Part 1 Seattle School Board Meeting Sept. 20, 2017

I'd like to welcome everybody to the September 20, 2017 meeting of the Seattle school board.

Let's see we have the roll call Ms. Shek.

Director Blanford.

Here.

Director Burke.

Here.

Director Geary.

Director Geary is in the building I think she will be with us shortly.

Director Harris, here.

Director Patu, here.

And Director Peters, here.

So Director Geary is here.

And then Director Pinkham regrets he's not able to join us today he is attending to a family emergency.

Let us all stand for the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United

Okay thank you I am now going to pass the mic over to Superintendent Nyland for our recognitions this evening.

All right we have two recognitions tonight, excited about those.

First one is sub friendly schools, our substitute teachers and educators and paras and secretaries serve an incredibly important role in terms of promoting student learning and maintaining those relationships with our students.

Each year the Seattle substitutes Association part of SEA highlights our schools that have been particularly sub-friendly.

And so we are delighted to welcome them here tonight to, we made that just in time.

We're delighted to welcome them here tonight to talk about what they do and how they recognize schools that are substitute friendly.

So with that I'll invite Clover Codd and Peter go ahead and come on up Peter.

Delighted to have Peter here and Clover will say a few more good words about about the good work that you do.

Hi good evening Clover Codd assistant superintendent of HR.

So standing beside me is our good friend Peter who has been working super collaboratively with HR to rethink how we can ensure that there is always a qualified substitute or teacher in front of a classroom every single day and so we've been working together to make some changes that make that happen.

So Peter has been in our district since 2001. science and math and sort of represents or helps advocate for all issues related to substitutes.

And I believe tonight he's going to be talking about some recognizing sub friendly schools and I'd like to turn it over to Peter and say thank you to Peter in front of everybody.

Thanks to the board, thanks to Dr. Nyland and thanks to Clover.

So every year the sub-association does decide, sometimes it's a hard competition and we have picked one school from each category of schools to honor them as specifically sub-friendly schools.

And I really appreciate Dr. Nyland that you included Perez And clerical staff as well as teachers when you think of subs the first thing that comes to mind is teachers but especially in this district all educators I think do feel valued So through a kid's career about 10% of their time is spent in a classroom where the teacher or the IA is a substitute.

And we are one of the few schools, I mean the few states I believe there is only one other state that actually requires substitute teachers to be certificated.

Some states only require high school graduation.

And so we're pretty fortunate in that regards and we I know we do as much as we can to get as you know get qualified folks in front of the kids.

So with that without further ado I'd like to recognize the following schools okay K-8 is Madrona The special service schools are represented ably by Seattle world school.

High schools are represented by Chief Sealth middle school is represented by Denny international middle school and the elementary school is represented by Leschi.

elementary school.

And not to say that there's not another 90 or so schools that could have merited this award but this year these are the folks that got this coveted prize.

Thank you very much.

Thanks so much Peter and please don't go too far we are going to invite you back up to take a picture with the board not right at this moment but just in a few moments after we do our other recognition here.

Our other recognition is for El Centro de la Raza and I don't know maybe one of them will tell us a story about how they were founded by one of our teachers many many many years ago.

It's a great story about teachers who worked with students to create activism in our community and give back and figure out how to do great things in our community.

El Centro has been working with the school district for more than 40 years doing awesome things with us and for us and joined with us in helping close our opportunity gaps.

So James are you here?

I'd like to invite James forward to say a few more words about El Centro and then hear from them about some of the good things that they are doing in our schools.

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity.

El Centro de la Raza is a voice and a hub for Seattle's Latino community.

Founded in 1972 and 44 years later they are an indispensable community organization meeting a broad range of community needs with culturally and linguistically competent programs.

El Centro is committed to addressing racial and economic achievement gaps by ensuring that youth experiencing poverty and youth of color have access to high quality education and economic opportunities.

Their work directly aligns with our commitment to EOG and providing identity safe places.

In partnership with Seattle Public Schools they provide academic and cultural enrichment supports at Chief Sealth High School, Denny Air National Middle School and Ballard High School.

All of these programs stress the importance of student academic success and provide bilingual and bicultural staff to mentor students.

Annually they support up to 500 students who primarily speak Spanish and identify as Latino or Latina and 89% of students involved in the Proyecto Saber program graduate on time and they will talk a little bit more about that program specifically.

I would now like to introduce and welcome to the podium human services director Denise Perez Lally to share a few words and Proyecto Saber instructor Tatiana Vasquez and the rest of the El Centro team.

Thank you James.

Honorable board members and Superintendent Nyland.

I'd like to begin by ascending our familias in Mexico, love and light as well as our brothers and sisters in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

Our sentiments are with you.

For the past 20 years El Centro de la Raza and Seattle Public Schools have served about 15,000 Latino youth through the Proyecto Saber and other supportive programs.

Youth are critical to our community and our partnership is critical to ensure that they have the support that they need for success.

In this unwavering commitment El Centro de la Raza has grown into providing academic support, case management, civil rights history, cultural enrichment with the community emphasis into additional schools and we need to continue.

On a daily basis 12 youth service employees are supporting Seattle public school students.

Many staff are here today.

Rocio Martinez, Christina Jimenez, Reyna Enrique, Hugo Garibay, Tatiana Vasquez and we have one of our students Juan Carlos Gomez with us as well.

El Centro thanks you for this acknowledgement today and we look forward to strengthening this partnership to continue the vision of more Latinos and importantly youth of color graduating from high school and progressing into college.

I'd like to take just one more moment to thank El Centro de la Raza's executive director Estela Ortega who was here 45 years ago and remains a true visionary in youth services.

This year we are celebrating our 45th year anniversary.

Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Nyland, Michelle Ota who I saw in the audience here, Proyecto Saber teachers, Delfino Munoz and Millicent Carmanos from Chief Sealth High School and Edmund Garcia at Denny Middle School.

Thank you for being here and thank you for showing up every day.

Now my colleague Tatiana Vasquez is going to take a few minutes and talk about one key program Proyecto Saber.

Muchas gracias.

Buenas tardes mi nombre es Tatiana Vasquez and I am the civil rights instructor of the Hope for Youth program at El Centro de la Raza.

For well over a decade now El Centro de la Raza and Proyecto Saber have collaborated as a call to action by El Centro co-founder Roberto Maestras and by Latinx community members who found the need to work with the school district to ensure that we are serving our youth academically.

Together we are ensuring that the Chicanx Latinx students in Seattle are provided with the necessary case management support, college readiness and cultural enrichment to become effective members in the Seattle community.

A prime example of what this support can do is found by our very own student Juan Carlos who is present here today and he is currently a student at the Seattle Central Community College.

Through Proyecto Saber students have found a safe place where they can proudly project their cultural identity without fear of judgment.

By giving Chicanx Latinx students the tools and comfort that is necessary to strive we are molding and guiding our younger generations to perform well academically.

As well as to pursue education beyond high school at two-year or four-year institutions.

It is important that as community members we provide these students with the support they need to continue to work together in expanding Proyecto Saber in high schools and middle schools all over Seattle.

Community members should strive in encouraging members within the Chicanex La NX community to continue their education and become figures in which the Seattle community may later benefit from.

Proyecto's staff Delfino Munoz, Millicent Cormanos, Suzanne Kaufman, Ricardo Alcantar Lopez, Albert Albains and Herman Garcia deserve to be recognized for their hard work and dedication to Proyecto's mission and the students that partake in this program.

By supporting and continuing to fund programs such as Proyecto Saber we are closing the opportunity gap of marginalized communities and opening opportunities to empower our youth in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for all you do.

Don't go away.

We'll invite you up and we'll invite the board down to do a picture together.

Okay, so the shutter speed on this is slow, so you gotta keep your smile for a long time.

Ready?

One, two, three.

A couple more.

One, two, three.

One more.

One, two, three.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

th th

Peters All right so now let's see so we do not have any student group presentations this evening so I will now turn it over to the superintendent Nyland for his comments.

Nyland All right.

Might be a story later.

Nylander.

Well I mentioned it last time but we are still in the middle of national Hispanic heritage month from the middle of September through the middle of October so appropriate to recognize El Centro tonight so a great opportunity to do that.

And today actually is Rosh Hashanah and so we'll keep working on figuring out a better way to avoid conflicts but that's an unfortunate conflict for us this evening to have our board meeting on an important Jewish holiday.

On the back table is information about superintendent and staff school visits and presentations recently.

I had the opportunity to be at Martin Luther King and Aki recently and those are always highlighted my day and my week.

And also some upcoming community engagement events.

Well as I usually do I want to report on our three planks of our strategic plan.

The first goal is educational excellence and equity and schools back up and operating and so all kinds of good things are happening in that regard.

Our formula for success that the board knows a lot about is built on high quality teachers, student focused collaboration and a commitment to racial equity.

And as we did last year we are recognizing schools that are doing good work that we want to learn from and replicate.

And so tonight we have the opportunity to recognize the good work that Hawthorne Elementary has been doing.

And so I'd like to invite Kelly Aramaki up to introduce Principal Scott and her team and we'll learn a little bit about why they've been recognized for the last three years by Johns Hopkins University for their family engagement work.

All right good afternoon Kelly Aramaki executive director.

It is a privilege to be here to introduce Sandra Scott.

Sandra Scott came to Hawthorne the year that Hawthorne was designated a SIG school, a school improvement grant school.

That was about in 2010 and what that meant was that the school Hawthorne was in the bottom 5% in performance in the state.

Seven years later if you look up the first banner on the wall Hawthorne elementary school of distinction.

And what that means is that they are now in the top 5% of most improved schools and they measure that over time so it's not just a one year celebration.

The story, I've had the privilege of spending time with Sandra learning from her and learning from what they had done at Hawthorne elementary.

And I'm excited that you get an opportunity tonight just to hear a very tiny glimpse of one aspect of their work which is around family engagement.

But I encourage you if you want to be inspired around what it takes to take a school and to rally the community and the staff in order to create greatness.

I encourage you to spend some time with Sandra Scott individually.

But without further ado I'm proud to introduce Principal Sandra Scott.

