.

Aiden.

Rex Andre Coberto.

Is Rex here?

Andrea Flaming.

This will be our last speaker of the evening.

Good evening.

My name is Andrea Fleming and I attended Indian Heritage High School in 1987. My son we currently live in Tukwila.

I have a 14 14 year old son and an 8 year old son.

We have not been satisfied with our education that my son received.

going through Tukwila school district.

My son my 14 year old son does have an IEP.

We've had a very negative experience in the Tukwila school district.

So we seeked out alternative choices.

I did a whole lot of research a whole lot of.

You know contemplating on where would I send my son.

I wish I would have had Indian Heritage High School as one of my options.

So I removed before he started high school I removed him from Tukwila School District.

I did not want him to go to Foster High School for many reasons.

But but prior to.

You know all of the experiences we had in the Tukwila school district had been negative up to that point.

So I ended up sending him to RVLA Rainier Valley Leadership Academy which is a charter school.

It's not a bad choice but it's definitely better than sending him to Tukwila School District.

I just wish that we we would have had the choice to send him to a native based high school.

I do believe that searching out his identity and finding his identity is a huge part of his education and it would be really beneficial for him.

And I'm going to cede part of my time to Michael.

Hello my name is Michael DeSantis.

My family's Crow and Sioux from Montana my mother's side.

I came here because I just moved up here.

I lived here some years ago and we we left Seattle area because we didn't really feel comfortable in our community anymore with all the gentrification and a loss of our family and friends our community in the area including our school which is kind of weird because we were here some years ago fighting for our school.

And here we are again.

I mean it's kind of odd like they named it Robert Eagle Staff and I don't know what he'd think about what's going on at the school these days and I think we need some kind of school and it's not really fair and Seattle doesn't really play fair these days and we just don't feel welcome here anymore.

All people of color in Seattle and kind of blue collar families.

And that's all I got to say.

This concludes the sign up list for public testimony this evening.

Thank you.

OK.

First let me say thank you for taking the time to come down and speak with us face to face and thank you as well for your e-mails.

It's painful frankly to hear a lot of the testimony.

We wrestle with very very hard choices many of which none of us and again as you know I don't like to speak for the whole board.

I feel uncomfortable doing that but that one I can unilaterally say we don't like the choices we're being given because of budgetary issues and pitting types of staff against each other in our budgetary considerations and they're very very uncomfortable choices.

I'm going to make my remarks quickly I hope and then we'll go around to the folks on the dais for their feedback on what they've heard should they choose to share.

My next community meeting is March 16th 2019 3 to 5 at the High Point library.

We're back on the lasagna rotation so you have a one in three chance.

The folks that joined us on February 16th at Delridge ate some pretty good lasagna and some of y'all took it home and shared it with your families and it's our pleasure.

Sharing food with community I think really makes a big difference.

And that meeting on the 16th was powerful somewhat rowdy and we were visited by a great many of our very valued librarians who are very concerned about the budget the weighted staffing standards and the potential of the cutbacks that are being floated.

We talked.

Very candidly about how there's not enough money to go around about how the weighted staffing standards and the board and the budget interact about the fact that most of these issues originate with McCleary which the Seattle Times again quoted me today as fake news.

And I do want to say a shout out to Neil Morton and Dahlia Bezaz because I think they did a fairly adequate job on the front page of the newspaper today talking about the lack of courage.

My words in Olympia to address these issues.

Spent some time last Saturday as well at Representative Jerry Paletz community meeting and went home grief stricken because of the lack of movement on the bills that will help fix this craziness.

And it has to be craziness if we are not putting our money where our mouths are in this extraordinarily rich state and rich city.

Do I appreciate and do the other folks in this room appreciate that mental health and a great many other priorities are out there.

Absolutely.

Absolutely we do.

Do we appreciate this one of the most inequitable tax systems in the United States of America.

Absolutely.

There is a majority.

We kept hearing about excuses.

Well you know we can't do it.

There's not a majority of one party in Olympia etc etc etc.

Well now there is a majority and there's not a whole heck of a lot of movement and courage.

And again those are my words.

And I'll stand by those and I'll take the hits for those words and goodness knows I am.

I have been called all manner of things this week and some of them are actually very funny and if I had time I'd read them to you.

I want to shout out some thanks.

I want to shout out some thanks to our staff and SEA for doing an increasingly better job on Black Lives Matter and our history of folks that are disproportionately not represented.

Are we there yet.

No we are not.

Are we getting there.

We're doing better every year.

No question about it.

I want to make a shout out to some of the folks that are helping us in Olympia and it really matters our state and local PTSA's Washington Paramount Duties Seattle Education Association.

I'd like to think that the Seattle Times article on the front page of the newspaper will wake up some folks because goodness knows their editorial board accused us of breaking the law not so long ago.

And pleased to see that wall that we hear so often about the reporters and the editorial board.

And I'm sorry that Dahlia is not here to tweet that.

Some thanks to folks here in the staff that have really extended themselves in terms of learning up board members.

John Kroll the CIO who's been working on the technology plan and how do we spend the money that we have now with BEX V to get the biggest and best bang for our buck and to take us into the next 10 years.

Fred Podesta our new chief operations officer.

Great meeting with him and his background at the city.

I tease him that he knows where all the bodies are buried and it's probably a good thing because we can get there from here because of those relationships and he has their cell phones.

We pulled items off the agenda because we in fact do listen to y'all with respect to online grading.

with respect to excuse me online courses and with respect to grading policies because those are in fact braided together.

But please know that a great deal of work is being done.

Please know that a great deal of work will be done and we've got good people with good intentions.

So so please stand by and stay tuned and keep us posted just like you have been because we in fact do listen may not do what you want all the time but we do in fact hear you.

A couple of other things.

We have interview training on a Saturday and I'm really excited about that because it's really hard for folks to take off work and come in the middle of the day to wherever it's being held.

This is a Saturday March 9 one to two thirty right here in the John Stanford Center right here in this room.

If you take the interview training which Seattle Education Association part of their collective bargaining agreement the CBA requires in order to sit on interview teams for teachers and principal hiring it's really critical.

