School Board Meeting October 2, 2019 Part 1

you

Good evening.

By my computer it is 415 and we're going to bring this regularly scheduled Seattle School District Board legislative meeting to order.

And before we begin we want to recognize and honor the first peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on the land of the Coast Salish tribes.

Additionally I would like to welcome Rhea DeLaura was joining us on the dais this evening as a student from Chief Sealth International High School.

She'll have a chance to give comments later in the meeting.

Thank you for being here.

Roll call please.

Director Geary here Director Hersey here Director Burke here Director Harris here Director Pinkham here Director Mack here.

And Director DeWolf is currently out of the country on vacation.

For those of you all that wish to.

Please stand for the.

Pledge of Allegiance.

Madam Superintendent the floor is yours.

TVs off.

All right.

Thank you President Harris.

Now it's not working.

We're very high tech here.

How about those mariners.

Thank you.

No.

Oh there we go.

All right.

So just to begin I just always want to remind us of our strategic plan priorities so to ground our conversations as much as possible.

and our intentionality and focus on these three initiatives for our targeted universalism goal of African-American boys and students furthest from educational justice.

And so those are third grade reading welcoming environments culturally responsive professional practice is what we'll be focusing on this year.

And as we began to talk about my school visits I just want to say that October is National Principals Month and I was really fortunate yesterday to sit with all of our principals at their leadership learning day.

to thank them in person for the school leadership they provide across this district the hard work that they put in to make sure our educators feel supported and that quality learning is going on in our schools.

And so thank you principals for all the work that you do.

So I have visited two schools so far for a deep dive into the work that they are doing.

Emerson staff is getting to know each student as a reader so they can work in partnership with students and families.

Principal Rasmussen showed me the PBIS content that staff created and the work that happens in the SOAR block.

These eagles are building reading stamina and students teaching the processes for group work modeling brave spelling and assessing students so they know each student's strength and need.

The classroom is the center in the center of the picture is a fourth or fourth graders talking on big topics like farmworkers rights and racism.

It was pretty phenomenal to be in that classroom when they were reading texts about organizing and activism.

The teacher sort of leading them in conversation about working together in teams and what does that mean to be a community builder.

He talked to them that they were community builders and leaders and then they took on those roles and then they had really robust conversations and the group that I talked to was actually talking about the topic of racism and what that meant to them and for fourth graders to be diving into that kind of content it just continually reminds me that.

They are ready for those conversations and ready to be leaders in those conversations.

Some of the things that they shared when they were talking about how they can work together were things like one person can't take up the whole time so that we can all talk and we work together to get a solution for what the teacher asked us.

And the two pictures on the right are from one classroom in Emerson.

There are also two other small groups of students working with an adult on different reading strategies that are not pictured.

But the staff at Emerson they're committed to keeping all students in class for Tier 1 reading instruction and using small groups to meet the diverse needs of each learner.

One thing that's obvious when you enter the doors at John Muir Elementary is that Principal Ball Cuthbertson and her team find a great deal of joy in their work with students.

The staff's intentional focus on African-American boys was very evident in the hallways and in the classrooms and as a result students have had consistent growth in their academic performance scores.

Principal Ball-Cuthbertson and her team take pride in having staff that look like students and the families that they serve.

John Muir is also a beneficiary of multiple Seattle teacher residency staff and we know that these staff are well versed in culturally responsive practices so thankful for the UW and the alliance for that partnership and continue to see that effort pay off in our classrooms.

One observation that I made as I visited classrooms was the tight alignment in both behavioral expectations and content standards.

In three different classes students were exploring the characteristics of igneous and sedimentary rocks.

I thought I thought back I was like did I get that lesson.

I think I was in college when I talked about different type.

No.

They were using academic vocabulary to explain to each other their observations as well as writing their observations in their science journals.

And truly when I was watching these teams work together they were scientists in action.

The staff at John Muir is very proud of the systems that they have created.

These consistent expectations keep students in the classroom so they do not miss one minute of instruction.

Stuck again.

Oh, there we go.

Anyway.

The work of creating safe and welcoming environments is ongoing and visible in the classroom classrooms that I visited these last two weeks.

I heard in classrooms I heard adults say things like as leaders and change makers what does working together look like.

These teachers chose to use powerful compassionate words when referring to our learners.

Pictured here is a first grade classroom at John Muir Elementary that's closing the day with circle time.

They sat each sat in scholar mode and shared one thing that they enjoyed about the day.

So I got to visit at the end of the day.

Some of the things they said are I enjoyed planning games and P.E.

I enjoyed the yummy food and I enjoyed writing.

I saw a similar closing in the first grade classroom at Emerson the week before.

There are these are the signs in Emerson and John Muir that these are that we're honoring the land and the students emotional feelings and so just a lot of great work going on in our schools.

Dr. Mia Williams is leading small cabinet and a book study.

And as you can see we are very engaged in this work in this session.

Each member of the team committed to actions to further the achievement of black boys in our district.

And here are a few of the commitments that were written down.

I commit to engaging black boys and young men voices family and CBO voices in our data gathering methodology.

I commit to using an anti-racist lens in my work.

I commit to holding myself and others to use affirming language and stop the use of deficit based language.

This is super powerful work for our senior leadership team and I really want to thank small cabinet for opening up their practices making themselves vulnerable in their leadership positions.