Thank you Kelly that was really good.

To board members Superintendent Nyland thank you for inviting me tonight.

Unfortunately team members are doing coffee chats tonight so I get to be the team so to speak.

But the success of the work that we've done at Hawthorne is not just a principal effort it is a team effort it's a community effort.

and one that we are really really proud of in terms of turning a community around, bringing a school back to the community and providing wonderful experiences for students and families in our Mount Baker area.

So as Kelly said I came to Hawthorne in 2009-10 it was about the year when they started the SIG grant.

At that time the school was a little less than 200 students.

We had a PTA of about eight.

And it was a school where we needed to do some work.

It was not a popular choice when we were having choices to be made.

And so we knew that there were some things that had to change.

There were good things that were happening but we needed to make it better.

And so one of the things that it all starts with one person and all you need is that one to get started.

And so I had a parent across the street who came across the street he says hey I want to help you know what can we do to help you know bring the community back to the school.

And so we began working together, making plans, we developed a design team that consisted of community members, staff and families about what they wanted to see at Hawthorne.

Particularly when you're getting a school improvement grant and bringing it to a school you want to make sure that what you're doing is in line with not only improving academic achievement for students but also making the experiences a place where people would want to send their children.

And so we established some goals right off the bat, one was school culture, one was improving achievement, the other involved family and student engagement.

And so we went about engaging families.

We held potlucks, we had meetings, the families that were there they looked to each other support each other, we empowered parents to be a part of the school setting.

Not that they had to be teachers or anything, but in terms of the volunteerism, in terms of what they wanted to see, any way that they could participate they were welcome.

So we created an environment so that all parents could come.

And some of it started off with parents wanting to do something as simple as a cultural event and they would turn around and teach the other families and the next set of families would do a cultural event and they would support each other and it went on and on from there.

We were building capital within our families and we provided opportunities for teachers and families to work together.

We partnered with Seattle Central Community College to have ELL classes for our bilingual families so that they could continue to expand their skills.

We also had parent nights where we had the students there and the families when we were learning things together.

And so it was part of our work, the outreach that we went out into the community.

Our families are forefront in some of the work that we do.

We have parent play dates.

We do things at the market.

We do things, it sounds corny, but it works.

And we were able to build a sense of community at Hawthorne, it was a place where people wanted to come.

And so when you have people that come in and they walk in your building and they say wow this really feels good, I like what's happening with my kid.

You know the kids here and I would like my kid to come, that really makes us feel good.

We continue to strengthen our program.

We are a creative approach school so we designed a STEAM program, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics and trying to approach education in a way so that we were reaching all kids not just through standardized tests.

As we continue to do the work our enrollment has grown from that 200 to about I think today we are 405. We have that PTA that was 10 is now 80 plus strong.

We have families that are active in the school community that are there every day.

Our volunteer hours went from something like 800 to about 2300 a year.

And that's for families that's not counting the other people.

So we increased our family engagement a lot.

And part of that work was supported by the John Hopkins, we sent a team to John Hopkins two years in a row to talk about how we could really learn to engage our families and we did that.

As a result of some promising practices, things that we do to involve families into Hawthorne school, with our family nights, our literacy nights and things like that, we've been awarded the John Hopkins national award three times in a row.

So we are really happy about that.

It's the first time for I think any school that's done that first school in Seattle public schools has done that.

But we still have work to do and we continue to do the work but we're very proud of the growth that we've made and we're very proud of the work that we continue to do on behalf of kids.

And I'd like to close because this is about family engagement.

One of the parents that walked across the street, his name is Graham Ayers, and his mother-in-law and his wife also were part of the design team.

And so at our auction in 2014, Jen made a speech and this is a piece of her speech and it's from a parent's point of view but about how she feels about Hawthorne because she they were there at the beginning and their son graduated this past year and he's now attending Mercer but they're still at Hawthorne.

So I'd like to read a piece of that if I might.

And she had started it with Dr. Seuss is all the places you can go.

But this is a piece towards the end of it.

After all the work that we've done, the word on the street about Hawthorne has changed.

Something special has been going on at Hawthorne Elementary School.

Those of us who come into the building feel it.

Those of us who catch the glimpse of the kids dressed in their blue and yellow rise up t-shirts walking into Tuttabella for a field trip feel it.

The elementary school principals from all over the country who came to install our brand new playground feel it.

The National Association Education Association acknowledged it when they came to the school along with WEA and local district leaders and politicians to recognize Hawthorne for its strides and awarded it the highest performing priority school.

The federal government acknowledged it when they noted that Hawthorne has made outstanding progress as did OSPI when they said that we were one of the most successful SIG schools in Washington.

Principal Scott and the Hawthorne design team outlined a vision five years ago that staff parents and community have gotten behind.

One that values arts collaboration partnership strong academics technology and diversity of culture spirit and learning.

For me personally Hawthorne has become an extension of our family.

How many people can say wholeheartedly that wholeheartedly about their kids school.

Wow did we make a great decision.

The federal grant money may be gone but the collective power and strength and passion of the Hawthorne school community and our friends push onward.

Thank you.

Thank you Dr. Scott.

I would add that SLI the summer leadership institute she had a room packed full standing room only wanting to steal those secrets and take them to other buildings.

So thanks for the great work.

Also under goal one the board had a work session last week around 24 credits.

The state law has changed and requires students to earn 24 credits to graduate and since we have a six period day that means that students have to do well in all six periods all four years and doesn't leave much time for electives or special specialties of interest or picking up a credit if you've lost one along the way.

So, we continue to work on that, we'll be doing some community engagement around what are the life skills, career skills that we want students to be able to have and how will we offer more than 24 credits in the future.

We're also working toward an advisory that's the 20 minutes longer this year provides some time for that and we'll continue we've been talking with SEA about what that looks like and have a more complete rollout for 2018. So that's good work and appreciate the board suggestions and comments in terms of what those life skills are that we want our students to aspire to.

A line funding for school climate has been something that we've worked with with the Casey family foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for the last many many many many months.

I think there's been maybe one meeting a month for the last 18 months.

talking about what else do we need to help make a difference in eliminating opportunity gaps.

And one of the things that we've noticed from our outlier schools is that quite a few of them have I guess Pat's comment is case management.

It goes by a different name I think in every school and there is no official role, sometimes it's an assistant principal, sometimes it's a counselor, sometimes it's a headteacher but it's somebody who kind of plays traffic cop for us in terms of being really clear on how we coordinate programs both our internal programs as well as our external programs.

We are very grateful to the Casey family foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for funding that to take that idea and expand it for us so that we can build school climate and make the best of the resources that we have in each of our other schools as well.

Attendance has been in the news.

Washington I think that was not a good award.

We were I think worst in the nation for attendance.

I don't know what that is.

Actually I think we were tied with Alaska.

But.

Anyway chronic attendance or chronic absenteeism they define as more than 10% which would be 18 days and if students miss more than 18 days they have gaps in what they learn and have difficulty keeping up.

So we've been working on this particularly with the Seattle Housing Authority for the last several years.

6000 of our students are associated with Seattle Housing Authority and we've been doing joint letters we meet with them about every six weeks.

They've got some great graphics and they've got good strategies and I would say that they partner with us, it's almost like we're partnering with them.

They've been carrying out, they've got a little bit more contained audience, they know where people live.

So they've been helping us get that message out.

We launched more of a districtwide effort a few days ago and talking about the importance of the first 20 days.

So if you just think about that particularly at secondary schools that if you're not there for the first few days of school and you don't know what the teacher expects and you don't know what the grading requirements are and you don't know what the homework assignments are.

It's easy to fall behind and then get one bad grade and then be trying to play catch up beyond that.

So we're we are kind of just scratching the surface on it.

Actually we could bring Rainier View in.

We've got some schools along with the Seattle Housing Authority that are leading the way and have great efforts underway that we can learn from.

But we are moving in that direction.

The second goal is improving systems and budget continues to be a challenge for us.

The Supreme Court has scheduled the oral arguments for McCleary to be on October 24. At this moment in time they have given each side 30 minutes for kind of the most important case of my lifetime I think.

Maybe they will change their mind about that.

We are certainly hopeful that the Supreme Court will stay the course and require the state to do what they promised in 2009-2010.

From our standpoint the state has not come close to fulfilling those McCleary requirements.

We are noticing if you kind of Yeah the Seattle Times has picked up a few of them and then several of us are on the feed from WASDA the state school directors association and I would say there's about a dozen stories now have run from other districts that are finding out as we have that it's not what was expected and there are shortfalls in what the state did.

Particularly for us special education and ELL and compensation are areas that are not fully funded so we are concerned about what that means for our budgets going forward.

We will be launching the budget work here shortly and JoLynn Berge is scheduled to meet with McGilvra PTA on September 28. We're scheduled to have a work session with the board on September 27 and we'll continue to meet with our partners SEA, PASS, Seattle Council, PTSA and many others as we go forward with the budget work.

Goal three of our strategic plan calls for family and community engagement.

And a couple of highlights in that regard.

Several school board members Sue Peters, Betty Patu, Rick Burke along with some of our staff had the opportunity to meet with some of the city council members this last week.

Sally Bagshaw and Deborah Juarez.

to talk about the partnership work that we've been doing around Seattle center and what that might look like.

So I think all of us who've been more closely involved with the process feel that we really have tried to figure out what the interests are of Seattle schools the city of Seattle other partners that have venues on the Seattle center site.

And we've been, Betty has been involved in a lot of that since the beginning and it's been really clear that the stadium has to go there.

There's no other place in the city where it can go where we have central transportation, central parking and that memorial site.

Parking we need.

And then we certainly want to preserve it as a potential for a high school site.

And the city seems to be amenable with that and has actually talked with us about providing adjacent locations to make that make that possible.

So all of that will come back to the board and the city and the Seattle center before anything is finalized.

But right now trying to figure out what all those needs are and how to make them work together.

The city, I'm told that they do this once every seven years, the family and education levy is up for renewal on November of 2018 and I hadn't thought about it this way before but the levy for the school district, not the city levy, the school district levy is very important.

It funds about 20% of what we do.