If we say we want more diversity in our teaching and administrative core then we need a bigger circle of folks participating and.

It's really important we get the word out.

It's really important that we encourage folks to come because come April May June when we start hiring folks we don't want them turned away at the door.

Well you didn't do your interview training.

This is this is a sweet ask that this board pushed for and I'm very pleased.

So I really hope we pack the room.

Please don't make a fool out of me.

I can do that myself.

Couple of other really quick hits in District 6 West Seattle Elementary chess champions going to state.

And if you saw that room it would blow your mind.

These guys are amazing.

Really great stuff.

Chief Sealth International High School mock mock trial team going to state so is Franklin.

Franklin has a decades long history Chief Sealth International High School does not.

So props and and I hope you both just take it.

There have been some extraordinary athletic teams in the state finals and I might add that Washington that West Seattle High School both gentlemen and ladies are going there and that's pretty exciting.

I want to ping off of what Director Mack said.

We've had some really extraordinary tragedies in this district in the last couple of weeks and let's remember that when we have those tragedies we send teams out to the schools to help and those teams suffer from secondary trauma just like first responders do and and reach out hug someone and tell them that you appreciate the extraordinarily hard work of taking care of our students.

And then the last piece I heard a lot of testimony about Robert Eagle Staff and Licton Springs and eviction and I do want to note and I found it.

that Marnie Campbell the principal of Robert Eagle Staff the next day apologized to UNEA and said that she would follow up so that this doesn't happen again.

And I think it's important to acknowledge that and acknowledge that we still have more work to do.

But but I don't think it's particularly accurate or necessarily fair not to acknowledge that apology on the record.

And do we appreciate that we have got a sticky problem in some ways that this board created itself when we made promises about space and about growth a couple of years ago.

that does not do honor to all communities.

And that's one of the reasons that forecasting in the future master planning is so very very critical.

So we do not pay the price for the unintended consequences.

And on that note other directors that would like to respond to public testimony that they've heard.

Director Pinkham please.

Again Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ and Táˀc kulé-wit thank you and good evening.

Librarians you know that what Director Harris mentioned here today about our debate teams and chess teams other teams are going out there.

Usually what space do they use to gather together or where do they get the resources to make sure they're going and winning all these competitions.

The library.

So thank you for your support of these students and making them better to go on and improve themselves.

So yeah.

As we go through the budget issues and stuff and the restoration or even maybe how can we make sure we don't even cut the librarians.

Thank you for making me think more about this.

You know that it isn't just so simple.

There are definitely work to do.

Thank you very much.

To the Robert Eagle Staff and Licton Springs community and the Native community that came here and spoke here today.

You know I don't hide it.

I'm part of the Urban Native Education Alliance.

My wife is one of their board members secretaries and there are some issues that do happen and a lot of it unfortunately gets lost in the communication.

Principal Marnie Campbell did send an apology but they're still wondering well what happened in her apology.

She doesn't know what happened.

So we still need to find out what happened.

Where did the bureaucracy where did the system break down such that when a community organization arrives at the door they're told to leave.

You know what could be done to the phone call could have made been made the night before.

Excuse me but it seems like your permit isn't in order.

For now we're going to have to have you not come until we make sure everything is in order.

No it came an hour before they were supposed to meet there.

So again let's see what we can do to do better for it.

And unfortunately if it keeps on impacting our students of color.

Is there something wrong with our system that calls that out that our students of color our communities of color are getting that proper communication.

What is happening there.

So I want to see if we can find out more exactly what did happen.

And as my understanding even if they could have called Marnie Marnie wouldn't have the authority to say yes let them in.

That authority as far as the facilities use would still land here with the district.

That's some of the things I've heard I'm not sure if that would have corrected the problem of that night.

So I'm just asking we make sure we see what truly happened that evening.

And.

I'm still going to say yes I want to support the restoration of Indian Heritage High School.

One of these days I use my 16 hours for the audit and finance I asked our auditors to look at the closure and he sent me his report of the 16 hours that he did and unfortunately ran out of the 16 hours.

And one thing that kind of in this there was still that issue was Indian Heritage High School a school or a program.

And how which authority what if it was a school then the school board would have to vote to close it.

If it was a program be left to the administration and they really couldn't tell based upon the curve that what policies were in at the place when Indian heritage existed and when it closed.

So there's still some questions they weren't sure was it a program or a school per policy definition.

So I did send a one mother item our auditor again I'll make over my 16 hours here for what they allowed because I had a diploma from a former graduate that listed American Indian Heritage High School as a school.

And I said can programs grant diplomas or must it be a school.

And if it's turned out no programs can't grant diplomas hopefully it's going to say it was definitely a school so we can hopefully kind of find out more what can we do to make sure we're not closing schools for whatever one reason or another.

As far as we will be talking I'll save my other comments when they come up to the yearbook.

But again just thank you all for coming again sharing your voices and Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ I feel blessed to be up here.

Did you wish to speak.

Please do.

Thank you.

So well first off I just want to say Nathan thank you for coming to the meeting.

It's amazing to see another Nova student in the audience on the library issue.

I just want to say that when I was at Garfield the library was just the space.

It was like.

a huge part of the community for me.

It was a place where I was able to go during lunch and I would eat my lunch there and I would hang out with the people there and we would talk and play games.

And it was just something that a place I knew that was like always welcome to me as someone who didn't really have all these friend groups during high school that would like sit around on a table.

I knew that I could would.

always be welcome at the library.

And that's probably the biggest thing I miss.

Going to Nova is not having this library and because at Nova during lunch like you've got to find somewhere to be and it feels really depressing to kind of sit in the in the lunchroom and not really have people to talk to especially when you're transferring in your senior year.

And so it's it's important to find places to be in schools.

And for many people including myself the library has been that place.

Also, I want to say, Lauren, you have a VR headset at Franklin High School, so I'm going to be transferring there next semester.

I also want to talk about what Anne Sheeran said about special education students who qualify for advanced placement classes and about just the way in general that AP classes are structured.

I took three AP classes at Garfield.