And I just want to close with some pictures of the black excellence that surrounds us.

This super reader read some of his book to me and his favorite staff member at Emerson.

These two brilliant robotics engineers were so enthusiastic in their learning.

I asked one of them to promise me that she would never lose her joy for learning.

So she they were sitting in a robotics class which is a benefit of the Amazon funding that we got and so those are well underway those programs and after school programs and they were just so excited to be having that extended learning that was going on and it was so evident in our faces and so I just asked like please never lose your joy of learning.

And this the Franklin senior Jaden Thomas was just accepted to Benedict College.

He was he introduced the mayor at her budget presentation at Franklin High School.

He's a small business owner of Wonder Cupcakes by J.

He's the dance team captain chairman of the principal's cabinet at Franklin senior class yearbook advisor and a huge fan of Beyonce.

So we just see the black excellence all around us in Seattle schools and it's up to us to make sure that we keep them front and center and make it visible.

And so thank you Madam President.

Thank you.

We are at Roman 3 board committee reports.

Who would like to report out first.

Director Mack chair of operations and on the legislative liaison.

Thank you.

Good evening.

On the legislative liaison work.

We now.

I just got back from the WSSDA legislative assembly which is the statewide school directors associations legislative assembly and I did send an email out to the school board director sharing the full.

Book of positions that were voted on.

It's it's it's large.

But the.

It was actually a little more exciting than I expected it to be.

Some great positions were passed that we were expecting to pass.

But two things of note.

One was that the previous position on pro statewide bargaining actually came off and was referred back to the legislative committee so the state school board association no longer has a position saying pro statewide bargaining at this point.

So that's interesting.

And.

They there's also an emergency proposal that came forward from five different districts for the review and revision of the prototypical school funding model and that's the funding model that provides allocations for staffing which is sorely needed needed needing.

It is very low on nurses counselors social workers etc..

And it hasn't actually been changed in 10 years.

And so this position which passed I proposed an amendment myself to add additional language not to just reflect mental health and special ed but also English language learners opportunity gap closing services and safety and security I believe which is part of the position there.

So that was very exciting that that'll be something that comes forward.

in advocacy from a statewide level the state organization then takes what was voted on by the members and it gets ranked and their actual like one pager will come out in about a month or so which I'll share when that comes.

Our Seattle Public Schools legislative platform we adopt one every year for state and federal and that's been in draft form we've been working on it and considering all the other positions and organizations as well and it'll be coming to the executive committee on October 10th.

If you're interested in being present to hear that and see that draft and then it'll eventually come to the full board for approval.

and opportunity for revisions to it in the meantime with input from the board.

So excited to get that work moving forward so that we can advocate effectively with our state legislators.

With Ops we haven't had a meeting since last board meeting.

We do tomorrow 430 next door open public meeting.

Welcome to come and sit in.

We don't take public comment and it is a very full agenda.

We will be getting a report from the BEX and BTA oversight committee about their work as well as I understand they have some recommendations to the board on a couple of different policy things so we'll be hearing about that.

One of the board action reports that's coming is the approval of the ORCA cards contract with the city I think it is and.

The big one is student assignment transition plan and boundaries.

There's a lot of stuff in there.

We had a work session last week Wednesday where we as a board discussed a lot of the proposals in there.

We'll be further discussing those recommendations and those just to highlight what some of them are as it proposed geo zone changes for McDonald and John Stanford the highly capable cohort at Washington and the TAF how that intersects there.

The removal of the spectrum tiebreaker and Licton Springs at the new Webster building moving to the new Webster building for the boundary changes.

The the maps are now available for the suggested changes for the southeast which will impact Maple Rising Star at African-American Academy Wing Luke Kimball and Dearborn Park.

So five schools are going to be impacted by those recommended changes and I understand there's been some working groups from the communities working on those.

They've had some community meetings and so we'll be learning more in depth about that tomorrow.

And we'll also be talking about the policy H13 which is our capacity management policy.

And kind of cross referencing it with four other policies that intersect with building usage so we can kind of understand that as well as the start of school enrollment projection planning process.

So that'll be a fun discussion.

I think it will be.

I don't know about my fellow board directors but I'm excited about it.

And then just a heads up coming down the line in December on December 4th will be a work session on the BEX V implementation.

plan.

So if you're interested in that that'll be happening in a bit.

Thank you.

Director Geary please.

Thank you.

I am going to be reporting on curriculum and instruction policy committee meeting.

Our next meeting is October 8th.

The board action report item that will be coming.

And discussed is going to be the modifications to the highly capable services policy 21 90. I know that that's of great interest to our community.

We are getting lots of e-mails about the highly capable cohort and some of the proposals that are being made with regard to restructuring it.

So that is probably the most.

The board action report item that is of the most interest.

But we will also be doing approval of the 2019 20 district educational research and program evaluation plan which is also I think usually of great interest in terms of the deeper dive.

I think that the public often says you know what evidence do you have that this is or is not working.

How are you going to.

Make sure that you're going to do that across the district and we we don't have the resources always to do that deep dive.

So this is our opportunity to shape that and look more closely into our programs in a really data based way.

I'm going to be presenting a draft of the anti-racist policy that has been circulating in the district now getting some input from the staff.

It's my hope then to start the discussion on how to do a robust community engagement.