If you work for the Department of Education and Early Learning for the city, the levy pays for 100% of what you do.

So they are fully invested, engaged, and committed to figuring out how to go forward on this issue.

And interestingly enough their window of opportunity is that the next new mayor on November 28 will have only a few months in which to get up to speed on how the city of Seattle partners with Seattle Public Schools, what's in the family and education levy.

how much should be in it, and that's probably a lot of their political capital for the four years that they'll be in office.

So I understand the, I don't know what word to use, the intensity of city staff on working on this issue.

We've had two meetings the family and education advisory committee met last week and then the city staff met with the district staff to talk about what's in that $80 million and what their plans are for going forward.

The student assignment plan was part of the conversation with the board at the board retreat on September 9 and quite a few moving pieces, big jigsaw that we've shared with the board about a lot of pieces that have to come together with a lot of community engagement over the coming months.

Under the student assignment plan there was board interest in conversation around clarifying our special education language, clarifying our language with regard to school choice and capacity and the issue of designated pathways for high school highly capable students vis-a-vis advanced placement.

And all of that along with boundaries.

So lots more work to come over the next few weeks and months.

A lot of that needs to be wrapped up.

I don't know about the high school boundaries but a lot of that needs I guess it does needs to be wrapped up by the end of the calendar year so that parents will know what to expect when they go into open enrollment after the first of the new calendar year.

Good news.

Creative advantage partnership with the office of arts and culture and the Seattle foundation was featured in the national teaching artists guild publication this month.

A lot of collaborative work with the Seattle art museum and many of our community partners and we had the opportunity to recognize Gail's work with creative advantage at the last board meeting.

Our leadership learning day is our monthly professional development for principals.

Principals have committed to 15 days of professional development throughout the year.

Five of those are during the summer for our summer institutes and then monthly they meet and they have a planning team that focuses on making half of that time available for race and equity issues.

And the other half on other issues related to instruction and then we do like schools do and we try to keep the district administrivia to one hour of that timeframe.

So in that one hour timeframe we did an update on student rights and responsibilities and how we had been responsive to the formula for success and the feedback from principals and being a little bit more flexible in our consequences for student misbehavior.

And Andrew presented kind of the top three or four issues that get schools in trouble with regard to their audits.

The big issue was school improvement plans around race and equity.

Principals meet and they actually sit in their professional networks building relationships with each other and hopefully stealing more of these good ideas that you've gotten to see just a little bit of at board meetings.

So I really appreciate the work that Mike Starosky does with the principal leadership learning day development team.

Washington Middle School kind of in fitting with our Tri-Day which was a focus on building those relationships for students is committed to knowing students by story strength and need.

Their staff and students are participating in a national music video campaign partnering with Old Navy and singer Pharrell Williams.

They are one of I think eight schools that will be featured nationally.

You can see Beth Fortune the Washington middle school teacher and her students on their Facebook page.

Topic of community interest.

Enrollment is always challenging for us.

Our enrollment we've grown by 8000 students over the last 10 years and we've noticed over the last recent years that our enrollment has slowed.

Our enrollment for this year looks steady it's about what it was last year and that's considerably below what our June projections were.

That's an impact I think of about 50 teachers so and we get funded based on the number of students that we have so that's a major change in what we had anticipated for funding.

Fortunately the school board had allocated $4 million to help offset that $2 million for fall enrollment and $2 million for race and equity based mitigation.

So the other commitment that we made is we wanted to make decisions earlier in the school year.

in a timely way.

And so a lot of staff work has gone into counting students every day to get a better handle on how many students we do have and then mitigating as many of those impacts as we could.

That said we still have about a dozen teaching positions that we will be.

We've talked to principals about pulling back.

Those teachers will have jobs.

but probably not in that building.

So in most cases I think virtually all of those cases those schools had an enrollment drop that might have meant a loss of two or three teachers and we've offset that some but we are still pulling at least a teacher from some of our schools.

We know that that's an impact and we know that it causes some disruption and we've done as much as we can to minimize that but there will be some impact there.

And we'll continue to try to learn about what we're learning about where our students are going.

We do know that our surrounding districts are growing and we suspect that our housing prices have had something to do with it.

In previous years we noticed that we lost students north and south near our borders.

This year it seems to be more widespread districtwide.

Charter schools I'm sure have some impact I don't think it's the, I think we're down about 600 students and maybe a couple hundred of those might be charters but we'll find out about that too.

So coming up on tonight's agenda is a resolution with regard to DACA deferred action for childhood arrivals otherwise known as the DREAM Act, DREAMers.

Although that doesn't have a direct impact on our students it has an indirect impact on our students and it creates another wave of fear and anxiety for our students.

And so that was part of my comments with principals yesterday is how do we continue to recognize identity safety for our students.

Actually I stole quite a few lines from Lisa Love from our A board retreat around we want students to be able to bring their whole self to school and we want them to feel welcomed and we want them to feel a sense of belonging.

So later tonight there's a resolution and we are asking that that be for intro and action tonight giving the board an opportunity to weigh in on that issue and get that posted on our website.

I'm almost done.

Stop paddles for school buses are coming.

We've been working on that for a while.

We piloted it last year and we found out what do we find 112 day period on 10 school buses.

I don't know how many we have but a lot more than 10. 600 vehicles illegally passed our school buses when the stop paddle was in use.

So and the fines are significant $419.

So school started.

We want our kids to be safe.

This is one more way that we can help work with drivers to make sure that we keep kids safe and it will generate some revenue for us that needs to be used for that purpose in terms of keeping kids safe.

Finally as we've witnessed the hurricane disasters and now the earthquake in Mexico certainly our thoughts and prayers go out to the families that are impacted.

I've I was unable to keep track in Florida Houston I know had 50 of their schools that were flooded and major impact for those families and their homes and then even for the schools.

The earthquake particularly brings to mind I think it was a 7.1 earthquake in our last earthquake I think it says in my notes here somewhere was 6.8 and I guess that might mean that the Mexico one was significantly worse than ours.

As a result of that last earthquake a significant amount of money has been dedicated to seismic safety and we have now completed those seismic safety improvements on all of our schools.

So we've done our part in that regard and then actually with regard to the student shooting tragedy in Spokane.

It's also noteworthy that under state law now we do we still do monthly drills but they vary.

They vary from an earthquake drill to a shooting drill to our fire drills.

And then at the district level we're required to do desktop interactions with our community partners and then periodically do a full scale dry run of if it was a real disaster what would we do and what do we learn from from doing that.

That concludes my comments.

Okay thank you Dr. Nyland.

So this evening we are fortunate enough to have a student representative join us and so I'd like to welcome him up to the dais with us.

His name is Henry Geary and he is from Roosevelt high school.

He's a senior and he's a cinematographer for student government and he's involved with the young life program there and he also plays lacrosse.

And he also has an accomplished mother who is very proud of him this evening.

To sum up the concerns of the Roosevelt High School community, the main issues would be parking.

In the recent school year, they added four new portables, and this has eliminated student parking in the parking lot.

So now it's staff only, and staff, some staff are unwilling to park there and take up the other open parking spot.

In addition to this the area around Roosevelt the streets have parking zone permits so students cannot park there for more than two hours at a time so they can't effectively park there without getting tickets.

Many of the students have received tickets of $40 or more on multiple occasions for some students already this year.

Another main concern is the field use and pool use for students.

Students of the swim team have very little time to practice, especially since there are 100 girls in the swim team this year.

And having an hour and a half practice for a day does not give them time to fully exercise and get the activities that they need to get done.

Lastly, start times are a big concern for students.

There's not a lot of time after school, many believe, for activities since we're getting out at 335 this year.

And I think it's affecting how students are able to do their after school activities, especially the ones that are not linked to the school, as they sometimes can come in conflict with the start and end times.

That's about it.

Thank you very much.

So Henry you are welcome to stay with us for the rest of the meeting or you can stay with us during the public comments and you can even comment afterwards as well whatever you'd like to do.

Does anybody have any questions for him?

Okay well thank you very much for joining us and like I said you're welcome.

Director Harris has a question for you.

We are getting a lot of emails about master schedules and whether or not folks can get the classes they need and I'm wondering what that feels like at Roosevelt.

I think that is a concern for some students especially with electives they are filling up quickly.

The fact that a class has 32 out of 30 students in the class means that you can't get in.

No matter how much you ask your counselor and how much you beg for it, you can't get into those classes.

And it does affect how kids are planning out their schedules.

And in some situations, you're not able to get the classes that you may want to take.

And it's restricting for those students.

All right.

Thank you very much.

So we have now reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Do I have a second?

I second the motion.

OK.

Would anybody do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda?

Okay seeing none all those in favor of the consent agenda please say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

The consent agenda has passed.

Okay so we have now, we are not quite at 530 so we cannot yet begin public testimony so I now invite directors who wish to speak at this time they can do so and they can also add some comments afterwards in response to public testimony.

Is there anybody who would be able to speak at this moment?

Thank you Director Patu.

First of all.

I'll put my fingers on.

there.

Okay can you hear me?

Hello?

Okay.

First of all I wanted to congratulate the sub friendly schools for continuing to remind us that we definitely need substitutes when it's needed within our schools and actually having the opportunity to have great substitutes I think that's even better.

So thank you for making sure that we have great substitute on behalf of the sub friendly schools.

And also I want to congratulate El Centro de la Raza for their amazing work that they continue on to do by being able to be supportive of a lot of our schools that they are involved in.

and just having the opportunity for them to introduce their culture and all the wonderful things that they do to introduce our students to the many activities that they provide and also the various programs that they provide to help a lot of our Hispanic students and so congratulations.

I also want to congratulate Hawthorne for such tremendous work that they continue to do to really to be able to provide innovative learning for all the kids at Hawthorne Elementary School and the parents to support the work that Hawthorne continue to do in that amazing schools.

As we are starting a new year I wanted to acknowledge the people who actually within the southeast district who are taking care of our students and making sure that they receive the best quality and equitable education.

And those are our principals, the teachers, the volunteers, the communities.

and also the parents that continue to provide time after time to be able to help our schools become innovative schools by the support and the volunteer hours that they continue to give.