I took the test for two of them and I just feel like.

Throughout this course of taking these classes it never really felt like I was able to critically reflect on what I was learning in a way that was relevant to me like every reflection I wrote where it's like talk about how this feels.

It was like there's very clearly an answer that they wanted to give you all of your homework assignments were just Can you remember all this stuff?

So you can write it on the AP test.

And I think it's absolutely absurd that we just have these classes that are so structured around giving you a four on the AP and not about actually teaching you about US history.

And I also want to talk about what Brian Terry said about the segregation of AP classes which I noticed going to Garfield which is right in the middle of the central district going from a like gen ed pre-calc class not even an honors class because I'm.

Absolutely terrible at math.

Just walking from this pre-calc class which is like entirely students of color to my AP US history class which has maybe like two or three black kids in the room.

I'm like am I even at the same school here.

It feels like.

in these classes are just entirely segregated based off of like oh did you get the special learning select did you get all this boost did you have teachers who went up and told you you should take AP classes where it's been proven that teachers will say that to white students more like you should sign up for these AP classes.

And so I think that this is absolutely something this school needs to address.

The school district needs to address especially these two issues in conjunction with each other and creating like curriculums for AP classes that are accessible to underprivileged students and that focus more on teaching and reflecting and thinking critically rather than preparing you to hash out an essay on the AP exam.

And I also want to talk about the clear sky tutoring issue which I feel like is absolutely something that needs to be resolved.

And I think that this isn't like a debate or controversy between the high school and the tutoring program.

that can where a compromise can be reached.

It feels like this is something where there is very clearly one side in the right that has been using this space to improve graduation rates for students and to help Native American students.

And then there is one side in the wrong which has been evicting which has evicted them which has messed with their program as they've been at this school.

And it doesn't really feel like something where one student said oh there has been a tenuous compromise.

This doesn't feel like an issue that should be resolved by a tenuous compromise because that's still just creating a a negative piece that's still upholding this inequity and saying OK well you want to have all the resources everybody else has.

We'll give you half of them so that people don't get too upset.

And I don't think this is how Seattle Public Schools can operate if we want to be an equitable school district.

And yeah, I'm looking through my notes, and I think that's, oh, there's also something I wanted to say with, like, Tina Buster talking about the state allocation, that this is also something that, like, you can't just Say this happens and then when you fail you can't ignore it.

Like you have to always address places where you've messed up especially holding true throughout like all the things I've said in my comments.

That's the end of my comments.

Thank you.

Director Geary and then Director Mack.

Just I just don't know if I have anything more to say.

Clarissa really.

I think you really tied up a lot for a lot of us in recognizing who has come here to testify and acknowledging them.

You did a really great job.

So thank you.

Thank you very much for that.

And honestly you really did cover a lot of things.

I know that there was a librarian meeting that has been rescheduled and I still plan on attending that.

That's coming up I think next week.

So hopefully we can talk more about and I can listen more about what's going on with regard to the librarians and we can continue to.

Keep the discussion open as to options and how we can come up with creative solutions.

Other things that I'm working on are just looking at ways that we can use our resources better throughout our.

district and our city and to that end I have the great honor of being asked to teach a course a graduate level course at the UW on the 21st century.

I hate that sort of thing because we're in the 21st century but I don't think it's quite ready to say 22nd century yet.

High school and how that should look and how we should be creating high schools that are more flexible and nimble and partnering with our city and giving students the opportunity to use the resources of our city and allowing our teachers to have nimble educational programs that are partnering with different aspects and resources.

So I will keep you posted as that develops but I believe that there is a course catalog entry now.

So that's very exciting.

And I think one of the most exciting things about it to me is that it's going to be an opportunity.

One of the things that I have heard is that.

Even when we get teachers out of grad schools incredibly reputable grad schools they come into our district and with all the work that we've been doing around race equity that they still aren't.

They aren't up to speed with a lot of the work that we are doing.

So I feel like it's a really great opportunity for me to go in at the grad level and do some real introduction around the race equity issues that we've been working on and already even in working co-teaching with another person.

It's just interesting to see to have the lens even in a brief history of education how it is so Western based and being able to identify that very quickly.

And know that if I walk into a room and I present that already my credibility will have been called into question and I may lose some students even at the grad level around that issue.

And that is such a change from where I started three years ago.

And so sitting on this board has given me such a sensitivity.

And so I share that with you all because that is something that is permeated.

I learned that here from the people who work here.

So to the extent that you you believe that that we are not sensitive that the district is not sensitive that it is not making progress that simply can't be true because I have had the opportunity to learn so much here.

As to the AP issue that is one that is sort of near and dear to my heart in that it is really important to me that we as a district offer specially designed instruction as part of our special education.

And I fear that too much of what we offer is an accommodation and that accommodation is more time which puts students who are in special ed farther and farther and farther behind in any type of challenging curriculum.

And so it really is important that if we're going to offer challenging curriculum we make sure that our special education teachers have the time to modify the curriculum to the point that it serves the students.

And I hear today that we are not doing that.

And so from my perspective I don't want to make any legal conclusions but it seems to be a problem.

So I would hope that we have somebody who is working diligently on that.

It's not like the curriculum is a surprise.

It's not like the accommodations around getting to core concepts and reducing volume is something that we would have to do for every single student individually necessarily.

That is something that just should be done.

And here's the point that I think I'd like to make.

Before we buy that curriculum from somebody we should be asking the questions about whether or not they offer it done because if we're doing it for one student it has been done for thousands of students across this country.

So why is that not part of what we're talking about when we buy into these people get a lot of money for the tests that we have our kids do.

So please let's be more savvy in terms of negotiating on behalf of our students.

Perhaps we don't have the resources but they're taking our money.

They can use that money to do that.

So I will stop there.

Again thank you everybody for coming tonight and I appreciate all your comments.

I like the end grade option and I will look further into that.

Thank you.

Appreciate all the comments and responses especially Clarice's response to all the testimony today.

Echo and appreciate those comments.

This district is facing the largest cuts that we've had to make since 2011 because of the levy lid because the legislature has capped our levy and not provided enough funding.