I mean that's a that is a big change.

It's been my surprise to find that there aren't a lot of those policies with regard to education across the country.

And so this is an opportunity to really once again do something that could set the stage for a lot of other school districts.

So we want to do that well and we want to engage our public.

So that's not a quick conversation.

So I'm happy to hear from people on the kind of public engagement they think it merits.

Then our standing agenda items.

We have instructional materials and you will see tonight an introduction that we are being bringing the modifications to 2015 the adoption of instructional material policy.

And this was a necessary piece that will be a necessary piece for us to get to the adoption of ethnic studies.

And so it's very exciting that we're moving forward on that and that we will then be able to move more quickly and robustly with regard to getting an ethnic studies adoption going.

And we've been working a long time on that and we'll talk a little bit more about that later.

So those are probably the highlights of the curriculum and instruction policy committee meeting and anybody is welcome to attend.

Again that's October 8th.

Director Pinkham Chair of Audit and Finance.

Costello thank you.

Our next A&F meeting will be the day before the C&I on Monday October 7th and we have three BAR items to cover that day.

The first one is going to be a state auditor's office contract which is an annual requirement so we have to get that done.

There's also a renewal of the Microsoft software agreement to make sure we have those resources for our students and staff and other employees of the school district.

The third one deals with the new health care system.

So we have a bar on the benefits contract to discuss.

So if people are interested in hearing what's discussed on those issues please attend.

Special attention items include contracts exceeding 250 K for our special education needs.

Follow up on the Thornton Creek.

an MOU policy follow up the community of eligibility program follow up with the United Way breakfast.

We want to see you know kind of what happened there get an update as to why and maybe how we can continue that program.

The fiber credit will be discussed the SAP human resources and payroll services a fairly new system for us and.

Having the staff that we have to make sure that things are going well.

Also have an update on the operations liability certification from our chief financial officer that day and other items just are included in our annual committee work plan and notice that we do have the December 3rd quarterly audit meeting coming up which.

Andrew and I were kind of confused who is going to be there.

You know if our official day on the board for those not running for the office again is going to be.

that Otho office the day before who's going to jump in the next day.

So so we'll be following that get some clarification on that.

Also Andrew Medina will be doing his annual report to the board.

I believe either later this month or in November and he's asked that when he does that that it be part of the board committee reports versus a separate item.

So he'll just follow up with me on that.

And that is the report from A&F.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

And when he does that report if we could call it out in the agenda be grateful for that.

Absolutely happy to meld it in with the A&F but it should be line itemed on the agenda.

The next executive committee is I believe October 9th.

Director Mack I think you said the 10th.

Want to make sure that it's the 9th.

It is the 10th.

It's on Thursday.

Well.

And there you go.

And that's why this is a team.

Thank you.

Scheduled for that again it's a public meeting it's at 8 a.m.

until 10 a.m.

and we will be hearing about our legislative agenda from Eden and Jill and from our very capable staff as well.

Our lobbyist will not be here because he's traveling but.

It's an important conversation and it's a short conversation because of how much we have to pack into two hours and as we wrestle over the agenda items it's it's a push me pull you for sure.

OK.

We're also going to be discussing potentially raises for non-represented staff and we're also going to keep on the legislative the executive committee's agenda Reconfiguring these legislative meetings whether we start them later whether we set aside some of the public testimony slots for particular issues such as race and equity or strat plan issues continuing important issues that if they are not on the agenda they're still going to be addressed on a regular basis.

This has been from strong community input and hopefully by the next legislative meeting we will have as I referred to at the last legislative meeting a new BAR that addresses the legal requirements for First Amendment rights.

in public testimony and I see Chief Counsel Narver you want to wave please so folks know who you are.

Started on September 3rd agreeing with me there so that we are in conformance with state and federal law.

Still talking about board and staff communication and I They are very intense and very quick moving meetings and we have standing items community engagement communications strat plan updates etc.

And you are more than welcome to attend.

Next we come to student comments and I get to read a little bit about you and then the floor will be yours.

And I might add that.

You can stay as long as you like.

You don't get to vote but you get to ask questions from the dais as if you were a board member.

So Ms. Delora is a junior at Chief Sealth International High School and enrolled in the full IB diploma program.

She also participates in mock trial ban and other extracurricular activities.

And since I live two blocks away from Chief Sealth International High School my brothers and sisters all went there and my daughter graduated there.

Welcome go Seahawks.

Hi my name is Rhea Delora.

So I've been going to Chief Sealth for two years.

This is my third year.

As she said I'm a junior and I can confidently say sitting up here that I am proud to be a Seahawk.

Chief Sealth boasts one of the most diverse and engaged student bodies in the entire district and watching my peers and classmates and people that I see on a daily basis taking the steps to be to develop their skills and their education is really inspiring every day.

So Chief Sealth pioneered the Sakashi program for indigenous students to explore understand and share their culture.

Both of my brothers are in the Sakashi program and many other students that I've spoken to really find enrichment from getting to spend time with other native students who maybe haven't been able to explore their culture as much.

South is also one of only three schools in the district that offers the IB program.

So that's a rigorous two year course that allows students to really explore what it means to be an academic and what it means to learn and what it means to grow.

And I've only just begun the IB program but I've taken previous IB classes.