And so I really want to say thank you so much for your dedication and tenacious attitude for our students that has set tone and bringing progress to your individual schools and just knowing that by all the various awards that we see you receive in the different schools that we have just to show that the wonderful work that you continue to do so congratulations to all the schools in the southeast that are actually working hard to be able to bring great education to all our students.

My next community meeting is actually October, it's in September 30, 2017. And having the opportunity to visit the various, our various schools really has been an innovative way to just to see what's happening in all the different schools and There's so many schools to actually to go and see but I think the opportunity to just to be able to step into a school and walk around and be able to observe all the wonderful things that are happening in the classrooms and how teachers and are actually interacting with students and just see the learning take place I think that as a board director it takes me pride and actually to really to see the work continue on in our various schools and I think that that makes a lot of difference when we know that there's a lot of hard work going on in various schools to really bring about the excellent education that we expect for all our kids and to continue that and be able to give support to our principals and teachers and those who are actually making it happen in our schools I think that for me that's a wonderful thing to do so I really want to say congratulations to all of our teachers and principals and volunteers who will continue on to help us to make Seattle Public Schools the best that we can.

Peters Thank you Director Patu.

Director Burke and then Director Geary and then Director Burke.

All right well first let me welcome our student representative Henry Geary.

Good to see you here yay.

Okay and thank you to El Centro de la Raza became familiar with that organization on the campaign trail and was so impressed with the way they wrap around their community and continue to be expansive.

and would love to talk with them more about ways that we could build such a community around the group of people that are now living in Magnuson Park up in my district and hopefully get them to have that same sense of community and building something to serve their needs.

On that topic I had the privilege to be invited to a meeting with city Councilmember Rob Johnson, County Councilmember Rod Dembowski and our legislators David Frock, Jerry Poulet and Javier Valdez and as the product of that meeting was all three entities the state the county and the city committing millions of dollars towards the building of refurbishing of the community center in Magnuson Park and the building of a community center up in Lake City which is now one of our biggest populations at least for us of free and reduced lunch.

And so I want to thank them as our partners because what we often say as board members that We know we have to partner and our kids need the support of our city and our state and our county when they leave our doors.

We can do a lot for them but when they leave we need our partners to step up.

Organizations like El Centro de la Raza and our city and our county working together to support our kids as they leave our doors is the way that we are going to see the progress that we want for them.

So I just wanted to shout out my gratefulness to them for that work because it is so important and as we know The Magnuson community needs our support after the events of this summer and what happened to Charlene Lyles.

We need to embrace them.

I'm a little out of order but along those lines as well I committed in my prior board comments to holding my community meetings at Magnuson because again the one thing that they asked is that we as a community come and just participate in their community and be part of their social fabric.

And so I'm going to do my best to hold my community meetings at solid ground and I'm very thankful to the people at solid ground to offer me the Phyllis Gutierrez Kennedy place community room and my first meeting there will be September 30, 2017 from 1 to 2.30 PM.

And I invite everybody in the city as well as in my district to come and meet me there and start to be a part of their community and welcome them into our larger community.

Because I know they feel very isolated living in a park and we all need to continue to work and remember to build the structures around them to make them part of the fabric of our city.

I was invited to meet with the Metropolitan Democrats club and give them an opportunity, gave me an opportunity to catch up with what's happening in our district and it was pretty amazing.

I was given 70 minutes and in that 70 minutes I managed to cover budget and McCleary, our relationship with the city and the county, capacity and buildings, EOG and the formula for success and ethnic studies along with black lives matter and our commitment to immigrant families.

So I was talking fast covering a lot of ground and I was pleased that at the end while they were sort of stunned the comment was that they felt a lot more hopeful about our district.

So keep up the good work.

Everybody in our district in making these things matter because it makes my job easy to go out and be super positive and change the messaging and create hope around our families and kids which is what we need.

So that was a great thing.

Now you will see that I am wearing my be unified robotics for all T-shirt.

Last night I had the privilege to attend the opening ceremonies for the special Olympics unified robotics program which is a six week after school program that pairs our student Olympians to work on robotics with a partner.

And they will build a robot and compete in about six weeks.

Right now we have robotics teams at Franklin Roosevelt and Ballard and I think there would be interest in more.

So if anybody out there is interested in participating it's not too late even though opening ceremonies have happened.

Now what this is going to take is it takes every team needs a Lego robotic kit.

And those I believe are at about three hundred and eighty three hundred and ninety dollars per kit.

And that while that doesn't seem like a lot for some of our schools for others of our schools it is.

And so I'm going to ask if anybody is out there who wants to support this program and make it something that they want to help along then contact me I see April Murdoch from our DOTS team she was there we talked I appreciated her input on this.

I'm going to throw her name out there too if she wants to route people back to me that's great as well.

But let's support you know this is the year that Seattle is hosting the special Olympics.

I'm going to be talking a lot about this this year getting and rallying excitement around our participation.

and anything that I can do to help families participate let me know, it is so cool.

I took my 10-year-old daughter, she was thrilled to hang out in this community, watch kids play with the robots, see them come together, all differing abilities around something that's really fun and I just can't say enough about us continuing to make those opportunities available to everybody.

And then finally thank you to principal Scott and the Hawthorne community she said she apologized for sounding corny about what they're doing and I don't think fun is corny I think fun is what invites people in and makes them feel welcome and creates community.

right on is all I have to say about that because fun is great for our students and if our students are happy and learning our parents are happy and our teachers can go to work in a great environment so it sounds like whatever they are doing is not corny it's perfect.

So I also have Tuesday mornings at Zoka at Blakely if anybody wants to join me there for coffee.

Check my Facebook page my board Facebook page usually the night before the morning of if you want to pop by and say hi and tell me your concerns I'm going to be doing moving those from Thursday morning to Tuesday mornings.

So you have an opportunity to tell me about anything that's coming up on the board agenda for the next night.

All right.

Thanks.

Thank you Director Geary now over to Director Burke.

Thank you that was.

Nicely done.

Is this coming through?

Okay there we go.

I want to also welcome our newest guest.

Henry thank you.

The microphones are great the seats are great the audience is amazing.

So you'll find this addictive.

I guarantee.

But thanks for joining us.

I want to also put in a word of acknowledgement for the sub friendly schools and the work of Peter Henry because I think the It's just absolutely imperative to recognize that when we have.

inclusive and welcoming communities, they are welcoming for our students, they are welcoming for our educators as well.

When my kids were in their formative years my wife was a substitute so about three years and so I got to hear some of the stories, some of the inside scoop of what it's like to come into a school as a sub, when plans are made, when plans aren't made, how they are embraced or not in the staff rooms, what level of collaboration takes place.

That's a really amazing effort and I also want to thank Dr. Nyland and the executive committee for bringing it to the board and to the public attention.

El Centro de la Raza I also learned so much more about them during the campaigning process and I think it's just a huge and consistent voice and effort that they've been putting forward and so I wanted to look over to staff especially to Dr. Kinoshita just to emphasize I know that this is already a connection that you have made and continue to nurture but that you strengthen their involvement in the ethnic studies work because they've got a demonstrated history of working around curricula, working around you know really supporting youth and I'd love to see them be even more engaged in that ethnic studies work.

Thank you to Principal Scott and especially to her team that is continuing to work and unable to come and share the fun that actually happened to their school.

So I want to send my gratitude to the entire team.

Building on what Dr. Nyland said around the Seattle Center redevelopment there's a lot of potential for I'll say mis-messaging or misunderstanding around that.

I was it was a privilege to be part of the meeting with council person Bagshaw and Gonzales around really what or Juarez sorry thank you.

Totally derailed but corrected.

Understanding like what was what's the purpose of the really we're talking about co-visioning this and hearing from the city staff the level of respect that they have for our hopes and needs and ownership of the property was really enlightening for me.

I think there's some really great opportunities for our students in the future and for our city in the future and figuring out how to put those building blocks in place is exactly the conversation that was taking place.

So moving into a little bit on current issues I think there's probably going to be some conversation around enrollment.

And it is a topic that is regularly comes before us.

And it also regularly comes within us and within staff to try to understand how we can do the best possible projection how we can get the earliest staffing allocation out to our schools how we can hire staff and get teachers in classrooms on day one.

and then something shifts.

And those shifts create disruptions and those disruptions create dissatisfaction.

So I want to make sure that as we are having conversations today and in the future that we recognize the value of hindsight.

And that we recognize it as a tool for improvement because I think it's an opportunity for us to look back and say wow we should have thought of that.

And we could either beat ourselves up for it and we probably will but my hope is that we take that and we look at okay what was the data that we missed?

What was the projection that was incorrect?

What was the assumption that we didn't have correct?

And we feed that back into our models and use it to get better and better and better each time with our models and with our processes.

And then in closing I want to also put out an invitation.

I've gotten a couple of emails from PTSA communities inviting me to come to their meetings and I just want to open that up.

That is absolutely an appropriate and welcome thing so if you're a PTA leader here watching this hearing about it please reach out to me if Ideally if you're in my district or if I'm in your district or even potentially not I would be interested in going outside the box as well and see if we can coordinate a visit to learn more about your community and how we can celebrate some of the successes.

In closing my community meeting actually overlaps with Director Geary slightly so there's an opportunity to hit both of them if you time it right.

September 30 I'm 130 to 3 at the Greenwood public library.

Thank you.

Peters Thank you Director Burke.

Would anyone else like to speak for a few more minutes?

Okay thank you Director Blanford.

I'd like to begin by thanking Henry for joining us today and thank you for loaning us your mom for a period of time.

She's doing your family proud and we'll loan her, we'll give her back to you soon.

I also want to thank the folks that came from El Centro and particularly from Proacto Sober.

When I worked for the district back 14 years ago I had the opportunity to meet Delfino Munoz who was sitting in the corner there.

and to work with him in some of the development of the program.

So it's been nice to see how it has grown over the years and that it's been sustained when many of our programs that are doing similar work have had difficulties maintaining operations.

So the work that Proyecto Saber does is so critically important.

And the work that El Centro has done as a partner of Seattle Public Schools over these years has been absolutely critical to our mission to serve all the students in Seattle.