As a new board member in the first year who's been fighting for ample funding at the state level for many years having been a co-founder at Washington's Paramount Duty.

It's distressing to sit in the seat because we are sitting in a seat where we are not deciding whether or not we can cut.

We're deciding which appendage is the one to cut.

And this has been going on for years and decades and it is toxic to our school district and our communities to be constantly facing cuts.

And this has been going on for so long.

We're kind of used to this whole process.

What are we going to cut this year.

What do we have to cut this year.

Well this year it's the worst than it's been since 2011. The legislature when they did the levy swap did not provide enough funding to districts and they cut our levies too far.

We have the authority from our our local voters.

They've said yes you can have these dollars but the legislature has limited us.

We've asked we've been asking along with districts across the state to change that.

The Seattle Times article today is really informative.

I highly recommend folks reading it.

One hundred ninety one one hundred and ninety one of our school districts out of two hundred ninety five are in the red.

Across the state.

We are not alone.

This is not a Seattle only problem.

We are the largest school district and we are some of the most impacted but 65 percent of our districts are in the red.

That's insanity.

It's insanity.

And we're hearing from you and librarians for me.

Major priority.

This is student centric.

And in a restoration plan I believe it should be prioritized student centric needs to be prioritized.

We're having our budget work session on the 6th next week where we're going to talk about the restoration plan and get the recommendations from the committee.

There's a bunch of people that are very thoughtful about how to how to make the cuts.

What do we prioritize first.

And it is an awful process that we have to go through.

While we're in this process of even though our voters said yes resoundingly we're in a process of cutting.

It's deeply deeply upsetting and we cannot change it from this dais without the legislature and God bless our legislators.

We want to you know they're working hard.

They love us.

So there's no individual person that I'm targeting this at but.

We need parents and community members to literally bombard the legislature with your school funding is not sufficient.

We need increased and adequate special education funding.

And or you need to increase the levy authority.

Those two things are critical that they hear from us on.

And I mean us.

I mean you.

So I'm putting that out there.

That's our legislative agenda.

But seriously we need y'all to write letters and make calls because if that doesn't happen we have to cut.

There's no other option.

So there's my rant and thank you for coming.

Director Burke.

That was eloquent and powerful.

So thank you for that for me and for everyone else.

I wanted to follow up briefly on two two points.

The online learning policies and grading policies that were removed from the agenda.

I want to acknowledge the work that Director Geary has done.

meeting with principals working with staff to craft that.

And as a member of the C&I committee I'm I'm really encouraged that the feedback that we're getting here and what comes along with it is a wish that we could figure out how to get that feedback at the committee level.

And so we don't really have a process to do that.

And that's one of the reasons that some of our work feels kind of whipsaw like we bring things from the committee we bring it to the community we get feedback and then wow we missed a thing because we didn't have a particular person or perspective in the room.

So I want to I want to acknowledge that and know that this Saturday when we're talking about board superintendent collaboration and trying to optimize our processes.

Maybe that's something that we could also think about.

The other one is the librarians and I've I've heard.

from testimony from students, from librarians, you know, from families that the role of a librarian is not, you know, this isn't your father's librarian.

This is, there's a change in roles and responsibilities and not everyone is on board with that or not everyone is aware of it.

And a lot of those roles actually overlap with other positions.

So what I've heard even in just in testimony today as far as instructional technology for the students and as an instruction to instructional technology lead in the building.

I heard career counselor I heard student support and then of course there's the traditional range of library roles.

And so the conversation I guess I would like to try to stimulate is.

Well how do we braid these new duties into something that is funded at a level that's not that doesn't feel quite as I don't want to be pejorative but doesn't feel quite so disposable that feels more permanent that feels entrenched in the system and figuring out you know if we've got librarians that are providing instructional technology training for their staff.

My understanding is that that's a capital expense that can be a capital expense.

So I just want to make sure that we're having these conversations we're having them as a group and because this is the feedback that I hear from what we want librarians of the future to be.

So we're not just talking about oh how do we fund librarians for this year.

We're talking about how do we create a roadmap that librarians coming into the profession can follow.

to be effective high quality amazing effective librarians I said effective twice.

Sorry double effective.

Anyways I just wanted to have that out there because that's what I've picked up from the conversation.

I hope that that can continue on in all of the individual work groups with the librarians with the staff and potentially among the board as well.

Thank you all.

Any other board comments or shall we move into action items.

We're going to action items first off of the consent agenda that was moved extending the contract for middle school and high school yearbooks with Herff Jones for an additional year.

This came before the executive committee February 15th for approval.

Motion please.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to approve an extension of the contract with Herff Jones in an amount not to exceed four hundred thousand dollars for the management and classroom support for and the preparation and printing of middle school and high school yearbooks in the form of the draft amendment attached to this board action report and presented to the school board with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary action to implement the contract.

Immediate action is in the best interest of the district.

I second the motion.

Dr. Kinoshita you're going to present.

Is that correct.

Just a few more.

And I see Deputy Nielsen moving over as well.

Great thank you.

Kyle Kinoshita executive director curriculum assessment instruction and as was pointed out this is the last of three three year extension of the original contract that was approved in 2015 16 and next year this will then go out to bid again and another competitive process.

So you know the.

Aim here is to approve that such that the work on yearbooks can commence in both the high schools and middle schools.

Can I ask a couple of clarifying questions before we get into the weeds here.

Sure.

If we were to vote no hypothetically would we have to re-let the contract in a competitive bid And this being the first of March for all practical intents would we have the opportunity to have yearbooks for our students in June of 2019.

It would be doubtful.

The original process you know which was a pretty careful review of a pretty highly competitive process took three months.

And was that a process that happened three years ago or a process that happened recently.

That was in 2015 16 school year and that was the first year of the contract.

And then the three years you know additional renewal were a part of that contract and each year that we have come before the board for that renewal.

OK I'm going to open for questions comments concerns.

Director Mack and then Director Pinkham please.

Yeah I'm sorry.

I need a little clarification on the actual contract that was originally.

bid and and competed on.