And I can say that like I really feel that what I'm doing now at school going to high school every morning is going to set me up for success and that I'm given the opportunities to go down the path that will lead me to have a better life later.

South also offers multiple academic extracurriculars or extracurriculars that are geared towards learning including mock trial which I'm in Ethics Bowl Feast Green Team Key Club and many others alongside the extracurricular itself is also has a very consistent and persistent music program.

So we have ensembles such as our concert and our marching band our orchestra our choir our mariachi band and our jazz band which has inspired many students to form their own smaller groups.

to explore the music they want to be playing and they want to be hearing and they want to share with other people.

So throughout my time at Chief Sealth I've met some of the brightest most inspiring most engaged and passionate people I think I ever will.

Even though there is a lot of.

financial issues and a lot of students just aren't on the same.

They haven't been given the same opportunities because of the families they were born in the areas they live in.

Given the opportunity no matter what student you have in front of you if you give them something that they can be passionate about and love everybody's going to find something to do.

And SELF really gives the opportunity for so many different students in so many different areas of learning and expertise and everybody to make their own choices and to come on their own paths.

Go Seahawks.

Thank you for that.

Watch out Franklin.

Choose SELF International High School's mock trial teams coming for you.

Directors do you have questions comments for our guests.

Director Pinkham please.

Welcome Rhea.

My question is going to be about what are your plans after high school.

Do you know what you're doing and do you have a tribal affiliation.

Just curious.

Yes, so my dad was native and he was in the brother town Indian tribe in The Dakota area so me and my brothers are all registered under that tribe But we don't connect very much with it very much because we live with Members of the family on my other side of the family my white side of the family for me College and four year university has never really been an option.

It's something that was almost expected and as I've grown and understood like what learning and knowledge means to me it's like I feel nothing but the desire to go to a four year university.

And I would love to work in an area such as like curation for like art and history because I'm really passionate about understanding our roots and understanding where we come from.

And math I like math a lot.

Yeah.

Math is my thing.

Expect to see your application to the University of Washington.

Catch this man at break because he is a mentor to a great many University of Washington students at the university and the College of Engineering and also works with the native programs there as well.

And when you hire Scott as your mentor you get him for life.

Other directors comments questions concerns.

Well then thank you.

Please continue to stay if you'd like.

And if you have homework we understand.

So we are at board members reports out.

Who would like to go first.

Go Director Burke.

Good evening.

I will will lead off this comments thing.

I've got a few things prepared.

It's only been two weeks since we were last together.

Much has happened but two weeks ago we we nominated this gentleman which I'm proud to sit next to.

So it's gonna be tough to one up that for this meeting.

I don't I don't think we've I don't think we can but that was super exciting and all the conversations we've had since then.

Just reassure me that that he's going to be a great colleague and a great representative for D7 and for the city.

Some other things we had a couple of work sessions on advanced learning and student assignment transition plan.

I'll touch on those issues a little bit more specifically.

One of our partners the Port of Seattle hosted an event the there was their maritime secondary education summit and I'm not sure other directors want to expand on this.

I had the pleasure of joining Director Mack and Director Geary.

This has been an area of passion.

The intersection of career and technical education and our maritime region and our partnership with the Port of Seattle.

And they're really trying to explore what are the possibilities what do funding models look like what do partnerships look like.

So it's a really great event.

I was only able to be there for the first half of the day.

I think my my colleagues were able to stay longer.

I was thrilled to be able to attend that.

We had a board retreat and got to do a deep dive into our strategic plan and I'm really really thrilled about where our strategic plan has has come from how it's evolved and what it looks like now.

You know the the messaging around it the branding around it the enthusiasm around it the initiatives within it I think are really strong and I want to commend Superintendent Juneau and staff for putting that together.

Some of my reflections from that retreat when we were talking about Seattle excellence I have a.

An internal belief or opinion or sort of a learned experience of in my mind what that looks like.

What does Seattle excellence look like for me for my family and what we the conversations we had there and the conversations around black excellence were really eye opening and mind opening.

And Superintendent Juneau mentioned some of that in her opening comments as well.

And I just want to encourage all of us to keep having those conversations about how do we define excellence.

Not so much to put it in a box but to open each other's minds because I confess to coming into the conversation with a particular perspective and that makes it really difficult to implement policy work and decisions.

when you're coming from an a limited mindset.

So how do we define it.

How are we measuring excellence because the measurement of excellence you know we need to be putting our racial equity lens on this.

We need to be making sure that we're really sensitive to other cultural viewpoints.

What tools or processes do we use to measure.

And then how do we celebrate motivate and develop excellence in our students.

And I think that was like the the real nut that came out of it is like yeah we we want this excellence.

We have to agree what it is in all its different forms and figure out how to get our students there and celebrate when they're there.

Other topics.

I think there's there's some some conversation on nutrition services and I want to apologize to any of our families that have have had less than satisfactory experiences with nutrition services.

I think we've put in our strategic plan an intent for consistent and predictable operational systems.

We think about our transportation we think about our nutrition services these are bedrock items that we should we should deliver they should be reliable.

And I know that staff is working to to make sure we get that right.

We don't want problems like that to become recurring.

So apologies and thank you for your patience.

One of the topics that came up at our work session around the student assignment transition plan.

I want to be very very clear that we have a really challenging decision or choice that we're looking at that is not particularly desirable in any way.