They are if maybe this is a shameless plug but they are having an event next not this Saturday but next Saturday I know I'm planning to go to it and I hope the room will be full of people who want to hear about the good work that's done in El Centro.

I also want to thank the substitute teachers who do as thankless work as school board directors I think sometimes in educating our students when their teachers are getting professional development or absent for one reason or another.

That is also critically important work that is done and we are grateful and thankful for the opportunity to recognize the work that our substitute teachers do.

I want to thank Principal Scott and the entire Hawthorne team for the recognition that they received the John Hopkins award which I know is they had to do some pretty impressive work to get that sort of national recognition.

And particularly on an issue that's so important as family and parent engagement to serve as a model and an exemplar that other schools can learn from.

It's wonderful that that's happening and hopefully we are putting our principals and our teachers in situations where they can share what they have done so other schools can learn from it.

And then finally I want to again announce that I have a community meeting that is scheduled for this week on Saturday.

It is scheduled at the Douglas truth library at 23rd and Yesler and it's scheduled for 10 o'clock it should go for a couple hours.

As Director Burke has shared it's important that people from all over the district not only district five have the opportunity to come to that and because it's one of my last meetings I particularly will welcome anybody that would like to come and share their thoughts with the school board director.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Blanford.

So we have now reached 530 and we will go on to public testimony.

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

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

I would also like to note that each speaker has a two minute speaking time.

When two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

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

Thank you.

First three speakers we have this evening is Nate Koyedal, Gian Rosario, and Naj Ali.

You ready?

Is this on?

Hi my name is Nate Coydall I'm the ASB president of Roosevelt high school and our spirit this year is extremely high and we've seen this through our unmatched football game attendance and our hype in our first assembly.

We have many diverse activities that have soaring memberships this year such as the girls swim team with around 100 girls as Henry said before.

Some of these positives like the girls swim team have unfortunate repercussions.

Example their team is shifting practices to afternoons for only an hour and a half.

This means they have to fill the pool as much as they can past capacity while still having up to 10 girls out of the pool.

Other sports face similar conflicts with minimal full field pool or court space.

Perhaps solutions to these overcrowded activities lie in collaboration with the city to build more athletic facilities and aquatic centers near our school.

Specifically to Roosevelt the new plans are being designed for covering the Roosevelt Reservoir.

It would be extremely beneficial for student athlete success to work with the city planners to use some of the space available extremely close to the school.

On another note we now have six portables filling our school parking lot from the enormous freshman class that just entered the school.

Because of this the parking lot is now staff only and students have to park in the surrounding neighborhood streets where they will get tickets if their cars are parked more than two hours.

Not only is this financially awful but it builds more stress and anxiety into the lives of these teenagers.

First a student has to find a spot close enough to get to class on time then even once they get to the building they are constantly stressing over moving their car to avoid the ticket.

Many of us have tried solving these issues through attempting to put in place a system of classroom rotation or calling city council members to remove the tickets.

None of these efforts have succeeded largely because either the teachers or city council members won't truly listen to our thoughts.

A promising solution has been brought up at staff meetings where students could receive permits that would prevent us from receiving the tickets during school hours.

Thank you.

Peters Thank you.

Good evening Seattle school board members.

My name is Gian Rosario, Rainier Beach high school student.

So according to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection GIS web map parts of Rainier Beach high school are in liquefaction zones and the surrounding area are also liquefaction zones.

So if an earthquake was to strike Seattle the ground that Rainier Beach High School sits on will move and enhance the shaking and we can imagine sinkholes all around the area.

On the Seattle Public Schools earthquake safety information data it states that six buildings including Rainier Beach High School was included in the BEX III capital levy and benefited from seismic upgrades during the years 2007 to 2012. On the BEX III information page for Rainier Beach high school it states that the high school modernization was completed in early September 2008 but there are no mentions of earthquake safety improvements.

And in the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection there are no permits for seismic upgrades that took place between 2007 and 2012 and so my question is did these upgrades happen?

And the last seismic upgrades happened in 2003 which is about 14 years ago.

On the BEX website under BEX for earthquake safety improvements it states that 37 buildings will receive earthquake upgrades from 2013 to 2020 and it shows that Rainier Beach high school is a recipient.

My question is will these upgrades happen?

So these renovations that we have been bringing up in the past year is not to make our high school look more beautiful than it already is.

These renovations are vital to the safety of our students in our community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Honey Ahmed followed by Chris Jackins and Brian Terry.

Hello school board members.

My name is Honey Hamid and I'm a student at Rainier Beach High School.

Can you please speak up and bring the mic closer to you so we can hear your words.

I'm a student from Rainier Beach high school.

I have some concerns about the direction that the high school boundary changes are going.

This map as far as I know is a draft.

As you can see here the boundary for Lincoln high school from 2019 to 2020 school year is mapped around South Lake Union and parts of downtown.

But isn't the purpose of opening Lincoln high school to address the capacity needs of neighboring high schools such as Roosevelt, Ballard, Nathan Hale and Garfield then should not the boundaries of Lincoln high school consist more of Ballard, Roosevelt and Nathan Hale?

I thought the reason for prioritizing a downtown high school over Rainier Beach renovation was to address that capacity needs.

Where will the boundaries be for downtown high school?

Why are we building and opening more schools if we already have schools that are open but are under enrolled?

Another concern I have for the boundaries regarding Rainier Beach High School is that our boundary encompasses Boeing airfield.

But as far as I know there are no students living in Boeing airfield because it's an airfield.

These high school boundaries should not be moving north should be moving north not south.

If we truly want to address capacity issues I'm suggesting that high school boundaries be moved north so that under enrolled schools can be can have more enrollment.

Please address these boundary issues.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124 on policy 6810. The policy states that it aims to lessen environmental damage.

Yet the district plans to remove 50% of the trees at Wing Luke 50% at Magnolia and 69% at Webster.

On the July 5th board action on waitlists.

Three points.

Number one the board action did not appear fair because A it allows additional moves for siblings but not for non-siblings.

B it allows a process for students to stay at Whitman but not at other schools.

C it allows people to cut in front of other people.

D it leaves the no staffing disruption proviso in place.

E it did not weigh the importance of funding waitlist policy.

Number two the waitlist changes may be unfair based on race.

I have included a written explanation.

Number three the waitlist changes may produce worse results than if no changes had been made.

I have included a written example.

On the student assignment plan five points number one when the previous system was changed to reduce school choice it created an aggravated racial imbalance.

Number two the district should return to offering greater choice.

Number three it should guarantee transportation for all students.

Number four it should add capacity the same year as demand increases at a school.

Number five it should fund schools based on maintaining a good education rather than simply using a set formula based on enrollment.

This would reduce swings in funding and stop competition for enrollment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

After Brian Terry we will have Devin Bruckner Valerie Cooper and Julie Popper.

Good evening.

In Seattle Public Schools a white student is 20 times more likely than a black student to qualify for HCC.

This is not because there are no highly capable black students but rather because the HCC program is designed is not designed to find and serve these students.

As a result privileged students receive more advanced academic support both at home and in school thus increasing their privilege in a vicious cycle.

Incremental changes to increase equity in advanced learning programs are not enough.

After 30 years of incremental improvements HCC remains highly segregated today.

Overcoming a 20 to 1 inequity will require a 2000% change.

If we are serious about addressing racial inequity in our schools we must redefine advanced learning not to serve students who are already academically advanced but students with high academic potential that is not being met.

Making this change will dramatically impact the lives of highly capable underprivileged students.

Imagine a many fold increase in the number of these students graduating from college and the impact that this will have on all of our futures.

This change is not only allowed but required by both state law and district policy 0 0 3 0. I ask all of you to redefine advanced learning to include the students who need the most help and address this unacceptable inequity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening I'm Devin Bruckner and I'm the parent of a child in the highly capable cohort and a leader of the racial equity and HCC team.

I'm here tonight to ask you to take bold steps to address the racial equity gap in advanced learning as part of the program review now underway.

Many believe the problem is so complex that it can't be solved but that is not true.

During the universal testing of second graders last year in lower income schools SPS staff improved the process, outreach and follow-up with families and schools.

The result was a dramatic increase in students of color who became eligible for advanced learning compared to prior years.

This shows that these efforts can make a major difference but so far we've only made a tiny dent in a huge problem.

We need many many more changes like this across the entire process.

We've heard from neighboring districts Everett, Renton, Highline who are making progress closing equity gaps in advanced learning.

We've learned that their top leadership makes this a real priority.

These districts also take an attitude of being rabid about barriers.

They've shared about trying new things, big things every year, analyzing data, refining their approach and iterating.

They have a can-do attitude and they see results.

These districts also provide funding and staff needed.

Doing outreach and follow-up with families takes staff time and money.

We also need to tackle the mental barrier that defines highly capable as children who are already performing and doesn't take who are already high performing and doesn't take experience and environment into account.

We need to follow Washington state law and serve students with potential not just those already performing at advanced levels.

The law says highly capable students perform or show potential for performing at significantly advanced academic levels when compared with others of their experiences environments.

or age.

We believe that now is the time for SPS to provide the leadership, the resources and the can do attitude to be rabid about barriers and better serve students of all races in advanced learning.

Thank you.

Hi I'm Valerie Cooper.

We are not nimble but we are capable and creative and when we are handed an opportunity to receive free land we must capitalize on it.

This can free funds for other integral projects such as Rainier Beach renovations.

Today I spoke with a federal real property specialist and learned that our access to this land is as great as ever.

Number one, interim programs are a feasible option at this site and can include things such as athletic fields.

Though this might reduce the discount of the land to being less than 100%.

The upfront cost at the time of application for the land is only required for the interim project thus allowing the funding for the full future school building at that site to be identified but not secured.

Number two, the future land proposed with an interim site need only to be identified as a school.

If the district states a middle school is to be built there but then later determines that it needs to be a high school or an elementary school that can change as long as it is still direct classroom school usage.

Now if it starts out as an interim program and you only get 70 or 80% discount on it you can't in the future get the 100% discount so that's something to consider but definitely the funds do have to be available at the time of the application.