It was not a three year contract.

It was a one year contract with the allowance for three for extension.

How did it exactly get worded.

That's correct.

It was a one year contract with the option to renew for three years.

And this is the last of the three years in terms of the option.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham and then general counsel if you could step up to the podium please.

Yeah.

So the reason I was also want to ask.

So you did mention that the process and after this when will the next request go out for people to bid on a potential contract.

Do you see us doing the same thing one year potential three year renewal or what have we learned from this.

Contract.

Yeah I think that depends.

I think I wasn't around at that time.

I suspect that that provision was or in order to get the most advantageous price which we could then pass on to the students so that we could you know lower their yearbook prices.

So then back in 2015 since you were here you weren't sure you know because I think in the comments are in the BAR states about they had so many proposals.

How many did come from minority owned businesses.

And it looks like one of our speakers has provided a list so hopefully as we go to the next period or negotiate a new contract we'll make sure to reach out to those.

The other question I had was with the costs you say it does reduce the cost to students.

How much do we actually recover from students.

You know this is four hundred thousand dollars and how much does ASB or wherever the money goes to collect.

OK.

I guess first question first that you know in terms of our procedure around minority owned businesses that I would have to get some clarification.

My scan of district bid procedures as well as state law don't seem to address that.

So that might be something that I would have to research.

In terms of the price I'm looking at the original contract and it does list some of the yearbook prices for middle and high school.

High school obviously is a pretty big operation you know full color et cetera and it appears Here's to me I believe thirty five dollars.

I believe the middle school you know book is a little bit less I believe 20. So I think from what I can see through for using a contract that represents a 15 percent discount you know on the original price because of the fact that we were able to purchase as a whole district.

Director Geary please.

If somebody wanted to know when or how to bid on that what would they need to do.

What would that look like to a potential future bidder.

Mm hmm.

Our purchasing department you know for all bids typically you know puts out notices through a lot of the commercial commerce journals as well.

I know this just from experience sometimes they will ask us for any other channels that suggested that we should put this out for.

I think the contract actually detailed or the original bar detailed, you know, the publications that were, you know, I think, you know, where this RFP was actually featured.

So it, the purchasing obviously does not want to get a complaint later on that, you know, a vendor, wasn't able to access the RFP.

So I believe they strive to you know go as broad as possible and they would focus I think pretty much on avenues which would most likely connect with the likely vendors.

And so if there was a potential vendor out there who wanted to be included on a list that sort of automatically accessed is that possible.

I believe from my experience you know we could take that information and you know purchasing could make sure that they get that RIP.

Great.

Thank you.

Mr. General Counsel or Mr. Deputy I'm not sure whom.

Excuse me.

Betty please.

Director Patu.

Can you actually tell me how long have we been with this company.

Again the first year of the contract was must have been 2016 17 if I'm not mistaken.

The process took place in 2015 16 you know.

I thought we were with them before that.

No.

No.

I'm not sure again being here I'm not sure you know which companies were contracted prior to that time.

Thank you.

OK.

Mr. General Counselor Mr. Deputy how common is it that we have contracts that have rollover extensions on a regular basis.

Stephen Nielsen deputy superintendent.

I cannot give you a percentage on that.

I don't know off the top of my head.

I can tell you that when we negotiate I want to start at the very beginning.

First of all we follow state procurement guidelines.

We follow our own board policies to answer the question.

Do vendors have the opportunity to contact us and be put on a list.

Yes we attempt as best we can to broadcast and seek as many vendors as possible on all of our contracts for obvious reasons.

We also shop for the best deal.

And in this particular case one of the reasons that we want to be competitive is because it costs students money as Dr. Kinoshita already noted and equity matters.

And so by keeping the cost low that is an advantage for our students.

To the specific question of how common do we allow this contracts to continue over the years.

We often will negotiate with vendors in a way to say what's the best way to save money in the future.

So for example when you look at the economy and if there's high inflation or if there's some reason why costs would go up you might look for a longer period of time.

So that you're locking in a price when you're looking at a different climate in the purchasing timeline you might go for a short contract and then build in an opportunity to continue.

We do that regularly.

Again I don't know the number in order to maximize the ability to keep costs low.

I do know for sure that we do that on a number of other contracts.

We can give you a better sense of the number itself.

OK and just double checking it if we were to vote this down and put this back out to bid we would probably not have yearbooks in the hands of our students in June.

Am I am I hearing that correctly.

Yeah that's correct.

The bar details in the alternative is what would happen if that were the case.

By the way I misspoke just a second ago.

First year is 15 16 spring and then there are three years renewal after that.

May I also add to the answer.

So if we went back out we would advertise that takes a couple of weeks.

Then we would look at all of the bids and then we would award a bidder and that takes at least another week.

So it would be at the minimum three weeks before we knew whoever the bidder would be.

And then the other part about this is this work around yearbooks is a complicated issue.

It's not.

There was a question from public testimony.

Why don't we print this inside.

This isn't just a print job.

Yearbooks have formatting.

They have a lot of.

setups that are common among yearbooks.

So there's a template that's provided.

It's it's a very unique industry.

That's why they're usually national publications that do it because they can print at scale and save costs.

That isn't to say that a local vendor and it would be lovely if they could could provide us the service but it isn't just printing it is preparation and working with the schools as well.

So it'd be very difficult to do this in a timely manner.

Director Mack.

It seems to me that because of the timing and the fact that there was already extensions built into the original contract that it was kind of an expectation that we would continue the year extensions to me that it it seems reasonable to do so especially in light of the timing that we would we would put our schools in a bind if they if we tried to upend this at this point.

However I don't I'd like a I'd like an explanation as to why this ended up in intro and action and why it wasn't actually brought to us.

earlier in an appropriate timeline so we're not backed up against the wall.

I'll take ownership for the lateness.

When I got here I noticed that the renewals that took place in January and I've you know handed this off to one of our new staff members and I think in doing so there was a month delay in terms of understanding the timing of you know when this would take place.

But obviously we wanted to do this in a more timely manner.

This general counsel.