We have overcrowding at McDonald Elementary Sorry we have overcrowding at Green Lake Elementary and if we increase the geo zones for McDonald and John Stanford we may alleviate that overcrowding slightly.

So that's a potential positive.

But really what we should be doing if we're following our our equity commitment is we should be shrinking those geo zones and we should be increasing our set aside for heritage speakers.

at that at those schools to celebrate the diversity and help those programs thrive support more students farthest from educational justice.

The challenge is if we do that we are going to hurt Green Lake Elementary in a big way without another fix.

So I'm confess that as a director I'm really struggling with how to how to move forward on that.

And so I really appreciate hearing from community about pros and cons the different areas.

The last one I'm going to touch on is highly capable services and advanced learning.

This was also a rich discussion that we had at our work session on this topic and I think it's really clear that it's a highly racially unbalanced program.

That is and so I think the questions there's so many questions around that the whys the what do we do about it.

Do we balance it or do we restructure it.

Is it actually serving students or is it just perpetuating stereotypes.

And the point that I brought up at that work session that I want to reiterate here is that yes that is important.

That is work we have to do.

But I do not believe that that is our immediate moral imperative.

I believe that our immediate moral imperative imperative Is our students farthest from educational justice and the ones that we're talking about serving through the multi tiered systems of support that we've been working on.

You know this is a policy that we put in place in 2011. We have funded it.

We have committed to it.

Staff has been working on it.

We're doing professional development around it.

We made a SMART goal around it.

This has been and should be the mechanism to support our students in schools.

both when they're below proficiency and when they're above grade level proficiency.

That's the structure that we're talking about as a vehicle.

And so I think it's incumbent on us as a district to prove to our families that that system works that it can work that it does work and that we have the ability to implement that across the district because that will provide the confidence to our families that are looking for services at all levels.

So the fix for advanced learning is really to fix our core instruction because we've got such a wide range of students that we're asking our educators to differentiate.

It's really hard for say a third grade teacher to provide effective learning environments for a student that's still learning to decompose numbers into single digits and in the same class.

Students that are doing operations with fractions.

It's not fair to the educator it's not fair to the students.

And so we have to figure out how to how to how to close that gap how to get our students at proficiency and not have that level of differentiation needed in the classrooms.

That's core instruction that's what core instruction will do and can do.

To close that topic and to talk about why it's such an imperative we've talked about our third grade reading goal for African-American boys.

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has data that they maintain for black African-American.

It doesn't isolate boys and girls that's a deeper granularity than what you can just get off the Web site.

But OSPI data from five years ago had 28 percent of our third grade African-American students meeting proficiency in reading 28 percent in five years.

That number has increased to 38 percent.

It's an increase but it's unacceptable.

We have a strategic initiative that is absolutely focused on that and I believe it will drive that improvement.

But I want to throw another stark data point out there.

Five years ago 25 percent of our African-American students were meeting math proficiency.

What is that number today.

Five years later it's 27 percent three quarters of our African-American students in third grade are not at math proficiency.

And so we we're letting these students down.

So my my my ask is that we focus on those students we focus on the MTSS structure and we demonstrate that we can bring those students farthest from educational justice from where they are from where they've been historically to where they are knocking it out of the park.

Last thing community meetings I have two one October 12th.

Greenwood Public Library Director DeWolf has indicated he will likely be there.

I want to let him confirm that but I believe October 12th 10 o'clock Greenwood will be a twofer and then my last meeting of my term will be November 9th.

Also Greenwood Library 3 to 5 p.m..

Thank you very much.

With chief counsel I put.

Board members reporting out before consent agenda.

I'm OK with that aren't I.

Thank you sir.

Next up please.

Director Hersey.

Thank you.

Hello.

OK.

Fantastic.

First up thank you so much for all of the warm welcomes both in person and via my inbox.

I really really appreciate it.

We have definitely hit the ground running.

I have spent probably the last four hours for the last oh goodness eight or nine nights meeting with different chiefs in the cabinet and I have learned and continue to learn so much about all of the amazing work that our district is doing.

And even beyond that all of the amazing work we're going to continue to do and I'm excited to be a part of.

I wanted to extend a thank you to Director Harris for inviting me to her community meeting.

It was wonderful to have conversation around advanced learning and boundaries and the lasagna smelled great even though I could not partake.

And I am excited.

to continue to do those community meetings for myself moving forward.

And I've got a couple that I'm going to announce a little bit later on in the comments.

Something that I'm really excited about is a few families have reached out concerning the boundary changes that are going to be affecting the southeast as the aforementioned elementary schools earlier in the comments.

And if you would be interested in walking some of those proposed routes I know that I have a time set up with a family this Friday.

But if you would like to get a chance to have a conversation so that I can walk the route with you and your family or maybe some other community members I would be more than happy to take the time to do that.

Just shoot me an email and we will find a time to connect just so that I can get a better idea of what those changes mean for you and yours.

And it would also be in.

opportunity to meet some of your kiddos and have some deeper conversations about you know what this is going to look like for your families.

So two community meetings that are coming up.

A big one focused around boundaries is going to be happening on October 10th from 630 to 830 at Mercer Middle School.

I unfortunately will not be able to join in person I will be at my sister's wedding but I will be joining electronically from Atlanta Georgia.