We can demonstrate immediate need because all of the programs we've been talking about enable the school district to reach its desired function.

They today define that to me as what immediate need is.

Projected student enrollment, neighborhood growth are all valid indications of immediate need.

It takes two to 10 years to transfer the title.

We know we will be past due for new capacity at that time.

If we don't build it 150 family units are going in.

So if we do build it we can maybe get half a step ahead rather than being two steps behind.

This requires to get on the train.

We must ask to be on the EIS.

Both Lawton and Blaine and the Queen Anne schools are going to pass a resolution that asks the school district to please ask to be on the EIS to keep the door open for this amazing opportunity.

Secondly, if we can converge the school district and city officials to collaboratively come up with a plan that would be our best goal.

Thanks.

Peters Thank you and just to clarify I believe you were talking about the Fort Lawton land.

You can just nod that's fine.

Thank you.

All right thank you.

Hi my name is Julie Popper and I'm here as part of the racial equity and HCC team.

My son went to John Muir elementary last year and had a fantastic experience in the inclusive rich community of our neighborhood school.

This year he began in the HCC program at Thurgood Marshall in a classroom community that is completely different.

His classroom is overwhelmingly white and he's the only John Muir student in his grade level in this program.

This experience tracks with SPS as HCC enrollment.

White students account for 45% of the SPS population yet 72% of HCC is white.

Nonwhite students account for 54% of our school population yet make up 28% of HCC.

It's unacceptable that we as a city think this overwhelmingly white cohort is a representation of the students who need the HCC challenge.

It's also alarming that we are sending a message to students that white is what smart looks like, reinforcing racist stereotypes.

And it's short-sighted to think that the HCC program is creating more challenge for students when the challenges are only academic.

Students in this homogeneous program are being denied the challenge of learning to build community with students of different races, ethnicities and countries of origin.

The current setup is bad for all students.

As SPS reviews the advanced learning program it must take bold action to address the root problem of the most talented students of color being left out or locked out of the HCC and advanced learning system.

Until we solve this problem HCC is nothing more than a well-kept secret among white parents not a program that meets its expressed promise.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up for public testimony we have Misty Jackson now followed by Janice Blackmore and Katner Adams.

Hi thank you Seattle school board members for this opportunity to be heard.

I am the mom of a first grade boy at Coe elementary.

He loves Coe and we do too as parents.

We live just four blocks away and walk every day.

I live in the Queen Anne community and those of us on Queen Anne love our neighborhood schools but we are definitely experiencing the overcrowded capacity issues and are all deeply worried about the future of our children's public education.

I and a lot of other community parents feel strongly that assigned public elementary schools need to be neighborhood schools with reasonable proximity meaning walkability or a close drive.

The Queen Anne Magnolia elementary school cluster is already over capacity.

Most of my friends and neighbors have kindergartners and first graders.

So this capacity issue is going to be directly affecting our children's entire public school experience from elementary school now to middle and high schools in the near future.

Parents in the Magnolia and Queen Anne communities became aware of this Fort Lawton land opportunity last June while in the midst of being confronted with decisions that are immediately affecting our children and this area's overcapacity issue.

My knowledge of the city's Fort Lawton vision is addressing homelessness, housing, wildlife habitat and park spaces.

Shockingly there doesn't appear to be any planning for schools in this vision which seems to be completely missing the importance of infrastructure.

We lack school capacity immediately in our community.

The projected numbers by the city and Seattle Public Schools do not seem to be reflecting reality.

It is worrisome to me and my fellow public school community members that there appears to be a lack of forward thinking by our community representatives in the planning of our schools with the prospective population growth in our area alone.

It is also shocking that it appears there is a lack of communication between Seattle Public Schools, Seattle City Council and the Department of Housing.

We need added public school capacity in this city right now.

I believe it is our responsibility to take advantage of every opportunity presented to our community to help our children.

I would like to close with two specific requests that the superintendent a request the office of housing to be on the environmental impact statement for Fort Lawton and that the district immediately convene a committee with district officials and city planning officials to collaboratively explore how to best utilize this land for the benefits of this city and its students.

Thank you.

Good evening board.

I'm Janice Blackmore.

As a representative of the racial equity in HCC team and as the parent of a fourth grader in the highly capable program at Decatur I'm here to talk about the need to prioritize racial equity in our advanced learning programs.

Although my biracial daughter Luna Martinez Blackmore qualified for highly capable services four years ago we chose not to pull her from her highly diverse neighborhood school Sandpoint Elementary because we felt that the homogeneous environment of a highly capable school would not support the diverse learning we wanted for her and could negatively affect her cultural identity and her self-esteem.

My child lost four years of the highly capable services that she needed because this school district has not prioritized equity in advanced learning.

This past summer we did finally decide that she needed the academic services available only at the highly capable school.

We found the process for moving her from her neighborhood school to the HCC program incredibly confusing.

and she almost didn't get in because we didn't navigate the cumbersome system correctly.

I find it unacceptable that I could not navigate this system.

I'm a native English speaker, I'm college educated and I work for a school district.

Yet I nearly failed to successfully enroll my daughter in the program.

This system absolutely has to change if we want equity in our advanced learning programs.

Professionally I've worked with Latino youth for over 15 years.

I see their incredible potential daily and I see how that potential is not seen by a system that rewards only performance and not potential for performance.

I implore you to immediately put in place existing best practices that are proven to bring equity to advanced learning.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Katrina Adams I have three kids at Lawton Elementary in fifth, third grades and kindergarten.

My husband and I moved to Seattle in 2006 we bought our house in Magnolia and it's amazing to see how the neighborhood changed since that time.

Before we were surrounded with single homes now it's duplexes, townhouses, four families living on the lot where one family used to live.

Besides the issue of rezoning we have city of Seattle who is planning to redevelop Fort Lawton to bring so many more new families to the neighborhood without providing any infrastructure.

So where these kids are going to school when we have six full portables at Blaine and My middle son when he went to kindergarten had 29 kids in his class.

This is unacceptable.

Besides Fort Lawton has an amazing land that can be used for this amazing, the huge development, the people, how many people are coming to the neighborhood.

I'm not sure if anyone was considering the fact that we have another major issue that Expedia is moving from Bellevue to Interbay which will bring so many new people who will be looking to buy or rent a house in Magnolia.

So with that please consider how we can obtain that land so that our kids can have good public education.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Shek Next up we have Jessica Vitakhan-Nesis followed by Sarah Coulter and Vanessa Meraki.

Good evening I'm Jessica Viticinius and I just want to address the Fort Lawton capacity issues.

We have a golden opportunity right now with this land with potential families moving in whose children are going to need school and in addition the Fort Lawton property there at the base of Discovery Park is a huge laboratory for just about any steam or stem program you can imagine.

And I think we have a really good opportunity to increase some educational, racial and economic equity by bringing a school in along with these families because what a huge opportunity that would be to change your whole situation around and have a fantastic school with the best opportunity for future jobs in stem and steam right at your front doorstep where you can just walk out.

And it would make such a beautiful community if we were able to bring a school in with all of these families and the other children in the neighborhood would be able to benefit as well.

We have we have two high schools that are pretty far away for our kids from Magnolia perspective because we're not convenient to anywhere.

And I just would like to encourage you to really consider this opportunity with the Fort Lawton land and the perspective of having families move in who are going to need services and how can we really tie those services into the laboratory at our fingertips of Discovery Park.

There's ecological educational opportunities, there's all sorts of habitat opportunities, botany, biology, I mean you name it.

Having that opportunity to have a STEM or STEAM school right there at Discovery Park that can help the families moving in and can help the families already in the neighborhood who need more capacity.

It's just it's just too good of an opportunity to not really think about it and really take some time and maybe make it happen because those kids moving into those houses would be so well served and it would be just it would be a beautiful thing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Sarah?

Vanessa?

Hi I'm the single mom of two boys of color who qualified for advanced learning but did not stay.

And I'm a teacher in Seattle Public Schools and I'm calling for an overhaul of our advanced learning programs.

We know that systems produce the results they're designed to.

So when white students are 20 times more likely to be enrolled in advanced learning programs than black students we must admit that our system has a racist design.

And in fact I know there is racism and bias at every stage of the game.

At the recommendation stage teachers receive no training in how to identify giftedness across cultural differences.

Even though studies show that white teachers recommend students of color for gifted programs at much lower rates compared to the white students.

Best practices exist for undoing bias in teacher recommendations and we need to use them.

This is a key piece of closing the opportunity gap which our district has not addressed.

At the screening stage inequalities persist.

Families with means often pay tutors and buy prep programs to boost student scores on the cognitive ability test.

And then if a child tests and does not make the cut a pay to play system exists in which parents generally white wealthy parents pay hundreds of dollars to private psychologists to retest their kids and use those results to appeal the decision.

This is a very well known practice among parents of means in Seattle schools.

It is discriminatory and it should be stopped.

Finally at the implementation stage students whose parents do not have the capacity to offer them major support in organization and work completion often struggle in an HCC program as the teachers often give the students more work instead of more challenging work.

HCC curriculum needs to be developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive in order to retain diverse students.

Furthermore the advanced learning department should take active steps to be inclusive rather than allowing elitism to dominate the parent community and alienate diverse families.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Barik Tawai Yimmer followed by Natasha Boswell and Kelly LaRue.

Okay.

My name is Brooke Tawit.

My child is a fourth grader enrolled in HCC program at Target Marshall.

He was harassed by fifth grader fifth grade HCC student on the school bus in October 2016. This fifth grader HCC student was harassing all black people by loud repeating the N word and other cruise words many times while yelling at my child.

Other students who were on the bus that day have confirmed the story.

The experience has hurt my family deeply and made me very concerned that the HCC students do not have respect for black people.

I am also worried because it was difficult for me to get clear information about what happened from the school and transportation department.

What are we teaching our children about citizenship by sending them to segregated schools where the advanced learners are almost only white and Asian.

This segregation and lack of diversity creates a dangerous environment for and are unrepresented students.

In 2015 there were less than two black children for every 100 children in HCC program.