If someone were to parliamentarily bring an amendment to approve this and ask for a report on the number of continuing contracts and a proportionate percentage of MWBE contracts would that be out of order.

Noel Treat chief legal counsel.

No I don't.

I don't think it would.

You could add that type of condition.

Director Patu please.

I know for a fact that we've been dealing with this company for many years.

So the question I ask is as long as we've dealt with this company do we get any discount dealing with this company on a regular basis.

Yes I only know about this current contract.

And again you know with the amount of scale that we're able to provide in terms of the business there was a 15 percent discount on the original price.

I'm going to make motion an amendment or a motion to amend this.

To request that the board of directors gets a report from purchasing or whomever's responsibility it is to give us a report within 90 days of the number of rollover contracts we have and types and a percentage number of Contracts that are awarded to MWBE's.

Do I have a second.

I second.

You betcha.

I think this will be really helpful information and it's a picture that.

I would assume would be relatively easy to pull together.

Hopefully within 90 days because it is certainly as an organization we should have a handle on our contracts how long they go for and all of that.

So the timing seems like a reasonable ask and I think it's an appropriate thing to put out there so we have a better picture and that you know I'm just curious to know you say report to the board.

Do you have an intention around it would come to committee or it would be reported to the full board in terms of a Friday memo.

Did you have an intention or expectation around how it would be reported maybe at audit and finance it would make sense.

I didn't have that intention and I would welcome input from my colleagues on that.

Can I ask a question.

Please.

Director Patu.

Out of curiosity I actually would like to find out how long have we actually done business with this company and what benefit have we actually are getting from doing business as long as we have with this company.

I'm going to take presidential privilege here.

That's not relevant to the amendment that's on the floor and we don't have anybody in this room that can tell us that information near as I know.

But do we do we want to know offline.

You betcha.

Great.

I'll just have to do my own investigation.

Director Burke please.

So I'm going to try this out because we're into a fairly deep dive on something that's not to diminish the importance of it but it's fairly procedural.

There are a lot of rollover contracts.

My belief and I will state it publicly is this whole conversation is an audit and finance conversation not a full board conversation not a full board report.

And I'm just trying to tee things up for the conversation that's going to happen on Saturday.

So that's the reason that I'm not a fan of this particular amendment.

Any other comments questions concerns Director Geary please.

Do we know how much work this request is going to create.

Deputy Nielsen General Counsel Tree feedback please.

Because if we are in a.

Bandwidth and budget crisis.

That's correct.

And we work every time a contract comes up that has these provisions in it.

It is explained in the bar that we vote on at the time.

And I don't know if the volume of the number of rollover contracts is relevant.

It would be nice to know how many minority or women owned businesses we're doing work with just as a matter of knowledge.

But I don't I guess I'm I'm wondering as a board member If we have some of these contracts in nutrition services if we have some in technology if we have some around printing.

I guess I'm trying to think of how that will change any future decision I make and why are we creating if it's not relevant to my decision making in the long run which I can do on a case by case basis.

Why are we asking our district to do this work.

Director Mack.

So state law requires us to follow state law and we and that's a very pertinent point to this discussion.

And I would like to take a point of personal privilege.

We can chase a rabbit and we can come up with a lot of information.

Nevertheless we're following state procurement guidelines.

We do not have the option to choose who the recipients are based on our bid laws.

So you will find information out it's fascinating but it doesn't matter.

As Director Geary just pointed out when it comes time to awarding a bid we're required to take the low bidder unless it's very unusual for some particular reason.

So the staff time to develop all of this will be an interesting bit of trivia.

And therefore from my standpoint and having to worry about budget and time I would suggest point of personal privilege that this amendment really won't accomplish anything except take staff time.

Thank you.

And thank you.

And Director Mack and then Director Pinkham.

So a couple of things I think the request to have information on our contracts as an oversight of the board is an appropriate request but I'm not sure if the amendment from the dais attached to one singular contract is the right then medium or vehicle for that decision.

I am not sure what policy governs our contracts.

We know off the top and do we have an annual reporting process around contracts because this is this is actually a really big question for me from a global perspective is our role as the board with oversight is that we have hundreds and hundreds of contracts that we come that come to us and we're supposed to be making these individual decisions but we don't have the global picture of how many different contracts exist or I don't know if we have a report.

I'm curious to know if I've missed it but I think that would be a helpful thing to know.

No I don't believe that in policy at least such a report is mandated.

We do we do have policies and superintendent procedures on procurement and what kind of competitive process we have to proceed under for different types of contracts.

62 20 is the overriding board policy and then there's some procedures that flow from that but I don't believe in any of those is there.

a requirement for that type of report.

There's obviously requirements to come to the board when you reach a certain contract value of 250 or more.

So if I if I could make a suggestion I think we should go ahead and if if other directors agree go ahead and take a vote on this.

I would like to recommend that perhaps we have this topic of contracts shot back to audit and finance for further discussion.

And I'm willing to withdraw the amendment is the second who made the second.

Are you willing to withdraw.

OK.

And do you have comments with respect to the original motion that have not been made as yet.

Yes and also kind of that I guess as far as these renewal or extensions to the two contracts and that this particular case it sounds like we've renewed it previous years and both previous years.

If we didn't renew it there was still time for us to possibly go out and get another bid.

Unfortunately this case.

That time got compressed one maybe because of weather and stuff that happened these years.

So that's just my concern that just this year it came at such a short notice and there really is no time.

So really it seems like this was a four year contract to begin with not one year with potential to three.

If there was never truly enough time to renew or to seek out a new bidder after each successive year.

OK I think we have beaten this horse.

Can we please have a roll call.

Thank you.

Director Burke aye Director Geary aye Director Mack aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye

I'm sorry but I need to make clear we're voting on the original motion because ours was withdrawn.

Correct.

The amendment was withdrawn.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

Thank you.

We are at C action items number one BEX IV BTA IV for approval of the budget transfer from the BEX IV BTA IV food service equipment fund and award construction contract.

K 5 1 0 8 bid number B 1 2 8 3 8 to Western Ventures Construction Inc. for the JSC EE freezer upgrade project.