It'll be a late night but I think that it is important for me to be present and I think that we're also going to be looking at opportunities to set up an additional meeting to get more feedback.

And so those are still in the works so be on the lookout for those.

My personal committee excuse me my personal community meetings I've got two on the calendar and I'm going to be committing to two or three community meetings a month going forward just so that I can do everything I possibly can to meet everyone who would like to come out and share their.

thoughts and opinions and ideas and things like that.

So the first two I've got set up the first one is going to be at the Beacon Hill library on Sunday.

That is going to be October 20th from 330 to 430. Hopefully they'll let us stay a little longer.

It's surprisingly difficult to book community meetings a couple of weeks in advance which is great because I'm glad that folks are using our libraries to their full capacities but it is also difficult to find public meeting space.

So we're going to be looking out some more creative options.

And then the next meeting is going to be at Rainier Beach Library on October 31st.

And I know that's Halloween.

We're going to have candy.

So come through if you would like.

And that's going to be from 6 to 7 30 p.m..

Like I said I want to commit to having a diversity of community meetings and a diversity of locations both on the weekend and on a weekday at different times of day.

I want to make myself as available as possible.

So please, if you have an idea for times that work best for you or a location that is public and large, don't hesitate to email me.

My email is up and running and you can find that on the website.

The next piece was I really enjoyed getting to spend some time with the NAACP.

Seattle King County chapter that met here at the John Stanford Center last week.

It was really great.

Superintendent Juneau joined us along with Dr. Mia Williams and a few other members from the cabinet and it was just really amazing to see and get a lot of ideas around how we can continue to partner with an organization like the NAACP especially when we're thinking about You know the goals that we've set for ourselves in our strategic plan.

I really see those community partnerships as being crucial going forward and continuing to build those relationships and to un-silo our learning and you know connect on those deeper levels is going to be something that I'm going to be excited to be a part of.

And yeah I hope to see some of my fellow board directors at a few of those meetings going forward.

Next up the board retreat was amazing.

It was so much fun to get to spend some time learning more deeply about the work that is going on in our district.

And I'm just excited to continue that.

So thank you for all of those who were present and thank you very much.

I believe it was the Meany drumline.

BWB Meany drumline.

They're amazing.

However we can continue to support and uplift and showcase their work.

definitely interested in doing that.

Also had the wonderful opportunity to attend a family engagement event at South Shore.

I was invited by again Dr. Mia Williams and Dr. Keisha Scarlett.

Those spaces are so much fun to be a part of because you just leave feeling uplifted.

And you know it was such an amazing event that was done in partnership with Rainier Scholars.

And I actually learned a lot of things that I took back to my classroom the next day and it has improved my instruction.

So not only things that you can use at home but also things that can be used in the classroom and vice versa.

I believe strongly the more we break down those barriers between home and school the more amazing outcomes we're going to see for our kids.

And that about wraps it up for me.

Like I said please if you have any questions comments concerns do not hesitate to email me and I look forward to continuing to connect with our community and to get it done for kids.

Thanks so much.

Director Geary.

To round out this side of the dais.

Just doing boom boom boom.

I too attended the Maritime Secondary Education Summit with directors Burke and Mack of huge appreciation to Port Commissioner Ryan Calkins who has been I think fascinated.

and really enthusiastic about how to combine the port's resources with Seattle Public Schools to create exciting education options for our kids.

And I think it was for me a really eye opening experience to bring in so many of the different groups in maritime outside of education.

and see them interact with the people who work in education and see that the culture shifts that we've worked so hard to create within Seattle Public Schools definitely need to take place within our partners as well and to see the exposure to some of the ideas that we take for granted was fascinating.

to see different people from different groups stand up be it the longshoremen or people in education or students of color who have gone through the program and talk about their expectations the changes in the industry the changes in the apprenticeship programs.

culture differences, and to see that conversation start was super exciting for me because it's going to be a really important conversation that If you want people to show up you need to think about what's going to make a warm and welcoming environment for them and that looks really different perhaps from the historically union setting as to what tomorrow's union setting has to look like and what kind of what the students need.

And one of the most interesting comments that was made was by a young man. and who said, you know, in my community, it can't be about delayed gratification.

And that doesn't for a lot of us I think that sounds like oh well that's the cornerstone of hard work and you have to work hard and hope for a reward down the line.

But then he followed it up with something that was really important for me to hear and I think for a lot of people in the room to hear and that was that when you go home and the lights are being turned off or you've got to figure out where your next meals come from or the.

The problems of your day to day life are immediate and so delaying gratification you can't wait because you'll be gone.

You'll be homeless you'll have to move so that we have to think about what it is that the kids that we want to reach need now.

in order to stay engaged and that if we're setting up systems that assume that they have the stability and the base to wait for a payoff at some point in the future that we may be losing them and then turning around and making a judgment call as to them.

That just isn't fair.

And it was a really great comment to think about in that context.

And so it is those culture shifts that are going to need to take place for us to create even the warm and welcoming environments within our own school district.

So another I'm just going to tie it in with another theme that I've been seeing more and more in just these conversations and that is the idea of discomfort.

And so when we see those moments where our assumptions are being challenged and what we took as sort of the truths, the rights, the norms are being dismantled by people, it's going to feel uncomfortable and that's okay.