There were less, I'm sorry, how can gifted black children feel like they belong when no one else looks like them?

How can I keep my son safe in this hostile environment?

I believe education makes us better people and it will give us great freedom in life.

But the school district did not work for my family in this situation.

I ask you Do you communicate with communities like Ethiopian, Somalian, Kenyan, African-American about the opportunities that are possible for them?

Do you see these communities as advanced learners?

Before I moved my wonderful son to Target Marshall I used to hear that racism was the problem at this school.

Now I found out through my own experience there was a social worker who encouraged me to move my son to Target Marshall to keep him challenged.

since the bus incident happened I am not comfortable to send my children to the school.

Some East African families they ask me about this school and first thing I mentioned.

Peters please conclude your remarks.

Okay thank you.

What did you say?

Please conclude your remarks.

Okay okay thank you.

Since the bus incident happened I am not comfortable to send my children to the school.

Some East African families ask me about this school and the first thing I mentioned is the racism.

I hope I will see the change soon.

I hope the district will get serious about making a plan the plan that empowers and supports black families in achieving their education goals.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Hi thank you for listening to our resolution.

So I'm coming from Catherine Blaine and we passed our PTA board passed a resolution so I'm just going to read it.

We as the Catherine Blaine PTA board request that Seattle Public Schools re-evaluate capacity projections and growth trends for the Magnolia Queen Anne cluster and that in light of the rapid growth of this area SPS reconsider the importance of the Fort Lawton land opportunity and formally request for the city of Seattle to add a school to the environmental impact statement that is currently being processed.

We specifically ask that the Seattle school board to bring forth a resolution to vote on the addition of a school alternative to the Fort Lawton EIS.

One of the pressures you face is funding without enough money from the levy dollars the district is forced to spend more on infrastructure development.

One of the best aspects of the Fort Lawton plan is that the property can be transferred to the district through the federal government at no cost.

We could use an interim site for the funding that we need to come up with at the point of application.

Additionally we ask that the district proactively address our cluster capacity issues from elementary grades through high school in order to prevent the capacity crisis that we see coming.

For example, at Catherine Blaine we have six full portable classrooms running, one of which my fifth grader is in this year.

While the opening of Magnolia Elementary will alleviate this challenge, it is also projected to open at full capacity.

The impact of growth in our city and cluster requires an updated system to enrollment.

We have 120,000 people moving here in the next 17 years.

One thing that we could do is open Fort Lawton as a K-8.

Blaine could become the middle school and McClure could become an elementary school.

As an eighth grade social studies at McClure Elementary I know that that would mean I would have to find a new job in the area and I'm actually OK with that if I know that each kid has a seat in one of the schools and they're not having to sit in portable schools I'm OK with that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Kelly LaRue and this is now my 15th year of providing testimony on capacity related issues.

I've seen a lot over that time.

We've had a recession, we've had school closures, we've had a lot going on, there's been a lot of change.

And I have to say that last year was absolutely an exceptional year.

The budget challenge that Seattle faced last year eclipsed the recession and the closures.

It was truly complex.

I know many people think it was just a fire drill at this point but it truly put an incredible amount of pressure on a system during the same year that we were opening five new schools.

So last year I provided some testimony on some of the nuances about how capacity management intersects with these budget issues and the complexity of a swiftly changing system.

I'm a systems engineer and a capacity management expert, this is what I do.

And I want to remind everybody about the testimony I provided.

I provided that there were two foundational issues that were outside the scope of normal business that were going to impact the projections.

Issue number one, is that the five-year average upon which all enrollment projections are based, the foundational methodology of the enrollment methodology is a five-year average.

That this five-year average has been vastly eclipsed by the changes that we are seeing in Seattle.

The changes we are seeing are just way too rapid for any standard enrollment methodology.

The methodology Seattle uses is one that is a standard practice by all districts but we are just changing too quickly for that to work.

The other item I provided was that total enrollment that while you're expanding and opening schools you have to look at both total enrollment and school based enrollment.

And that requires a different sensitivity and looking at how you are measuring capacity in a building.

The staffing capacity that came into the conversation at the end of last year was a term that was used in the early 2000s back when Seattle was under capacity.

When you're over capacity it's a different story.

We need to update our methodology to reflect what's going on.

I would love to help.

Let me know what I can do.

Thank you.

Shek Next up for public testimony we have Daniel Dickerson followed by Terry Richardson and Melissa Westbrook.

Good evening directors.

Keying in on something that Director Blanford said, thank you for your work.

We don't want it to be a thankless job.

We appreciate you being here and all that you do and your stewardship of the district.

Along that line keying in on something that Director Burke said, hindsight is a tool for improvement.

Yes it is.

Let's let's use that tool.

I think you've heard that from multiple people here tonight.

It's time to use that tool to look where we've fallen short.

Just this morning my student my son had a new teacher announced for Lawton Elementary here in the Magnolia Queen Anne cluster because the projections were a little low.

Both short-term and long-term it seems like that is a trend right now and so we need to use that tool of hindsight, do a good analysis on where we have missed on these projections in the past to refine them and do better.

And I am confident along with the other people here that's going to lead to a need for increased capacity in this cluster and what we want to see is the Fort Laud opportunity There are lots of potential roadblocks just like there are for the city, but right now the city is setting up a train to get out of the station and they do not want the school system on it.

They want to be able to do what they want to do with as much discretion as possible.

If we get on the train today we can get off the train later.

If we get a school put on the environmental impact statement scope and they do that analysis and then there is the possibility of a school being added to that property.

This process is going to take years.

If we don't get on the environmental impact statement it makes it much tougher to run and catch the train once it's rolling down the track.

So we're asking you the board members and we're asking Superintendent Nyland tonight to work with the city in whatever way is necessary to get the option for a school put on their environmental impact statement.

That lets us stay on the train while we work out all of the details involved in any kind of a project that's this large.

So again thank you very much and thank you for hearing our concerns and focusing on how to keep the capacity of this district appropriate going forward.

Peters Thank you.

Terry, Melissa, John Randolph.

My name is Jonah Randolph.

I'm a first grade teacher at Van Asselt elementary school.

I was born and raised three blocks from the school by a mother who was a teacher in the public schools.

I went to Rainier Beach High School and I got to meet Betty Patu and see all the wonderful work she did with the multicultural dinners there.

I'm coming to you to let you know how livid, livid I am that because of your incompetent projections which many other people here have already spoken to and have been speaking to for 15 years we are losing a teacher.

30 fourth grade students.

in a highly impacted school that is affected by gentrification.

The same gentrification that is sending all these elementary school students and kindergarten students to Magnolia and Queen Anne is robbing our school of an influx of kindergarten students and is creating a situation where something that could be very predictable is affecting students directly.

We are losing a staff member and it is because of your choices.

Recently you decided to move up the timetable for how we use our funding for how we decide when a staff member must be moved.

You unfortunately decided to not move up the timetable for how we decide when our lap funds are used.

We can protect the sanctity of our own community with funds that we already have available but you have decided that we don't even get to address that issue by looking at it.

That in itself does not seem accidental.

That has nothing to do with the state.

That has nothing to do with anything but the people in this room.

So my question before my time is up is Mr. Nyland, Dr. Nyland and the rest of the board will you give us enough room to assess whether or not we can use our lap funds to protect the sanctity of our school or will you stick to a guideline that has the backing of gentrification and has a backing of a low income school that is being squeezed out Not because we're doing a poor job but because the city is changing so rapidly that you all have not been able to keep up with it.

Can you speak to that question?

Can you give us the time to see if we can use our funds if it's allowable in a way to protect the sanctity of our school?

Thank you for your remarks and your question.

We will be able to address your questions when we get to director comments after we're complete with our comments here.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Thank you very much.

This concludes the sign up list for public testimony.

So now that we've heard from the public there's a lot more things we could respond to.

I also want to be mindful of the time but if there's directors who have not spoken yet who would like to speak or if there are directors who would like to address some of the many important topics that have been brought to us by the public please let me know.

Director Harris.

I always say I'm going to try and keep it short but there's always so many issues.

My community meeting at the Delridge library last Saturday was rained out by the apartments above the Delridge library.

So we will be rescheduling it on Saturday from noon to 230. Additional community meetings will be on October 21 November 18 from 3 to 530 and there's a one in three chance you'll get lasagna if you come.

I got a list of issues that I'm still waiting for answers on and a couple of requests.

Still waiting for answers on the use of the race and equity tool for title one playgrounds when we've opened 10 new buildings restructured two new buildings.

If they're elementary school they come with playgrounds and title one schools don't seem to.

And we've got title one schools that need playground rebuilds that don't even have PTSA's to raise those funds.

So again ask again whether or not we use the race and equity tool and I've been told by senior staff that the board in past years have not approved rehabilitation of playgrounds in the BEX funding and I'd like to see that.

Two, I'm waiting for the West Seattle capacity carnival planning dates so we can bring our entire district six together and talk about creative ways to address capacity, to address BEX, to address schools that may need to move over to what is the Boren site for pre-K through eight.

like to know more about Fort Lawton in a really clear chronology.

And I want to know what efforts we're doing so we just don't accept no in this extraordinarily fast brilliant city.

No question about it the Department of Education is not my favorite federal agency but there are good people that work in that agency, they can be contacted, there are good people on the hill in DC and Senator Patty Murray is one of them and we need to hold hands with her and figure out ways to make this happen.

This is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity And I don't want to be part of a board that looks the other way like that board that sold Queen Anne high school.

I can't do it.

Still waiting for more clarity on the differences between accountability and responsibility between the administration and building based management.

not seen an org chart have not seen how that works and I appreciate that there is policy work going on but when we ask how come and why well it's the contract well it's admin well it's not clear it's clear as mud and it needs to be cleaned up and clarified.

And frankly talked about.

Still waiting for an answer as to why we do not have a seat at the table with the city for the HALA and MHP plan.

We have 54000 kids 105 schools zoning changes that affect this city in every square inch.

You would think that infrastructure might be important to the city.

And frankly I hope folks make it a campaign issue.

There's been a great deal of traffic and social media about some of our senior staff meeting with summit charter schools.