This came before Ops January 10 for.

Motion please.

I move that the school board one approve the transfer of six hundred and seven thousand nine hundred and ten dollars from the BEX IV BTA IV food service equipment fund to the JSCEE freezer upgrade project budget and to authorize the superintendent to execute construction contract K 5 1 0 8 with Western Western Ventures Construction Incorporated in the amount of five hundred and sixteen thousand three hundred and forty five dollars plus Washington State sales tax with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract.

I second the motion.

OK.

COO Podesta we had very rich conversation lengthy conversation during introduction.

Do board members have follow up questions concerns.

Chief Podesta what were the updates.

We added some more detail about the scope of the project.

We one of the parts of the rich discussion that you mentioned was that we had introduction it hadn't gone to bid yet.

Bids were a bit more favorable.

And so we project will cost a little bit less.

That detail that was added about the work does not That's not why the bids were more favorable.

That was the plan to begin with.

There was just new information added.

We made specific reference to the safety concerns that are also part of this project because the way the freezer performs now has leads the floor to be slippery sometimes and people have fallen.

You asked specifically so how often has that happened.

It's happened five times.

We've had documented injuries so it's important to get this done.

It's just as important.

It's 10000 square foot freezer that our whole nutrition program relies on.

It hasn't had major work done in more than 15 years and we have no backup for it.

So that's a lot of food to spoil.

So roll call please.

We need to get this done.

Director Geary aye Director Mack aye.

aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Burke aye Director Harris aye.

This motion is passed unanimously.

OK.

Intro items 1 purchasing the opening day library collections for Lincoln High School and Magnolia Elementary School and the capacity library collection for Ingram High School and Queen Anne Elementary School.

This came before exec February 15th for consideration.

Approval of this item.

would authorize the superintendent to execute excuse me.

Gotcha went to exec because of snow would authorize the superintendent to execute a contract with the Follett school solutions not to exceed five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for new or expanded library collections for the aforementioned schools with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the contract.

Dr. Kinoshita this is standard practice when we are opening a new school and we did this probably eight times in the last three years.

Is that correct sir.

That is correct.

And you can also look at procedure 2021 P that actually details the process by which the libraries have to put together their collections.

Questions comments concerns from my colleagues.

Director Mack.

For clarification this comes out of the capital budget.

Correct.

That's correct.

This is not coming out of the operations budget.

Correct.

And there was rich discussion in exec about the irony of buying library books and at the same time cutting potentially cutting librarians.

And it is exactly that comes out of different statutorily mandated buckets.

Is that correct.

That is correct.

OK.

Director Burke.

A question came up during public testimony about on the purchase of library collections what portion of the collections are accessible to blind and sight impaired individuals.

Is that something that you could.

Answer.

At either now or for the next round.

Probably the next round.

I know what I was thinking.

Thank you so much.

OK moving on number two purchase of student and staff technology for new BEX IV schools BTA IV projects K through 3 class size reduction portables and enrollment growth capacity classrooms opening summer 2019. This came before Ops February 7th for.

Approval.

Approval of this item would authorize the superintendent to execute.

purchase orders through various vendors for a title not to exceed four million three hundred thousand dollars plus Washington State sales tax during the fiscal year 2018 19 and to take any necessary steps actions to implement the purchase orders.

CIO John Kroll take it away.

Good evening board.

John Krull chief information officer.

This is a good item to come up right after the libraries because this too is for equipment for our new schools that are to open.

These schools were selected as part of BEX and BTA and went through the engagement and selection process during that time on Beyond that we've done engagement with ITAC to go over the orders and also brought this to of course the operations committee.

This purchase includes our switches it includes the infrastructure for all the new schools.

It includes the standard classroom equipment that we have been putting on all new schools for the last three years which includes the projector The teacher station the document camera a cart of computers and that's it.

It includes Lincoln High School Magnolia Elementary Queen Anne Elementary a wing at Ingram and it also includes similar equipment for our expected capacity schools.

Director Mack Chair of Ops.

Does it also include microphones for the teachers.

Yes it includes the sound system for elementary schools.

So they can speak for the whole class.

So it makes sure that all of these classes will have what they need to teach our kids.

Director Burke.

Request for when this comes back for action would it be possible to include links or some sort of reference to the ed specs recognizing that that's the guiding document for this architecture.

This is not a sort of a one off thing.

This is essentially a template that we're applying to our buildings and so it'd be great to create that explicit linkage.

Yes.

And can you add the names of the schools so that when they come up they match up with the libraries in terms of the headings here when it comes up for action.

Yes there's.

I appreciate that.

But plus portables let's let's have the flow there.

OK.

Moving on.

Number three BTA IV approved purchase of Fortinet Fortinet network firewall equipment software and five year support with I don't know how to pronounce that please.

Zerlogic.

Zerlogic.

Thank you.

LLC in the amount of one million seven hundred eighteen thousand five hundred fifty five dollars and fifty five cents.

Ops February 7th for consideration.

Approval of this item would authorize the superintendent to execute such a five year contract to provide support and Fortinet firewall equipment and software for a total not to exceed amount of one million seven hundred eighteen thousand five hundred fifty five dollars and fifty five cents plus applicable Washington state sales tax.

Take it away CIO Krull.

Thank you again.

John Krull chief information officer.

First I want to thank our community for passing the BEX V levy and previously the BTA IV levy.

So this item and the next item were.

part of our engagement and fact finding for BTA IV.

So this went through that the racial equity work for BTA IV as well as engagement for BTA IV.

So we are now just getting to the time where it is time to.

uh...

kickoff this project uh...

we also brought this project to uh...

both the information technology advisory committee and the operations committee and with both of them we did quite a detail uh...

into the technical background of uh...

what it involves to have a firewall a firewall uh...

seems kind of simple uh...

But it gets quite technical.

So we did do a deep dive, and I think that was the great purpose of bringing it to operations committee.

ITAC provided good insight on how to present that.

One thing I want to point out that the firewall actually includes for good size.

We call them Internet appliances and those those actually run about seventy five thousand dollars each.