That has to happen for this change to happen.

So be sure when you feel the discomfort within these conversations don't hide.

Don't back away.

Don't be necessarily become defensive.

Live with it and you'll see that you survive and that the next time you're in a situation you might find That you it doesn't feel as discomforting and that your perspective has changed.

So those are the thoughts that I've been coming up with in so many of these conversations and places that I've had the opportunity to go into.

Today I got to the I got to attend the Seattle Arts and Lectures luncheon to support the WITS program which is writers in the schools and.

I was very embarrassed when asked did you know about this program.

And I said no because we have so many programs and so many partners.

They don't necessarily play as prominent a role in the schools in my.

district but they are there.

And it was with great pleasure that I got to meet Wei Wei Lee who is a student at Nathan Hill High School who is the 2019 20 poet laureate for Seattle.

And so there's just such great work going on.

And it was it was.

It was my honor to get to meet her was my honor to support that program.

And it did make me remember that there was a time when we would bring in our partners on a regular basis and they would tell us a little bit about their programs during our meetings.

I think that that's an incredibly helpful thing to the members of the board to know what different programs and what different partners are and get to share the good news the good work.

that we have going on in our schools and I just I don't we're not doing that as much anymore and I think I missed it and I hadn't realized it was gone until that moment.

I continue to have my breakfast coffees at Zoka on Blakely behind the university village.

The next one will be October 8th next Tuesday morning and then the one after that is going to be October 29th because I have engagements in the middle of the month but they're 8 to 9 30. We always have a group of people who are pretty well versed in education in Seattle Public Schools.

So it's a great time to just talk education and drink some coffee.

Thanks.

Who would like to go next.

Director Pinkham please.

Good evening and thank you.

Sorry I missed the board retreat.

I was had the actually the honor to deliver the eulogy for my father in law as they spread his ashes out in the sea off the Oregon coast.

So although I wasn't at the meeting I'm glad to hear that it did some fantastic things or you feel that things went right.

The advanced learning task force.

appreciate what they're doing and what you'll continue to do because I do see that we still need some things to do and hopefully as we go through this process we'll be able to make some strides that we've been missing.

You know I do want to see more of our underserved students can identify to HCC or advanced learning and how we do that.

Sometimes we can't just keep on trying to retest retest.

Maybe it's a test that isn't doing us service.

And this kind of brought me to thinking about the idea where I'm at the University of Washington College of Engineering.

We're trying to get away from our students ready for college.

It's more is the college ready for students.

You know so we are definitely looking at the lens of how we define success for our students a lot differently these days.

And I think as we look at what our goals and we say we want to make sure our students are college and career ready.

I just want to make sure that they're successful that success is going to be defined separate by each student each family each community what's going to make them successful.

Which brought me back to.

If I can bring this up here excuse me.

What I brought up at the last meeting and I want to read this quote from again this is William Wolfe who is a former president of the National Academy of Engineers and he's looking at engineering and where I see engineering you can put an education.

So please bear with him.

And he says many people talk about the need for diversity as an issue of equity in terms of fairness and that is a potent argument.

Americans are very sensitive to issues of equity and fairness.

So the fairness argument resonates with many people.

But I will make a different argument today.

A second argument for diversity has to do with numbers.

The fact that white males are becoming a minority in the population of the United States and that unless we include more women and underrepresented underrepresented minorities in engineering workforce we're simply not going to have the number of engineers we need to continue to enjoy the wonderful lifestyle we've had for the last century or so.

This too is a potent argument but is not the one I'm going to present today.

My argument is essentially that the quality of engineering is affected by diversity or the lack of it.

To make that argument I'm going to share with you some of the very deep beliefs about the nature of engineering some of which run counter to stereotypes of engineers and engineering.

The whole argument in a nutshell is this.

It hinges on the notion that engineering is profoundly creative profession not the stereotype I know but something I believe deeply.

The psychological literature tells us that creativity is not something that just happens.

It is all the making unexpected connections between things we already know.

Hence creativity depends on our life experiences.

Without diversity the life experiences we bring to an engineering problem are limited.

As a consequences we may not find the best engineering solution.

We may not find the elegant engineering solution.

So the more voices we include at the table.

The better solutions we'll find.

Also want to make announcements.

UNEA is having some restorative justice workshops this weekend.

The first one is on Saturday at.

The Green Lake library from 11 to 4. And they did secure a second.

Spot to do it on Sunday from 12 to 4 at Howler Lake Community Club.

This is for ages 12 and up.

There are no.

Native Warriors athletics ages 9 to 14 will be on Sunday as well.

October 6 from 6 to 8 p.m..

They're also having the debut of their Lake Springs documentary.

The end of the toward the end of the month on October 26 from 1 to 3 at the Seattle Central Library.

So encourage people to go out and participate in what UNEA has to offer.

And also want to announce that Huchoosedah PAC elections are also going to be on October 17th from 5 to 6 30 at Meany Middle School.

So for those that have 506 form students enrolled in the schools you know please head out there and make your voices heard.

I will have.

Community meetings this month October 19th from 1030 to noon at the Lake City library.

And then my last one will be November 16th.

Also from 1030 to noon.

And just.

District 2 Rick Brooks.

Area at the Greenwood library.

And those times are posted on the district.

Website.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.

Director Harris Thank you.

Director Mack please.