We've asked questions we expect to get answers and I've already received one very thoughtful answer and we can move from there and I think being transparent about those meetings and the why's and all of that is a good thing.

But let's please ask our questions respectfully as opposed to throwing rocks and making assumptions.

because there's really good people working here and they need to have a chance to.

Explain.

And that's what transparency is supposed to be about.

I want to echo something that Director Blanford said about Delfino Munez.

That man is amazing up there at Chief Sealth International High School.

Do you know that he has run his own scholarship program up there for well over a decade.

Goes out in the community raises funds for a scholarship for one of his graduates.

That's the very definition of a teacher with heart and with respect to El Centro I had the good fortune to work with and know Roberto Miestas for several years before he died and his wife is a rock star and what they have done up there in the new housing and the plaza, beautiful things can happen when people work together.

Tomorrow night I go to Concord PTSA and listen about a whole bunch of changes that again communication has not been our best work.

And we'll work it out we'll work together and it's a pleasure.

and an honor to serve and two more comments.

One the Rainier Beach high school students that testify here meeting after meeting are awe inspiring and whoever is teaching them how to do their research needs a raise.

Unbelievably good work that they're bringing forward.

And I would say to Ms. Yimmer or Yimer I hope I'm not hurting your name that Kim Wentworth is the executive director for Thurgood Marshall and Pegi McEvoy is the assistant superintendent whose jurisdiction that buses are under.

And I would ask that you speak with them and they speak with you and we figure out what happened last year so it won't happen again because that is beyond unexcusable.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

I'll endeavor to be quick again.

I'd like to thank all the people who have come to testify.

It is particularly important that you come and inform us about issues that you're concerned about and in particular the folks that are advocating for reconsideration of Fort Lawton I would ask the staff to inform us of any new developments it seems like there is a disconnect between what we have learned and what those who are testifying are sharing with us so it would be valuable I think for us all to know what the latest information is and how it can be reconciled with what we are hearing from our community.

I also mentioned earlier when I spoke that I have a community meeting that is scheduled for this Saturday at 10 o'clock at Nathan Hill, why am I saying that?

library at 23rd and Yesler and the reason that I reference that is that some of the issues that has been mentioned here this evening are issues that we frequently talk about at my community meetings specifically about the HCC program.

Many of you have been at my community meetings and we've had robust conversations about that issue and strategy sessions.

and I appreciate your continued advocacy.

The radio station KNKX ran a story today on the HCC program.

I got a chance to talk with the reporter before that story was filed and I expect that or I hope that you will take the opportunity to come to that community meeting and we can continue to dialogue on some of the challenges around the HCC program and what some potential solutions for that would be.

And particularly for the folks that are coming from our school that are having the problems with lap funds and our count days and when kids have to stay in the schools that they are set at and our enrollment challenges.

I hope you'll come to the meeting as well where we can have dialogue on that issue and potentially strategize what some solutions might be.

So, I will reference the KNKX story that was run today, I think you can find it on their website, it's knkx.org.

Thank you.

Director Patu.

I too would like to actually to set a little bit about the equity of HCC program and I know that as long as I've been on this board it has been actually a very interesting area that I actually have talked to a lot of our staff about that we need to have a better recruitment of getting more kids of color into HCC and when is that going to happen you know and we realize that There's a lot of our students that actually qualify for this program are kids of color but yet the opportunities are not actually given to a lot of our students.

So hopefully today we can actually be able to encourage those who are in charge of the HCC program to have a better recruitment opportunity for our kids of color.

by being able to provide them opportunities so they can be able to be part of that program.

Now Rainier Beach actually what they've done in order for kids to benefit in taking advanced classes is providing every student that becomes a junior having them taking one IB class in the school so that way students have the opportunity to be able to take an advanced classes.

And those are creative ways that some of the schools that actually that have students who never have given the opportunity to be able to do that.

So I would actually would hopefully to recommend that our staff would look at how do we qualify more kids of color for HCC program so that all students will benefit from this program.

I also wanted to address the Van Asselt situation I'm not quite aware of what's happening over there but I will be able to find out to see find more information and then hopefully to be able to talk to you about it later on.

Okay I'm going to share my comments at this point.

First of all I want to thank the teachers from Van Asselt who came out tonight along with everybody else but I want to start with you because I could see that something was seriously on your mind and I appreciate you advocating for your school and for your students and the eloquent testimony that you presented tonight.

I did not know either about the whole lap funding issue with your school and so what we will do now is we will ask staff for an explanation on how that can be utilized or what can or can't be done.

I understand staff is looking at that right now.

As far as addressing the loss of a teacher because of enrollment changes that is something that we are grappling with districtwide whenever the projections aren't spot on and I'm sure the board wants to know exactly why there is a discrepancy in our projections and what were the factors.

But in the meantime we did put aside some money to mitigate against these sorts of disruptions.

We put aside a total of $4 million so we wouldn't have to move too many teachers and disrupt too many students.

That takes us a certain distance it doesn't take us all the way.

And so I'm not sure how far we will be able to go in terms of helping Van Asselt but we certainly want to take a look at that.

So I wanted you to know that you were heard and that we are going to take a close look and we certainly appreciate your advocacy.

on that matter.

So I think the best next step is for staff to give us all the information we need tonight in response to your concerns and then for staff to give us something that we can send to your school community so you can understand what decisions that are made and how you can be helped and the details around that.

And if you have any other further questions about this please email the board and the superintendent and we will keep this dialogue going because we do not want to disrupt any of our schools unfortunately we are driven by our enrollment numbers.

So thank you so much for coming out tonight.

So the other issues that came up I also want to thank the Rainier Beach students they also are very good at advocating for their school and I look forward to our conversations about what we put on the next levy the BEX V levy.

I would like to see Rainier Beach on that levy.

We owe it to our students to give every student a very inspiring space in which to learn and Rainier Beach has not had a major renovation in a long time.

If ever I'm not even sure if it had a major one I know it had a minor one.

Okay it's never had a major one according to Betty who would know since she has such a long connection to that school.

So that is definitely something we need to prioritize and the tricky part there is usually enrollment again is something that dictates where we invest our building budget but I also believe we have to take a look at trends.

And enrollment has been going up at Rainier Beach.

Graduation rates have been going up at Rainier Beach.

There's lots of good reasons to invest in that school and to send a message to our students that you matter to us and you deserve a great learning environment.

So to the issue of Fort Lawton we had a really great discussion at my recent community meeting and again we had some very intelligent ideas brought forth by very committed community members about what to do about this potential opportunity with this land in Fort Lawton in light of the capacity challenges in the Queen Anne and Magnolia area.

So I'm also very interested to make sure that we haven't left any stone unturned on this.

And again I put forth I forwarded the questions and the ideas on to the superintendent and to staff and we're having a conversation about the pros and cons of pursuing Fort Lawton space land for the school district.

We do have other things on the stove right now regarding other spaces other areas we're looking at.

But I think this is certainly worthy of consideration.

On to the topic of advanced learning and HCC it's such an agonizing conversation because we know this is an ongoing problem, we know it's not unique to Seattle, we know we've got to do more.

I mean I do feel that we've had some good conversations especially in this last year.

and we did even make it a point of having at our June board retreat we had a member of the Northwest gifted president came and gave a presentation to us which I recommend anybody take a look at.

I think it was our June 4 retreat and the PowerPoint for that presentation should be available in our minutes.

Austina DeBont gave a really great presentation showing us all the different ways we could do things differently to bring more diversity into our programs.

And I think there's 100% interest in doing that.

It's just a matter of okay what's the best way to do it?

What can we afford to do?

As far as universally testing second graders I know we did that to some extent.

I think that is another good way.

It does cost a certain amount of money to do that.

There are other things we can do though that were brought up tonight which I thought were fantastic.

We need to train our teachers to identify gifted kids of all backgrounds, of all races and not think that there is only one description that fits.

And I understand there's other school districts in the nation that have done that.

I remember talking to a staff member who came to us from the Atlanta school district and she said that they gave specific training to teachers saying this is what you look for.

And that will open the minds and the understanding of our teachers and parents actually to help us identify students that we might overlook who also need advanced learning opportunities and you know specifically HCC.

Let's see as far as the curriculum I agree that the HCC curriculum is not what it could be what it should be and I would love to see more investment in making that a meaningful curriculum.

As far as that incident that one parent talked about on the bus you know the bullying incident that's a horrible situation I'm very sorry that happened to your child.

I agree with Director Harris that that is something that should be handled at the school level and perhaps with transportation.

I do want to caution though against you know making sweeping judgments about the behavior of one child as a representative of all the children of a certain group.

Okay I think we have to take a look at you know understanding that in the context in which it occurred but we still have to take a look at the fact that we do not have the representation in our highly capable program that represents the diversity of our district.

Let's see what else.

Another topic that came up at my community meeting was the one of transportation.

I've got families coming to me telling me that some buses are super crowded and some buses look like they're half empty what's going on?

So what is going on is it's the beginning of the school year and things are still being sorted out and kids are being counted and the transportation department has told me that they're looking closely at this and that they're going to make adjustments as needed.

So just wanted to pass that along.

Regarding Hawthorne elementary school I was really pleased to see principal Scott here.

I had the opportunity to tour the school back when it was nominated as a priority school and I was impressed back then this was about four or five years ago and I could just see there was a good energy there and so it's really it's really great to know that that momentum has continued and I love the fact that principal Scott said it's not just about test scores it's about other things as well.

You know and so refreshing to hear that because I think too often in the past test scores are all that have been used to measure our students in our schools and it's just far too limiting.

And oh one point about robotics I think Ingram has a robotics program as well.

So it seems like it's a lot of growing interest in that opportunity and thank you Jill for bringing up the other opportunities we could have with that.

Thank you to Peter Henry and El Santo de la Raza and all the students who are here tonight and Mr. Geary for bookending our dance with your mother tonight.

It's been great having you.

And I think that might be it for my list tonight.

If anybody else doesn't have anything to say at this point I think I'm going to call for a break.

10 minute recess and then when we come back we will resume the action portion of our evening.

Thank you everybody and thank you so much to the community for coming out.

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