And this also includes a five year contract for support and maintenance and the software to run it.

And that runs about seventy five thousand dollars per year as well.

So when you bring all that together that's where that price comes from.

I also want to point out that we did our RFP through the E-rate process where we were able to — That's an acronym.

Can you spell it out for us please.

It's it's not an acronym.

It's part of the universal services program where they take profits from cell phone and telephone taxes.

They create a fund federally and K through 12 schools are able to apply for those funds.

Very strict rules on that.

Basically the goal of those funds is to make sure schools have good Internet access.

So there's only some things that apply and there's very strict.

requirements to get the funds but we are expecting about two hundred thousand dollars on that.

So with that I want to also mention our previous firewall we put in in 2011. The as you know the security vulnerabilities have really increased since then.

This new firewall is much more advanced.

into protecting our staff and students from Internet threats protecting our district student data and at the same time it actually goes along well with the next item where it will be increasing.

It'll be able to handle more traffic at the same time.

So as we have more and more students on the Internet this firewall becomes more and more important.

Director Pinkham.

Thank you.

But in the motion it says a five year contract.

Why don't we see that contract.

Where's the contract at or is this just a five year agreement.

And there is no contract stating what they'll provide and what services are going to provide.

There is a five year agreement.

Because in the BAR it says contracts and what makes it sound like there's a separate piece of document that they'll agree and will agree that we'll sign.

There yes there is a five year agreement.

OK.

So do we need to change the wording between agreement and contract.

Is that because to me it sounds like when you use contract that there should be additional attachment that we sign that contract.

I I actually also.

I want to commend you for the information you brought to operations committee.

It was actually very extensive PowerPoint and the materials are available in the packet.

I was I was incredibly impressed by the the comprehensiveness of the explanation around the competitiveness around the processing of the contracting the the need for these specific items for the benefit of our district.

and all that information's in the committee materials it's not attached to this bar which leaves a gap for for board members that are not that were not there for that presentation.

And I cannot remember whether or not the actual contract was attached to the committee materials when it was brought to Ops or not because oftentimes contracts are actually brought in their physical form and attached to the bar.

And I don't remember if that happened or not.

We didn't bring the contract no.

But if I respectfully suggest that if we're going to spend almost two million dollars that probably should attach it to the action item.

Yes I would agree with that.

Director Burke.

Comments on this and also the following one same comment and I want to.

commend you and the DOTS team for putting together and sharing the presentation.

It was great.

And for the public out there, know that we've got some really, really smart people.

Working on our infrastructure working on our security.

It's not very glamorous sometimes it's like putting a roof on your house.

You absolutely need it.

We talk a lot about roofs on schools and I think we should make it a thing now to talk about our our network infrastructure as often as we talk about school roofs.

Well maybe not.

Maybe not.

But I just want to thank you for that.

And then second the request.

for some backup documentation I'd like to see you know a bid sheet or some something that has a kind of line item of quantities unit prices so that there's public transparency around what this sizable but worthy investment is going towards.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

OK.

Number four BTA IV approved purchase of metropolitan wide area network MANWAM.

That's cute.

Hardware upgrade.

I'm sorry.

Oh dear me.

Hardware upgrade and five year support with DYNTEC in the amount of one million nine hundred $1,923,106.54 went to Ops February 7th for approval of this item would authorize the superintendent to execute a five year contract with Dyntec to provide a metropolitan wide area network.

I'm not saying the other again for a total of not to exceed amount of $1,923,106.54.

plus Washington state sales tax.

Take it away.

Thank you.

I think that you made some of the points on the previous one.

Yes you can shorten this presentation.

I will again thank the community and say that this also was part of our BTA IV engagement and project selection.

As part of that, we knew we needed to expand our bandwidth.

Again, we brought this to the Information Technology Advisory Committee as well as the Operations Committee.

Both of those groups did a nice job in not only Well I agree with Director Burke that my team did an excellent job explaining it but also got great feedback from operations committee and information technology advisory committee on how to make this easier.

Like I remember Director Burke brought up like we really need to emphasize this is for the actual nodes that we are putting in that connect the fiber.

We are very fortunate to have a 20 year relationship with a consortium headed by the city of Seattle that has laid over 700 miles of fiber throughout the city and that fiber is there for us to tap into as a member of this consortium.

However the fiber is just a glass strand.

And again, the hardware has been in there many years.

And it's the hardware that brings the power to these glass strands.

So these nodes are what we are purchasing.

And yes, it's a lot of money.

But again, when we look at 700 miles and 105 schools that we're connecting to the Internet at speeds of about 10 gigabits per second, will include 10 hubs located throughout the city that are the major hubs.

Those hubs each cost about one hundred thousand dollars each.

Again.

You had us at man when.

And then with each of our schools.

Some of our schools act as the hubs and then we have 83 end nodes and those are the other schools and those cost about ten thousand dollars each.

And then like I was saying before this also includes the support.

I would like to point out that we got quite a good E-rate award for this.

uh...

contract that's already been approved uh...

so the net cost although still very high we are saving about seven hundred thousand dollars uh...

with the e-rate uh...

award that my team was able to uh...

to get.

So is that out of the one point nine plus million dollars uh...

we're we're gonna we're asking for the one point nine but we have approved uh...

funding from E-rate but that's still pending.

We have to start the work but we end up getting credits they're called back from the vendor and we apply those back to the BTA IV funds.

So the net cost to the district on this would be one million two hundred thirty eight thousand dollars.

I would like that spelled out when it comes in for action parenthetically and maybe a paragraph on the BAR.

Yes.

OK.

Let's do it though on the head notes here for.

The action item.

OK.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Terrific work.

Thank your staff for it.

I will.

Thank you very much.

I also I also appreciate that you did kind of fill out a bunch of other little details for public to know in explaining this.

And I believe like the previous one we do need the contract attached.

Got it.

Just to clarify that.

Council isn't it standard practice to attach the contracts to the bars.

Thank you.

And is it a policy requirement.

No I don't think it's mandated by policy I think more often than not the contracts are attached but I've I've seen it done some of both ways.

OK.

On that note we are adjourned.