Since I gave such a long committee report I'm going to try to be relatively brief since we're going to run into community comments and I really like hearing from the community.

And so first off I have a community meeting on the 19th from 11 to noon at Magnolia Public Library.

Hope to see you there.

Everyone is welcome.

You don't have to be just from my district.

I'm happy to.

I am very interested in hearing other perspectives as well not just from the district.

Congrats to the principals on principal month.

Thank you for mentioning that.

Superintendent Juneau.

I also appreciated hearing.

The comment from the student that was I think you said it was part of their PBIS work which the acronym just for folks that don't know that's positive behavior intervention supports and it's a program to support communities and students in being productive and have great cultures and be positive.

And so I really liked hearing the work together and let everyone speak part.

I think that's just really meaningful and I think that's something that.

As we move forward into our challenging discussions around how to solve some of our hardest problems that we need to remember that that it's important to let people speak respect them even if you don't agree with them and that we need to be working together to come to these solutions.

And you know reiterating the safe and welcoming environments.

You know I want that for our district to want everyone to feel welcome.

and that their voices are being heard and I just I just want to I'm glad that we are continuing that commitment.

The board retreat.

It really was fun to have the drumming and let's see here.

I oh thank you for mentioning the Maritime Academy.

I'm sorry if I'm forgetting the name of the day long Stakeholders group.

Right.

But but it really was great to have all of these people in the room that are really interested in bringing together thoughts and resources to do something to support the maritime industry as well as support students in maritime as well as support our CTE.

And one of the things that I learned which was really interesting was that that came up was that CTE courses actually are.

Advanced courses in some cases like you need to be taking an advanced math to be doing to be doing some of the courses and it was just really wonderful to realize that we actually have all of these additional advanced learning opportunities that we need to be tying into all of our programs and that I think we need to explore that further especially at high school.

And I also found it really interesting that in general the word cohort program came up a number of times in support of the concept and it's interesting to think about that and when the impact that that can have on a system and what what does a cohort mean and how do you create that in a racially equitable manner or do you have you know can you can you run into issues with with that.

And I think we can.

So it's an interesting conversation.

And let's see here.

So I think that was all of the little things I've noted down to talk about.

I look forward to hearing from all of you tonight.

Thank you.

OK.

Thanks for being here very much.

Last Saturday was fun.

Director Hersey and it was it was nice having you right alongside and I'm sorry you didn't get the lasagna no carbs for you.

Next time you have to tell me these things and if any of the vegans had shown up I'd have made you a separate one.

But that's not the issue.

My next community meetings are October 19th.

3 to 5 High Point library that's 35th Avenue Southwest and Raymond's Southwest Raymond Street and November 16th 3 to 5 at the Delridge library.

The BWB Meany Middle School drum line and the exercises on that and with some of our staff that participated was a blast and I nominate that for probably the most fun icebreaker and.

I fulfilled one of my fantasies.

OK.

Great conversation was had on the strat plan and it's it's unusual to have all of us together in jeans with some time to talk about how we get there from here.

And it's a luxury frankly with everyone's schedules and and it was nice to dig deeper to get there.

I am most interested as well as as per usual in getting more of the fiscal impacts of all of the different pieces to the puzzle because there are ever so many of them.

Advanced learning.

Great work session on Wednesday night and what it said to me is just how much farther we have to go.

I continue to be distressed that for 20 years we have.

Done testing testing that is culturally inappropriate at best.

We have not tested single domain learners.

We have not figured out ways to meet the needs of twice exceptional children children that are ever so talented but also need special ed support.

And and that's that's on us.

And it's also on the lack of money.

But I am very excited to see the deep dive that's being made.

I am extraordinarily grateful for staff's work and putting together that notebook that has research and I suspect that Director Geary had a lot to do with that as well and I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

I always go back to public television and the kids shows and the commercials to read more about it.

And now we hit a website link but but to be able to take home peer reviewed literature is hugely helpful.

Also was.

Pleased to attend most of the meeting on Monday afternoon at Washington Middle School with Superintendent Juneau special advisor Sherry Cox chief H.R.

officer Clover Codd and director Sarah Pritchett.

to speak with the staff about the potential of the technology access foundation coming to Washington Middle School.

There's been a great deal of information swirling about and I believe this might have been the first time that they had an opportunity to answer questions in a safe space and the TAF team and it's always easy to go to a fallback position and talk about Trish DeZicos Melinas but it's not just Trish DeZico Melinas it's the TAF team and she had her top folks there as well.

And it was a productive conversation and there are things to work out.

SEA attended as well and there was good thoughtful robust conversations so stay tuned.

The other piece of that and.

Both from my Saturday community meeting and a very high volume of emails.

If we enter into a partnership with technology access foundation then we need a plan B potentially for pathways for the highly capable cohort for the south end.

And every one of these problems or I'd like to say opportunities have enormous layers to them.

And again I wish that I had one of those Rubik's cubes that I gave away to staff several years ago at our first retreat because every time you move one element you move 10 others and that affects 10 others.

I think of it as I think it's the hydra.

or you cut one branch and two grow back and then four etc.

It's complicated.

Hang with us.

And when you give your feedback please also give us constructive ideas because we really truly want to hear them.

And now we're going to take a stretch break until 530 at which time public testimony will begin promptly.

you